The Over-Pressure Controversy and Everyday Expertise

Abstract

Chapter eight, ‘The Over-Pressure Controversy and Everyday Expertise’, examines the public debate in the wake of a sensational 1884 report claiming that the annual examination of children in elementary schools was driving them to do school work in their sleep, stunting their development, and leading dozens of them to commit suicide each year. In testimonies to government inquiries and articles in the press, teachers demonstrated how intimately they knew about children’s home situations and their health—and how much the doctors and educational policymakers who were trying to co-opt the debate over what to do about ‘over-pressure’ depended on that knowledge. Their testimony also revealed how desperately poor and working-class children needed more protection and help from the state. This was an important moment in the democratization of expertise and the making of the welfare state.