ABSTRACT
Writing to his cousin Lady Hesketh in 1786, the poet William Cowper described the practice of sending boys to school as a ‘miserable and most ruinous measure’.1 He went on to say that ‘parents certainly pursue it only because they want to get rid of their Little ones and know not where else to dispose of them. I am no father, yet does my heart tell me that had I ... any children, I had rather see them dead than so manage them.’2 Although Cowper’s feelings were unusually vehement, he was far from being an isolated voice. Private education in the late eighteenth century represented a vibrant alternative educational tradition with its own discourse and culture. It remained the default choice for girls up until the end of the century and was a significant and widely accepted option for the education of boys.3
