Back to school in Jane Austen's England

Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a difficult question to answer; Mr. Knightley had once told her it was because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be thought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination in which her conscience could not quite acquit her.
- Emma

This month, up and down the country of England, children will be lacing up shiny new school shoes, loading up backpacks, and trotting off to school for another year. Though I myself have been out of formal education for some years now, I still use the time of year as an opportunity to reflect on the goals I set at the start of the calendar year, clear out tired pieces in my wardrobe, and invest in a new notebook. The school year has started in September since the years following the passing of the Education Act 1880, which required all children aged five to ten to attend school, presumably to minimise truancy. You see, in the summer months, most children would be expected to help out with house chores and childcare whilst their parents worked the land. In starting the new school year in the Autumn, the hope was that a waning of field work for the year would incentivise school attendance. But if, up until this point, schooling had not been mandatory for all children, then what did schooling look like in Jane Austen's time?

Jane Austen's education

In Jane Austen's time, an education was far from a given - whether you would receive an education at all, never mind a full and thorough one, was luck of the draw. Jane Austen had the luck of being born into a family of middle class means, with an educated, clergyman father who saw the value in an education. At the age of seven, Austen was sent alongside her sister Cassandra and her cousin Jane, to the school of distant relation Mrs Cawley, who was to arrange for their tuition in Oxford. The school was later moved to Southampton, where all three girls contracted nasty cases of typhus, and were quickly retrieved to Steventon by their mothers.
What to do now? Well, the Rev Austen considered his options and decided upon Reading Ladies Boarding School, where Jane and her sister boarded from the summer of 1785 to the winter of 1786. Why exactly the sisters were withdrawn from the school seems unclear - whether it was a poor winter crop tightening the family belt, or a less than satisfactory report of the school. It seems that this marked the end of our Jane's formal schooling, but it hardly seems Jane's way to give up that easily. At home, she was given free range of her father's library and would have taken liberal advantage of the privilege. So, though only eleven years old, Jane seems to have been able to make the best of her situation. How do we know this? Well, she started producing some of her earliest writings in the following years, many examples of which are available on our website in the Jane Miscellany section.

The state of the nation

Access to an education in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was determined by social class in most cases. Wealthy, well-to-do boys would be sent to one of the big boarding schools in their pre-teen years, the very same schools that enjoy a lofty reputation today - Eton, Westminster, Rugby and Winchester, amongst others. There, they would not only enjoy a thorough education in reading, writing and arithmetic, but also the classical languages, philosophy, and natural science. This would be with the hopes of sending them to either Oxford or Cambridge, before heading off on a Grand Tour of Europe's Classical and Renaissance treasures. Plus ça change there, I suppose.

For the less well-off, there were still options. Particularly bright boys might gain entry to one of the above institutions through the growing popularity of charitable scholarships, or they might have the luck of attending a parish school organised by their local church. What is clear is that throughout Jane Austen's lifetime and beyond, there was growing demand for a literate, educated population. Growing availability of novels, newspapers, and other publications meant that owning books and reading material was no longer the bastion of the middle and upper classes, and by the end of the nineteenth century, literacy rates in England would rise from around 40% for women and 60% for men, to 97% across the population.

What about the girls?

As we can see from Jane Austen's haphazard education, a young girl's education was dependent not only on her family's means, but their outlook and temperament. Austen was fortunate in many respects to have a family that at least valued her education, a stroke of good luck without which we probably wouldn't have Austen's novels today. Girls in a slightly more elevated situation might benefit from the tuition of a governess. A governess would typically be a young woman of respectable background who has, for whatever reason, cause to earn her own living. Under the guidance of a governess, a young lady might expect to not only learn the rudiments of reading, arithmetic and latin, but also how to play the piano, or paint a pretty picture.

This is where we reach the fundamental departure point in the educations of boys and girls of the period. Where a boy's education was set to prepare him for leadership and industry, a woman's was to prepare her for being an excellent wife and homemaker. This meant that the finest thing a woman could be, was 'accomplished.' A woman's ability to play a musical instrument or draw could be seen as a demonstration of a soundness of character and general sensibility, showing that she was not only capable of managing her own household, but also of providing light entertainment at a dinner party. The value of such 'accomplishment' is shown most clearly in Emma, where the eponymous character becomes so incredibly jealous of the accomplishments of the governess Jane Fairfax, despite the fact that Emma is far wealthier and better connected.

"One is sick of the very name Jane Fairfax." - Emma

I like to think that Jane Austen would be pleased to see how much more women these days are able to accomplish with much fuller access to an education, for our own satisfaction, rather than the satisfaction of a partner. It is worth remembering, if you are going back to school or university this September, just how fortunate we are to have the educations we have now.

So why not treat yourself to a new notebook? Go on, you deserve it.

Ellen White is editor of the Jane Austen Centre blog. She would love to hear from you! Check out our Submission Guidelines and get in touch.

Jane Austen's education

The state of the nation

What about the girls?

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