For the children of Number Twenty Nine their quarters were tucked away in the attic at the top of the house, free from unnecessary decoration, such as carpets and plaster work. In the Beatty family, at least three of the boys, Edward, Frederick, and Thomas, went to Trinity College, where they most probably were boarders. Their sister, Olivia married at the age of 15.
Those educated in the home may have been taught by a governess such subjects as English, History, Geography, music, needle work, and a continental language, probably French. Attitudes towards the education of children varied and many were taught simply to repeat by rote, but progressive ideas, expounded for example, by Maria Edgeworth were beginning to find favour in the early nineteenth century. Edgeworth wrote that a child's "love of knowledge" and "spirit of activity" should not be "repressed by the undistinguishing correction of a nursery maid, or the unceasing reproof of a French governess". |