ADULT EDUCATION AND THE CORNISH MINER: A STUDY IN VICTORIAN INITIATIVE.

This article focuses on the social conditions of miners in Cornwall and their initiatives in adult education. The miner's poor living and working conditions were a source of concern, and he often found his only outlets in debauchery and drunkenness. His earnings, varied from pitch to pitch in the same mine, but they climbed appreciably in the early nineteenth century. The author observes that the roots of the miner's social improvement might be sought in the late eighteenth century, when Wesleyan Methodism promoted a moral reformation, and inculcated a desire to succeed, besides supplying some inexpensive literature. Much remained to be done, however, before the working miner could benefit directly from an education related to his trade, or indeed, before there was a broad consensus of opinion accepting the value of such an education. The institutions that were to make some contribution to its development, a number were to be involved in wider aspects of adult education, rather than being specific mining schools, and the education they dispensed was more general than properly scientific or technical.