Childhood

CRITIQUE OF ARIES’ in
Historical
THESIS Perspectiv
es, part II
 CONTENT

 Aries’ methodological problems

 Turning point 1: Discoveries during the middle Ages
 Turning point 2: Agrarian revolution and the rise of cities
(C10 th -14 th )
 Turning point 3: From apprentice to school system (C15 -18 th )
 Turning point 4: From the classical model to the liberal model
in China (C 14 th )
 Turning point 5: The Age of Education: “Child of Nature” (C
18 th- 19 th )
 ARIES’
METHODOLOGICAL
PROBLEMS
 A NEW FIELD: HISTORY OF CHILDHOOD

 Since Aries’ work on children, there has been a growing

literature on the history of children and childhood.
 BBC documentary: Children of the Middle Ages
 ART AND LIFE

 NO direct correspondence between art and life

 The portrayed is not a mirror of what actually is, but rather …
 An interpretation of an event, person, or existence.
 Art is reality filtered through the varied lens
 THE FUNCTION OF PAINTING

 Modern paintings (and other visual media):

 Expression of subjective feeling and imagination
 Depicting the living environment
 Medieval paintings
 Delivering rank, status and manner
 Following established rules
 Neither about painters’ mentality nor social reality
 Why babies in medieval paintings look like ugly old men ?
[Video]
 RELIGIOUS THEME

 Expression of the same religious

status of Virgin Mary and Jesus
 “homunculus”

Mary, Queen of Heaven, and Child.

Manuscript Illumination (Medieval period).
 EXISTENCE IN MEDIA OR IN REALIT Y?

 Personal sentiments towards children and related ideas were

not expressed in print and visual media.
 The visual or textual absence does not mean that it did not
exist in reality.
 SENSITIVITIES TO INSTITUTIONAL
ENVIRONMENT
 “Children” is a social construct and physical being as well.
 Varied forms of awareness of children have long existed.
 There are always institutions regulating children in all
societies and times.
 Examples: Families, Educational units, Law, etc.
"Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s "Children's Games" [Painting],” 1560
 Playing doll

A detailed illustration of
children’s play and games
Fence riding

Mock Wedding
 INTERPRETATION OF “CHILDREN’S GAMES”

 A religious theme
 In the eyes of God, … … (bird-eyes view)
 Children played their games and toys seriously
 In the eyes of God, children, like adult, are absorbed in their foolish
games and concerns.
 A popular theme of Flemish (Belgian Dutch) literature.
 REFRAMING THE QUESTION

 Not about whether we had an awareness of childhood, but

about … ...
 How children were/are perceived, conceptualized and
regulated in dif ferent human environment and af fective
worlds (Hsiung 2005;熊秉真 1993).
 Human environment: a set of institutions (family, school,
church, communities, etc.)
 How did these perceptions, concepts and regulations change in
different times and from different places ? What are the turning
points?
 Discoveries
TURNING POINT 1 during the
middle Ages
 HISTORICAL “DISCOVERIES”

 Monastic education 修道院教育

 Medieval concept of children
 MONASTIC EDUCATION

 Monasticism since the 3th century ( Pachomius the Great)

 The medieval custom of parents handing over a child to the
Church and monasteries.
 Young oblates af filiated themselves with a monastic
community of their choice .
 Knowledge:
 Studying the Bible and theological knowledge;
 Learning Latin
 Acquiring the skills for religious practices and rituals
 MONASTERY

 A complex of buildings comprising the

domestic quarters and workplaces of
monastics
 A place reserved for prayer which may
be a chapel, church or temple, and may
also serve as an oratory. 講道
 A group of monks or nuns af filiated
with mendicant orders 修道會
 A training ground for clergymen
 The origins of modern convent schools
St. Joseph‘s Seminary and Church, Macau (built in 1728)
ACADEMICALS
 RELIGIOUS VIRTUES

