Thus, while advice may well have been intended to create a perception that poor and wealthy mothers alike were capable of appropriately educating their children, the discursive effect was also to mask the important material differences that structured women’s mothering roles and families’ time and uses for literacy. In fact, the content of literacy advice can be traced along rigid class divisions. For while artisan or “cottage” mothers could be “good enough” teachers if they were sensible, this sensibility was defined and embodied in the habitus of upper-class literacy practices that were best acquired through domestic service in these homes.

Moreover, for many mostly male commentators, including chaplains, school inspectors, and parliamentarians, support for “pauper education” was a means to regulate access to and the content of education for “pauper children” who, in the words of one school inspector, had “become a burthen [sic] on the community in the ranks of ‘hereditary pauperism’” (Edwards, 1857. p. 122). Not unlike the contemporary family literacy concept of “intergenerational illiteracy” (Nickse, 1990), in “hereditary pauperism”, poor parents were considered inappropriate role models and mentors for their children’s literacy and learning because of their “innate” ignorance and poverty which they passed on to their children. It was the State, in the form of institutions such as work houses, “pauper schools,” and the like, that was to intervene to restore their morality and protect other social classes from their influences. While poor mothers were considered inappropriate models of their children’s literacy, and “cottage” mothers could accomplish enough with some hand made toys and games, advice to upper-class mothers for managing their children’s literacy required (at least ideally) more intense and direct intervention.

The majority of literate women were in the upper classes and this is recognized in literacy advice that emphasized more intense approaches to supporting children’s learning. Indeed, upper-class mothers were often advised to attend to their children’s questions and needs immediately, lest a moment for teaching or learning should pass.

How many times, when the inward teacher has called us to our closet, where a spiritual table was spread a rich feast provided for us have we replied, “When I have finished what I am doing;” but the feast is removed, our High Priest is left the sacred chamber…and we return to our worldly occupations unblest-unfed. (Mothers’ Magazine, 1857, p. 154)