ABSTRACT
In the Century of the Child, apart from the neo-romantic enchantment of the child by Key and her adherents, child and education were influenced by a development from the 16th century which started with science and theology, and named by Max Weber Entzauberung, i.e. disenchantment. This chapter briefly provides the meaning of this development for the history of pedagogical youth care. It then looks at the residential pedagogical youth care before the start of the Century of the Child. The chapter also provides a true story about the end of romanticism and the start of Disenchantment. It examines the acceleration of the disenchantment process around 1900 by the introduction of Child Acts and the emergence of Child Science. The chapter concludes that the 20th century should not be coined as the Century of the Child, but rather as the Child-Oriented Century.
