This thesis compares J. K. Rowling’s contemporary Harry Potter series (1997-2007) with Thomas Hughes’s Victorian school story, Tom Brown’s School Days (1857), in order to identify how Rowling and Hughes use British public school literature as a means for the widespread dissemination of moral pedagogy. Given the disparate time frames and political outlooks, Rowling and Hughes teach dissimilar ideologies in different socio-historical contexts. However, both stories reveal the necessity of the schoolmaster’s teaching methods to form morally responsible school leaders, demonstrate the titular character ‘chosen’ as a moral leader, and exemplify the use of organized sports as a method of moral and social instruction. In sum, my thesis presents a comparison of the narratives by Rowling and Hughes as an acknowledgement of the continuing influence of Hughes’s work on modern literature and the employment of children’s literature for the advancement of moral and socio-ideological themes.

<p>This dissertation defines the literary genre of the American school story for girls from approximately 1845 to 1910. While recent critical studies have examined the American common school story or the women’s college novel, no scholar has surveyed the genre of American school stories for girls in the second half of the nineteenth century. Instead, the British school story tradition, such as the <i>Tom Brown’s School Days</i> series and twentieth-century girls’ boarding school stories such as those by Angela Brazil, has overshadowed the American genre. I also argue that the study of the girl’s book has focused on domestic (family) stories over the school story. By defining the American school story for girls, this project fills a critical gap and argues for how the school story is an important subgenre of the girl’s book that depicts the nineteenth-century girl in an educational environment with new personal and professional opportunities. </p> <p> </p> <p>The first half of the dissertation provides a genre and historical overview, while the second half consists of case studies of specific educational sites and types of experience. The first chapter provides a guiding definition of the school story and examines its subgenres. I split the school story into the following subgenres: the common story school, the seminary or boarding school story, and the college novel, and describe their common tropes and characters. The second chapter details the history of American women’s education and provides relevant examples of fictional school depictions. In chapter three, I analyze girls’ seminary (boarding school) schools including <i>The Boarding-School Girl</i> (1848) by Louisa C. Tuthill, <i>Hester Stanley at St. Mark's</i> (1882) by Harriet Prescott Spofford, and <i>Betty Baird</i> (1906) by Anna Hamlin Weikel. This chapter argues for the religious, personal, and professional goals that motivated the girl characters to attend school, and how the fiction depicted society’s expectations for these girls. Finally, chapter four examines three Vassar-focused college novels, specifically the first two books in <i>The </i><i>Three Vassar Girls </i>series (1883-1892) by Elizabeth W. Champney and Julia A. Schwartz’s <i>Elinor’s College Career </i>(1906), to argue that the college experience created networks to help further the lives of women, while also working to maintain homogeneity. </p>