Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nmvwc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-27T23:21:51.217Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Breaking the Icon: The First Real Children in English Books

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

C. John Sommerville
C. John Sommerville*
Affiliation:
University of Florida
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Anyone who has discussed the history of childhood with college students will surely have noticed that most of those students have not yet paid close attention to children. The children whom they imagine turn out to be memories of themselves. This is hardly surprising; it is just one more way of saying that it takes a truly mature person to understand a child. Our immaturity is responsible for our projections, and through most of history “childhood” has been a projection—of self-pity, self-righteousness, or self-hate. At times, “the child” has served as a cultural icon for a whole society—an image of perfection or of some power or virtue which adults seem to have lost. And we can expect some devotion to the child's image to persist throughout human history, so long as our most powerful memories refer to that stage of life. There are periods, indeed, which are characterized by a veritable cult of childhood.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , Spring 1981 , pp. 51 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 by History of Education Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Graeffe, Lotte B., “The Child in Medieval English Literature from 1200 to 1400” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, 1965), passim .Google Scholar

2. The categories include, respectively: SS. Agnes, Agatha, Margaret, and the daughters of St. Sophia; SS. Benedict, Martin, Peter Martyr, Vitus; SS. Dominic, Bernard, Ambrose, John the Baptist. The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, trans. Ryan, Granger and Ripperger, Helmut (London, 1941). See also the lives of SS. Pancratius, Nazarius, Mary, and Elizabeth.Google Scholar

3. White, Helen C., Tudor Books of Saints and Martyrs (Madison, Wisc., 1963), pp. 54–55.Google Scholar

4. Marcus, Leah Sinanoglou, Childhood and Cultural Despair; A Theme and Variations in Seventeenth-Century Literature (Pittsburgh, 1978), pp. 24–26.Google Scholar

5. The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, ed. Townsend, George (New York, 1965), V, pp. 697–703; VI, pp. 350–352.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., VI, pp. 384, 416–422.Google Scholar

7. Ibid., IV, pp. 123, 231, 235–236, 245.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., VI, pp. 740.Google Scholar

9. Walton, Izaak, Lives, ed. Saintsbury, George (London, 1936), pp. 162–163, 350–351, 262.Google Scholar

10. Heath, James, A New Book of Loyal English Martyrs and Confessors (London, 1663); Winstanley, William, The Loyall Martyrology (London, 1665).Google Scholar

11. Barksdale, Clement, Memorials of Worthy Persons: Two Decads (London, 1661), p. 201; Cotton, Clement, The Mirror of Martyrs (London, 1613); à Wood, Anthony, Athenae Oxonienses (London, 1813–20); Winstanley, William, England's Worthies (London, 1684). Winstanley has some examples of extreme precocity (pp. 90, 264–265, 348, 426, 560, 650). Holland's, Henry History of the Modern Protestant Divines (London, 1637), occasionally comments on the early years of its subjects. But Holland may best be classified as a Puritan; he was in trouble with Archbishop Laud and served in the Parliamentary army.Google Scholar

12. Fuller, Thomas, History of the Worthies of England (London, 1840).Google Scholar

13. Memoires of the Lives, Actions, Sufferings & Deaths of those Noble, Reverend, and Excellent Personages, That Suffered by Death, Sequestration, Decimation, or otherwise, for the Protestant Religion, and the great Principles thereof, Allegiance to their Soveraigne, in our late Intestine Wars, From the Year 1637, to the Year 1660 (London, 1668), pp. 447, 53, 290.Google Scholar

14. Ibid., pp. 353, 225, 308, 170.Google Scholar

15. Thomas, Keith, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York, 1971), p. 423.Google Scholar

16. Lloyd, , Memoires, p. 138.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., pp. 157, 341. Among Anglicans only John Aubrey's notes show a similar interest in such stories, though we cannot know how many of them he would ever have published. See Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. Dick, Oliver Lawson (London, 1950), pp. 45, 56, 148–149, 162, 237, 242, 285, 300.Google Scholar

18. Challoner, Richard, Britannia Sancta (London, 1745), II, p. 4.Google Scholar

19. Ibid., I, pp. 87, 95.Google Scholar

20. Ibid., II, pp. 323–326.Google Scholar

21. Challoner, Richard, Memoirs of Missionary Priests (n.p., 1741–42), II, p. 20; I, pp. 262–263.Google Scholar

22. Ibid., II, pp. 27, 123, 172, 278.Google Scholar

23. Bryan, John, The Vertuous Daughter (London, 1640).Google Scholar

24. Croke, Charles, A sad memoriall of Henry Cvrwen esquire (Oxford, 1638).Google Scholar

25. Abbot, Robert, The yovng-mans warning-peece (London, 1639). Rogers' story also appeared in a ballad, Youth's warning-peice, published the same year. See Sloane, William, Children's Books in England and America in the Seventeenth Century (New York, 1955), pp. 144–145.Google Scholar

