The Elementary Education Act 1870, commonly known as Forster's Education Act, set the framework for schooling of all children between the ages of 5 and 12 in England and Wales. It established local education authorities with defined powers, authorized public money to improve existing schools, and tried to frame conditions attached to this aid so as to earn the goodwill of managers. It has long been seen as a milestone in educational development, but recent commentators have stressed that it brought neither free nor compulsory education, and its importance has thus tended to be diminished rather than increased. The law was drafted by William Forster, a Liberal MP, and it was introduced on 17 February 1870 after campaigning by the National Education League, although not entirely to their requirements. In Birmingham, Joseph Chamberlain, not yet a Member of Parliament, was a prominent campaigner on the issue. However, like many grassroots Liberals, he opposed the bill because it was open to the possibility of subsidising Church of England schools with local ratepayers' money. It was one of the Elementary Education Acts 1870 to 1893. Need The Act was passed partly in response to political factors, such as the need to educate the citizens who were recently enfranchised by the Reform Act 1867 to vote "wisely". It also came about due to demands for reform from industrialists, who feared that Britain's competitive status in world trade, manufacture and improvement was being threatened by the lack of an effective education system. There were objections to the concept of universal education. One was that many people remained hostile to the idea of mass education. They claimed it would make labouring classes 'think' and that thus attain class consciousness, possibly encouraging them to revolt. Others feared that handing children to a central authority could lead to indoctrination. Some poor people feared that mass education would equip people to defraud or mislead those without an education. Another reason was the vested interests of the Church and other social groups. The churches were funded by the state with public money to provide education for the poor and did not want to lose that influence on youth. It had been deduced from the United Kingdom Census 1861 that out of 4.3 million children of primary school age in England & Wales, 1 million were in purely voluntary (church) schools and 1.3 million were in state aided voluntary schools