Roach argues for a reassessment of the relative importance of State regulation and private provision in this history of secondary education in England between 1870 and 1902. 'The salient strength of Professor Roach's study is the inclusion of not only general surveys based on national records but also of a series of case studies of particular areas and individual schools from local archives. The process allows him to offer revisionist emphases on the effect of educational developments in the period which enrich our understanding of the ethos of the evolution of English secondary education in a formative age immediately prior to the state's commitment to provide it.' -G.R.Batho, University of Durham, UK