26. The apprentices warning-piece. Being a confession of Peter Moore (London, 1641).Google Scholar

27. [Alleine, Richard], A Murderer Punished and Pardoned (London, 1668). See Sloane, , Children's Books in England, pp. 228–229.Google Scholar

28. Batchiler, John, The virgins pattern: in the exemplary life, and lamented death of Mrs. Susanna Perwich (London, 1661). Calamy, Edmund III reported that William Pearse published A Present for Youth, and an Example for the Aged; being some Remains of his Daughter Damaris Pearse about this time; see Calamy, , The Nonconformist's Memorial , ed. Palmer, Samuel (London, 1802–03). Apparently no copy of this work has survived.Google Scholar

29. Vernon, John, The Compleat Scholler; or, A Relation of the Life, and latter-end especially, of Caleb Vernon (London, 1666).Google Scholar

30. Jessey, Henry, A Looking-Glass for Children, comp. H. P. (London, 1672).Google Scholar

31. Fisher, James, The wise virgin (London, 1653).Google Scholar

32. The debate on the relation of Puritanism and empiricism is surveyed in Greaves, R. L., “Puritanism and Science: The Anatomy of a Controversy,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 30 (1969): 353–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33. Eliot, John and Mayhew, Thomas, Tears of Repentance: Or, A further Narrative of the Progress of the Gospel Amongst the Indians in New-England (London, 1653). pp. 46–47.Google Scholar

34. [Acton, Samuel], The virgin saint: or, a brief narrative of the holy life, and Christian death of Mary Wilson (London, 1673), offers nothing new to this pattern, except the best anagrams—“Your nam' liv's” and “In warm Soyl.” Google Scholar

35. I have discussed other characteristics of this work in “English Puritans and Children: A Social-Cultural Explanation,” Journal of Psychohistory, 6 (1978): 121–122.Google Scholar

36. Janeway, James, A Token for Children. Being An Exact Account of the Conversion, Holy and Examplary Lives and Joyful Deaths of several Young Children (Boston, 1700), pp. 14–19.Google Scholar

37. Elton, and Smith, Esther, William Godwin (New York, 1965), p. 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. Mather, Cotton, A Token for the Children of New-England (Boston, 1700), p. 3. Mather had published some of these lives earlier, in Early piety, exemplified in the life and death of Mr. Nathanael Mather (1689), Early religion (1694), and A good man making a good end (1698). Samuel Wakeman had also described an American youth, in A young man's legacy to the rising generation (Cambridge, Mass., 1673).Google Scholar

39. This work is not to be confused with one by T. W., A Little Book for Little Children, Wherein are set down, in a plain and pleasant way, Directions for Spelling. See Harvey Darton, F. J., Children's Books in England (second edition, Cambridge, 1966). pp. 59–61.Google Scholar

40. The Marrow of Ecclesiastical Historie (London, 1650). pp. 228, 308.Google Scholar

41. Ibid., pp. 414, 420, 461.Google Scholar

42. Fuller, , Worthies of England, I, pp. 78–81.Google Scholar

43. Clarke, Samuel, The Lives of Thirty-Two English Divines (London, 1677), pp. 22, 168, 218.Google Scholar

44. Ibid., pp. 377, 160, 184.Google Scholar

45. Ibid. pp. 234, 264, 279, 391, 414.Google Scholar

46. Clarke, Samuel, Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons (London, 1683), pp. 3–4, 168–169, 182.Google Scholar

47. Ibid, pp. 177, 154, 81, 125–126.Google Scholar

48. Ibid., pp. 135–136, 152, 95, 102, 106, 138.Google Scholar

49. Ibid., p. 90.Google Scholar

50. Ibid., pp. 197–200.Google Scholar

51. Calamy, , Nonconformist's Memorial, I, p. 199.Google Scholar

52. Ibid., II, p. 164; I, pp. 124, 110, 165, 191, 271.Google Scholar

53. Ibid., I. p. 331; II, p. 159.Google Scholar

54. Ibid., III, p. 393; I, pp. 322, 222.Google Scholar

55. Ibid., I, p. 343; II, p. 449; III, pp. 258–259.Google Scholar

56. Ibid., II, pp. 340, 290–291.Google Scholar

57. Ibid., III, p. 31; II, pp. 133–135.Google Scholar

58. Ness, Christopher, A Spiritual Legacy (London, 1684), pp. 93, 115–116.Google Scholar

59. Anon., Living Words of a Dying Child (n.p., 1675).Google Scholar

60. Whiting, John, Early Piety Exemplied, in the Life and Death of Mary Whiting (n.p., [1681]).Google Scholar

61. Lawson, Thomas, A Serious Remembrancer to Live Well (London, 1684).Google Scholar

62. Thomas, and Camme, Anne, The Admirable and Glorious Appearance of the Eternal God, in his Glorious Power, in and through a Child (London, 1684).Google Scholar

