Then & Now: Corrective debt
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.February, 1843: Amid widespread fears that juvenile lawlessness was a prelude to social revolution, Lord Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury, urged the House of Commons to introduce elementary schooling for the children of the 'dangerous classes':
'Late events have, I fear, proved that the moral condition of our people is unhealthy and even perilous - all are pretty nearly agreed that something further must be attempted for their welfare . . .'
(He describes the squalor of inner cities).
'Will any man tell me that it is to any purpose to take children for the purposes of education . . . and then turn them back to such scenes of vice, and filth, and misery?
'The country is wearied with pamphlets and speeches on gaol-discipline, model-prisons, and corrective processes; meanwhile crime advances at a rapid pace; many are discharged because they cannot be punished, and many become worse by the very punishment they undergo . . . and all this because we will obstinately . . . believe that we can regenerate the hardened man while we utterly neglect his pliant childhood . . .
'We owe to the poor of our land a weighty debt. We call them improvident and immoral, and so many of them are; but that improvidence and that immorality are the results, in a great measure, of our neglect, and, in not a little, of our example. We owe them, too, the debt of kinder language.'
February 1993: Kenneth Clarke, Home Secretary, proposes 'primary schools in citizenship' for young offenders.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments