Spare the rod, spoil the child; child-rearing theories in 19th century Britain and America

'"Crinoline? - I was suspecting it! So young and so depraved!"'
W.M. Thackeray to Henry James' sister, aged eight.
(Henry James, A small boy and others, 1913, p. 94)
(Project Gutenberg internet edition available)

Crinoline? By the American artist  Jessie Wilcox Smith
(Pinterest)

Nursery delights were one result of parents taking a closer personal interest in their children; toy shops and bookshops not only encouraged children to press their noses against the windows, but tempted adults to buy and to play too.  However, there were disadvantages.

It became the fashion to show off the children to admiring guests and it was a small step from using them in a charming naturalistic family group portrait to expecting them to display their talents.   Both children and guests suffered through  recitations of the latest 'piece' of music or verse.

Eleanor Farjeon  remembers:
'So I wetted my lips and began in a monotonous little voice:
"A  Pound of Tea at One-and-three,
A Pot of Strawberry Ham,
A..." Oh, horror, I had said it wrong.  The jumble didn't begin till the Third verse...I began again, hastily:
"A Pound of Tea at One-and-three,
A Pot of Strawberry Jam..."...I hesitate.
Every line, every word of the poem went out of my head.  I stared blankly in front of me...
"A Pound of Tea..."  I faltered, and stuck.
Somebody said, "She's forgotten it, poor little thing." I burst into tears, slithered along the floor-polish...and sobbed in Mama's lap...some of the elders patted me and said, "Never mind, dear," and another child got up and recited something competently.'
(Eleanor Farjeon, (1881-1965) children's author, A Nursery in the Nineties, 1935, p. 345)

Many children, especially girls, were made miserable by their failure to measure up to the conventional Victorian image seen in the Nister picture books; slightly plump, hair curly, preferably golden; blue eyes, definitely pretty.

Edith Sitwell, known for her striking, unconventional looks, said her eighteen year old mother thought that in Edith 'she was being endowed with a new doll - one that would open and shut its eyes at her bidding and say "Papa" "Mama". '
(Edith Sitwell, (1887-1964 English aristocrat, writer) Taken care of, 1965, p.26)

The Sitwell family painted by fashionable society artist 
John Singer Sargent.  Edith is in red.
(Pinterest)

The fashion for curly hair meant hours doing it up in rags and curl papers, and sleeping with a head covered in uncomfortable lumps, curling irons, and curls that either frizzed hopelessly or drooped at the first touch of rain.  Later Victorian dress for little girls was heavy and cumbersome, after a period of relative freedom under the Georgians when loose, unrestricted clothes had been considered healthy.

Alison Uttley, a farmer's daughter, has described her clothes as relatively simple, but by today's standards they were anything but:
'My clothes were plain and few, from the white chemise, which I wore next to my skin, to the top layer of frock and pinafore, (no jeans then!) and everything was home-made except the Liberty bodice on which my stockings fastened.  Buttoned to the bodice were white drawers with Torchon lace around the legs.  I was proud of my drawers, garments which must never be seen or the disgrace is terrible.'
At six she went on a visit to relatives in town, and returned with a child size bustle, which her mother threw on the fire.
(Alison Uttley, (1884-1976, children's author)Ambush of young days, 1937, p.74)

Henry James, the American writer, gives an amusing description of a little New Yorker's clothes in the 1850s:
'The main resource of a small New York boy in this line at that time was the little sheath-like jacket, tight to the body, closed at the neck and adorned in front with a single row of brass buttons - a garment of scant grace.'

