These past two weeks, I’ve had the privilege of going back further in time than I had been before, picking up transcriptions during the 1893-1894 season. I’d previously been transcribing from the 1911-1912 season. I was able to identify some shifts in the Club’s interests, but for the most part it seems that the Club’s interests were more or less preserved during that almost twenty-year period. But it does seem to me that the Club was somewhat more academic in its earlier years.

They even had a Committee on the “Exact Study of the English Language.” I didn’t see it in the 1910s, and so can only assume it was retired. It met twice during the 1894-1895 season, and discussed everything from etymology and pronunciation to linguistically-rooted philosophy. Club member Maria Middleton even gave a talk regarding such (we think) contemporary concerns as the inexactitude of English pronouns, and the “careless use of the word ‘like,’ especially in making it do duty as a conjunction.” I can’t help but think of the neologism “juvenoia” here—defined, roughly, as the eternal tendency of older generations to worry about or criticize the youth. But maybe nothing really changes.

So what I’m finding most interesting about going back in time is seeing how social views change—or how they don’t. To me, the article that most illustrated this is the poet Lizette Woodworth Reese’s talk on “Poetry as a Means of Education,” which I found reflective of the growing tendency of humanity to regard the child as a legitimate social unit, with its unique needs and anxieties that merit extra care. Children—and specifically childhood—we think, ought to be protected.

This is the sort of notion it’s all too easy to take for granted. But really the concept of childhood is a relatively modern phenomenon in Western thought—perhaps first put forth by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and nourished, perpetuated, and elevated by the English Romantic poets. (See: concise Wordsworth and copious Wordsworth.)

In her talk, Lizette Woodworth Reese speaks of the capacity of children to appreciate poetry (for her purposes, apparently, synonymous with all forms of literature) in a uniquely childlike way. The reading of children is not vested, as that of adults. It’s innocent—maybe even enlightened. She says, “We cannot parse John Milton, and read him too.” So maybe something is lost when we analyze art. To paraphrase the words of French filmmaker Robert Bresson: “I’d rather my films be felt than understood.”

I don’t know about all that, but I see her point: maybe we can learn something from children about literature. But her concern is really what children can learn from literature. She’s interested in literature as an educational tool; the recording secretary writes, “Jack is becoming a dull boy instructed in facts and figures, and is letting his mysteries and illusions go.” Literature, she thinks, can teach “mysteries and illusions.”

In support of her theory, she cites the “Rollo” series of children’s books. I did some poking around, and found that the Rollo stories were a series of fourteen children’s books, written by American writer Jacob Abbott, that aimed to educate children, while, apparently, entertaining them. The series begins with Rollo Learning to Talk, moves onto Rollo at Play, to Rollo’s Museum, to, eventually, Rollo’s Philosophy Part IV: The Sky. Here’s the text of the first part of Rollo’s Philosophy (“Water”). As you can see, much of it takes the form of a pseudo-Socratic dialogue.

This concept is still prevalent today—probably more so. Think of Children’s shows like Baby Einstein (for people who want their children to be well-versed in Mozart and Bach) or Dora the Explorer (for people who want their children to learn Spanish at the dazzling rate of one word per episode). Abbott’s Rollo series was a precursor.

Miss Reese, as far as I know, never had any children. But she was a teacher; and maybe she saw her poetry as another outlet through which she could educate—if only subconsciously.