For Every Beast of the Forest is Mine:

Childrens Books and Science Education in the

Age of Enlightenment
Rachel Roth
!omas Boremans A Description of Tree Hundred Animals, rst published in 1730, is
recognized as the earliest zoological book written expressly for English children.
1
As the
market for childrens print culture grew throughout the eighteenth century, so did the
demand for books designed as educational tools.
2
In the account that follows, I will
examine how childrens book culture, particularly a 1795 edition of A Description of Tree
Hundred Animals, illuminates the discourse surrounding the education of young children
in the eighteenth century within the larger framework of the Enlightenment period. !is
includes the changing schema of the child and childhood, the philosophical movement
towards science as a foundation for knowledge, and ideas of British nationalism and
industry.
Seventeenth-century philosopher John Locke is widely recognized as one of the
most inuential thinkers on education in the eighteenth century; his writings, most
notably Some Toughts Concerning Education (1693), were practically biblical in
England.
3
Lockes pedagogy stemmed from the emerging cultural belief that a childs
character was not innate, but developed in response to their environment and education.
4

Once this idea gained acceptance, there followed a social responsibility to improve upon
preexisting educational practices. !ough some critics accused Locke of despiritualizing
childhood,
5
the new framework of the child, which was based on the concept of the
childs mind as a void white paper to be moulded, was nevertheless extremely popular.
6

UBC Undergraduate Journal of Art History Issue 2 | 2011
1 Harriet Ritvo, Learning from Animals: Natural History for Children in the Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Centuries, Childrens Literature 13 (1985): 72.
2 Ibid.
3 Samuel F. Pickering, John Locke and Childrens Books in Eighteenth-Century England (London,
Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981), 9.
4 Ibid.
5 Margaret J.M. Ezell, John Lockes Images of Childhood: Early Eighteenth Century Response to
Some !oughts Concerning Education, Eighteenth-Century Studies 17, no. 2 (19831984): 141.
6 Ibid., 149.
!e national push for education was particularly radical in that it marked children as
rational and individual, and legitimized childhood as a stage of development.
7
As Locke
put it, young people ought not to be hindered from being Children, or from playing, or
doing as Children.
8
!e works of the philosopher Rousseau promoted similar ideas,
emphasizing the lifelong importance of the sensations and impressions encountered
during childhood.
9
!e discovery of childhood, that is, the growing social awareness surrounding the
concept, inevitably led to an increase in both literary and artistic representations of
children.
10
As argued by Rosenthal, the so-called infant academies of the late eighteenth
century conveyed more deeply rooted anxieties about the childhood of creativity [and]
the origins of artistic genius, and also brought childhood into the public and popular
realm in a way that [began] to challenge notions of the assumed superior adult self.
11

!ese very conicts began to manifest in art exhibitions, where young children and
infants were depicted performing professional and procient artistic work.
12
Some pieces,
such as Joshua Reynoldss 1782 work, Children (Te Infant Academy), border on mocking
the concept by emphasizing the sexual insinuations and general silliness of such images.
13

However, for an artist like Reynolds, childhood also represented a sense of innocence that
permitted children to genuinely see nature at its purestan interest that was at the
forefront of Enlightenment concerns. It was a common viewpoint that any such artist
needed to unlearn and revert to a childlike perspective in order to perceive truths about
the world.
14