At this time that is what little page-boys, in service in London hotels were also wearing, and the novelist W.M. Thackeray thought this very funny:
'"Come here little boy," he said, "and show me your extraordinary jacket!"'
He was equally amused by Henry James' sister wearing a crinoline:
'"Crinoline? - I was suspecting it! So young and so depraved!"'
(Henry James, (1843-1916 American novelist) A small boy and others, p.93, 94)

(Girls wearing crinolines; hoops under the skirt to hold it out.
From Victorian Fashion for Kids.com)

By the 1880s British boys, profiting from the fashion for outdoor life set by Victoria and Albert, had graduated to sailor suits and jerseys, though they  suffered impractical short trousers until about the 1950s.  By contrast their sisters were smothered in clothes.  Here is a description of a little girl's underclothes:

'We, too, put on first of all a vest.  Then a chemise, a garment whose use was never apparent to us, but we were given to understand that it wouldn't be at all 'nice' to go without it.  It was made of white and reached to the knees.  Next 'stays' a strip of wadded pique whose use was unmistakable.  In addition to the five buttons that fastened our stays up the back, they had a number of other buttons at various levels and intervals round the waist.  Two of these held up the elastic 'spenders' of our stockings; the five buttonholes of our drawers belonged to the other three, and yet more were buttoned into two holes in the band of our flannel petticoat.  Over that came a white petticoat made with a bodice.  Sometimes the buttons went pop and one's drawers slid slowly down one's legs.'
(from Phyllis Cunnington and Anne Buck, Children's costume in England, 1965, p. 182- quoted
from Elizabeth Acland, Goodbye for the present, the story of two childhoods; Milly, 1878 -88, 1935 p. 25)

A well-dressed child.
(Heartfelt.Pinterest)

This description is from the early 19th century, but the fashion for stays continued; Gwen Raverat and her sister were put into stays in the 1890s.  They rebelled:
'We knew it was almost hopeless - we were outnumbered and outflanked on every side - but we did rebel against stays.  Margaret says that the first time she was put into them - when she was about thirteen - she ran round and round the nursery screaming with rage. I did not do that.  I simply went away and took them off.  I endured sullenly the row which ensued, when my soft-shelled condition was discovered; was forcibly re-corseted; and, as soon as possible went away and took them off again.  One of my governesses used to weep over my wickedness in this respect.  I had a bad figure, and to me they were real instruments of torture; they prevented me from breathing, and dug deep holes into my softer parts on every side.'
(Gwen Raverat ( 1885-1957, artist,) Period piece, 1952, p. 259)

Gwen Raverat, Olga at the window,
(Pinterest)

Quite apart from these efforts to turn out children, especially girls, presentably, numerous theories on upbringing abounded.  It was as though parents had become fascinated by the problems of bringing up children.  Gwen Raverat, whose mother was a volatile expatriate American, lists some of the rules and prohibitions she and her friends were subject to:
'I don't believe that my mother was more subject to attacks of theories than many other parents of her time; indeed many children of my acquaintance had parents who were more addicted to them than she was...There were some children who might not ride bicycles, and others who were forbidden to go in boats; some who were forced to play the violin, and others who always had to wear mufflers; some who might not eat current buns, and others who were obliged to have cold baths; all kinds of fads and foolishness.  There were even some children who were forced to go barefoot, and others who were forbidden to do so.'
(Gwen Raverat, op. cit, p. 47-8)

Victorian children, artist Emile Vernon Foster
(Colinbradleyart.com)

Generally a plain diet was favoured, as it had been for centuries, but theories on what was plain and wholesome and what must be avoided at all consts changed with bewildering illogicality in the absence of anything more that rudimentary understanding of the effects of diet on health.

