The document discusses education for boys and girls during the Regency era in England. For boys, the standard education involved attending prestigious boarding schools like Eton or Harrow starting around age 8. The school day was long and discipline was harsh, involving corporal punishment. After school, a Grand Tour of Europe was a common educational experience for wealthy boys. For girls, education focused on skills like music, dance, language and domestic duties to prepare them to be wives and mothers. Higher education opportunities were limited, though some families hired governesses or sent girls to private seminaries.

1. GENDER ROLES
EDUCATION ON BOYS AND GIRLS
IN REGENCY ERA
Στουρνάρα Ελένη
Σταυλίωτη Κωνσταντίνα
Α4

2. To begin with, we are going to
talk about the way in which
young people of both sexes
were educated during the
Regency. We present some
interesting facts on a Regency
education which authors might
find of value in their research.
We make clear that the
education of ladies was not
ignored, nor was education
available only to the wealthy.
However, as you read about
education in Regency times,
consider whether or not you
would have enjoyed getting an
education, Regency-style.

3. Education begins the gentleman,
but reading, good company and reflection must finish him”.
-John Locke, Thoughts Concerning Education

4. While it’s a well-known fact that genteel young boys in the Regency went to
schools like Eton or Harrow at an early age — usually around eight — and
young ladies generally learned at home with a governess, this was not always
the case.
Eton College is an all-boy boarding school established by King Henry VIII
(1491-1541)
PUBLIC BOARDING SCHOOLS

6. A GOVERNESS

7. Eton is situated on the north bank of the Thames. During the Regency era, boys as young
as 13 were sent to Eton to board either in the College itself, or they lodged in the town in
what became known as ‘Dame’s Houses’ with a landlady or ‘Dame’ overseeing the
house. By the early 1800’s there were about thirteen houses connected with the college,
and increasingly the responsibility for running them fell to masters as much as to the
dames.
Can you imagine how open to abuse and other atrocities this set up produced? Most
boys were left to fend for themselves.

9. The Duke of Wellington is often
incorrectly quoted as saying that
"The Battle of Waterloo was won on
the playing-fields of Eton"
when referring to the strength of
character of the men who went to
school there. Wellington was at Eton
from 1781 to 1784 and was to send his
sons there. Until recently, most of
Great Britain’s prime ministers came
from Eton or Harrow.
Schools like Eton and Harrow used to
teach their boys how to run the British
Empire and they helped to maintain
the class system.
What did leaving home mean to these young boys, and how did the halls of Eton shape
their characters and friendships?

10. SCHOOL LIFE
The school day often ran from 6 in the morning until 8 at night with maybe an hour in the day
to play sports. Most teaching was done in Latin. The school originally had two terms or
‘halves’ as they were called, only two holidays, each of three weeks duration at Christmas and
in the Summer. These holidays divided the school year into two “halves” a word which has
survived despite the change to a three-term year in the 18th century. So, you can see how the
boys would become firm friends because they only went home for a few weeks each year.
Discipline was harsh. Offending boys could be summoned to the Head Master or the Lower
Master, as appropriate, to receive a birching on the bare posterior, in a semi-public ceremony
held in the Library, where there was a special wooden birching block over which the offender
was held. I can see a how this could also be abused by sadistic men who were teaching boys
who will become their betters. Older boys were put in charge of younger ones and permitted
to order them about and punish them with beatings just as the school masters did. Depending
how the sorts of friends a boy did or did not make and how he got on with other, especially
older students, a boy’s public school years could be very testing indeed. Parents rarely visited
and no real inspections were taken as to conditions until 1861.
Bullying was much worse in the Regency era as Masters turned a blind eye and the Dames did
not want to see what went on. The Masters, and the boy’s peers, were really the people who
shaped their lives. They spent more time at Eton than they did in their own homes in their
teenage years.