!e changing ideas of both what it meant to be a child and what it meant to be an
adult resulted in something of a paradox within the discourse surrounding the signicance
of childhood in the eighteenth century. Society seemed to be at once for and against
education. However, despite Lockes agreement that children were fundamentally blank,
he and many other writers interested in childhood education believed children ought to
be shaped by proper knowledge. !us, they would not remain blank but develop in
accordance with the information they learned from their education, and the world around
them. !erefore, it would have been unlikely that thinkers such as Locke would have
advocated returning to this state of relative openness in adulthood, and consequently
would not have agreed with the artists claim that children necessarily have a more
complete knowledge of nature.
Instructional childrens books that were designed for educating young children at
home began to incorporate scientic subjects soon after the sciences became part of
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7 Ezell, 152.
8 Ibid., 154.
9 Larry Wol", When I Imagine a Child: !e Idea of Childhood and the Philosophy of Memory in
the Enlightenment, Eighteenth-Century Studies 31, no. 4 (1998): 377.
10 Ibid., 380.
11 Angela Rosenthal, Infant Academies and the Childhood of Art: Elisabeth Vige-Lebrun's Julie with
a Mirror, Eighteenth-Century Studies 37, no. 4 (2004): 614.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., 615.
public culture in the eighteenth century. !is was indicative of the fact that scientic
discourse was becoming less controversial amongst adults, and therefore a suitably polite
subject for children.
15
Eighteenth-century children had the unique experience of becoming one of the
rst generations of people to spend their childhoods reading childrens books, and would
later apply this experience to their adult education. Eighteenth-century childrens print
media (particularly science books) was therefore signicant in that it both reected
modern society and a"ected the educational development of the next generation.
Indeed, this unprecedented form of print culture began to foster a new kind of future by
helping to create a new audience, varying in age, class, and gender, for ideological changes
occurring in the eighteenth century. Books such as the popular Evenings at Home (1792
96) by Anna Barbauld and her brother John Aikin, which emphasized aspects of
Enlightenment philosophies such as natural rights and encouraging childrens empirical
inquiries, were widely read among dissenting families, who were not aligned with the
Church of England. Competing for educational space, however, were religious critics such
as Sarah Trimmer, who believed the sciences were too philosophical for children and even
dangerous.
16
Trimmers writings, such as her 1780 book An easy introduction to the
knowledge of nature, and reading the Holy Scriptures, adapted to the capacities of children,
depicted the natural world as awe-inspiring, and full of evidence of divine foresight,
benecence, and design, as opposed to a realm of scientic fact.
17
!e Christian catechism of attributing adult speeches to child characters, used in
literature quite seriously, serves as the contrast to depictions of children performing adult
activities in the infant academies.
18
Traditionally, catechism was a didactic practice that
taught children to give a single, correct, and detailed answer upon being asked a series of
predetermined religious and secular questions by an adult. Little importance was given to
whether the child actually understood the meaning of what they were being asked.
19

Books like Evenings at Home, however, deviated from this formula by basing their
educational schema on more modern ideas of epistemology, such as knowledge being
founded on a partnership of observation (or empiricism) and reason.
20
!rough these
sorts of books, children were not only permitted to read about the sciences, they were
encouraged to participate in the sciences themselves, thereby gaining a richer
understanding than would have been obtained through traditional catechism.
21
While the written content of childrens books openly exemplied the shifting
pedagogical and philosophical values of the eighteenth century, the illustrations and
Rachel Roth
3
15 Aileen Fyfe, Reading Childrens Books in Late Eighteenth-Century Dissenting Families, Te
Historical Journal 43 (2000): 454.
16 Ibid., 460.
17 Ibid.
18 !ese functioned as allegorical explorations of the artist, or were even made in jest.
19 Fyfe, 470.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid.
material nature of childrens books marked many of these shifts in their own right.
22

Lockes theories about the act of reading explain a process wherein a child comes into
contact with initially unintelligible phenomena (i.e. words) and gradually comes to
connect this materiality to tangible things in the world which the child already knows.
23

Brown notes that in suggesting that books ought to have pictures, Locke is not only
acknowledging visual pleasure and the pedagogical uses of pleasure, but more importantly
presenting reading as an encounter between readers and objects.
24
Publishers like
Newbery often produced child-size books, making them both more attractive and
accessible.
25
In this way, educational material literally became something that every child
could handle and make their own. In addition to this basic connection between tangibility
and interactivity there were also movable books called metamorphoses, which had already
been popular for several centuries. Metamorphoses incorporated folded pages that the
reader could open or close to create pictures and follow a narrative, thereby further
participating with the materiality of the book itself.
26
!ese movables became a feature
almost exclusive to childrens books by the nineteenth century, exemplifying what Locke
recognized as the signicance of materiality not only in education, but ultimately in the
identication of children as children rather than as adults in the making.
27
However, Locke did not advocate unquestioning reliance on visual material for
stock knowledge. In the spirit of empiricism, he encouraged child readers to scrutinize the
books and images themselves and, using reason both with and against the material, use
books as a means of developing the skills required to think for oneself.
28
!e adult was
meant to explicate a picture for the child by pointing it out and remarking upon it, and in
this way the child would begin to understand the notion of a frame of reference,
permitting them to compare the material with their previous knowledge or experience.
!e childs discovery of these correlations between print material and the world around
them, between the information in the book and the additional guidance supplied by an
adult, and between the pictures and the print within the material itself all instantiate the
illustrated books role as an initiator of conversation.
29

