A gentleman’s education set him apart from lesser men, even in his early life. What did that education look like? In all well-regulated states, the two principal points in view in the education of youth, ought to be, first, to make them good men, good members of the universal society of mankind; and in the next place to frame their minds in such a manner, as to make them most useful to that society to … Continue reading →
Adkins, Roy, and Lesley Adkins. Jane Austen’s England. Viking, 2013. Austen, Jane, and David M. Shapard. The Annotated Persuasion. New York: Anchor Books, 2010. Bennetts, M.M. A gentleman’s education. M.M. Bennets. July 20, 2010. Accessed October 5, 2016. https://mmbennetts.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/a-gentlemans-education/ Brander, Michael. The Georgian Gentleman. Glasgow: University Press, 1973. Brown, Richard. Educating the middle-classes 1800-1870. Looking at History. Accessed October 29, 2016. http://richardjohnbr.blogspot.com/2011/02/educating-middle-classes-1800-1870.html> Davidoff, Leonore, and Catherine Hall. Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle … Continue reading →
I’d like to welcome Brenda Cox today as she shares a fascinating article on a country parson’s life during the regency era. Country clergymen appear in each of Jane Austen’s novels. Some are satirized, like Mr. Collins of Pride and Prejudice and Mr. Elton of Emma. Others are men of integrity, like Edmund Bertram of Mansfield Park and Edward Ferrars of Sense and Sensibility. Austen’s father, two of her brothers, and many of her friends were clergymen, … Continue reading →
by Julie Buck As we look at schools in Jane Austen’s time, and the role of needlework within that schooling, I think it’s important that you understand two things. First of all, you need to know what a sampler is. And secondly, you need to see how girls’ schooling developed from earlier centuries to arrive at what Jane Austen found when she was sent off to boarding school. A sampler is an example or sample … Continue reading →
Regency women strove to become an accomplished lady, but what did that mean? During the Regency era, a proper education was crucial to a middle or upper class young lady’s future. Since a woman’s only ‘proper’ aspiration was to marriage, her education focused on making her noticeable to potential husbands. Her accomplishments enabled her to display cultural distinction and set herself apart from women who were merely ‘notable’—those who could only manage a household but … Continue reading →