11. Discipline

12. In his 1693 treatise, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, John Locke recommended that
instruction in foreign language (beginning with a living language like French) should start as
soon as a boy could speak English. Locke considered Latin and Greek to be essential to a
gentleman’s education, enabling him to read classical literature. In addition, he endorsed
the study of geography, astronomy, anatomy, chronology, history, mathematics and
geometry. (Morris, 2015).
Based on Locke’s foundations, students were expected to know some Latin upon arrival to
public school. “The first two years of their education was entirely a study of Latin–
memorizing, reciting, reading, and answering set questions in that language, so
pronunciation too. … Thus they learned to be confident public speakers, first in Latin, then
in classical Greek and finally in English.” (Bennetts 2010) These studies also developed an
understanding of the moral and philosophical issues brought up by the classical thinkers and
a literary appreciation of poetry and prose. Dancing, fencing and other sports also featured
in some curriculums.
What was notably absent from both public school and university educations were courses
on anything the modern mind would consider practical. Since these establishments catered
to gentlemen who were not destined to actually work for their living, courses like
bookkeeping or land management that might equip them for jobs (oh the horror!) were
relegated to schools that catered to the sons of men in trade. (Selwyn 2010)
WHAT WAS TAUGHT

13. Boarding schools were notoriously rough places, and epidemics of illness
often caused deaths amongst the pupils. Jane Austen herself was removed
from her first school, along with her sister and cousin, after all three caught
typhoid fever.

15. • Furthermore, at a growing rate boys were expected
to be well educated and knowledgeable about
politics and philosophy, and to partake in
conversations about these topics.
• Boys were educated with the intention of turning
them into good men, contrasting with girls who were
educated to be good wives.

17. GIRLS’ EDUCATION

18. GIRLS’ EDUCATION
Girls’ education in things like politics was often put on the back
burner in favour of learning how to run a home and learning how to
raise children. They were educated only with the goal of one day
being good mothers to their sons, who would one day become good
British Citizens.
Since women did not usually have careers as such and were not
“citizens” in the sense of being directly involved in politics, there was
little generally-perceived need for such higher education for them,
and most writers on the subject of “female education” preferred that
women receive a practical (and religious) training for their domestic
role — thus Byron once spouted off the remark that women should
“read neither poetry nor politics — nothing but books of piety and
cookery.

20. A Female Seminary is conducted at the above place; by Miss Woollaston, who pays
particular attention to the health, comfort, and improvement of her young charge.
—Terms, for general instruction, 24 Guineas per Annum.
—Entrance One Guinea. French, Italian, Latin, Music, Drawing, Dancing, each 4
Guineas per Annum.
—Geography, with the use of Globes, 2 Guineas per Annum.
-Writing and accounts, 10 Guineas per Annum.
—Washing, 12 shillings per Quarter.
—Terms, for Parlour Boarders, 24 Guineas per Quarter.
BOARDING SCHOOL FOR GIRLS

21. Teaching was one of the few professions open to a lady, as a
schoolteacher or as a governess. The former was less secure but might
lead to eventual independence; the later offered security, but with little
chance of saving for retirement.
It would be another fifty years before the rising feminist women’s
movement would place emphasis on a better education for girls as a
pathway to greater equality, but the private academies and seminaries
of England were a step in that direction.
A GOVERNESS

22. As curriculum,
this is certainly demonstrated by Jane and Elizabeth (even
perhaps Mary) in Pride and Prejudice.
Α small more optimistic note, intelligent girls could have
an advantage over boys in being able to more or less
choose their own studies, and in not being subject to the
rather mixed blessings of a more uniform Classical

23. Oxford and Cambridge university life

24. By the turn of the 19th century, England’s two universities, Oxford and
Cambridge, were facing criticism, directed at everything from their lazy
students to their lenient exam systems and narrow curriculums. Reform of
higher education was coming, but in the meantime, students were enjoying
all the fun of the university experience, with very few of the challenges.
If you were at Oxford, you’d be focusing on the Classics and logic, while at
Cambridge the emphasis was on mathematics. At both, serious study was
strictly optional. Most of the learning was self-directed, and supervision was
extremely casual.
The most privileged students were excused from any teaching at all, the sons
of aristocrats were exempt from many of the rules governing the rest of the
student population as their stint at university was about learning to live
independently as a man of fashion.
“the higher a young man’s rank is, the more he is suffered to be idle and
vicious in our universities”.
‘as long as they had lived in college for a certain number of terms and paid
their (higher) fees, they came away a graduate’.

