Caroline Janssen, “The Kids Are Alright: Educating and Raising the Whole Child in Eighteenth-Century Europe,” BOZetto, Vol. 7 (Autumn 2019), 1-4.

 

Whenever I happen upon a toddler interacting with the world, I find myself completely in awe that a relatively new-to-this-world person is having some of his or her first experiences with sidewalks, car horns, and wind, in awe that at one point in time I was small, and further in awe that other people around me walk by and seem to take no notice whatsoever of the mundane miracle occurring within our shared public space. The events of childhood and further development carrying a person through adolescence into adulthood are well-defined and have been thoroughly studied by professionals in fields ranging from education to medicine for decades. However, this has not always been the case. The prevalent view of children across Europe in the early 1700s was that children were bestial appendages to the familial unit. This paradigm began to shift in the mid-eighteenth century with the onset of the Republic of Letters and budding philosophies regarding childhood as an important developmental stage in a person’s life. I will be discussing the progressive models of raising and educating children as asserted by philosophes of the eighteenth century by utilizing contextual analysis of primary sources and French artwork depicting child-rearing in settings ranging from the common middle-class dinner table to the lavish gardens of Marie-Antoinette. In doing so, I intend to trace variances in rearing methods, noting differences of gender and class, and will additionally compare constructs of child upbringing common to the eighteenth century with those of the twenty-first century.

 

            The most progressive ideals regarding the rearing methods of children largely came from the pens of John Locke, François Fénelon, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. As outlined by art historian Dorothy Johnson, the widespread dehumanizing outlooks on children were perpetuated by the Christian belief that humans are born sinners and must work toward salvation through repenting in a God-fearing world.[1] The French philosophes’ ideologies regarding childhood directly refuted this notion, as they were founded on the basic principle that people are born with minds like “blank slates.” John Locke compared children to white pieces of paper, stating they are “neither good nor bad, but pure and innocent.”[2] Rousseau took this viewpoint further, as he asserted that humans are born as innately good beings that are eventually corrupted by the discourses of man-made society.[3] Before education was widely accepted as an important facet of childhood, children born to aristocratic families were made to look like miniature adults with forms made up of tiny coats and corsets which families hoped would civilize their bestial offspring. Being a firm proponent of the natural world, Rousseau opposed infant corsetry, and even the swaddling of babies, a prohibition common today. Although wrapping babies in tight cloth makes for a more convenient experience for a nurse or mother, Rousseau explained that this limited a child’s ability to develop his or her motor skills and that a child should be able to experience and experiment with his or her freedom of motion.[4]

 

            A child’s relationship with his or her own body was important not only for self-awareness, but also because physical activity was a key component of the French philosophes’ working curricula for European families. The term “pedagogy of play” was introduced as a result of the new importance of first-hand experiences with the environment in which a child resided. “Pedagogy of play” was an avant-garde feat because it combined the important life skills of exercise, contemplation, and learning, and delivered them to children as routine playtime. Children were even encouraged to make-believe and create their own fantastical experiences. As stated by Linda Pollock, “‘fantasy play’ was seen as aiding the child’s understanding of the world,” whereas it was viewed as a distraction to an individual in centuries prior.[5]

 

            To gain a deeper understanding of the child-rearing and education methods of eighteenth-century France and England, one can turn to paintings of the time that, rather progressively, depicted children—both on their own or accompanied by siblings or a mother—as true individuals, rather than accessories to the basic family unit. Johnson identifies French genre painter Chardin as the only artist of the period who responded to the call for a refining of the attitudes toward raising children. His paintings depicted education taking place and even served as pedagogical tools for viewers to model their own child-rearing methods and the learning opportunities that took place in every-day life. Chardin’s Soap Bubbles depicts an adolescent boy blowing bubbles in deep contemplation of the forms he produces, while a younger child behind him (his brother, presumably) witnesses the events taking place. Not only are viewers able to observe the older boy’s solitary concentration, but Locke and Fénelon’s shared notion that young children begin to learn through imitation and observation is put on display as well.[6] Fénelon in particular stressed the importance of the “virtuous mother’s” role as an educator, explaining that she should be tender and loving while still softly establishing her authority over her children.[7] The ideal mother is shown in Chardin’s Saying Grace, where both mother and elder sister listen carefully to the youngest daughter recite her prayers, just as she has undoubtedly observed them numerous times before.

 

            Shifting from the pastoral genre scenes to the luxurious lives of the royals, Marie-Antoinette herself made an example of playing an active role in her children’s upbringing. In Marie-Antoinette and Her Children Strolling in the Gardens of the Petite Trianon by Wertmüller, viewers not only see the queen outside of the private sphere of domesticity, but she directly negates the social roles of queenship by walking with her children. Additionally, the queen gestures lovingly toward her daughter, whom she personally raised herself, further distinguishing herself from the queens who served before her.

