1 Dreeben, Robert, On What is Learned in School (Reading, Mass., 1968) to which this essay is much indebted. Dreeben's study elaborates and applies pattern variables developed by Talcott Parsons in his analysis of The Social System (Glencoe, 1951).Google Scholar

2 Dreeben, , What is Learned, esp. chp. iv, discusses the problem of whether norms learned in specific situations can be generalized to other areas of life. Another interesting study exploring this subject is Rousmaniere's, John P. “Cultural Hybrid in the Slums; The College Woman and the Settlement House 1889–1894” American Quarterly (Spring, 1970) 45–66 which examines how the collegiate experiences of some American women seemingly influenced their later activities in another setting, the settlement house.Google Scholar

3 Perkin, Harold offers some stimulating reflections on the relationship between changes in social organization and social values in The Origins of Modern English Society 1780–1880 (Toronto, 1969) esp, 38–56, 107–24, 271 339.Google Scholar

4 The term “public school” is used broadly in this paper to refer to any endowed or proprietary school for girls. A brief discussion of some of the various meanings attached to the term “public school” as applied to girls' schools in 19th century England is found in Pedersen, Joyce Senders, “Schoolmistresses and Headmistresses: Elites and Education in Nineteenth Century England,” Journal of British Studies, Autumn, 1975, 148.Google Scholar There were a few endowed schools in early 19th century England, but unlike the schools established later in the century, these were charitable enterprises which catered specifically for impoverished or destitute groups. Schools Inquiry Commission Report in Parliamentary Papers, 1867 68, Cd. 3966. I. 565. gives details. Hereafter cited as SIC .Google Scholar For a survey of recent studies of women's education in 19th century England. see Burstyn, Joan N., “Women's Education in England during the Nineteenth Century: A Review of the Literature 1970–76,” History of Education, vol 6, no. 1. February, 1977, 11–19.Google Scholar

5 It is, of course, difficult to define at exactly what point a general concern for improving women's intellectual education shades off into a distinctly feminist commitment to providing equal educational opportunity for women. While many school and college histories emphasize the former motive, few offer evidence that individuals with explicitly feminist views were prominent in founding the institutions. Girton College, founded by the feminist Emily Davies, is one exception. See Stephen, Barbara, Emily Davies and Girton College (London. 1927). Bedford College, whose founder Tuke, Mrs. seems to have had vaguely feminist sympathies in addition to clearly defined religious objectives, is perhaps another. See Margaret J. Tuke. A History of Bedford College for Women, 1849–1937 (London, 1939).Google Scholar

6 Parsons, , Social System 58–67.Google Scholar

7 As Dreeben, notes, What is Learned, 20, it seems likely that at school children do not unlearn the norms at home but rather acquire an additional repertoire of behavioral skills and values which can be applied in other non-familial situations.Google Scholar

8 SIC, VII 606–08, IX 823–36.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., VII, 74, VIII, 239–40; IX 800, 804, 826–28.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., Emily Davies' Testimony, VI, 233, 11215–19.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., VII, 70–72, 199, 208; IX, 823.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., VIII, 239; IX 800–01.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., IX, 823–38.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., IX, 792; See also VII, 384.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., VIII, 477–78.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., IX, 299, 823–29.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., IX, 825–26.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., VIII, 247–48.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., VII, 384. See also VIII 477–78; IX 282, 792–93.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., VII, 606–07.Google Scholar

21 One finds advertisements for pupils in The Times and elsewhere, but advertising was considered ungenteel and was in effect a confession of failure. As a member of the Taunton Commission noted, mistresses of establishments with any claim to selectness dared not advertise for pupils, for any sort of publicity was injurious to their institutions. Ibid., VIII, 480.Google Scholar

22 Gerin, Winifred, Charlotte Bronte (Oxford, 1967) 54, 64.Google Scholar

23 Hicks, Phyllis D. A Quest of Ladies. The Story of a Warwickshire School ([London]. 1949) 82. Stoddart, Anna M., The Life and Letters of Hannah E. Pipe (London, 1908) 63.Google Scholar

