If religion was to be ‘the groundwork of [all] education’, and ‘the usual accomplishments’ were regarded as the second pillar of girls' education from the middle class upwards, a religious dimension should have been present in that part of the female curriculum as well. Some commentators on education certainly attempted to remind their readers that any human effort ought to harmonise with, even uphold, Christian values and principles. Priscilla Wakefield's observations on the merits of artistic pursuits supply a typical example:

Even so, the continuous maintenance of a religious element in the accomplishments curriculum was an uncongenial, not to say hopeless, task. To begin with, the Bible could not serve as a universal teaching aid in a skills-orientated context. Of course, musical practice could comprise hymns as well as secular songs; drawings could feature ecclesiastical buildings and Biblical images; and works in foreign languages might be chosen partly for their devotional content.