British University Education : The Concept of the University in the 19th Century

Provoked by urbanization and the rise of popular democratic rights, the western education system was overwhelmed by changes during the 19th century.

Robert Owen found that he had a duty to educate his child work force through a sense of responsibility for the 'human machines' by which he was surrounded and as a result the nursery school evolved. Such attitudes did not even begin to touch the elite world of the university establishment which, it could be argued, remained the province of the aristocratic and wealthy ranks until the 1920s, an era which only really vanished with the expansion of further education during the 1960s.

These writers provide the first insights into the change from the old system of classical learning to modern knowledge as a pursuit for its own sake.