24 The Times, July 2, 1835, no 15831, 1, col. 4.Google Scholar

25 Raikes, Elizabeth, Dorothea Beale of Cheltenham (London, 1910) 115.Google Scholar

26 SIC, VII, 208.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., VII, 408, 607 08, VIII 504, 507.Google Scholar

28 Hicks, Quest, 26.Google Scholar

29 SIC, VIII, 478–79.Google Scholar

30 Sewell's, Miss handling of Rosie's case, which is related above, is instructive in this connection. The shabby treatment given Becky Sharp at the Misses Pinkerton's school in Vanity Fair follows the same pattern. Unlike the other students who were paying pupils, Becky, the daughter of a poor artist, gave French lessons at the school in exchange for her own lessons and her keep.Google Scholar

31 SIC, VII, 114; IX, 281, 794. Since it was common for a mother or an elder daughter to take in a few extra pupils to educate with her own children or younger siblings, it was in fact not always clear just when an establishment left off being an expanded family unit and became a “school.” Google Scholar

32 For example, the Taunton Commission's investigator for Norfolk happened to include information about the ages of students in seven private schools in that county. The age ranges were given as: 6 to 18; 10 to 15; 5 to 19; under 10 to over 16 (two cases); and under 10 to between 14 and 16 (two cases) Ibid., VIII, 604–07.Google Scholar

33 Ibid., VIII, 586–92, 605–06.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., VIII, 481.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., VIII, 587–91, 605–06.Google Scholar

36 [Sewell, Elizabeth], Principles of Education drawn from Nature and Revelation, and applied to Female Education in the Upper Classes (New York, 1870). 392–93.Google Scholar

37 Quoted Gerin, , Bronte, 14.Google Scholar

38 SIC, VII, 214.Google Scholar

39 A member of the Taunton Commission noted the lack of vigorous exercise given girls in private schools, Ibid., VIII, 390. Fraswer, Hugh Mrs., A Diplomatist's Wife in Many Lands 2 vols (London, 1911) I, 207, described a typical day at a girls' private boarding school.Google Scholar

40 Cobbe, Frances Power. The Life of Frances Power Cobbe by Herself 2 vols (London 1894) I, 59. SIC, IX, 825. In a similar vein, a fellow student recalled that when Charlotte Bronte (the daughter of a poor clergyman) arrived at the Misses Wooler's school (where her godparents were paying her fees) her worn, old-fashioned clothes contrasted strangely with those of the other, well-dressed girls. Gerin, , Bronte, 56.Google Scholar

41 SIC, VIII, 588.Google Scholar

42 Sewell, Eleanor L., ed., The Autobiography of Elizabeth M. Sewell (London, 1907) 32.Google Scholar

43 SIC, VIII, 493.Google Scholar

44 Fraser, , Diplomatist's Wife, I, 208–09.Google Scholar

45 SIC, VIII, 605.Google Scholar

46 Gerin, , Bronte, gives details.Google Scholar

47 Fraser, Diplomatist's Wife, I, 208–09.Google Scholar

48 See Pedersen, , “Schoolmistresses.” Google Scholar

49 SIC, VIII, 246. See also VII, 206, 412.Google Scholar

50 Gordon, Shirley, “Demands for the Education of Girls, 1790–1865” unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of London, 1950, reviews feminist demands for educational reform.Google Scholar

51 Report of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education in Parliamentary Papers 1895, Cd. 7862, I, 76. Fees at Cheltenham, one of the more expensive schools, ranged from 12 to 22 guineas in the 1860's, depending on which division of the school a student was in. SIC, Dorothea Beale's Testimony, V, 722, 16072.Google Scholar

52 Zimmern, Alice, The Renaissance of Girls' Education in England. A Record of Fifty Years' Progress (London, 1898) 123, 131.Google Scholar

53 It proved difficult to provide an efficient education for fees which would be attractive to lower middle class groups. The Girls' Public Day School Company, for example, opened a school intended for such girls at Clapham in 1875, with fees ranging from £7 10s to £9, depending on the student's age. (This was substantially lower than the average fee — £15 7s 8 p — at the Company's other schools.) The Clapham Middle School was, however, plagued throughout its existence with financial problems and was finally merged with the Company's Clapham High School in 1898. Girls' Public Day School Trust, Council Minutes, II, December 17, 1874, 68–69. Magnus, Laurie M.A., The Jubilee Book of the Girls' Public Day School Trust 1873–1923 (Cambridge, 1923), 72.Google Scholar

