ABSTRACT
The end of the Victorian period and the early twentieth century brought dramatic changes in the way juveniles were perceived by writers and commentators. Under the influence of the new discipline of sociology, contemporary debate increasingly saw adolescence as a key event in the growth of maturity. Stanley Hall’s 1904 treatise, Adolescence: Its Psychology and its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education, was both a turning point and a culmination of interest in adolescence. This surge in interest enthused a new generation of public school authors to reassess the genre, a process that led some, at least on the surface, to reject what had gone before completely. In Kipling’s Stalky (1899), ‘Eric’ is a byword for Victorian priggery. Desmond Coke’s The Bending of a Twig (1906) also demolishes earlier school stories for their lack of veracity by describing a boy whose father is not a public school man preparing to enter Shrewsbury by reading Eric, Tom Brown, St Dominic’s and even Stalky itself. The boy makes an utter fool of himself at school by aping the behavior of these stories’ heroes. In this chapter, I will discuss how sociological theories at the turn of the century dealt with adolescence and how public school writers and commentators responded to these developments. First, I will outline the aims of the ‘National Efficiency’ movement, which sought to apply Social Darwinist principles to education, and describe turn-of-the century approaches to adolescence used by sociologists. I will then show how a number of boys’ writers responded to this movement and consider in particular the role of fatherhood and other male relationships in constructing ideas of eugenically responsible citizenship at this time.
