Tag Archives: School boys

Bad Boys: A Very Short History

Posted on by

Boys being boys… Another episode in the ongoing rivalry between Horrid Henry and Peter Perfect

During the Big Move–shifting miles of rare materials into RBSC’s cavernous new vault whose completion was celebrated in the previous post, “Moving Day in Feather Town“–I discovered three really awful nineteenth-century books about bad boys.  In contemporary children’s books, characters whose halos have slipped down around their shoulders are not exactly  underrepresented…   Think of Francesca Simon’s Horrid Henry, whose antics have given rise to a multi-media empire.  Bad boys are by no means non-existent in older children’s books, but the way boyish misbehavior was punished has changed dramatically as attitudes towards authority, curiosity, mischief, and mistakes have become more lenient.

Two well-known stories about bad boys display zero tolerance for boys like Horrid Henry who disrespected authority.   In Kings 2:22-3 of the Old Testament, the prophet Elisha passes a pack of young louts on the road to Bethel.   These ancestors of the Purple Gang yell at Elisha, “Go up, you old baldy” and  Elisha retaliates by cursing them.  Two female bears come out of the woods and maul forty-two of the no-goods.

Oh dear…

 

Undoubtedly this gruesome story was the inspiration for many cautionary tales about bad boys.   Daniel Fenning’s best-selling school book, The Universal Spelling Book (1756) was the source of this famous one about the brothers Tommy and Harry, which Charles Dickens alluded to in David Copperfield.   Harry the elder brother was a rotter and Tommy the younger was a Peter Perfect.  Guess which brother was eaten by lions?

Woodcut, page 43, Cotsen 118 (19th edition, 1773)

Woodcut of the lion lunching on Harry on page 43 of the 19th edition of Fenning’s Universal Speller (1773). Cotsen 118.

By the nineteenth century bad boys are all over picture books, but  they usually make mischief in a series of illustrations rather than starring in a continuous narrative.  All three of the books I found during the Big Move–one French, one British, and one German–fall into the second category.  In Les Proverbes de Pierre (1890), illustrator Jean Geoffrey dresses up his little devils in Pierrot costumes and sets them loose in the classroom and in the street.  Notice that it takes a young peep show operator (the one with what looks like a little tower strapped on his back) and the boy-gendarme to break up the squabble below.    The second picture shows what can happen when the teacher steps out of the classroom.  Is the boy in the upper left sending up his teacher?  Where are the wild beasts?

10743page41

Page 21, Cotsen 10743

10743page1

The one boy waves a hat that reads “Ass” while his accomplices dance on a sign saying “Lazy.” Cotsen 10743, 1

In the British picture book Young Troublesome (ca. 1850), John Leech gleefully shows just how much mischief a public school boy could make at home during the Christmas holidays.  In this plate the adults stand by helplessly as the young pickle shows his little brothers and sisters how easy and delightful it is to slide down a bannister.

Plate [2], Cotsen 3141

Plate 2, Cotsen 3141

There are also illustrations showing boys playing practical jokes that are anything but fun and games.   In Ludwig Kies’ Der Kinder Art und Unart (ca. 1855′), the boys in the boat dump an elaborately dressed tailor overboard.  The tailor’s terrified expression suggests he thinks that once his heavy clothes become waterlogged, he will drown.  The boys, who may be working class, show no remorse for what they have done and it looks as if no one will step forward and punish them. .

24963plate[53]

Plate [53], Cotsen 24963

 Likewise Leech’s Young Troublesome seems to think nothing of interfering with the servants while they are working, or apologizing when his prank ruins their clothing.  The hapless servant may have no other recourse than complaining to his comrades below the stairs.

