"[A]n earlier generation of Britons succeeded in changing the character of their people and producing a diminution in the many forms of deviance that have reappeared and flourished in our own time, because they saw them as constituting not a social but a moral problem whose solution lay in the reform of personal conduct. One key agency in spreading and transmitting Gorer's "strict conscience and self-control" from being "a feature of a relatively small part of the population" to becoming "general throughout nearly the whole of society" was the Sunday school whose enrolments rose as the incidence of deviant behaviour fell in the late 19th century. Significantly, the numbers enrolled in and the influence of this institution then fell in the years prior to the reversal of the U-curve of deviance which has produced Britain's present high level of moral problems. There seems to be a clear inverse relationship between the rise and fall of the Sunday school...and the fall and rise of deviant behaviour."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Victorian era
35 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Victorian era →
Related Quotes
"In Victorian times business was seen as a romance and books by the score portrayed the lives of entrepreneurs both as…"
"It is in the connection of the conflict with the Yankee...that we can perhaps best understand the South's unusual pro…"
"The colonisation of Australia and New Zealand, and the acquisition of South Africa in the decline of Holland, created…"
"During the last half of the 19th century there was a marked fall in the crime rate with a substantial decrease in bot…"
"British rates of recorded crime fell as markedly in the latter part of the 19th century as they have risen since. The…"
"The postulate that there was a link of some kind between the rise of the Sunday school and the original decline of de…"
"Take another look at the graph showing illegitimacy from the 1500s up to the present, and focus on the period from 18…"
"No one will ever understand Victorian England who does not appreciate that among highly civilized...countries it was …"
"It is...beyond question that the century now expiring has exhibited since the close of its first quarter a period of …"
"One thing that strikes me when I think of Booth is the nonsense that is talked today about the poverty of the Victori…"