Introduction The English Middle Classes of the Late Eighteenth Century and the Impetus for Pedagogical Reform

A market for a variety of literatures specifically designed to cater to the pedagogical needs of children emerged in the second half of the eighteenth century out of a complex nexus of historical, economic, social and cultural factors unique to this period in England. The onset of the industrial revolution, the democratic revolutions in America and France, and the rationalization of the sciences and of medical practices ushered in radical changes to class relations and led to the formation of new subject categories, among them the modern child. Instrumental in these developments were the middle classes who generated the vast majority of the pedagogical and pediatric literature, as well as the children's books proper, which defined the child-subject and situated it within a changing set of discourses.