 The religious virtues were highly regarded

by monks and priests:
 “he [boy] does not persist in anger; he does
not bear a grudge; he takes no delight in the
beauty of women; and he expresses what he
truly believes”. [St Columban, 6 th century]
 MEDIEVAL CONCEPT OF CHILDREN

 European had concepts of “Childhood” and even developed

emotional ties with children in the Middle Ages.
 The medieval concepts of “Childhood” look strange (or even
weird) and dif ferent from the modern and contemporary
perspectives.
 Although prior to the seventeenth century children were
viewed dif ferently from today, there nevertheless existed a
perception of their distinctiveness.
 Concepts of childhood were usually intertwined with religious
belief and social custom
1. Discoveries of
childhood in the
middle ages
 Agrarian
revolution

TURNING POINT 2 and the

rise of
cities
(C10 th -14 th )
 AGRARIAN REVOLUTION

 In the early medieval period, the

concept of children did exist along
with religious concepts of human
and human relations.
 10 th century -13 th century: “Agrarian
revolution”
 The relative abundant supply of
staple food
 Trade in the Mediterranean
flourished
 THE RISE OF CIT Y

 Towns and cities recovered from famines and wars in northern

Italy, Flanders, the Low countries and France.
 More resources devoted to education and health for children.
 Leading to the rise of the Renaissance cities in the C 14 th -17 th
(Florence, Venice, Genoa, …)
 RENAISSANCE

 Material abundance
 Revival of Hellenism (including its
aesthetic sentiment about children)
 Humanism and interest in the value
of individual
 Example: the popularity of “putto”
 EXAMPLE: CUPID

 Cupid as a young man in the

ancient Greek mythology
 Cupid was transformed into a
chubby male baby or kid to
represent love and innocence.
1. Discoveries of
childhood in the
middle ages

2. The Rise of
Cities
 From
apprentice
TURNING POINT 3 to school
system
(C15-18 th )
APPRENTICE SYSTEM IN THE MIDDLE AGES

 Aries “From the Medieval to Modern Family”

 “Putting out” system
 Both boys and girls, usually aged 7, were sent to hard service in the
houses of other people, binding them generally for another seven or
nine years.
 An ambivalent role: apprentice (in modern sense), boarder and
servant
 English: 'wayting servant'- 'waiter’
 French: “garçon” –boy or “café waiter” (in derogatory sense)
 LEARNING BY PRACTICE

 Master-servant relationship
 Learning a trade or profession in daily practices.
 Yet, no clear definition of the trade or profession
 No clear distinction between
 professional and private life
 professional learning and domestic service
 CHILDREN AND ADULT

 Children were mingled with adults in work, private and public

life.
 Children were not subject to any specialized social
institutions.
 Children’s education was entrusted through apprenticeship to
adults
 EDUCATION AND MEANINGS OF LIFE

 Literary knowledge was not the key element

 “Social skills”
 To make a success of life was less to make a fortune, than to
win a more honourable standing in a society whose members
all saw one another, heard one another and met one another
nearly every day.
 The origin of “socialite”: a celebrity highly regarded in the
upper class society
 THE ROLE OF FAMILY

 Children “escaped” from their own family.

 Family was unable to nourish a deep emotional bond between
parents and children.
 “The family scarcely had a sentimental existence at all among
the poor; and where there was wealth and ambition, the
sentimental concept of the family was inspired by that which
the old lineal relationships had produced .”
 THE RISE OF SCHOOL EDUCATION

 Since the 15 th century, apprenticeship

was increasingly replaced by school
education
 Schooling expanded from clerics to the
whole society.
 In the 17 th century, there was a debate on
the (dis-)advantages of school education
and many people held that education at
home under a tutor was preferable.
 FAMILY AND CHILDREN

