“Governesses to Their Children”

By the end of the eighteenth century, the image of the aristocratic mother teaching her own children was becoming part of the iconography of sentiment, as well as of rational or enlightened domesticity. ¹ But half a century earlier, a group of aristocratic Englishwomen were being praised by their contemporaries for their active role in the education and nurturing of their children. It is clear from the tone of the remarks that they were somewhat unusual, but the evidence of their activity provides a counter to the historical perception that active child-centered parenting ² by aristocratic mothers largely followed a philosophical and practical shift which had originated with the gentry and middle classes. ³ Throughout the second half of the century, an increasing number of books offered both theoretical and practical advice to mothers on the nurture and education of their children—including how to engage in educational play with young children. ⁴ The audience for this advocacy was middling and elite, as only mothers who could afford servants and tutors could be enjoined to a greater participation in the daily activities and education of their children, and only children of a certain socioeconomic level could be provided with the sort of education and educational play endorsed by the theorists.