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55 For a discussion of the general aims of such reforming dons as Henry Sidgwick and John Seeley, see Rothblatt, Sheldon, The Revolution of the Dons. Cambridge and Society in Victorian England (New York, 1968). In her Emily Davies and Girton College , Stephen, Barbara gives a good account of some of the issues which divided feminists such as Emily Davies, interested above all in winning parity for the new female educational institutions, and reforming dons such as Seeley and Sidgwick, who viewed the women's colleges as pilot projects, pointing the way to broader reforms in English education.Google Scholar

56 Victoria University was composed of University College, Liverpool. Owen's College Manchester; and Yorkshire College, Leeds. Women were admitted to Oxford's degrees in 1920, to those of Cambridge in 1948.Google Scholar

57 Royal Holloway College was exceptional in this respect. It was munificently supported by Holloway, Thomas, who had made a fortune in patent medicines. Holloway gave some £700,000 in land, building, furnishings, and endowments to the College. Powell, M. J., ed., The Royal Holloway College 1887–1937 n.p., n.d. gives a brief account of the College.Google Scholar

58 There were some minor exceptions to the rule. Most of the residential colleges had a set fee for room and board, but some, including Somerville, did charge different fees for different rooms. At the public boarding schools, some special subjects, such as riding and piano lessons, were charged as ‘extras’, but these occupied a minor place in the curricula.Google Scholar

59 See, for example, the descriptions of how the authority of the heads and fellows of some Oxbridge women's colleges expanded in Vera Brittain, The Women at Oxford (New York, 1960) 168 and Stephen, , Emily Davies, 297, 343.Google Scholar

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62 Bealé, Dorothea, “On the Organisation of Girls' Schools,” Journal of the Women's Education Union, I, no. 10, 15 November, 1873, 180–81. The time tables of the King Edward VI High School for Girls specified the precise number of minutes each girl was to allot to each subject! Vardy, Winifred I., King Edward VI High School for Girls, Birmingham, 1883–1925 (London, 1928) 28.Google Scholar

63 Girls' Public Day School Trust, Minutes of the Council and Committees, 1895, 19.Google Scholar

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65 Royal Commission on University Education in London. Third Report , in Parliamentary Papers. Cd. 5910. XX, Appendix, Evidence of Dyke Acland, A.H. and Tuke, Margaret J., 106. Evidence of Ryan, Charles et. al. 178, and Alverton, Lord et. al., 174, 8537. Hereafter cited as UEL .Google Scholar

66 Girls' Public Day School Trust, Circular to Headmistresses, May 29, 1878.Google Scholar

67 SIC , Dorothea Beale's Testimony, V, 722, 16073.Google Scholar

68 Pedersen, , “Schoolmistresses and Headmistresses,” 153. The findings are based on information in the published registers of Lady Margaret Hall, Somerville, Newnham, and Girton Colleges, supplemented in the case of Girton with information from an unpublished Admissions Book beginning in 1884.Google Scholar

69 SIC , Testimony of Miss E.E. Smith, IV, 697, 15710.Google Scholar

70 UEL, XX, Appendix, 177. It is likely that the London colleges clientele was socially a cut below that of the Oxbridge colleges. A representative of Royal Holloway suggested to the Commission that young women from very wealthy homes who chose to attend college perhaps preferred to go to Oxford and Cambridge. Ibid., XX, 180, 8626–27.Google Scholar

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80 James, Mary E., Alice Ottley. First Head-Mistress of the Worcester High School for Girls 1883 1914 (London, 1914) 70. Wakeford, John, The Cloistered Elite (London, 1969) has many interesting reflections on the modes of social control used at boys' public boarding schools today.Google Scholar

81 Brittain, , Women at Oxford, 64, 92–94.Google Scholar

82 Sheldon Rothblatt examines the examination system developed in early 19th century Oxbridge as it relates to the problem of disciplining potentially rebellious undergraduates isolated in their own sub-culture, in “The Student Sub-culture and the Examination System in Early 19th Century Oxbridge,” Stone, Lawrence, ed., The University in Society, Vol. I (Princeton, 1974).Google Scholar

83 This was owing to Emily Davies' feminist commitments. Stephen, , Emily Dairies, gives details.Google Scholar

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