Lessons for Children
Lessons for Children is a series of four age-adapted reading primers written by the prominent 18th-century British poet and essayist Anna Laetitia Barbauld. Published in 1778 and 1779, the books initiated a revolution in children’s literature in the Anglo-American world. Based on the educational theories of John Locke, Barbauld’s books emphasise learning through the senses.
About Lessons for Children in brief
Lessons for Children is a series of four age-adapted reading primers written by the prominent 18th-century British poet and essayist Anna Laetitia Barbauld. Published in 1778 and 1779, the books initiated a revolution in children’s literature in the Anglo-American world. Based on the educational theories of John Locke, Barbauld’s books emphasise learning through the senses. Maria Edgeworth, Sarah Trimmer, Jane Taylor, and Ellenor Fenn, to name a few, were inspired to become children’s authors because of Lessons. Barbauld demanded that her books be printed in large type with wide margins, so that children could easily read them. The texts were designed for the developing reader, beginning with words of one syllable and progressing to multi-syllabic words. The first part of Lessons includes simple statements such as: ‘Ink is black, and papa’s shoes are black. Paper is white, and Charles’s frock is white.’ The second part increases in difficulty: ‘February is very cold too, but the days are longer, and there is a yellow crocus coming up, and the mezereon tree is in blossom, and some white snow-drops peeking up their little heads’ Barbauld also introduced elements of story, or narrative, piecemeal before introducing her first story, A Summer Evening’s Meditation, in which the narrator explains the idea of ‘sequentiality’ to Charles, and implicitly to the reader, before ever telling him a story.
She was part of a tradition of female writing that emphasised the interconnectedness of society. The books helped to create a distinct aesthetic for the middle-class children’s book. However, because of the disrepute that educational writings fell into, largely due to the low esteem awarded Barbauld, Trimmer,. and others by contemporary male Romantic writers, the Lessons has rarely been studied by scholars. In fact, it has only been analysed in depth since the 1990s. The fourth volume, Summer Evening’s Meditation, points out, its poems mimic the moon on the moon in particular, in particular in particular thinking and thinking as well as in every other section of the book. The fifth volume, The Summer evening’s meditation, talks with a man, that talks with him with every tongue in every day, to woo him to be wise; nor wooes him in vain; nor be vain in vain, nor be in vain in the dead, nor woo him in any way. The last volume is called Summer Evening in the Sun, which talks with man, when the sun must burn on for ages, and wrapt in his golden eye, and when the east has wrapt his shades in his journey, and in his wonted journey, when he is close to the east, and closes in on the sun, and wraps himself around the sun. The final volume is titled Summer Evening on the Moon, and talks with the man, about how the sun and the moon must burn for ages.
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This page is based on the article Lessons for Children published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 01, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