One remarkable difference that emerges from British and American autobiographies from this period is that British writers, if they mention food at all, describe childhood meals as varying from extremely plain to quite horrible.  Although some American children, like Louisa M. Alcott, were brought up on the plain diet advised by Locke and Rousseau, it seems to have been far less general than in Britain.
(Louisa M. Alcott, (1832-1888, American writer) Her Life, Letters and Journals, edited by Ednah D. Cheney,1898, p. 19  Project Gutenberg internet edition available)

American children, advert for Niagara gloss starch,
(University of Miami, Pinterest)

American writers frequently take delight in describing memories of sumptuous meals.  Mark Twain revels in a long description of Southern corn bread, hot biscuits, wheat bread and fried chicken
(Autobiography of Mark Twain, 2 vols, 1924, Vol. 1, p. 96.  A new Mark Twain Project edition in 3 vols was published 2010-15; The American writer Mark Twain, 1835-1910, worked on his autobiography from 1870)

Henry James revelled in 'mounds of Isabella grapes and Seckel pears in the sticky sweetness of which our childhood seems to have been steeped...bushels of peaches in particular, peaches big and peaches small, peaches white and peaches yellow.'
(Henry James, A small boy and others, op. cit, p. 75)

The British aristocrat and writer Osbert Sitwell, on the other hand, describes the menu in the Renishaw nursery with typical Sitwell wit:
'all the things for which children now clamour - and are often indeed obliged against their will to eat - oranges and sweets and fruit juices, were beyond the pale.  Boiled mutton...and a stodgy eternity of rice pudding, stretching spotless beyond the horizon or, like the Church of England Heaven, a pale eternity of jelly, constituted pour recognised diet, based on scientific knowledge.'
(Osbert Sitwell, (1892-1969) Left Hand, Right Hand, 1945, Vol. 1, p. 163)

The 'eat everything on your plate' rule was still strictly applied.  Compton Mackenzie and his brother hid their fat in the piano until the smell betrayed them.(Compton Mackenzie,(1883-1972,English writer)  My Life and Times, Vol. 1, 1963, p. 36)

Centuries of opposition to beating children produced alternative methods of asserting control over them. From the mid 17th century, for instance, children were shut in a dark room or closet.  Samuel Pepys records in his diary that he
'fell mightily out, and made my wife, to the disturbance of the house and neighbours, to beat our little girle (the servant); and then we shut her down in the cellar and there she lay all night.  So we to bed.'
(Samuel Pepys. (1633-1703, English diarist)  Diary edited by Robert Latham and W. Matthews, 1972, Vol. 6,  19 Feb. 1665)

Elizabeth Grant recalls in her memoirs that she and her brothers and sisters were often banished to a closet if they were naughty, and sometimes forgotten for hours. (Elizabeth Grant,  (1797-1830, known for her family memoir) Memoirs of a Highland Lady, 1898, p. 59)

Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, Vicky, the Princess Royal, went through a phase of telling lies, and was put into solitary confinement with her hands tied for saying she had been given permission to wear her pink bonnet for an outing when she had not.
(Daphne Bennett Queen Victoria's Children, 1980, p. 25)

Girl with sweets,
(Victorianctading.com.Pinterest)

Shutting children in closets when they were naughty seems to have been the custom in other royal households; a French nurse arriving with the refugees from the 1848 Revolution admired Osborne House for the number of closets it provided:
'N'est-ce pas, madame, que ce palais est remarquable par la quantité d'armoires qu'il contient, pour enfermer les enfants méchants?'( Madam, is this palace not remarkable for the number of closets it contains for shutting up the  naughty children?)
(Letters from Sarah, Lady Lyttleton 1797-1870, 1912, p. 374)

Punishments which made a child look ridiculous or wounded their self esteem were quite common, particularly in the schoolroom.  Lord Curzon and his sisters were made by their sadistic governess to make and wear red calico petticoats and dunce's caps with placards naming their faults:
'Liar, Sneak, Coward, Lubber and the like.'  He attributed his extremely strong character partly to this difficult time.  As he managed to control the tribes of Afghanistan, the North West Frontier, he must have been a remarkable man.
(Leonard Mosley, Curzon, The end of an epoch, 1960, p. 9, quoted from Curzon's own notes on his childhood.  Lord Curzon, 1829-1925,  writer, Victorian statesman, Viceroy of India,

