The Potency of the Periodical Press

The chapter’s central argument is that by analysing literature produced, reproduced, circulated, and read by an English reading audience in specific historical conditions, we can extend our understanding of the social and cultural history of elementary education. Discourses on formal and informal education in the periodical press covered turning points in legislation, policy, pedagogical initiatives, the professionalisation of teaching and opinions about the extension of provision for working-class children. The periodical press, given its reach and influence among a diverse English reading audience, informed and formed public opinion on elementary education throughout the nineteenth century. Print media provided a unique cultural space for literary and intellectual contributions to sustained debates about the nature and purpose of elementary education. References are made to different kinds of periodicals, ranging from the major quarterly reviews to specialist journals intended for teachers and religious publications. Literary representations of elementary education were reviewed and serialised in periodicals, which meant that novelists and poets such as Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth contributed significantly to educational issues. The periodical press ensured that the education debate received on-going attention and sustained prominence throughout the Victorian period.