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List of contents
Introduction; 1 Child-rearing and Education in Eighteenth-century England; 2 Influences that helped shape John Wesley’s Educational Thinking; 3 The Implementation of John Wesley’s Thinking on Education; 4 Educating Pauper Children: 1723-1780; 5 Kingswood Boarding School: 1746-1780; 6 Growing Tension between Education and Evangelism: 1760-1791; 7 Educating Pauper Children after 1780; Conclusion
About the author
Linda A. Ryan is a mature researcher with an interest in early Methodism, and more specifically eighteenth-century attitudes to children, education and gender. She has previously published articles in Wesley & Methodist Studies and the Journal of Religious History, Literature and Culture.
Summary
This book sets out Wesley’s thinking and practice concerning child-rearing and education, particularly in relation to gender and class, in its broader eighteenth-century social and cultural context. This study demonstrates that the political, religious, and ideological backdrop to Wesley’s work was neither static or consistent.
Additional text
"Linda A. Ryan’s thoroughly researched book provides a valuable contribution to the history of children’s education. Exploring John Wesley’s beliefs about schooling, Ryan considers how Wesley developed a philosophy which simultaneously rejected and wove together ‘Enlightenment’ ideals about nurturing the individual with eighteenth-century English concerns centred on the moulding of children’s religious characters. Ryan’s book successfully illustrates that anxieties surrounding the appropriate ways to educate children are not new, although the challenges may change."
—Anna French, University of Liverpool, Journal of Ecclesiastical History