Various ingenious attempts were made to make the punishment fit the crime, for example, the popular punishment of washing the mouth out with soapy water for swearing, or, in Gwen Raverat's case, for biting:
'And so once, when I had bitten the nursery-maid, I had my mouth washed out with soap and water; and anothger time when I had slapped her, I had socks tied down over my hands and had to come down to lunch and be fed in public with a spoon...And when I cut off my own hair, I was made to go about with it as it was for several days before I was allowed to have it cut properly.'
(Gwen Raverat, Period Piece, 1952, p. 58)

Most children probably accepted adult attempts to discipline them as natural and conformed, rebelled or evaded them according to their nature.  Some, however, rebelled against the very principles behind the system and bitterly resented it as adults.  Their case is put by the well-known children's writer Harriet Martineau in her autobiography:
'Not a word was ever preached about the justice due from the stronger to the weaker...I used to thirst to hear some notice of the oppresson which servants and children had (as I supposed universally) to endure, in regard to their feelings.'
(Harriet Martineau's Autobiography, 1877, Vol. 1,  p. 21 Hathi Trust internet edition available.) (Harriet Martineau, 1802-1876, a British writer and early feminist)

There is evidence that British children were far more strictly brought up at this time than little Americans.  Harriet Martineau travelled in America, and said that constant correction made her a timid child.  She found the independence and fearlessness of American children delightful, and attributed it to their relative importance in a sparsely populated country.  She believed their spirit of individualism was fostered by republicanism:
'Till the United States cease to be republican, and their vast area is fully populated, the children there will continue as free and easy and as important as they are.  For my part I delight in American children.'
(Harriet Martineau, Society in America, 1837,Vol. 3, p. 166. Gutenberg internet edition available.  Quoted in Robert Bremner, Children and youth in America, a documentary history, 1970, Vol. 1, p. 350)

The writer and social activist Harriet Martineau
(Wikipedia)

Europeans often remarked on the independence and what some called the insubordination of American children.  Frederick Marryat tells an amusing story of an American family he met while travelling in the States in the 1830s.  The son was being flagrantly disobedient, but instead of punishing him, his father turned to Marryat remarking:
"A sturdy republican, Sir,"' and smiling at his disobedience.'
(Frederick Marryat, A Diary in America, 1839, Vol. 3, p. 284)  Quoted in Robert Bremner op. cit,
 Vol. 1, p. 344)

The British writer Frances Trollope also travelled in the USA and commented disapprovingly on their 'total want of discipline and subjugation which I observed universally among children of all ages'
(Frances Trollope, Domestic manners of the Americans, 1832, Vol. 2 p. 298, Gutenberg internet edition available)

Like theories on diet, theories on medical treatment have absorbed those who had care of children for as long as parents have been struggling to bring them up.  However, while diet theory generally stated that children should be given plain food, medical theories have varied wildly.  Generally, children suffered the same 'cures' as adults.  By the 19th century improvements in medical knowledge had discredited 'bleeding in the Jugular' as treatment for a feverish cold (Autobiography of the Hon. Roger North (1653-1734) ed. A. Jessopp, 1887, p. 253)

 However, regular use of bleeding as a cure-all had given way to an obsession with regular bowel movements.  From 17th century physicians' tentative theories that there might be some connection between constipation and disorders such as piles, a very strong belief in the value of purging developed.  Children were obvious victims:
'I  have carryed his nurse the Rhubarb, and she promiseth he shall constantly drink it.'

