Course:LIBR548F/2010WT1/Child Readers in Europe before 1890
Child Readers in Europe before 1890
There are currently conflicting opinions about levels of education and literacy in European cultures. Lyons argues that educational reforms had little impact in France until 1880s and argues that literacy levels were low before this time.[1] Darnton however, points out that in 1789 there were 500 free primary schools in Paris; one for every one thousand inhabitants.[2] Paris was a city of readers although their reading habits did not produce evidence in archives for historians. They read chapbooks, broadsides, posters, personal letters, and street signs.[3] Ideas about literacy and learning have changed greatly. Reading and writing were not always taught in conjunction. In the 17th and 18th centuries reading was taught first and was to allow access to the Word of God in Latin. [4]
The experience in Sweden was better recorded. Church records show that by 1770 80-95 percent of the population could read and respond adequately when queried about religious texts. Only 20 percent of these could write and only a small fraction had received formal schooling. Literacy was achieved informally in the home and passed on.[5]
Informal learning also took place in England where labourers taught themselves and one another in workshops and fields. [6] This system paired with a practice of teaching reading before writing, combined with children often beginning working at the age of six or seven leads to literacy levels that are impossible to accurately gauge. Much of the early reading public could not sign their names.[7]
Notes
- ↑ Lyons, Martyn. “New Readers in the Nineteenth Century: Women, Children, Workers.” Edited by Cavallo, Guglielmo and Roger Chartier. A History of Reading in the West. (1999). 324.
- ↑ Darnton, Robert. "First Steps Toward a History of Reading." The Kiss of Lamourette. (1991). 163.
- ↑ Ibid.163.
- ↑ Ibid.175.
- ↑ Ibid.174.
- ↑ Ibid.174.
- ↑ Ibid.174.