Alison Wolf's article on Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure" ("Adults Learning," January 2009) rightly sees the links between the barriers facing the eponymous hero of the novel and his modern-day counterpart seeking education rather than vocational training, and prompts a revisiting of this novel, which has, more than once, been identified with the movement for the democratising of educational opportunity, and is a striking example of the theme of education in Victorian literature. Indeed, education emerges as one of the recurrent themes in novels of the nineteenth century. In this article, the author revisits the novel and explores how much has changed.