LESSONS & LEARNING

We enter the classrooms of the past to discover how schooling, skills training and teaching materials have evolved over the centuries

- DANNY BIRD

HARD LINES, c1886

During the 19th century, in institutions such as the all-boys Essex Market School on Manhattan's Lower East Side, shown here, pupils were crammed into tightly packed pews. Danish-born social reformer Jacob Riis took this photograph of attentive students. According to him, these children attended lessons in conditions more squalid than those in a neighbouring prison.

STUDENT POLITICS, 1848

During the revolutionary wave that swept Europe in 1848, Italian states including their students - fought to liberate themselves from Austrian control. Here, student insurgents pose with the caps of enemy officers.

MULTISENSORY LEARNING, c1940

The Kendall School was established in Washington DC in 1857 to educate deaf and hard-ofhearing children from pre-school age through to high school. The students above are using picture books and earphones to learn.

SOLE MOTIVE, c1920

Reform schools offered teenage offenders opportunities to hone new skills, and aimed to provide training and personal improvement, not merely punishment. This young apprentice is learning to make footwear in a Colorado reform school workshop.

SCHOOL REFORM, 1871

During its 10 weeks in power, the revolutionary government known as the Paris Commune introduced secular schools, pioneered skills-focused and intellectual training, and educated girls - as this photo of a Paris school shows. It also removed the stigma of child 'illegitimacy', and provided for orphans. Schoolchildren were given free clothing and meals until the brutal suppression of the Commune in late May 1871.

WORD OF MOUTH, c1945