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(Professor James Kelly, St. Patrick's College, Dublin City University)

This is the first major work on Thomas Wyse, and his plans for education reform. It places him, first and foremost, as an educationist, particularly between the years 1830 to 1845. The book draws upon his firm conviction that a national system of education should have a legislative foundation; a solid legal bedrock creates permanency, and, this coupled with universality, was a true national system. Not for him, narrow nationalism: his understanding had greater scope, including all social classes and all ages from primary education, to intermediate, to university and supplementary education. The book bears testimony to and conveys explicitly the core of these ideas. The book is an academic biography of a man who used his good office to explore the prevailing political atmosphere at the time and to produce a programme which would augment and reform education provision in Ireland and the wider United Kingdom. The book amplifies the key elements of Wyse's educational thinking, and the reader should find the analyses throughout the book both beneficial and enlightening.