Cultivating the acorn : Education in Anna Letitia Barbauld's children's literature.

In Hymn X of Anna Letitia Barbauld's Hymns in Prose for Children (1781), Barbauld compares the child's mind to an acorn.

This description suggests that in the same way that the acorn contains the oak tree, so does the child's mind contain the adult.

Education becomes a process of cultivation: as the acorn needs the rain and rich soil in order to become the oak tree, so, too, does the child's mind need proper education to realize its potential.

By considering how the theory suggested by the acorn metaphor situates itself within a context of the philosophies of John Locke and David Hartley, and the ways it interacts with a selection of Barbauld's other works, most especially Lessons for Children (1778-1779) and Evenings at Home (1792-1796), this thesis investigates how the child's mind develops within and contributes to the familial, social, and religious spheres.