Informal Education in Eighteenth-Century Ireland

M. Wade Mahon is Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, USA, where he teaches Rhetorical Theory, British Literature, and Creative Nonfiction. His research focuses on eighteenth-century Irish education, poetry, and rhetorical theory. He has published in Rhetoric Society Quarterly, The Eighteenth-Century: Theory and Interpretation, and Archivium Hibernicum.

• 1. Introduction.- 2. Those Who Can’t Teach Write Dictionaries: Approaches to Reform, 1755-1758.- 3. Competition in Print, 1759-1800.- 4. Exploiting Print Resources: Samuel Whyte’s English Grammar School, 1759-1811.- 5. Prospectuses, Poems, and Playbills: Establishing Social Networks.- 6. Reading and Speaking with Distinction: English at the Core.- 7. “Teaching English Grammatically” in Catholic Schools and Female Boarding Schools, 1782-1800.- 8. The Professionalization of “Literary Teachers,” 1788-1800.- 9. Conclusion: An Informal System of Education.