The nature and purpose of elementary education featured prominently in English periodicals throughout the nineteenth century. This book's central argument is that the periodical press provided a unique cultural space for literary and intellectual contributions to sustained debates about education. Furthermore, political, economic, social, religious, literary, and cultural developments converged with pivotal educational turning points featured in periodicals that affirmed the creative force of education. However, relatively little scholarly attention has been given to periodicals as a medium for exploring the tension between competing educational ideas and practices in Victorian England. This book therefore reassesses elementary education through the new literary perspectives of periodical culture.