!e popularity of the material embellishments of childrens books caught on
quickly with eighteenth-century publishers. !is increasing popularity points to the fact
that Lockes theory, which suggested that cognitive acts and development were heavily
inuenced by images, was gaining momentum within the social sphere. Because children
had such little life experience on which to base their knowledge, supplying pictures for
them began to be viewed as a benecial supplement to their education. Images of animals
and natural history in particular came to be viewed as one of the best means of initiating
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22 Gillian Brown, !e Metamorphic Book: Childrens Print Culture in the Eighteenth Century,
Eighteenth-Century Studies 39 (2006): 452.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid., 353.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid., 359.
28 Ibid., 354.
29 Ibid.
the childs learning process. Indeed, Locke advised that as soon as [the child] begins to
spell, as many Pictures of Animals should be got him, as can be found, with the printed
names on them, which at the same time will invite him to read, and a"ord him Matter of
Inquiry and Knowledge.
30

It is worth noting that during the eighteenth century, images of animals referenced
a larger schema of knowledge. !ey did not only provide a simple visual aid in early
education; realistic pictures of animals were vital for the studies of natural scientists.
Animals that could not be brought to Europe were mobilized across continents in the
form of paintings and drawings that could be used as a kind of proxy to aid in careful
empirical study.
31
!e curator Charissa Bremer-David remarks that Jean-Baptiste
Oudrys 1750 painting Rhinoceros communicates the impressive volume and mass of the
rhino, the folds and textures of its thick skin . . . the alert tension of its ears held upright,
and its three-toed, padded hooves . . . [It embodies] the essential empirical experience
demanded by Enlightenment principles.
32
!e scientic necessity of this sort of image
demonstrates that what was useful in the education of an eighteenth-century child
became critical in the education of an eighteenth-century adult: an accurate
understandingempirically gleanedof the natural world.
Natural history was a relatively new literary subject in the eighteenth century, yet
the literary use of animals had existed as early as the fables of Aesop, and illustrated
catalogues of animals called bestiaries had been printed as well.
33
Bestiaries, however,
were ill-researched by empirical standards and contained information obtained largely
through tales, rumours, and ancient authorities.
34
It has been suggested that myth and
legend occasionally found their way into eighteenth-century works, to make lessons more
appealing to children.
35
For instance, mythical creatures such as the unicorn appeared in
the 1730 and 1795 editions of A Description of Tree Hundred Animals.
36
As Ritvo
explains, however, the only reason we know this work was intended for children at all is
because it is stated in the preface
37
otherwise the book is virtually indistinguishable
from animal books written for adults.
38

In the spirit of Locke, children were better o" being enticed to read rather than
forced, and topics such as animals (or other products of natural history) were assumed to
Rachel Roth
5
30 Brown, 353.
31 Martin Rudwick, Picturing Nature in the Age of Enlightenment, Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society 149 (2005): 303.
32 Hal Opperman, review of Oudrys Painted Menagerie: Portraits of Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century
Europe, ed. Mary R. Morton, College Art Association 5 (2008):15.
33 Ritvo, 7273.
34 Ibid., 73.
35 Diane L. Barlow, Special Books Section: Children, Books, and Biology, BioScience 41 (1991): 166.
36 Ibid.
37 Ritvo, 7374.
38 !e preface states the following: [Most] of the books which have been made use of to introduce
children into a habit of reading, being such as tend rather to cloy than entertain them; I have thought t, with
short descriptions of animals, and pictures fairly drawn . . . to engage their attention. Boreman, A Description
of Tree Hundred Animals (London, 1795).
be intrinsically interesting to children and thus ideal tools for educational practice.
39

Authors of such books tended to focus on the elements that were perceived as most
interesting to children. !e physiognomy of baboons, for example, was described in vivid
detail; however, many authors also discussed the moral character of animals, even relating
at length how baboons attacked people.
40

While perhaps initially surprising to the contemporary reader, the inclusion of
several mythical creatures in A Description of Tree Hundred Animals highlights the works
empirical goals and motives. For instance, the description of a unicorn begins, !e
Unicorn, a beast, which, though doubted of by many writers, yet is by others thus
described.
41
!ough the work does include mythical creatures, Ritvo argues that it does
not constitute mere fantasy, like bestiaries. Instead of using the unicorn, or any other
animal, as a functional anecdote for morality or another aspect of human life, Boreman
appeals to the empirical curiosity of the time, assuming that readers were interested in
learning about the nature of the animals themselves as opposed to being purely interested
in them allegorically.
42
Ritvo further notes that Boremans descriptions, like those of later
authors, focused on the animals means of survival, physical characteristics, tendencies,
disposition, moral character, and potential usefulness to man.
43