(Frances Parthenope Verney, Memoirs of the Verney family during the Civil War (1642-1651), Vol. 2, 1892 ed. p. 6)

Many children were much more unpleasantly dosed:
'Mrs. Squeers stood at one of the desks, presiding over an immense basin of brimstone and treacle, of which delicious compound she administered a large instalment to each boy in succession.'
(Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby,first published 18-8-9, quote from 1906 ed. Vol. 1, p. 105)

An American nursery maid and small child
(Stripedstockings.Pinterest)

According to Mark Twain, in Monroe County, Missouri, USA, when faced with an obscure illness it was the custom to work up through a series of treatments of increasing severity, beginning with purging with castor oil and New Orleans molasses, and finishing with mustard plasters, presumably to raise the patient's temperature, and, if that failed, bleeding, to lower the temperature:
'The next standby was colonel; the next rhubarb; and the next julap.  Then they bled the patient, and put mustard plasters on him.'
(Autobiography of Mark Twain, op. cit, p. 106)

Samuel Butler's miserable anti-hero Ernest Pontifex was dosed with camomile and Dr. James' powder.  This medicine had been popular since the mid 18th century and was patented by John Newbery, publisher of many delightful early children's story books.  Newbery advertised the powder as a cure-all in the story books he wrote and published;
Goody Two-Shoes' father died because he unfortunately 'contracted a fever in a place where Dr. James's powder was not to be had...'
(Samuel Butler,  (1835-1902, British novelist,) Ernest Pontifex or, The Way of All Flesh, 1903, quote from 1965 ed. edited by D.F. Howard, p. 82. and The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, 3rd, ed. 1766, facsimile edition with an introduction by Charles Welsh, 1881, p. 13)

Compton Mackenzie remembered being given most of the laxatives popular in the late 19th century:
'Dr. Gregory's filthy powder...senna tea or castor oil...given to a wretched child in warm milk...Ipecacuanha was another disgusting tea-spoonful; liquorice powder an equally disgusting glassful.  I suppose the idea of making every aperient a foul business was to instil in the child's mind the notion that constipation was something sinful for which a penalty had to be paid.'
(Compton Mackenzie, (1883-1972, British writer)My Life and Times, 1963, Octave 1, p. 111)

The Royal children were regularly given castor oil, on the advice of their doctor:
'The Princess Royal, although quite well in every other respect, has not gained appetite despite the dose' observed Lady Lyttleton who was the capable and motherly overseer of the royal nursery in the notebook on their progress which she kept for the Queen and Prince Albert
(Daphne Bennett, Queen Victoria's children, 1980, p. 23)

The Royal children, largely due to Prince Albert, enjoyed what, for the Victorians, was a model upbringing.  The Queen thought small babies rather disgusting and refused to breast feed, although this was now fashionable with doctors.  Their first child, Princes Vicky, was put in the care of Mrs. Southey, but disagreements between her and the head nurse led to nursery chaos.  The anxious young father replaced Mrs. Southey with Lady Lyttelton, who remained in overall charge of the steadily growing brood for about ten years. (Bennett, op. cit. p.22)

Her letters show her strict, but tolerant and motherly with a sense of humour;
'Oh dear, I wish there were no portrait being done of the Princess Royal; and that all her relations...did not always come to see her at once, and make her naughty, and her governess cross.  Poor little body! She is never to be naughty; always expected to be good and civil and sensible; and the Duke of Cambridge...tells the Queen...that it is very odd the Princes should ever cry! "So very odd; my daughters never did cry!..."And Her Majesty believes her uncle....'

'Princess just now established herself close to a large mirror down to the ground, and broke out in admiration of her own little fat figure and round white face - "Princessy! darling! oh you darling! Well then I never did!...."  It was much too droll! '
(Correspondence of Sarah Spencer, Lady Lyttelton, 1787-1870, edited by...Mrs. Hugh Wyndham. 1912.  p. 332, letter dated 1842.  See also the Lyttelton Letters, op. cit, 1873 edition, p. 306, 317)

Frederick Winterhalter, Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their children
(Pinterest)

Prince Albert studied all the latest theories on child care and instituted a regime of good plain food, plenty of fresh air, cold baths, and only small fires to harden the children's constitutions and to lessen the risk of TB germs which were thought to be encouraged by over-heated rooms. Lady Lyttelton was sometimes glad to escape to the fire in her own room, and the children were prone to chilblains and rheumatism but, unusually for the 19th century, all lived to adulthood and some, like Princess Alice, to exceptional old age.

