to the body’s hidden anatomy, to the child’s soul and the cosmological forces of the universe. This developmental trajectory anticipates a child reader who slowly adds abstract thinking to observation and manual dexterity. Readers acquire these abilities mentored by a world designed by God to anticipate children’s biological development and transform humanity in a Transcendental progression, popular among Hooker’s New England literary contemporaries.
Another developmental gesture common across science writing is the power of the small. Hooker tenderly points out the humble features of plants, and draws parallels between children, who seem insignificant yet are capable of important discoveries, and plant ecosystems, which perform amazing feats in aggregation. “Every child, in doing little kind things, may, like the small leaf, do its part of the good that is to be done in the world (1864, p. 79). Buckley’s Fairy-Land of Science (1840) uses fairies and wizards as science teachers. In its sequel, Through Magic Glasses, and Other Lectures (1840), the wizards help children perform their own experiments with telescopes and microscopes.3 Fairies, moths, and insects are favorite narrators, because they show children that small creatures see what big people miss. Mary Ward, one of three women permitted on the mailing list for the Royal Astronomical Society (which she as a woman could not join), discusses insect morphology in A World of Wonders Revealed by the Microscope, and Mary Howitt, author of the poem “The Spider and the Fly,” awakens a love for nature in the youngest children through poetry on birds and flowers. Small things change as they grow, allowing children to observe their own transformation modeled in another creature. In Life and Her Children (1881), Arabella Buckley, a popular author who assisted geologist Charles Lyell, connects human life with everything from Mother Earth to microscopic sea creatures, running the full range from cosmic to atomic. Women writers often create diminutive teacher characters to speak for them. L.M. Budgen authored Episodes of Insect Life (1849–1851) under the Latin pseudonym Acheta Domestica, or house cricket; Margaret Gatty, an amateur marine biologist, writes from the perspective of animals and insects who tell their stories; and Mary Mapes Dodge in St. Nicholas (1873–1940) writes from the perspective of Jack in the Pulpit.4 Small narrators helped women writers perform a humble public persona, at a time when women scientists remained barred from joining any major professional society, then faced backlash from male authors when their children’s writing earned public accolades and financial rewards (Norcia 2010, pp. 7–10).
Over the century’s literature, mothers as rational, human-sized teachers decline in favor of diminutive fairies; concurrently, the split between science and religion allows for the emergence of a secular language of wonder and magic. At the beginning of the century, “scientific material seemed to be perfectly suited to the task of education and training the mind while inculcating a belief in God,” explains Alan Rauch, and children learned that “science and religion were harmonious” (1989, p. 14). But as evidence mounted supporting evolution and the Earth’s geological formation, science writing turned away from investigating nature for evidence of God and instead described feelings inspired by nature. “Facts as mere facts, are dry and barren,” advises Arabella Buckley, “but nature is full of life and love, and her calm unswerving rule is tending to some great though hidden purpose” (quoted in Rauch 1989, p. 17). Using rhetorical strategies once castigated as Deist (but now acceptably devout), Buckley refers obliquely to “nature’s God” and an “Unseen Power,” and encourages children’s spiritual feelings over dogma.
Other writers reconcile science and religion by the once unthinkable solution of relegating each to its own sphere. D.W. Godding assures readers in First Lessons in Geology (1847) that geology is “a witness to the truth of God,” yet quickly acknowledges, “The bible was given for our spiritual benefit, … but it was not intended for a book of science, and therefore does not treat at large upon scientific matters” (1847, p. 11). Godding’s near separation of science and religion, now commonplace, prepares the way for science writing that sets aside religion entirely while still expressing awe before sublime forces. But as Kathleen McDowell (McDowell and Nappo 2012) demonstrates, certain science topics such as evolution emerged as controversial hot spots even as religious reflections diminished, and publishers strove to satisfy two bifurcated audiences.
Geography, Travel, and History
What science writers like Hooker accomplish through developmental narratives, travel writers accomplish through spatial narratives. By organizing information by the child’s location, travel writing shows that everyday chance encounters present learning opportunities, a flexible approach reflected in their wide-ranging curricula. Travel writing teaches geography and foreign cultures or “manners,” but just as often extends to natural history, trade, regional products, popular tourist sites, and local history – sometimes all in the same volume, unified by the child explorer, after the fashion of a picaro novel.
Travel books for children lie on a spectrum between fiction and nonfiction (a matter of little importance to audiences of the time), with fictional family characters who narrate factual travel information. The fictional framework is the means for adapting eclectic source material from salty travel accounts for adults into books deemed appropriate for children. In her Preface to Juvenile Travellers (1801), Priscilla Wakefield frankly advertises her sources for European travels as “Brydone, Cox, Moore, Radcliffe, Southey, and Thickness.” While these authorities guarantee the quality of her work, such adult travel books are “unfit” for children, “many of them containing passages of an immoral tendency, or treating upon subjects above their comprehension” (p. iii–iv). Indeed, Wakefield, the highest paid of publisher Harvey Darton’s talents, built her reputation as a naturalist by her expert reformulation of Linnaean classification from sexual organs to nations, tribes, and families, which children might inspect with propriety (George 2007). Her geography books perform a similar service. The practice of compiling from multiple sources accounts for the heteroglossia (or patchwork of forms) in children’s travel writing. Wakefield’s books piece together commentary from her third-person narrator, letters from one sibling to another, excerpts from family journals, stories read from books, and accounts quoted from fellow travelers. Skillful authors gain authority through purposeful, judicious borrowing, which creates interlocutor moments when books show children how to write about their travels, collect anecdotes from other travelers, and engage in journaling.
The territory covered by travel writing and geography books ranges from regional day trips to circumnavigation of the globe. On a local scale, rural walks – a cross between travel literature and science writing – explore chance lessons offered by neighborhood rambles. Popularized with Sarah Trimmer’s An Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature and Reading the Holy Scriptures (1780), the rural walk features an adult instructor who converses with young siblings about the natural world, providing a mix of scientific detail and moral lessons. Successors to Trimmer include Charlotte Smith’s Rural Walks (1795), Rambles Further (1796), and Minor Morals (1798) and Jane Webb Loudon’s Glimpses of Nature (1844) and the Young Naturalist’s Journey (1840). Many of these stories borrow from John Aiken’s “Eyes, and No Eyes; or, the Art of Seeing” (1793), in which two boys report opposite experiences of a country walk: the first boy gets bored and walks straight home, while the second collects curious specimens on a meandering ramble, and presents his findings to his father with questions (Ruwe 2014, pp. 108–120). Other books adopt a strain from William Paley’s Natural Theology (1802), which begins with the discovery of a pocket watch on a country walk. Paley’s argument (that nature provides attentive observers with evidence for divine creation) was adapted into a rural walk narrative for children in Maria Hack’s Harry Beaufoy, or, the Pupil of Nature (1821) and Priscilla Wakefield’s Instinct Displayed (1811).5
If traveling about the neighborhood tends to teach natural history, touring Britain favors national character, regional history, and commerce. The four siblings in Priscilla Wakefield’s A Family Tour Through the British Empire (1804) describe precisely how they travel through each town from England through the Lake Country, where the boys head for Scotland and Ireland, while the girls tour Wales before they rejoin and
