Born at Kibworth Harcourt, Leicester, into a family of Dissenters on 20 June 1743, Aikin was the elder of John and Jane Jennings Aikin's two children; her brother, John, was four years younger. Disabled by poor health from serving in the ministry for which he had taken orders, their father had opened a boys' school in Kibworth. By the time his children were born the school was well established and enjoyed a high reputation; Dissenters sent their boys to learn Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and other subjects taught by the Reverend Mr. Aikin, who was distinguished for an open, stimulating manner of instruction. Anna Aikin's early life was spent in this environment, an ideal setting for, as her mother described her later, "a little girl who was as eager to learn as her instructors could be to teach her, and who, at two years old, could read sentences and little stories in her wise book, roundly, without spelling, and in half a year more could read as well as most women." Her precocity led to a sound education first in modern and then in classical languages and literature.
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