Schooling

Abstract

Schools and education play a large part in the Brontës’ lives and in their novels. Mr Brontë had risen from obscurity through being a good student and a good schoolmaster to the relative grandeur and financial security which in the nineteenth century a position as a clergyman offered. His daughters could not aspire to this, Branwell’s inclinations did not lie in that direction, and neither the schools the Brontës attended, nor the private lessons which he and Miss Branwell gave to the children seemed to have fitted them very well for the world. But we must not be too harsh on Mr Brontë, trying like many parents to educate his children on limited means at a time when good schools were few and far between.