The purpose of public education was child care and to teach children - especially countryside children - the idea of turning up at work on time every day, sitti

The purpose of public education was child care and to teach children - especially countryside children - the idea of turning up at work on time every day, sitting quietly and doing as they were told. It was a big problem in the industrial revolution - trying to get people to understand that they had to turn up at the same time in the summer and winter - which was a big change if you had been used to getting up with the sun for the previous 2000 years