ABSTRACT
Policies towards children in this period may be divided into twobroad time-spans: 1500-1750 and 1750-1860. What marks out the second of these is the scale of the involvement of central governments. But in both periods there were two common underlying issues which forced voluntary organisations and governments into formulating and operating policies towards children. The first of these was that children were being born whom parents were unwilling or unable to rear. They might be illegitimate or orphans, but they might quite as likely be the children of married couples. The second issue was that of schooling, and the increasing sense that it might be desirable to extend it to entire populations.