 

            The philosophes’ educational expectations varied when differences of gender and socioeconomic status came into question. Their guidelines were deeply rooted in strict gender roles and only applied to the aristocracy, with little to no regard for working-class families. John Locke’s letters to an aristocratic British couple, the Clarkes, contain lots of advice regarding the education and upbringing of their children. As recorded by Sara H. Mendelson, mother Mary Clarke repeatedly requested that Locke send guidelines for her daughter Elizabeth, for he only sent insights regarding her sons. After stalling for half a year, Locke complied, stating that the “rules for health and virtue” were nearly identical for girls and boys.[8] The only exception he granted was that female children should play beneath the protection of shade and avoid the sun to preserve their fair skin. In doing so, they preserved their femininity. Fair skin, Mendelson establishes, was not only a marker of femininity for women in the eighteenth century but also served as a utility to communicate her “marriageability,” as a woman’s pale complexion indicated her hailing from a financially well-to-do family.[9] Locke’s direct instruction regarding Mary’s female children came after years of advice directed solely at Clarke’s son, which specified a routine of activity to work both his body and mind, while he only stressed bodily health for her daughters.[10]

 

            Children’s literature of the eighteenth century worked not only to educate boys and girls but also to create future model citizens. Ranjana Saha acknowledges gender and class implications that were common in children’s literature of the time, stating that pictures of boys and girls depicted them as “stunted grown men and women” dressed as pseudo-adults in well-furnished houses.[11] Furthermore, children’s books rooted men’s lives in the public spheres of society, and women’s experiences in the private affairs of the home. Sherry Ortner, a feminist theorist, explains in her research that female subordination has persisted over the years because of the pan-cultural understanding that a man’s role is to transcend nature by directly taking part in culture, and a woman is to socialize her children into culture. Here, we can see that women in eighteenth-century Europe and to a certain extent in the twenty-first century world are expected to socialize their sons to take part in the external world of culture and to socialize her daughters to be accomplished in domestic life.[12]

 

            Near the beginning of her piece, Saha reminds readers that Locke and Rousseau’s theories and methodologies surrounding childhood were “fictional ‘ideals.’”[13] Bearing this in mind, it should come as no surprise that the actual state of affairs did not perfectly match up with the writings of the aforementioned philosophes. Returning to the myriad exchange of letters between John Locke and his cousin, Mary Clarke, one can gain a first-hand sense of raising children in the upper ranks of society. For example, Locke advised the Clarke family that “the father should be a constant presence in the family,” but be particularly engaged in the son’s upbringing.[14]  In reality, however, Edward Clarke was a member of the British Parliament and spent long periods of time away from the household, leaving Mary and the family’s rotating cast of “monsoirs”—a blanket term she used for all of her French refugee attendants—as the only figureheads for the children.[15] Additionally, Locke discouraged mothers from assuming active roles in their children’s lives, for he stated that a mother’s instinct to spoil her children would ultimately corrupt them.[16] From the writings of Mary Clarke, who often went against Locke’s suggestions and engaged in productive debate with him throughout their correspondence, readers will understand the positive role that she played in her children’s upbringing, and that John Locke the bachelor was sorely misinformed.

 

            Compared to the methods and morals employed in education and child-rearing of the eighteenth century, children living in the twenty-first century—namely born of middle and upper-class citizens in the West—live a life of comfort, are able to maintain their innocence in their early years, and are generally treated with human decency (if talked down to in their single-digit days). Although Rousseau would not approve of it as a structure, public education is an accessible option for children regardless of socioeconomic status, and the strength of their minds is of far more importance than physical health. Additionally, there is currently quite a push for children to engage with the STEM fields at a young age, and to increase the number of girls in science and technology fields. Mothers are not expected to take their children’s education into their own hands, but many still do by means of engaging their children in inquiry and even homeschooling in certain cases. What has not changed much, however, are the social implications of mothers. While the vast majority of American mothers work, it is still assumed that they will do the vast majority of child-rearing. In order to turn these assumptions around, as suggested by Ortner, “both men and women can and must be equally involved in projects of creativity and transcendence.”[17] Pedagogy has evolved to take on myriad forms in a variety of settings, and the life-stage of childhood is highly regarded with nostalgia.

 

ENDNOTES

 

[1] Dorothy Johnson. “Picturing Pedagogy: Education and the Child in the Paintings of Chardin,” Eighteenth-Century Studies (1990): 50.

 

[2] Ranjana Saha, “Children in the Mind: Paginated Childhoods and Pedagogies of Play,” Economic and Political Weekly (2011): 54.

 

[3] Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Emile, or On Education. (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1921), 143.

 

[4] Jerrold Seigel. The Idea of the Self: Thought and Experience in Western Europe since the Seventeenth Century. (Cambridge: University Press, 2005), 225.

 

[5] Saha, “Children in the Mind,” 54.

 

[6] Johnson, “Picturing Pedagogy,” 59.

 

[7] Johnson, “Picturing Pedagogy,” 61-62.

 

[8] Sarah H. Mendelson, “Child Rearing in Theory and Practice: The Letters of John Locke and Mary Clarke,” Women’s History Review (2010): 233.

 

[9] Mendelson, “Child Rearing in Theory and Practice,” 236.

 

[10] Mendelson, “Child Rearing in Theory and Practice,” 237.

 

[11] Saha, “Children in the Mind,” 58.

 

[12] Sherry B. Ortner, “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?,” Feminist Studies (1972): 72-84.

 

[13] Saha, “Children in the Mind,” 54.

 

[14] Mendelson, “Child Rearing in Theory and Practice,” 237.

 

[15] Mendelson, “Child Rearing in Theory and Practice,” 237.

 

[16] Mendelson, “Child Rearing in Theory and Practice,” 232.

 

[17] Ortner, “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?,” 84.