Education and literature

Education at this point saw the image of a child as a blank slate ready for information to be passed on to him or her. This period was focussed on behaviour and maturation were children advanced by levels by the educator.

The Stanhope Letters, a fathers correspondance with his son to become a gentleman became a useful tool for other children to negotiate personal development and social skills. Based on ideas that children were born inherently evil and needed active teachers to correct this.

Traditional "Boys" stories are popular, namely "Robinson Crusoe". Morality and survival take a main role in these stories

Newberry published dozens of books aimed at children's interest to keep them motivated to learning. Used advertising and giveaway (mainly behavioural conditioning tools) to increase sales and popularity

Rousseau writes "Emile" a book that concerns itself with the idea that a child developed with minimal environmental interference will be inherently good.

Children's books become an outcome based morality tale with the characters either choosing to go down one of two roads leading to their salvation or damning. Puritan values take part in this period.

Illustrations begin to become common place in childrens books thanks to technological advancements and the obvious link between images and words as supportive media formats.
While the motivation and art of the illustrations has changed over time the fact that it is still an important part of literature for children is evidence of its successful outcomes as a media that is supportive to the text.

While Freud started this movement with the idea that children are born with a context, it began a movement that created the fields of neuroscience, psychodynamics and constructivism. The image of a child was that it had an active role in their education and individual needs.

Children in books now developed through their own experiences as do their counterparts in real life, this is seen in "Seven Little Australians", "The Famous Five" and The Harry Potter series.

The Transforming perspective begins in Germany with the first critical theorists. The idea that learning, development and growth is a part of a social and cultural construct. This perspective gave rise to the freedom of oppression to many groups.