3141plate10

Plate 10, Cotsen 3141

Of all activities forbidden to children, playing with fire may have been one of the most satisfying because it was so risky.  From the late eighteenth century onward, it is not especially difficult to find illustrations of children whose clothes have caught fire, a very real possibility in homes where there were multiple fireplaces with open grates.  William Darton senior liked such subjects, but no engraving in his firm’s juvenile books can compare with this one from Der Kinder Art und Unart of a boy running out of the hen house, which he accidentally set aflame.  Unlike many of the plates in this book, no adult appears to reprimand the little arsonist (or mourn his passing as the kitties did Hoffmann’s Paulinchen).

Plate [30], Cotsen 24963

Plate [30], Cotsen 24963

In sharp contrast, Young Troublesome and his assistant look as if they have deployed every bit of firepower behind the scenes to bring the juvenile theater production of The Miller and His Men to a triumphant conclusion. The size of the explosion seems to have given his papa pause.  Or perhaps his ears were ringing from all the racket from the special effects.

Plate 7, 3141

Plate 7, 3141

Last but not least, is this illustration of a boy on his way to school pausing to get a light from a street urchin, while a gaping classmate watches them indulging in a forbidden vice.  A casual depiction of underage smoking like this one in a picture book would be enough to get Les proverbes de Pierre a PG-13 rating these days and possibly launch a heated discussion on childlit-listserv…

10743page33

More bad habits… Cotsen 10743, 33.

 

School Days in Children’s Books…

Posted on by

One of the interesting aspects about cataloging children’s books is that you get to see quite an amazing variety of materials–“children’s books” includes fiction, stories, poetry, history, as well as books about history, science, technology, nature, animals, birds, insects, not to mention illustrated books of all shapes and sizes, and books meant to educate children, “juveniles” and what we would now term “young adults”.  Some scholars don’t really consider instructional books and materials to be children’s “literature” per se, but these non-classroom educational books and materials constitute an important part of the Cotsen collection too–along with certain kinds of  games, and ephemera… The list goes on and on…

When cataloging, I often encounter a dizzying array of material on a semi-random basis, since books are generally cataloged in the order that they’ve been acquired by a curator or collector.  The sheer variety is part of the fun.  But sometimes, I serendipitously encounter books on similar subjects that seem to complement each other or to suggest connections that wouldn’t have occurred to me if only looking at one alone.  Just this week, I saw several  educational books about teaching children that also pictured children themselves in the accompanying illustrations.  Let’s take a look…

Frontispiece : The Boys' School

Frontispiece: The Boys’ School, or Traits of Character in Early Life / by Miss Sandham (London: John Souter, 1821?) Cotsen acc. no. 6100564

The engraved frontispiece of The Boys’ School, or Traits of Character in Early Life (undated but published about 1821) shows a well-appointed (and generally quite orderly!) school-room–notice all the books and several globes on the shelves in the background.  A well-dressed boy expounds an astronomical problem to a smiling master sitting at his desk in front of a small class.  Note the compass the boy holds, the telescope, and the other astronomy, navigation, or  time-keeping paraphernalia in the foreground too.  Looking at the illustration, it’s not clear to me how much attention the other boys are paying to the recitation though, but at least they’re in their seats!  Generally, a scene of enlightened decorum is effectively presented.

The frontispiece pretty much speaks for itself, but the text it accompanies tells us that this is a private school for a “limited number of boys,” and that Mr. Morton, the master was “good-natured” with a “steadiness of temper.”

It’s worth pointing out that, while the process of education is depicted in the frontispiece, the real object of this book is the moral education of its readers, as the author makes clear in her preface. The main character is one of the “children of affliction”–an orphan named William Falkner of small size and weak body–who is at first ridiculed by other students for his “personal defects” at the school, but who shows his mental and moral strength in the course of the story via his accomplishments.  In many respects, this presentation is characteristic of English “moral tales” for children of its era.

