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At first glance, it appears to be a very positive thing that William Chambers (and soon his brother Robert) wanted to provide information to educate the illiterate lower classes. This perspective is supported by information about Chambers: that he was impressed by the democratic education of the United States citizenry, and that he apparently wanted to raise up the British public to the same level of literacy and learning. Additionally, his view that “Newspapers, in a word are not a casual luxury, but a necessary of life,”[1] paints him as a champion of education who values it as a true American.

However, I was troubled by the fact that starting in 1832 and lasting, as I gathered, for a couple of decades, Chambers had an unprecedented level of control in the education of the British people. Fyfe writes that the publications produced by Chambers’s firm W. & R. Chambers “sought to provide solid information, written in a suitable style” for the British lower classes. This was meant to act in place of the poor public education the Brits did—or in many cases didn’t—receive. However, intention is very different from action; simply because Chambers sought to provide accurate information does not mean that he succeeded. Fyfe does not mention the source of information the firm included in their material. I would want to know if they engaged in fact-checking, or consulted with experts in the fields before producing textbooks.

Cordelia notes in her blog post that textbooks and other educational publications were the most popular among the literature Chambers spread to the public. She notes the burgeoning sales that transmitted information to people at lightning speed mirrors the way railroads connected people. However, the rapidity of its spread makes it even more alarming, as only one person or a few people had a monopoly on much of this information disseminated to the public. Though Chambers advocated the “democratic” education of the American people, his system of education is far from democratic.

[1] Aileen Fyfe. “Business and Reading Across the Atlantic: W. & R. Chambers and the United States Market, 1840-1860” in Books Between Europe and the Americas.