This chapter outlines the arguments that were presented in favour of the introduction of state education, governments’ tardiness in responding to them, and the consequences of the ultimate introduction of state education from 1870. While the conditions stemming from lack of education may be subject to empirical investigation, it is not possible to conceive of a piece of large-scale survey research that could demonstrate the need for state education in its absence. School is not simply a place where skills are acquired (and whether it is even the best place for this is not universally acknowledged). Rather, schooling also provides containment, institutionalisation and the mediation of appropriate forms of knowledge. It also, potentially, provides the means for the lower classes to access what is deemed to be ‘undesirable’ knowledge – to acquire subversive beliefs. It has also been widely regarded as having a religious function in relation to the care of children’s souls. Then, as now, therefore, justifications for state involvement or lack of state involvement took place at the level of belief and argument. Even those in favour of pauper education were not necessarily in favour of the state providing it. At the same time, education is not a direct panacea for child poverty. In fact, in the short term, it may create it. The trade-off between child (or youth) labour and education continues to be an issue throughout the world today. However, as opportunities for labour, either among children or school leavers, are reduced, the trade-off becomes less costly. The development of educational provision and the regulation of child employment covered in Chapter Three, are, therefore, intimately connected.