Moving back in time, Elementary Dialogues for the Improvement of Youth (published in 1790 as the first English version, of Joachim Campe’s Kleine Seelenlehre für Kinder) is presented in the form of a dialogue between a tutor and his students.  While generally benevolent, the tutor employs some educational techniques not exactly in accord with current practices today.  At one point, for instance, he appears at the beginning of the day “with a knotted handkerchief in his hand; and without speaking, strikes each of the boys with it.”  This isn’t as punishment for misbehavior though, but to demonstrate cause and effect to the boys in a way they’ll remember.

"the poor blockhead at his wit's end

“The poor blockhead at his wit’s end”: Elementary Dialogues for the Improvement of Youth / by J.H. Campe (London: Hookham and Carpenter, 1792) Cotsen acc. no. 6334569

One of the illustrations depicts what I first thought was a studious boy in a library or study–maybe a model scholar?.  There’s no caption to key a response, but notice the books, including one open on the desk before the boy. Take a look for yourself and see what you think!

Yet the accompanying text tells a different story.  The tutor’s narrative describes the boy as a “poor blockhead at his wit’s end.”  Unable to do a merchant’s apprenticeship text in writing and arithmetic, the boy “struck his forehead to correct himself for want of diligence … having profited little by education and…lost his time in running about and at play.”

As the text makes explicit, the tutor first shows this illustration to his students–as he does with the fifteen others presented in the book–and then elicits responses from them as he explains the context–which is immediately apparent to the boys in this case, who “read” the illustration more correctly than I did!  Perhaps the moral here–at least for catalogers–is that you can’t tell a story by looking at one picture!

In some books, the illustrations make visible in graphical terms what the author is trying to describe in the text–they play a secondary or supporting role.  In other books, such as toybooks by Caldecott, the illustrations ironically comment upon, or even undercut, the text; they can even become the primary narrative element.  (And, to be honest, in some children’s books, there’s little relation between text and illustration; the illustrations are essentially decorative.)  In Elementary Dialogues, text and illustration work together, the pictures intended to “make sensible” to children the “ideas” that the author wants to present.  This method is meant to leave “the pleasure of discovering [the ideas] to the children,” and is consistent with the theories that Locke presented for using illustrations and objects for children’s education.

Having had all this moral and conceptual education, it’s time for a break, don’t you agree?

And so apparently do the students shown in the engraved frontispiece of Christmas Holidays: a Poem Written for the Amusement & Instruction of All Good Masters & Misses in the Known World by Tommy Tell-Truth, B.A., published circa 1767 (some titles are too good to shorten!).

Frontispiece: Christmas Holidays

Frontispiece: Christmas Holidays: a Poem (London: H. Roberts & H. Turpin [ca. 1767] (Cotsen acc. no. 6143802

Here we see an eighteenth-century English class on the verge of their Christmas break.   A benevolent-looking master gives out a prize, or treat, to one student, perhaps a star pupil? The rest of the students look like they’re about to explode with delight.  (Remember that feeling yourself when in school?) One boy skates out of the picture at lower right, school-bag and hat in hand; other students stand and cheer (Huzza!) or chatter amongst themselves–a sense of festive jollity prevails over order or decorum. Compare this scene with that depicted in the 1820’s Boy’s School frontispiece above, in particular the number of students, their clothing and the general classroom decor.  (We’ve moved from the world of Jane Austen back to the world of Tom Jones, or so it seems to me.)

Detail of frontispiece: (Cotsen acc. no. 6143802)

Detail of frontispiece: Christmas Holidays (Cotsen acc. no. 6143802)

Of particular interest to me are the boys shown on the left side of the engraving.  In the foreground, one boy stuffs his school-bag (his back completely turned to the master) while another sprawls on the floor, holding his stomach in laughter while clutching a paper, perhaps his term grades?  Meanwhile, two boys feed the fire with what appears to be the master’s birch rod and disciplinary paddle.  The whole scene is one of blissful abandon and festive misrule, not inappropriate considering that another engraving in the book, titled “Twelfth Night,” depicts the festivity of a group of carousing adults, some apparently in their cups.