If woman’s natural biological function is presumed to be that of childbearing and rearing, of the inculcation of moral beliefs along with physical nurturing, with the ensuing presumption that she is thus especially constructed by nature so as to have a close, intuitive relationship with her offspring, then such instincts as sympathetic imagination, and a ready capacity to identify with the experience of others, are unalterable facts about her mental operations, and hence, by extension, about her processes of reading. (Flint, 1993, p. 57)

For many advisors, it was the “cottage” and artisan life, rather than the homes of bourgeoisie, that provided the ideal learning environment for children. This was perhaps because it was believed that women in the cottage economies who worked in the home could be more directly engaged in the education of their children on an everyday basis. They were less likely to be distracted by the demands of society visiting, and did not have nurses or governesses to mediate and perform their pedagogic duties. Moreover, the spatial constraints of a small cottage made it a necessity for “old and young to learn together” (Martineau, 1848, p. 193). This idealization of the artisan mother-as-teacher produced literacy advice for these women that was less concerned with promoting reading, and more concerned with how to “open their children’s faculties.” Harriet Martineau, a social reformer and scholar of American democracy, argued that in many homes “both mother and father work very hard, particularly in American homes where there were no nurses, servants and the like, formal instruction in letters cannot be possible” (Martineau, 1848, p. 193). She thus developed the idea that what counts as “educated” varied from circumstance to setting, and must necessarily be broader than “book learning.” She told the story of children who did not have access to schooling and whose parents could not read, nor had the time to teach them letters and numbers, but who were, nevertheless, very “educated”:

They knew every tree in the forest, and every bird, and every weed. They knew the habits of domestic animals. They could tell at a glance how many scores of pigeons there were in a flock, when clouds of these birds came sailing towards them…they could give their minds earnestly to what they were about; and ponder and plan, and imagine, and contrive. Their faculties were awake. (p. 127)