Alan Barcan (page 58), writes in Two Centuries of Education in New South Wales that "Middle class mothers (in the early days of the colony) frequently preferred to educate their children themselves". In fact Mrs Charlotte Barton was the author of the first book especially written for the domestic education of Australian children (and perhaps the first in the world)-A Mother's Qffering to Her Children published in Sydney in 1841. It contained 13 chapters of "true, instructive and moral stories, with an Australian reference and written in dialogue form."