The Making of the Modern Child: Children's Literature and Childhood in the Late Eighteenth Century. Children's Literature and Culture
As part of the series titled Children’s Literature and Culture, edited by Jack Zipes, Andrew O’Malley’s The Making of the Modern Child foregrounds the development and obscure history of didactic children’s literature in the late eighteenth century. Issuing from the late-seventeenth century fairy tale and chapbook—described as an unbound text of approximately 24 pages with crude woodcuts as illustrations (37)—this literature garnered from the fields of medicine, psychology, and sociology a mixture of elements destined to impart to its readers a new class consciousness foregrounding the emergence of the middle-class. Through a central thesis that posits that the growth of didactic children’s literature and the virtues of childhood it espoused (comprising obedience, literacy, curbing of one’s temper, etc.) actually ‘mirrored’ the development of this class, O’Malley argues that an ideological text emerged that served as a hybrid or bridge between the traditional chapbook and fairy tale of the late-classical period and the envisioned territory of a delightful instruction that would lead to “rational diversions for children” (21).
As inquiry, this literature entertained new notions of class that opposed both aristocratic entitlement and plebeian lack of education. Simply stated, the new middle class would raise its citizens to embody values of educational achievement, morality, and a work ethic able to meet the demands of the pending industrial revolution.
Early examples of hybridity were works by such authors as Sarah Trimmer, whose The Guardian of Education (1801-1805) proffered new views on how to educate the modern child in reviews of contemporary pedagogical theory. Other examples were texts by John Newbury, whose Little Pretty Pocket Book (1744) is regarded as the first modern children’s book in its hybridization of elements of pedagogical advice and middle-class morals (21). Trimmer’s advocacy of the moral responsibility of middle classes as well as her advocacy of middle-class, privately-sponsored charity appears in her text, The Economy of Charity (1787); Newbury’s earlier text opens with a synopsis of views held by John Locke, who in Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) advises parents not only regarding the schooling of children, but also concerning the fragility of their tempers that predisposes their minds to wander. (Locke had argued that this tendency could only be countered with the tempered introduction of novelty into early and formative thoughts and impressions.[1])
One consequence of this penchant for change amid social advancement in the late century would cause such a stock fairy-tale character as ‘Jack,’ of Jack and the Giants, to be transformed into a harbinger of middle-class self-improvement. From the chapbook tale master of mischief and trickery, able to destroy giants through supernatural lineage, Jack is transformed into a model citizen of the burgeoning middle class (in Newbury’s tale), possessing industry, obedience, and book learning. O’Malley further points out in his chapter titled “Class Relations in Middle-Class Children’s Literature” that, by the latter part of the century, Newbury together with contemporaries had observed that middle-class sensibilities could lead to a market for texts for children fostering an anti-aristocratic sentiment mingled with a healthy suspicion of plebeian culture. Within this chapter, O’Malley cites several texts that describe relationships between the classes. An example is Maria Edgeworth’s The Parent’s Assistant, a text advising that different classes had “few ideas, few habits, in common, their peculiar vices and virtues do not arise from the same causes” (45). Conversely, O’Malley cites the text by Mary Ann Kilner, Adventures of a Pincushion, published in 1780, as portraying instances of plebeian self-denial and rejection of extravagance (49), both positive lower-class virtues worthy of emulation. Of great interest herein are descriptions of pedagogical intent inherent in animal narratives, wherein are presented models of human-animal relationships harboring examples of extreme compassion and principles of humanity contained in the animal retreat. As another example of class relationships present in the late eighteenth century, the chapter posits the ability of the Enlightenment child to strive toward self-perfection, all the while resisting the temptation of wealth inherent in the aristocracy.
O’Malley’s most articulate contribution to the chronicling of this period is his extensive literary review that includes, in his third chapter, an exhaustive analysis of medical texts concerning the theories of childhood. Here, O’Malley cites studies by Locke and by David Hartley, whose text Observations on Man (1749) pointed to the popularity of theories concerning how thoughts and impressions were stored. The advent of medical texts bringing knowledge of childhood development to the public sphere also accounted for the temporary degradation of midwifery due to its practice by the poor—yet a practice that such critics as John Leake nevertheless aspired to redeem as a noble healing art (70).
Certainly the instruction, management, and ultimate improvement of children became a microcosm of interest to all during the late century. Indeed, social reform envisioned through pedagogy emerged as a structuring metaphor of this literature. During the latter decades of the century, O’Malley points out, natural dispositions of childhood cited by Locke were adhered to even more than the ideal of natural education espoused in Rousseau’s Emile (1763). According to Catherine Macaulay, whose Letters on Education were published in 1790, principles of stimulating the natural curiosity of the child espoused by Locke, and the belief in the correctness of ideas as a key to emotional and physical health espoused by Hartley, became groundwork for healthy subjects who were capable of disciplining themselves and applying their knowledge as rational citizens of the Enlightenment.
Indeed, O’Malley’s central and most robust thesis is that the training and management of children by the late eighteenth century concerned all classes. Whereas representations of the poor were divided between honest country workers and villainous servants, those of the aristocracy and those of the middle class centered upon goals of education where girls would become better mothers and wives and boys were trained from an early age in useful science. Concluding his exhaustive literary review, O’Malley articulates in his final chapter the evolution of a children’s literature that would allow early Romantic writers to satirize the products of an entrenched yet effective pedagogy. These effects would then usher in a period of fantastical literature in the early nineteenth century, one that would have productive pedagogical ends (135).
As illustrations, the text uses a plethora of colorful reprints from the Osborne Collection of Children’s Books of the Toronto Public Library. Indeed, the dust jacket of O’Malley’s text depicts an illustration from author Mary Ann Kilmer’s The Adventures of a Pincushion (1780) where, through a tale narrated by an object, a child is lead to practice the virtues of compassion and class awareness. Such a text, employing as narrator the common household object, illustrates a narrative of self-denial intrinsic to heightened moral awareness and rejection of extravagance.
In his conclusion, O’Malley retraces his argument by citing the relatively slow emergence of the predominantly didactic form of the children’s text in the late eighteenth century. Under the aegis of rational diversion or religious conversion by such writers as Edgeworth, Day, and Trimmer, a variety of texts appear that replace the popular chapbook, whose many texts had emphasized the reward for virtue as primarily one of carnal advancement for virtue. O’Malley leaves consideration of the many detractors to practical education for children, including William Blake, to his conclusion. His concise study of the poem “The Chimney Sweeper” illustrates in depth the uses of fantasy as antidote to the dilemma of the poor.
In the opinion of this reviewer, O’Malley’s study warrants more exploration of the opposing theses of Locke and Rousseau, of the comparative presentation of the tutor-pupil relationships in their texts, and of how these intertwine with the texts of eighteenth century pioneers in this field. Although O’Malley briefly describes comparisons between the late-classical period and the eighteenth century, he fails to develop fully the implications of these earlier seminal texts into his study.
Finally, it would be interesting to see an analysis of opponents to the practical education of children, some of which are introduced earlier in the text. Nevertheless, O’Malley’s exhaustive study recalls what J.H. Plumb has written regarding the history of children more generally, namely that it was first was investigated by a “happy speculative mix of psycho-analysts, demographers, and historical-anthropologists,” but that interest is now growing among conventional historians.[2] The same is now true more specifically of the history of children’s literature.
[1] John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693). Ed. John W. and Jean S. Yolton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). See part X, section 167.
[2] J.H. Plumb, “The New World of Children in Eighteenth-Century England,” Past and Present 67 (May 1975): 64.
