In recent years, some prominent scholars and historians of reading have emphasized the gradual nature of change in reading practices in the early modern period as opposed to sudden transitions. This article discusses the varying opportunities to acquire skills consequent on "engaged reading" (defined below) available to the children of different…

Given the prominence in Victorian society of some of William George Spencer's pupils, his development of an extended curriculum for both sexes, and the fact that his textbook on inventional geometry was considered to be the most Pestalozzian published in England, he remains a remarkably undervalued figure in the history of education. Despite a…

When many of the parents of those currently attending Catholic schools throughout much of the English-speaking world were being educated, the Catholic teaching force was heavily influenced by the presence of the religious orders. Furthermore, this had been the situation for over a century. The turning point was the mid-1960s and the opening up of…