[aqsalose]

>Britain's descent from the powerhouse of world-changing ideas to one giant housing estate and Tesco superstore is almost complete.

In my limited foreigner's understanding, Britain was "the powerhouse of world-changing ideas" during period that has fuzzy limits but starts maybe around Newton and continues until maybe Turing -- but after WW2, what was left the powerhouse was certainly eclipsed by the US, and after the 1980s, Asiancountries.

Maybe one can stretch it bit further after the WW2 if one thinks that popular culture production like Beatles is a worthwhile substitute. [1]

How was the education in Britain organized during that era?

[1] I don't; AFAIK income distribution in popular culture production is very winner-takes-all top-heavy, much worse than the software income distribution often denigrated as favoring the 10X developers. 10X coders may make much more than a marginal software developer (I am imagining soon-to-graduate CS student who would-be entry-level dev who has difficulties getting the first interview), but I believe it easier for the marginal software developer land a software job that pays the bills than for a marginal would-be musician to land a music job that pays the bills.

[zozbot234]

> How was the education in Britain organized during that era?

Mostly, intensive one-on-one tutoring starting at a very early age. See https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/why-we-stopped-making-einste...

[nonrandomstring]

That's generally accurate. The heavy hitters, with a few exceptions like Faraday, were of noble ancestry or otherwise privileged. We really need to look to the Americans, to Horace Mann and John Dewey who understood the wider non-functional ends of education; nation building, supporting democracy, living a happy life etc. That fed back into British society mainly post-war, driven by the need to rebuild a devastated society. Today, in our coddled complacency, that seems far away and 'optional'.