Reading the Regency

Education - part 2

"My life at school was like that of any other school-boy. I shall not record, even if I could remember, how often I was flogged when I did not deserve it, or how often I escaped when I did. Five years of my life passed away, of which I have nothing to relate but that I learned to whip a top, and to play at ball and marbles, each in their season; that I acquired in due course the usual quantity of Greek and Latin; and perpetrated in my time, I presume, the usual quantity of mischief."
[Chapter 3, Harrington, by Maria Edgeworth]

Education for the Middle and Upper Classes (continued)

Boarding Schools for boys

At the ages of eleven or twelve young boys could be sent to one of the many large or small boarding schools to continue their education and prepare them for university. Some schools took boys as young as seven or eight years old.

Some of these schools were advertised as Academies; taken from the name for one of the schools of Greek philosophy.

"Mr Gould's Academy, at Welling, in Kent, ten miles from London, on the high-road to Dartford and Rochester, will open on the 30th instant. English Grammar, Latin and Greek languages, Writing, Arithmatic, Geography, Use of the Globes, History, Book-keeping, Mathematics, Trigonometry, Navigation and Mensuration, with board and washing, 35 guineas per annum. The most approved Masters in Dancing, Drawing, Music and French attend on the usual terms."
[The Times, 27th January 1809]

The smallest boarding schools provided space for only a handful of students in the master's own home. Jane Austen's clergyman father took a limited number of boys into their home to educate them, in order to supplement his income. A student sharing their education with only two, or three other boys was not uncommon. Some of these schools prepared boys for admittance to university, but others offered a more practical education suitable for the sons of merchants of tradesmen and vacancies were advertised in local and London newspapers.

The boys were not always well looked after, and shortages of food or cold accommodations were not uncommon. One school advertisement boasted that each boy had their own bed, and would eat with the Master's family, which suggested that level of comfort wasn't universal.

If a family had more than one son, they didn't always send them to the same schools. In "Sense & Sensibility", Edward Ferrars attended a small private establishment run by Mr. Pratt in Plymouth, while his brother Robert was sent to Winchester.

Robert Ferrars claimed that attending a large boarding school was more beneficial than attending a small private school because it helped him to mix with a more varied group of people:

"Robert explained to her himself, in the course of a quarter of an hour's conversation; for, talking of his brother, and lamenting the extreme gaucherie which he really believed kept him from mixing in proper society, he candidly and generously attributed it much less to any natural deficiency, than to the misfortune of a private education; while he himself, though probably without any particular, any material superiority by nature, merely from the advantage of a public school, was as well fitted to mix in the world as any other man."
[Chapter 36, Sense & Sensibility, by Jane Austen]

In the larger boarding schools, education was commonly provided over three terms. The academic year was not fixed, but would run from early September to mid December, mid January to late March and Late April to early July. At Eton school these terms were known as halves, and were given the names Michaelmas Half, Lent Half and Summer Half. New boys could only join the school at the beginning of the Michaelmas Half, or early September.