BRINGING A MIND OUT OF THE CLOD

We begin with a fundamental historical problem briefly exposed in the chapter describing the new undergraduate culture of unreformed Oxford and Cambridge. That culture was made possible by a number of confusing transformations in the emotional relationships between the members of families from which the senior universities recruited their students. While we understand that upbringing affects subsequent conduct, precision in such matters evades us. Amongst the more bewildering subjects in the writing of social history, none ranks higher than trying to understand child development in relation to parenting, sibling relationships and the interpenetration of family with other socialising institutions, such as schools, churches, neighbourhoods and voluntary organisations. They are bewildering because the sources of family history are multi-varied and contradictory. Our own understanding of how families function as primary institutions is rent by inconsistencies and controversies, making a sober, consensual analysis quite daunting. The subject was and remains critical because upbringing followed by peer associations has an obvious relevance to present-day social policies respecting abortion, divorce, child abuse, juvenile crime, schooling, teaching and preparation for entry into the labour market, to name only the larger questions currently at issue in most contemporary societies.

The subject is truly vexed. Existing theories about family history, when scrutinised carefully, have not generally stood the test of scholarly review. Dramatic reinventions of childhood in particular centuries are less apparent to some observers than to others.