This may have been partly due to Prince Albert's concern with hygiene and to the modern sewage systems installed at Osborne and Balmoral where they spent much of their time.
(see Bennett, D. op. cit, p. 30-)

Prince Edward, later King Edward VII, and his brothers and sisters were treated as nearly as possible like other small children and expected to show the politeness and obedience due from children to adults.
'"But not to Caroline Cocks" said Princess Alice for apparent reason, after one long lecture from Lady Lyttelton.
(Lyttelton Letters, op. cit, p. 394)

 They and their brothers and sisters were guarded from the obsequious pandering to their whims and jockeying for favour which had  encouraged the Prince Regent and George III's other children to become such famously self-indulgent adults.  However, unlike Victoria, who had few companions apart from her many dolls and her governess, they had plenty to amuse them.  Not only did they have each other to play with, but Queen Victoria and Prince Albert took a close interest in their children's upbringing and education, which gave their household a family atmosphere admired by the members of other European royal families.  The Queen, when her duties allowed, heard the children read and personally gave them their early religious instruction.  (Bennett, op. cit, p. 28)

 Prince Albert played with them a lot and taught his children through informal lessons:
'All the children are out with the Queen and Prince attended by the bailiff, to the sheep shorn' (ie to see sheep shearing)

Prince Albert encouraged them to ask intelligent questions, like the children in Scientific dialogues or Conversations on Botany:
'"Pray, Mama, is not a pink the female of a carnation?"' asked Edward, Prince of Wales once.
(Lyttelton Letters, op. cit.  1873 ed. p. 407, 408)

They led healthy outdoor lives, not too strictly supervised:
'Just seen the eldest six zits (sic), all scattered over one of the new terraces, without hats or bonnets, running wild after dinner.  They looked very pretty writes Lady Lyttelton from Osborne, the new palace built by Prince Albert on the Isle of Wight.  Zits was her word for the children. There was plenty of sailing and sea bathing since salt water was thought to be extremely good for the health. Lady Lyttelton records Prince Edward's first dip in the sea at Osborne in 1846:
'A great nursery event.  Princey is gone to be bathed in the sea for the first time...The Prince very pleasantly has undertaken to do it all himself, there being no machines or bathers here.  So the zite is gone with "Only Papa..."

There were pony rides and other pets such as the uncooperative lamb described by Lady Lyttelton:
'Princess Alice's pet lamb is the cause of many tears.  He will not take to his mistress, but runs away hastily, and will soon butt at her, though she is most coaxy; and said to him in her sweetest tones, after kissing his nose often:
"Milly! dear Milly!  Do you like me?"
(Lyttelton Letters, 1873 ed. p. 369, 405)

The Royal household set an influential example to the whole country and encouraged the tendency towards active family life characteristic of Queen Victoria's reign.  Better hygiene and medicine meant more surviving children and larger families.  At best children's lives were enriched by the society of their numerous relations.  Family gatherings on specific occasions, like those celebrated by Dickens, became customary at Christmas, births, birthdays, deaths and weddings and at that very Victorian institution, the family holiday in the country or at the seaside.  It is not surprising that the keynote of most autobiographical accounts of Victorian childhood is one of happiness, although adults often complained of declining standards and the insubordination of the younger generation, just as adults do today:

Artist Charles West Cope; A Life Well Spent
(Pinterest)

'Gratitude to parents, respect for age and authority are not what they should be these days.'
(Queen Victoria to Vicky, Princess Royal, 28 May 1872.  Darling Child, Private correspondence of Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia; ie her daughter Princess Vicky, 1976.)
Certainly Prince Edward, later King Edward VII must have been a great disappointment to his parents; careful parenting sometimes seems to have no better success than no parenting at all.