[Henry Brougham's pamphlet Practical Observations upon the Education of the People was not the first, but was certainly one of the most influential, of his salvos in support of popular education. Brougham's work in this field can be broadly divided into two arenas: as a Whig MP with considerable national popularity following his successful defence of Queen Caroline in the House of Lords, Brougham used some of his political capital to persuade the government to investigate charity schooling in England and Wales, though he did not succeed in his larger aim of instituting state education in the 1820s and 1830s. And outside Parliament, Brougham was a powerful and effective activist for both children's and adults’ education; perhaps his most important contributions to artisan education were his leading role in the establishment of Mechanics’ Institutes in many industrial and manufacturing towns, and his work in founding and running the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge from 1826, together with its associated publishing ventures for popular readers.

Practical Observations was published in 1825 (parts of it having appeared in the Edinburgh Review the previous year) and went into over 20 editions within two years. It aroused serious and sustained controversy, most of all for its possible effects on harmonious class relations. One critic described it as ‘one tissue of theoretical absurdities’ and proposed that the title should really be ‘Chimerical Notions upon the Education of the People, calculated to overturn the Government, for the good Order of Society and the Peace of the Country!!!’ Among more credible responses, a hostile review in Blackwood's attacked Brougham's proposals for focusing on comparatively privileged mechanics rather than on the much needier labouring classes, for ignoring moral education and concentrating on scientific and political learning, and for tending to promote industrial and civic discord. The Edinburgh Review, on the other hand, and not surprisingly given Brougham's very close connection with it, praised both Brougham and his scheme lavishly: ‘since the time when the Scriptures were first printed and circulated in the common tongue, there has been no such benefit conferred on the great body of the people, as seems now to be held out to them in the institutions which it is the business of this little work to recommend and explain.’