Education is the process underlying the production, transmission, and interpretation of all texts, and as such it is the bedrock of literary culture. Its purposes and methods were debated with particular intensity during the nineteenth century. What was at stake was the means to power and self-determination. Some saw its development as a necessary social control; for others, it could provide a way of escaping constraint. The politics and practice of schooling were often a central theme for Victorian writers. But literature could also be in itself a vehicle for teaching, and many saw it in these terms. Conflicting definitions of the pedagogies of writing shape the most prominent features of the literary landscape, defining the fundamental premises which were extending the scope of every genre, whether fiction, poetry, drama, journalism, or criticism.

Education and reform

Numerous campaigns throughout the nineteenth century drove a wholesale transformation of schools, colleges, and universities, and the consequences were far-reaching. By 1901, the entangled and often chaotic condition of education in England and Wales that had characterized the early 1830s had developed into a more heavily regulated system, supported and supervised by the state. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, educational provision at all levels was still heavily dominated by religious institutions, as it had been for centuries. The role of organized religion was particularly crucial in supplying elementary education for the poor.