'Green's seminal book treats the relationship between education and the state...As a collective future in Europe takes shape, this timely book raises questions which Britain surely cannot afford to ignore about the aims of a public education system.' Times Educational Supplement Britain was the last major European state to create a national education system and is set to be the first to dismantle it. In this wide-ranging comparative study, Andy Green examines the reasons for the uneven development of public education in England, Prussia, France and the USA and locates the origins of England's educational peculiarities in the voluntary system of the Victorian period.