Animal books, in addition to both catering to and fostering a childs scientic
curiosity, also gave lessons on social structure and the ultimate role of animalsto be
utilized by humans.
44
Ritvo explains that mans domination over animals was considered
justied because men had the privileged ability to reason while animals could only act on
instinct, even those animals that seemed to be capable of performing human-like
behaviours. !is perceived di"erence between rational premeditation and instinctual
action was an impenetrable boundary line between men and animals.
45
Any animal that
challenged the supremacy of man was remarked upon with great interest but also fear, and
the descriptions of such animals generally contained some sort of moral reprehension.
Curiously, many of the illustrations in Boremans book have strikingly human-like facial
features, particularly the lions and apes. Perhaps this speaks to the transitional nature of
childrens books: in trying to move from allegorical to factual depictions of animals, many
were still anthropomorphized in their descriptionsespecially regarding their moral
character, particularly towards humansand it is reasonable to infer that this would
translate into the images as well. Most childrens literature advocated being kind to
animals, however human needs came rst and thus animals could still be economically
exploited.
46
!is is evident in the special section on whaling added to the 1795 edition of
A Description of Tree Hundred Animals, which includes a fold-out drawingpresumably
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39 Ritvo, 76.
40 Ritvo, 74.
41 Boreman, 6.
42 Ritvo, 76.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid., 81.
46 Ibid., 82.
in order to evoke some of the enthusiasm generated by metamorphoses booksdepicting
the hunting of whales and what appears to be a seal or walrus.
Whaling, in the late eighteenth century, represented the Enlightenment spirit of
striving for improvement through its demand for both technical and social
advancement.
47
!is required the demonstration of mans superiority over nature through
technological and intellectual developments. !e shery business o" the coast of
Greenland was a dangerous enterprise, but very economically rewarding for Britain when
successful. William Scoresby, a captain, made signicant improvements through a pact
wherein he provided biological specimens, obtained privately from voyages to the
Greenland Seas, to scientists.
48
In doing so, Scoresby also perpetuated the discourse of
Rachel Roth
7
47 Michael Bravo, Geographies of Exploration and Improvement: William Scoresby and Arctic
Whaling, 17821822, Journal of Historical Geography 32 (2006): 512.
48 Ibid.
Fig. 1. Te Greenland Whale Fishery, 1795. Copper plate. From !omas Boreman, A Description of Above Tree
Hundred Animals (London: A. Millar and W. Law, 1795), 148. Photographed by Daniel Ralston. Courtesy of UBC
Rare Books and Special Collections. Call number: PZ6 1795 D483.
mans domination of animals. !e geographer Michael Bravo explains that squaring the
physical su"ering endured by human and animal in the history of whale shing was no
trivial matter. !e widely accepted moral sanction for using animals to better the human
condition was that Providence demanded of people that they hunt whales and
manufacture their oil and baleen.
49
Including a special section on a subject that
contained so many nationalistic, moral, social, and scientic implications in a childrens
book permitted the introduction of important themes to children through a written
description while actively engaging them with fold-out drawings. !e main focus of the
image is the ship with the British ag clearly displayed, while shermen harpoon sea life
all around. However, the killing is not graphic; therefore the central element of the scene
appears to be the depiction of successful national industry rather than the wildlife itself.
!is interpretation is supported by the fact that the picture portrays none of the dangers
that occur in the Arctic: the sea is calm, the men are all alive, and appear to have full
control over nature and its animals.
Other childrens books were not so quick to endorse unquestioning devotion to
Britain. Evenings at Home was particularly anti-war and promoted the idea that children,
and therefore the parents reading with their children, ought to be discontented with the
governement [sic]
50
during periods of war, acting as thoughtful, critical observers of the
national condition, and even encouraged voicing resistance.
51
!is radicalism hinges on
demystication, an Enlightenment tactic of calling things by their right names, which
allowed children to discover the truth about gloried war and adventuring practices.
52
!e
materiality of the book itself, by educating children within a domestic space, suggests that
social and political change ought to begin at home.
Regardless of their political stripe, writers and publishers of childrens books gave
children the skills and opportunity for participation within Enlightenment discourse. !e
proliferation of this genre of print culture in the eighteenth century marked the
movement towards the changed notion of childhood as a life stageas informed by
Lockes theoriesand the eventual creation of a new, larger generation of adult learners
who had the advantage of an epistemology founded on the words, pictures, and forms of
their childhood books.
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49 Bravo, 530.
50 Michelle Levy, !e Radical Education of Evenings at Home, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 19 (2006):
123.
51 Ibid., 127.
52 Ibid., 132.