 The ties between the schoolboy and his family had tightened.
 Modern family developed around the couple and children
 The tightened family bond became a force to perpetuate the
spread of school:
 Parents gave pressures to the city magistrates, churches and
mendicant orders to found more and more schools in order to bring
them closer to the pupils' homes.
 THE SPREAD OF SCHOOLING

 It was extended firstly to the middle class, the urban residents

with background in commerce, trade and government
administration.
 The families of nobility and artisan were faithful to
apprentice-ship until the C 17 th .
 The working class families continued to rely on apprenticeship
until the C 19 th (after the Industrial Revolution)
 FAMILY AFFECTION

 Since the Middle Ages, the privilege of

one child (usually the oldest one), to
avoid the dangerous division of an
estate and to protect lineal solidarity
had been practiced.
 However, since the C 17, this practice
had been challenged and a new concept
of equal rights to family af fection
developed and advocated by moralists
and educators.
 Parents were/ are encouraged to
develop emotional ties to all their
children equally and deeply.
 3. From apprentice to
1. Discoveries of schooling system
childhood in the
middle ages

2. The Rise of
Cities
 From the
classical

TURNING POINT 4 model to

the liberal
model in
China
 CLASSICAL MODEL I

 Philosophical works, literary notes, family records and

biographical accounts abound with concerns for and opinion
about children.
 Traditional Confucianism (BC C8th)
 The Book of Rites
 Child-rearing by stages and gender
 Focus of early education: practical and social skills
 Literary skill after nine
 INSTRUCTIVE LITERATURE

 Cultivation, treatment, handling and nurturing techniques

 They function as socioethnic and ritual transmission
 Molding and leading children into
 a culturally meaningful shape
 conforming to social customs and moral order
 About what children “should do/ be” and what adult “should
do” about children
 THE BOOK OF RITES

• 子能食食，教以右手。能言，男唯女俞。男鞶革，女鞶絲。 六年教之
數與方名。七年男女不同席，不共食。八年出入
門戶及即席飲食，必後長者，始教之讓。九年教
之數日。
• As soon as a child is taking solid food, he/she should be instructed to
use his/her right hand. When he/she can talk, he/she should be taught
the wei sound and yu sound. He wears leather sachet and she wears
silk sachet. At the age of six, he/she is taught to count numbers and
recognize directions. At seven, boys and girls no longer eat at the same
table. At eight, children are taught to follow and respect their elders in
traveling and meals. At nine, children are taught calendar.
 CLASSICAL MODEL II

 Neo-Confucianism (Song, 11 th century)

 School of Li 理學(Zhu Xi 朱熹)
 Further development of the classical model
 Repressing human (children’s) desires and impulses
 Emphasis on disciplines and self-disciplines
 Early-start program
 COMMERCIAL- URBAN REVOLUTION

 Rapid development of money economy and increased

likelihood of social mobility
 Economic and cultural development (political development
later as well) moved to the eastern part of China ( Jiangnan
region 江南)
 The rise of cities in Jiangnan: Yangzhou, Hangzhou, Suzhou
PROLIFERATION OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

 Spread of private schools for early child education since the

Song period
 Publications and uses of elementary education texts (Genre of
Xunmengshu “elementary instructive book” 訓蒙書)
 Thousand Character Classic 千字文 (C6 th )
 The Book of Three Characters 三字經 (Song)
 Disciples Regulation 弟子規 (Qing)
 LIBERAL MODEL

 Neo-Confucianism (Ming, C14 th )

 School of Xin 心學
 Wang Yang Ming 王陽明 and Li Zhi 李贄
 The innate goodness of children is highly
regarded as the core and origin of morality
 Learning and social custom potentially corrupt a
person’s inherited innate goodness.
 Cultivation aims at preserve and recover one’s
innate goodness
 孟子：「大人者，不失其赤子之心者也。」
Mencius: “A great person would not lose his
innocent heart of child”.
 CHILD OF GOOD NATURE

