Sources for Western Society: Printed Page 371

COMPARATIVE AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Question

    In what ways does Beeton’s Book of Household Management (Document 22-3) reflect the new nineteenth-century awareness of sanitation’s relationship to health, made explicit in Chadwick’s report (Document 22-1)?

  2. Question

    Contrast Beeton’s depiction of a middle-class home (Document 22-3) with London’s description of the housing of the working-class poor (Document 22-2). What does this suggest about the distribution of wealth in industrial Britain?

  3. Question

    How might Spencer (Document 22-7) respond to the condition of the British poor as described by Chadwick (Document 22-1) and London (Document 22-2)? What might Chadwick and London say to Spencer?

  4. Question

    What would Robert Owen (Document 20-5) propose as a solution to the problems described by London and Chadwick (Documents 22-1 and 22-2)?

  5. Question

    How would Locke (Document 18-3) and Metternich (Document 21-2) respond to Darwin’s contention that “the moral nature of man has reached its present standard, partly through the advancement of his reasoning powers and consequently of a just public opinion, but especially from his sympathies having been rendered more tender and widely diffused through the effects of habit, example, instruction, and reflection” (Document 22-6)?

  6. Question

    Compare and contrast Darwin’s and Spencer’s views on civilization and human survival (Documents 22-6 and 22-7). How might Darwin have responded to the pseudo-Darwinian arguments put forward by late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century proponents of white racial supremacy?

  7. Question

    What do you think Darwin and Spencer (Documents 22-6 and 22-7) would say in response to Zetkin’s arguments about women and labor competition (Document 22-5)? Why?