63. Anon., A Brief Relation of the Life and Death of Elizabeth Braythwaite (n.p., n.d.). For accounts of other young Quakers with a poetic gift, see Mather, William, The Young Man's Companion (London, 1681), and anon., A Seasonable Account of the Christian and Dying-Words of some Young Men (Philadelphia, 1700). Richard Manliffe made an exception to the rule of unbroken innocence among the children described in Quaker works, having left the Society briefly before his repentance: anon., A seasonable account of the Christian and Dying-Words of some Young-Men (Philadelphia, 1700, originally published in London, 1697). The work of God in a dying maid, being a short account of the dealings of the Lord with one (n.p., 1677) is also a Quaker work.Google Scholar

64. Christopher, and Taylor, Frances, A Testimony to the Lord's Power and Blessed Appearance In and Amongst Children (n.p., 1679) pp. 49, 66–67. In the same year four different tracts reported the appearance of a wunderkind, Charles Bennet, who was brought to London in June to exhibit his phenomenal knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and of knotty “Scriptural Questions.” Many gentry and clergy and the King himself were said to have come to the Bear Inn in West Smithfield to see him. The authors never suggested an apocalyptic significance in this episode, but only that such a marvel should be proof of a Deity to those “unwilling to believe any other Deity than Nature.” The Wonderful Child , ed. Axon, William E. A., in Chetham Miscellanies, new series, I (1902), pp. 1–21. The tone of these tracts would suggest that they were part of the Dissenting tradition.Google Scholar

65. The only other seventeenth-century account of real children by Anglicans that I have found are John Evelyn's memorial to his five-year-old son in his translation of The Golden Book of St. John Chrysostom, Concerning the Education of Children (London, 1659); Nathaniel Crouch's stories from Josephus, the Bible, and church history, in The young man's calling, or the whole duty of youth (London, 1678); Peck's, Samuel, A New-Years Gift for Youth: being the substance of a sermon preached at the funeral of Mrs. Elizabeth Bell (aged sixteen years, odd months), (London, [1687]); Smythies, William, Advice for the prevention of theft. Being a short account of the confession and discovery which was made by a condemned prisoner (London, 1687). Sloane lists three other works describing actual children, which might have been by Anglicans. Two are broadsheets: The young-man's warning-piece: or, the extravagant youths pilgrimage and progress in this world. Being the faithful relation of the remarkable life of J. Bradwill, son of W. Bradwill, merchant of the city ([London], 1682), and The children's example shewing, how one Mrs. Johnson's child of Barnet, was tempted of the devil to forsake God, and follow the ways of other wicked children, who use to swear, tell lies, and disobey their parents; how this pretty innocent child resisting Satan, was comforted by an angel from heaven, who warned her of her approaching death. Together with her dying words, desiring young children not to forsake God, lest Satan would gain power over them. To the tune of bleeding heart (n.p., n.d.). Also Stephens, D., A new-years gift. Or, the youth's instructor through the wilderness of this world, to the mansions of eternal glory (London, 1698).Google Scholar

66. Anon., Praise out of the Mouth of Babes (London, 1708).Google Scholar

67. Arends, William Erasmus, Early Piety Recommended in the Life and Death of Christlieb Leberecht Von-Exter (London, [1709?]).Google Scholar

68. Anon., Daily Conversation with God (London, 1710).Google Scholar

69. Anon., A Short Account of the Conversion of Three Jewish Children to Christianity (second edition, London, 1717), reprinted in Gillies, John, Historical Collections Relating to Remarkable Periods of the Success of the Gospel (Glasgow, 1754–61), III, pp. 232–243.Google Scholar

70. The Young-Man's Monitor (London, 1706), sig. A3. Woodward died in 1712, which may explain the lapse of these publications at about this time. Downing and other Anglicans continued to recommend William Hamilton's Exemplary Life and Character of James Bonnell, Esq. (London, 1704) to children, for its picture of his pious childhood.Google Scholar

71. Matthews, William, “Seventeenth-Century Autobiography,” in Autobiography, Biography, and the Novel; Clark Library Papers, May 13, 1972 (Los Angeles, 1973), pp. 16–18, 25.Google Scholar

72. Delany, Paul, British Autobiography in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1969), p. 169.Google Scholar

73. Watkins, Owen, The Puritan Experience (New York, 1972), p. 54.Google Scholar