ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Hardy's exploration of auto didacticism as a significant contribution to nineteenth-century educational discourse that has remained largely overlooked by Hardy scholarship. By studying Hardy's ideas about pedagogy in the context of the educational debates of his time, the chapter considers Hardy's depiction of self-education in his novels not only as a personal investigation of his own educational experience. The chapter suggests also view it as an exploration of an alternative to education reform that focused almost exclusively on replicating existing institutional models. It focuses on the figure of the male autodidact because this is where Hardy registers most clearly the failure of patriarchal educational systems. The chapter looks at Hardy's self-education, examining its benefits. It also examines The Woodlanders. The chapter considers how Angel's choice to become a self-taught farmer in Tess of the D'Urbervilles enables him to abandon class biases but does not let him escape the misogyny promoted by a society preoccupied with Oxbridge masculinity.