25. At Oxford, one of England’s two major
universities during the regency, the first
major distinction was between dependent
members (those at the university who were
"on the foundation," meaning they
received money for studying and/or
working there) and independent
members (those who paid their own way).
This Nobleman Commoner wears a silk robe trimmed
in gold, and the mortarboard he holds bears a
golden tassel.

26. The wealthy Gentleman
Commoner could be
distinguished by his silk
gown trimmed lavishly in
rows of black pompoms.

27. For the very wealthy, drink, gambling,
prostitution and unsuitable friends
were the main reason to attend
university – although for those obliged
to enter a profession such as the clergy
or the law, a university degree was a
necessity in most cases to be ordained
or to read for the bar.
Forming valuable friendships was
considered far more useful in the
Georgian period than poring over a
book for hours on end.
Prospective clergymen made up
around 60 per cent of the Oxford
student population by the end of the
18th century, and about 50 per cent
of all graduates at Cambridge. All
needed to find a parish living, many
of which were in the gift of the
aristocracy. Making friends with a
privileged classmate could therefore
pay dividends.
https://play.acast.com/s/403b803d-7d0b-
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Student life & working-class culture
Most students had a ‘scout’ or
a ‘bedder’ who gave them a
morning wake-up call, fetched
their breakfast and cleaned
their clothes. They’d literally
make their bed, too, and
generally keep their room
clean and tidy.

28. Oxford academic dress
golden tassels

30. THE GRAND TOUR
If a gentleman chooses not to get a college degree and study at a University, then
he may wish to replace that with a Grand Tour. Only Britain’s elites could afford
such a luxury for their sons. The upper-class viewed the Grand Tour as an
indispensable part of a young man’s education.
“Ideally, a young man sent on the Grand Tour
would return home not just with souvenir
portraits painted against a backdrop of Roman
monuments, but with new maturity, improved
tastes, and an understanding of foreign
cultures, and a fresh appreciation of the
benefits of being born British.”
Young men set off for the Grand Tour with a
tutor to help conduct and supervise his
lessons. These trips lasted anywhere from 1-5
years depending on the extent. The tour
through Europe featured several prominent
cities. They really tried and emphasize France
and Italy, but made stops in other major cities
such as Amsterdam, Brussels, and Vienna.

31. AUSTEN AND MALE EDUCATION IN HER NOVELS
In Pride and Prejudice Austen portrays her male characters as gentlemen. And at
that time gentlemen with a social status and economic status of that like Mr.Darcy,
Mr.Bingley, and even Mr.Wickam, were expected to have received a gentleman’s
education.
In a footnote in the Interactive Text of Pride and Prejudice, a gentleman’s education
is explained as:
“an education that usually included going to a university. Those seeking to become a
clergyman, the largest of the genteel professions, needed to attend, while it was
standard for those inheriting an estate to attend for a year or two. Such wealthy
students—called, if they were not nobles, fellow or gentleman commoners—were
able to pursue light courses of study and to receive honorary degrees when they
left; they were usually segregated socially from other students.”
We learn in Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth, that both he and Wickam were educated at
Cambridge. In fact Darcy’s father “supported him at school, and afterwards at
Cambridge;—most important assistance, as his own father, always poor from the
extravagance of his wife, would have been unable to give him a gentleman’s
education.” (Austen, 319).

32. ΕΥΧΑΡΙΣΤΟΥΜΕ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ
ΠΑΡΑΚΟΛΟΥΘΗΣΗ