... to thirty thousand pounds. This proved to be successful, but was on too much of a small scale. If Britain was going to continue to stride ahead in the industrial revolution, more money needed to be allocated towards education, there was certainly enough. The only problem was that any man could do almost every job. For the majority of jobs a basic knowledge of the three R's was not necessary. For this reason only a small percentage of the working classes were able to read, and those able were unable to gain access to any form of reading material. The political control of newspapers played a great factor. The increase in tax on them had the aim to prevent the spread of revolutionary ideas after the Napoleonic wars. The lack of leisure time also contributed to the lack of reading skills, the average labourer worked 6am till 8pm. ...

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