The majority of the Boards of Guardians appear to be indifferent. There are as yet but few advertisements or applications for schoolmasters, though those few cannnot be supplied. I am not sure whether the number of Boards which are positively and actively hostile to any attempts to extend mere reading[sic]. The farmers say it is proposing to give to children more than they received themselves and they do not see the necessity of doing so. Not long since when it was proposed to introduce a map of the world into the school of the West London Union to give the shildren instruction in geography, the majority of the Guardians opposed it, and the son of the late Alderman Weithman joined the opposition saying that his father had been Lord Mayor of London without any knowledge of geography and for his part he say no need of it. A member of Her Majesty's Government (not of the Cabinet) expressed to me his regret that it has ever been meddled with, and said he did not see whiy unpopularity should be incurred by taking up merely speculative and abstract questions [...] the powers to form district schoold under Poor Law Commissioners to unite Unions for the purpose of maintaining separate class of paupers in houses belongong to the seberal Unions united, may be submitted as deserving your Lordship's particular attention, as available and efficient means for spreading model schools.

E.Chadwick to Lord Lansdowne(2 Dec 1839), F152-153.