 「今教童子必使其趨向鼓舞，中心喜悅，則其進自不能已。譬之
時雨春風沾被卉木，莫不萌動發越，自然日長月化，若冰霜剝落，
則生意蕭索，日就枯槁矣。」（王陽明，《訓蒙大意》）
 “Now we have to educate children to be cheerful and self-
confident. With a joyful heart, he/she could improve
himself/herself persistently. This way works like rainfall in
wet season and spring breeze nurturing flowers and trees.
They sprout and blossom steadily and naturally. They would
lose their vitality and wither in the austerity of winter.”
(Wang Yang-ming, Outlines of Early Education )

 A notion about what children already are and what they can
naturally be
 STEPS OF TEACHING

 Induced by poems and songs 誘之以詩歌

 Guided by rites 導之以禮
 Enlightened by reading texts 諷之以讀書
 THE FOLK TRADITION

 Baizi Tu 百子圖 for celebration of Lunar New Year: “The more

sons, the more blessings” 多子多福
 Yingxi Tu 嬰戲圖
 For blessings and celebration
 Amusement of children’s play
 Admiration of children’s curiosity, sharp observation and innocence
村童鬧學圖・宋
Children playing at school, Song
嬰戲庭院圖・宋
Children playing in courtyard, Song
木板畫・清 Woodcuts, Qing
 TURNING POINT IN CHINA

 Ming-Qing period (C 14 th -19 th )

 With regard to the treatment of children, there had been
increasing tensions and contradictory directions since the
Song period, especially during the Ming -Qing period.
 The mainstream and formal institutions (patriarch s of elite
families, schools and orthodox texts) largely follow the
classical model.
 The folk culture and dissenters advocated and held liberal
model.
 QUESTIONS FOR TUTORIAL DISCUSSION

 Any relatives did you live with when you were a child? What
were their roles in your family life and personal growth? How
was your relationship with them?
 Do you have any siblings? How would you characterize your
relationship with them?
 Any similarities or dif ferences from the children in the Ming -
Qing period?
 QUESTIONS FOR TUTORIAL DISCUSSION

 What has happened to children after the variety of adults

responsible for bringing up children is reduced to a few?
 What is the importance of “motherly figures” to a kid? How
about “fatherly figures”?
 How would you characterize the emotional ties between father
and children?
 What is child’s experience of “death”?
 What are the sources of children’s joys (games? Family
gathering?) and pains (punishment? Homework?)
 QUESTIONS FOR TUTORIAL DISCUSSION

 With reference to Hsiung (2005)/ 熊秉真(1993), please

identify and analyze the turning point of childhood (in terms
of emotional investment and the emotional world) in Chinese
societies from the Ming -Qing era to the contemporary period.
 4. From classical model to liberal
model (China)

3. From apprentice to
1. Discoveries of schooling system
childhood in the
middle ages

2. The Rise of
Cities
 The Age of
Education:
TURNING POINT 5 “Child of
Nature” (C
18 th- 19 th )
 EARLY CHRISTIAN VIEW: ORIGINAL SIN

 “Innately evil and corrupt”

 Doctrine of “Original Sin”
 e.g. St. Augustine (354-430)'s Confessions that a child is harmless
only because he is physically too weak to hurt an adult, and if he is
not controlled in this tender state, will rise against his parents as
soon as his strength permits.
 CHRISTIAN VIEW IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

Glorification of innocence
e.g. Thomas Traherne (1637-1674)
“Of joys! O there my ravish’d sense
Was enter tain’d in Paradise,
And had a sight of innocence
Which was beyond all bound and price.

An antepast of Heaven sure!

I on the ear th did reign;
Within, without me, all was pure;
I must become a child again.”

