National School Building, Halifax, Built ca. 1817/18.
Early nineteenth-century Halifax witnessed major changes in the field of education. The era began with education being viewed as a privilege reserved for the propertied elite. The poor, unable to afford the fees charged by teachers, generally remained illiterate. Reform began in 1813 when Walter Bromley, a retired English army officer, established a school specifically designed to give cheap and even free education to children of the poor. Others followed Bromley's example and by the 1840s Halifax possessed a multitude of "charity" schools, most of which were organized along denominational lines. The building shown here housed the National School. Opened in 1818 and operated by the Anglican church, it offered accommodation to 250 boys and 150 girls, a majority of whom paid no tuition fees.
While innovative, these early schools nevertheless functioned in a discriminatory and authoritarian manner. For example, the poor were often physically segregated from fee paying students. Black children invariably attended racially segregated schools. Furthermore, the curriculum provided the poor with nothing but basic literacy. For that they had to endure continual indoctrination in the habits of industry, thrift and frugality along with respect for their betters. Education was designed not to end poverty but rather to clear the streets of "idle and dissolute vagrants."
