ABSTRACT
The developing spirit of humanity in educational theory in the eighteenth century, as represented by the doctrines of Locke and Rousseau, contrasts sharply with the harshness of then current laws and punishments relating to petty delinquency and minor deviations from social standards of conduct. The presence of beggars, the cruelties of the workhouses, the neglect of unwanted children, the severity of parents and teachers, and the high rate of child mortality were commonplaces that caused little concern. Yet from this background sprang the new concept of childhood that was developed in the latter part of the nineteenth century, with its basic reforms, and carried on with greater impetus in preventive, educational, and remedial programmes in our own time.