Innocence
 ENLIGHTENMENT

 An intellectual movement starting from the latter half of the

17 th century to the 18 th century
 A new passion for argument, criticism and debate
 Highest aspirations and possibilities of REASON
 NEW CONCEPTS OF HUMAN BEING

 Individuals are autonomous and rational, should have rights

and responsibilities, and are capable of participating in
political life
 It was this conception of human beings that brought about
the distinction between adults and children.
 JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

 English philosopher
 One of the most influential of
Enlightenment thinkers
 "Father of Liberalism“
 A video
SOME THOUGHTS CONCERNING EDUCATION
(1693)
 A guide concerned with preparing the mind
for the intellectual development analyzed
in An Essay on Human Understanding.
 Some advices for “gentlemen’s sons”
 TABULA RASA (BLANK SLATE)

 The blank slate/white paper image stems from Locke in the

seventeenth century, but it is not until the eighteenth that it
acquires its expanded meaning and becomes a stock
metaphor to describe children.
 The metaphors of soft wax, water, and fertile little garden
plots all depict children as passive objects under the sanguine
control of adults.
“Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper,
void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be
furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy
and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost
endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and
knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience.”

Experience: external sensation and internal

reflection
 RESPONSE TO RATIONALISM

 Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

“There are ideas (for instance those of
God, Mind, Body, or the Triangle) whose
truth may be recognized by the light of
reason alone and could thus be called
“innate”.”
 IMPLICATIONS OF TABULA RASA

 Locke of fers the comforting assurance that a child can be

"moulded and fashioned as one pleases."
 Child is malleable
 The shift, represented by Locke, signals a change in the
image of the child's nature, but also in the expected
relationship between parent and child.
 “RATIONAL CREATURES”

 "but not that one should debate with them as if they were
adults. They are not, however, animals (as in the Aristotelian
framework) nor are they incapable of understanding any
incentive but the purely physical one of pain.”

 "They must not be hindred from being Children, or from

playing, or doing as Children, but from doing ill; all other
Liberty is to be allowed them”
 “CHILD OF NATURE”

 Locke provided a new and fertile set of imagery about

children
 Cultivating children’s reason in accordance with their
developmental stages
 Cultivating children’s ability to practice freedom ( children’s
agency)
 Childhood: a distinct period between infancy and maturity
 EXAMPLE: OBJECTION TO CORPORAL
PUNISHMENT
 The beating of children is "a sort of
Slavish Discipline which makes a
Slavish Temper”.

 “who, however with his unnatural

Sobriety may please silly People
who commend tame unactive
Children, because they make no
Noise, nor give the many Trouble:
yet, at last, will probably prove as
uncomfortable a thing to his
Friends as he will be all his Life, an
useless thing to himself and
others”
 THE AGE OF EDUCATION

 Ideas on education, curriculum and teaching methods for

children
 Previously was confined to manuals for princes and aristocrats
 Spread to popular journalism and literature
 Locke’s writings on children and education inspired a plenty
of publications on this topic.
 EDUCATION AS A SOCIAL PROCESS

 Social morality is intended to produce:

 Virtuous
 Useful
 Able men
 Formation of solid and respectable citizens.
 DISCIPLINE AND SELF -DISCIPLINE

 Example:
 Locke insists that a child's shoes should be "so thin that they might
leak and let in Water, when ever he comes near it" (p. 118, sect. 7).
His reasoning is that the ill effects suffered from wet feet are due
only to habit, and that
 if one went barefoot like the poor children, it would prove no more
harmful than having wet hands.
 However, if one wore highly protective shoes , it would give children a
wrong impression that playing with water was only joyful and not harmful
at all.
 4. From classical model to liberal
model (China)

3. From apprentice to
1. Discovery of schooling system
childhood in the
middle ages

2. The Rise of
Cities

5. The Age of
Education
CONCLUDING REMARKS
 DISCOVERIES OF CHILDHOOD

 DiscoverIES of childhood rather than THE discovery of

childhood
 Many slow and profound transformations and revolution in
treatment of children
 They could be dated back to pre -modern (or early modern) era
and non-western countries.
 Intensive emotional investment came first and then
systematic knowledge followed.