W.B. STEPHENS is Honorary Research Fellow at University College, London. Until retirement he was Reader in the University of Leeds, where he was a sometime Dean of the Faculty of Education and a Curator of the University's Museum of Education.

• PrefaceList of TablesElementary Education to the 1860sSchool Attendance and Literacy: 1750 to the Later Nineteenth CenturySecondary and Higher Education to the 1860sEducation, Science and Industrialization, 1750s 1850sElementary Education from the 1860s to 1914Secondary and Higher Education from the 1860s to 1914Science, Technology, Education and the Economy from the 1850s to 1914The Growth of a Literate CultureNotesBibliographyIndex.

'This is a book that will challenge both the intellect and the imagination. It should also appeal to a wide reading public and generate vigorous debate about the validity of many long-standing beliefs relating education to social and economic changes. I can best do justice to this book by quoting the words of a reviewer of some twenty years ago who concluded by saying: 'there is so much of value in this book. Just please read it. You will enjoy and profit from it.' - Clive Whitehead, Education Research and Perspectives