What do we know about Jane's early education? Here are some hints from J.E. Austen-Leigh's memoir (and the accompanying letters and editorial notes):

Mr. Austen: "being a good scholar he was able to prepare two of his sons for the University, and to direct the studies of his other children, whether sons or daughters..."

Mrs. Austen: In her "was to be found the germ of much of the ability which was concentrated in Jane... she united strong common sense with a lively imagination..."

Jane's brother James: had "a large share in directing her reading and forming her taste."

Education outside the home: According to Kathryn Sutherland's notes, Jane and Cassandra "had been sent away together to be boarded by Mrs. Ann Cawley, a family connection, in Oxford and Southampton in 1783, when Jane was only 7." Presumably this was a school. They went together to another school, Mrs. LaTournelle's Ladies Boarding School in the Abbey House, Reading, a private school for daughters of the clergy and minor gentry. They stayed there in 1785 and 1786. Apparently educational expectations for Jane were low: family recollections are that "Jane was too young to make her going to school at all necessary, but it was her own doing, she would go with Cassandra: - if Cassandra's head had been going to be cut off Jane would have hers cut off too.'" (letter of Anna Lefroy)