The Reach of Education

By the time of the mass migration, Britain had established universal and compulsory education, a crucial component in the rapid transformation of immigrant culture. Schooling tells us a great deal about the cultural and social expectations Britons had for Jews – as immigrants and as members of the working class. By virtue of their course of study, educators socialized girls for roles that differed from that of their parents and their male contemporaries. Victorian ideals, such as decorum, modesty and domesticity for girls and manliness, athleticism and character-formation for boys, suffused educational and vocational programmes. Drawing on school inspectors' reports, records from the UJW and contemporary press, this chapter demonstrates how diverse educational opportunities – formal and informal, secular and religious moulded generations of Jewish youth – and to some extent, their parents.

School officials, teachers and care committee members used every means at their disposal – curricular, philanthropic and recreational – to eliminate foreign culture and create ‘good Britons’. ‘I think’ suggested Nettie Adler, daughter of the Chief Rabbi, ‘that no one will deny that the school is the most potent factor for good among our East End population’. Educators and philanthropists hoped that as East End Jews entered the larger world through schooling and the English language, they would gain access to additional occupations, which would reinforce the adoption of an English lifestyle.