Living Out Her Principles: The life of Hannah More

By Josephine Lee

In a time when education is considered a basic human right, it is difficult to imagine that Britain’s upper classes once debated the merit of making schooling available to sectors of society, including the lower classes and women. As industrialization transformed 18th century Britain, education was seen by some as an opportunity, and by others as a threat.

This debate bears similarities to the historical struggle to establish a free press. But the two fields — education and journalism — are intertwined in other ways: both enlarge our understanding of the world, both are embedded in our Western conception of democracy. Yet we moderns have often lost sight of the higher spiritual calling that both should serve: the formation of the individual.

In her era, this was the purpose that literary powerhouse Hannah More championed — education not as a matter of practical value, but of moral development. Born in 1745, More became one of Britain’s most influential women through her poems, dramas, and pamphlets. Her work, though accessible and often entertaining, carried an intently spiritual focus: to cultivate the pious sensibilities of its readers.

More was unafraid of demanding moral reform from all corners of British society. In her book, “Thoughts on the Manners of the Importance of the Great,” she boldly focused her pen on the upper classes, challenging their lifestyles with honest examination, and calling for the fostering of virtuous character.

In “Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education,” she countered a system that only considered training for women necessary insofar as it was useful for domestic life. The purpose of education, she wrote, was “to communicate useful knowledge, to form a correct taste, and a sound judgement, to resist evil propensities, and above all, to seize the favorable season for infusing principles and confirming habits.”

And More lived out her principles. In 1789, she and her sisters undertook the project of opening Sunday schools to provide learning for lower-class children. Despite initial opposition from landowners, Sunday schools would become invaluable for boys and girls in dozens of villages.

Yet More’s impact is best considered not in its statistical value, but up close. Biographer Henry Thompson records how, thirty years after More first established a particular school, she visited the death-bed of a former student, who "exhibited an uniform, sober, and enlightened piety, and passed into the eternal world with every appearance and expression of a well-grounded hope." He wrote that More not only witnessed these testimonies at death, but saw the success of other students living out a faith they had cultivated in her schools.

As this account demonstrates, real social change is led by the transformation of a person. In More’s words, “we want not to be stimulated to public spirit, but to individual virtue: not to exertion over others but to vigilance of ourselves.”

This truth is exemplified by the gospel, but it is also the right motivation for biblical journalism. Our primary goal should not be to upend systems or create a religious nation, even though these can be valuable results of a flourishing press. Rather, the Christian journalist must be compelled to write (and the Christian educator to teach) for the sake of an individual man or woman, who needs to see an honest picture of the world as God sees it, to be built up in discernment through the encouraging of good, and the scorning of evil.

Hannah More’s faith held her to a higher standard than her culture. That same faith should sharpen our commitment to earnest journalism, as we determine what to write or speak about, and how to do so rightly.

[This essay by Josephine Lee won second place in the WJI Essay Competition hosted by WJI Network.]