Time for to study is as important as doing things. Finding a place where we can switch off from the rigours of daily life and reflect on where we are and where we want to go. Study is something that is connected to schooling and formal education for lots of people. Free study has no curriculums and can be done in a leisurely and meditative pace. We can do it on our own or in groups and chose our own subjects as was traditional before state mass training for industry. |
1860 Culloden College
We rented a garret, for which we paid (I think) 25s. a year, bought a few second-hand forms and desks, borrowed a few chairs from the people in the house, bought a shilling’s worth of coals, had the gas (which was already in the house) laid on at the cost of a few shillings, and started our College. We did not advertise it in the newspapers or on the streets, for we could not afford to do that, but we invited all our friends and acquaintances to join us, and in a few days we had about twenty members. … We had no men of position o, education connected with us, and I believe we were better without them, but several of the students who had made special study of some particular subject were appointed teachers, so that the teacher of one class might be a pupil in another.
Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes |