ABSTRACT
Thomas Day (1748–89) is rarely remembered for his political activities and writings. 1 If his name means anything at all it is probably as the author of a celebrated work for children, and as the designer of a somewhat bizarre experiment in social engineering. His book The History of Sandford and Merton, published in three volumes between 1783 and 1789, enjoyed considerable success. It was essentially a collection of fables incorporated in a morally edifying account of the adventures of two boys, one a spoilt product of privileged background, the other a humbler child of innate goodness whose example had an appropriately improving effect on his young friend. Like Mrs Barbauld and Mrs Trimmer, Day tapped a rich vein of contemporary interest in the education of children and provided generations of Victorians with a suitable grounding in juvenile morality. Sandford and Merton was still popular with parents more than a century after its first appearance. Interest in its author's youthful experiment has survived even longer. His intention, nothing less than a practical essay in sentimental education, was unusual rather for the lengths to which he took it than for its inherent originality; attempts to practise at least some of Rousseau's precepts in Emile were not uncommon among bourgeois parents in the 1760s and 1770s. But Day's scheme, executed jointly with his friend John Bicknell, required the upbringing of two female orphans, who were expected to develop as perfect examples of enlightened education, and in due course, perhaps, provide proper partners for their mentors. The experiment turned out far less badly than it might have done. One of the girls was discharged at an early stage with suitable financial provision for her marriage. The education of the other, named by her guardians Sabrina Sidney, ran its full course. Day's standards of femininity proved higher than she could attain even under his own tuition, but she eventually married Bicknell, and lived to be embarrassed, though not, it seems, mentally scarred by her experience. 2 Day's reputation was unmarred by anything worse (or better) than impractical high-mindedness, and the whimsical annals of late eighteenth-century sensibility gained only an additional instance of eccentric virtue.
