"Lessons in the Art of Instruction": Education in Theory and Practice in Anne Bronte s Agnes Grey

rewriting of the author's own experience as a governess. Although there is no reason to dispute autobiographical references, the generic qualities of Agnes's experience must not be reduced to individual episodes. The 1840s brought forward an intense interest in education, evident in the publication of numerous educational tracts, as well as in the establishment of new bodies of education for women, and in an active debate in the press. The educational issues brought up in Agnes Grey adhere closely to those emphasised in the contemporary debate. This article therefore proposes that Anne Bronte's novel should be viewed as a deliberate contribution to the discussion on female education in the 1840s. Recent scholarship on Agnes Grey has examined the didactic intentions of the story. Elizabeth Langland, for instance, argues that "Agnes Grey is foremost a novel dealing with education; it is a novel of education (Agnes's) and about education (her attempts as governess to educate her charges) whose goal is to bring about an education in the reader " (1989: 97). Maria Frawley likewise writes, "Bronte's rhetoric enables her to emphasize the issues of autonomy and self-understanding at stake in Agnes's quest to define herself through her experiences as a governess " (1996: 85). Both Langland and Frawley classify Bronte's novel as a female version of the Bildungsroman, and although their arguments are convincing, the notion of development in the novel needs to be expanded to incorporate contemporary pedagogical aspects. In the character and actions of her protagonist, Bronte found a way to examine the common mortifications of the governess, and to discuss the actua