Robert is another character whom we tend to tune out because of his blathering on about nonsense--in his case all self-important and self-aggrandizing.

In Ch. 36, when he first meets the Dashwood sisters, he makes these comments about the type of education he received vs. the education Edward received:

Why ]Edward and Robert] were different, Robert explained to [Elinor] himself in the course of a quarter of an hour's conversation; for, talking of his brother, and lamenting the extreme gaucherie which he really believed kept him from mixing in proper society, he candidly and generously attributed it much less to any natural deficiency, than to the misfortune of a private education; while he himself, though probably without any particular, any material superiority by nature, merely from the advantage of a public school, was as well fitted to mix in the world as any other man.

"Upon my soul," he added, "I believe it is nothing more; and so I often tell my mother, when she is grieving about it. 'My dear madam,' I always say to her, 'you must make yourself easy. The evil is now irremediable, and it has been entirely your own doing. Why would you be persuaded by my uncle, Sir Robert, against your own judgment, to place Edward under private tuition, at the most critical time of his life? If you had only sent him to Westminster as well as myself, instead of sending him to Mr. Pratt's, all this would have been prevented.' This is the way in which I always consider the matter, and my mother is perfectly convinced of her error."

It makes me wonder why one son would have been sent to a private tutor such as Mr. Pratt (in a situation very much like Jane Austen's own father with his pupils) while the other was sent away to Westminster?

We don't know if this 'Sir Robert' was Mrs. Ferrars' brother or Mr. Ferrars' brother, but it sounds as though he very much influenced their mother's decision, which Mrs. Ferrars then thought the better of and followed her own judgement for Robert. I think obviously if gentlemen were in the habit of having their sons board and be educated privately in an establishment such as Mr. Pratt's, there must have been some advantages to it.

On a search through the archives, I came across a post by JulieW where she said, "School in Ja’s time were not the type of benign places we envisage today." (in reference to places such as Westminster)

And also, from JulieW in the archives: "Most public schools at this period were notoriously violent places. Corporal punishment was the norm, including flogging, and the boys themselves seem to have been entirely unruly."

It sounds as though Edward's experience was probably more pleasant. I wonder if Robert was resentful of that?

However, I wonder also if the public schools were regarded as more prestigious?

A little later in this same chapter (36), Fanny seems to be saying that the family valued Edward's education, but of course that is just to get out of inviting Marianne and Elinor to stay with them: