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"It has become something of a habit among educational historians to vie with each other in the use of hyperbole when describing the Education Act of 1902 which swept away the School Boards and placed the local control of English education under the aegis of the County Councils. Along with the legislation of 1870 and 1944 it has been depicted as forming a sort of educational trinity, to which the homage of all who have the best interests of education at heart should be periodically rendered." – Introductory paragraph.

“One of the new Chairman's first tasks was the appointment of a number of permanent officials to serve the Board in the difficult years that lay ahead. In ‘Our Partnership’ Beatrice states that Sidney persuaded the T.E.B. to undertake this step 'under the initial inspiration' of A. H. D. Acland and Llewellyn Smith, and thereby gives the impression that the choice of William Garnett as adviser and secretary conformed to their wishes. There is, however, a certain amount of doubt on this score. As early as March 1892, and within a few days of his election to the London County Council, Webb seems to have favoured Llewellyn Smith himself as adviser to any future committee. In a letter to Beatrice, for instance, he describes how he and his protege had indulged in a long discussion about the appointment and how they should 'work it'. … The cryptic, almost conspiratorial, nature of this utterance was maintained in another letter to Beatrice, written a few weeks later: 'It is possible that we may have to appoint Professor Garnett of Durham instead of Llewellyn Smith. But I intend not.' … There is then, unfortunately for the student, no further expression of his wishes in the matter.” – Introductory paragraph.

"Had Sidney Webb chosen to retire from local government work in 1900, a most improbable event admittedly, he would have been able to do so with the sense of leaving a job well done. The results of his vigorous leadership of the Technical Education Board were obvious to all who knew something about English education. Polytechnics, evening schools, revitalised secondary schools, a robust and ever-expanding scholarship scheme - not to mention the London School of Economics and a reconstituted London University - all these were ample testimony to the work of one who had the well-being of the young people of his native city genuinely at heart." - Introductory paragraph.

"The swallowing of a multitude of small town and country School Boards was a very different proposition from the consumption of the London School Board. In all, the L.S.B. controlled 1,418 school departments, 550,000 children, 12,000 teachers and 251 groups of managers. This in itself would have been a Gargantuan meal but, in addition, there was the question of the assimilation of the 1,500 departments and 207,000 children of the denominational schools. The total child population of London in 1903 was ten times that of either Birmingham or Manchester, and in fact, exceeded the total population (child and adult) of any town in the country. If the responsibilities of the School Board and the Technical Education Board were to be merged it was clear that municipalisation of the educational services of the Metropolis would involve control of at least two thousand institutions, more than twenty thousand teachers, a million children and students, and an annual expenditure of £4,000,000. It was calculated that the existing work of the Council, already alleged to be excessive, would be doubled. Small wonder then that the Government faltered in its step and asked itself whether it was really worth the candle to alter the status quo, a defeatist attitude which was to show itself periodically during the early months of 1903." – Introductory paragraph.