A truly fascinating collection, the Perseus Digital Library presents an immense array of ancient texts, artifacts, and images from Greece and Rome, as well as a smaller collection of materials from the European Renaissance, the Arabic world, and 19th-century America. A rich website for educators and students alike, those engaged in the study of children and youth will find several sources of great interest, particularly in the histories of the ancient Mediterranean and the U.S. in the 19th century.

There are seven primary collections in the Perseus Library. The largest collection is devoted to Greek and Roman materials. There is a vast collection of ancient prose, including iconic authors such as Homer and Aristotle, but also hundreds writers who are less well known. An Art and Archeology Artifact Browser catalogues "1305 coins, 1909 vases, 2003 sculptures, 179 sites, 140 gems, and 424 buildings" for perusal. There is also a small Arabic collection, which is focused almost exclusively on translations of the Qur'an, as well as a Germanic Peoples collection, a section devoted to Renaissance works, and a database of Documentary Papyri. Moreover, there is a 19th-century American history source collection, as well as many 19th century issues of the Richmond Times Dispatch, a Civil War-era newspaper from Virginia.

The Perseus Digital Library is an incredibly rich resource. There is one significant issue, however, that users must contend with if they are trying to locate resources on children and youth in history. The search function for the website is not very specific, making its utility reliant on the patience of the user. For instance, a search for "child" brings up every single time the word “child” is mentioned in any of the website’s sources. Because there are many thousands of sources on the site (including the complete works of Shakespeare and a vast array of Aristotelian works), such a search is useless for quickly narrowing down required documents that specifically deal with the history of children. However, users may find what they are looking for by taking some time to browse more generally among the various collections, as well as become more creative with the "exact phrase" search mechanism.

For example, a fascinating piece from Plato's Laws comes up when searching for the phrase "slave child." In this piece, Plato conflates adult slaves with children in terms of legal testimony, thereby reducing the significance of both in a court of law. Educators could create instructive lessons using this source, along with other sources on legal testimony and children throughout time, and have students compare and contrast the legal authority of youth testimony cross-culturally and cross-temporally.

Another wonderful example comes from a search for "children’s education"—an excerpt from the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus' A Dialogue on Oratory. In this passage, Tacitus explains that he believes that Roman boys grew up to be great only when reared by virtuous and well-educated mothers, and he cites important emperors as evidence. This excerpt provides teachers of children's history a wonderful opportunity to create lessons based on historical notions of education, the role of the family in creating citizens for the nation, and shifting notions of gender roles and domestic life over time.

There are also interesting and useful sources for American history, including a primary source entitled The War-time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865 by Eliza Frances Andrews. Written during the Civil War by a young teen, the document invites educators and students alike to consider the value of first-hand narratives to understanding larger historical events, as well as the subjective nature of primary sources. Moreover, it is a fascinating look into the social expectations of young women of the era who were living in the midst of war, and sheds an interesting light on the significance of gender, race, and class for understanding the historical experiences of children. An intriguing assignment using this source may be to juxtapose the experiences this young girl relayed in her wartime journal to other girls in warfare situations in other parts of the world, both contemporaneous to the U.S. Civil War and in other eras.

Overall, the Perseus Digital Library is a fantastic resource. With a little patience learning the search engine’s peculiarities, it is also a wonderful resource for exploring the history of children.

"Grandpa Feeds Baby"

Grandpa holds the baby,
He's sitting on his knee
Eating mutton dumplings
With vinegar and tea.
Then grandpa says to baby,
"When you have had enough,
You'll be a saucy baby
And treat your grandpa rough."

"The Ungrateful Son"

The tail of one magpie's as long as another,
He married a wife and he gave up his mother,
When asked by his mother to buy her some cake,
He wanted to know how much money twould take;
When his wife wanted pears he saddled his beast,
And started to market to buy her a feast;
He took off the peeling with very great airs,
And asked her politely to have a few pears.

"The Mischievous Sister-in-Law"

Oh the pumpkin red, on the gourd decayed,
I am my father's mischievous maid;
I am my brother's dear little sister;
I am my sister-in-law's fly-blister.
Father, when I marry, what will you give?
A box and a ward-robe you shall receive.
Mother, when I marry, what will you bring?
A little work-basket full of everything.
Brother, when I marry, what will come from you?
A fancy cloth towel; think that will do?
My happiness, sister, you will not mar?
I'll give a broken bottle and a little smashed jar,
And send you, you nuisance, away very far.

No thorough study of Chinese child life can be made until the wall of Chinese exclusiveness is broken down and the homes of the East are thrown open to the people of the West. Glimpses of that life, however, are available, sufficient in number and character to give a fairly good idea of what it must be. The playground is by no means always hidden, lease of all when it is the street. The Chinese nurse brings her Chinese rhymes, stories, and games into the foreigner's home for the amusement of its little ones. Chinese kindergarten methods and appliances have no superior in their ingenuity and their ability to interest, as well as to instruct. In the matter of traveling shows and jugglers also, no country is better supplied, and these are chiefly for the entertainment of the little ones.

To the careful observer of these different phases it becomes apparent that the Chinese child is well supplied with methods of exercise and amusement, also that he has much in common with the children of other lands. A large collection of toys shows many duplicates of those common in the West, and from the nursery rhymes of at least two out of the eighteen provinces it appears that the Chinese nursery is rich in Mother Goose. As a companion to the "Chinese Mother Goose," this book seeks to show that the same sunlight fills the homes of both East and West. If it also leads their far-away mates to look upon the Chinese Boy and Girl as real little folk, human like themselves, and thus think more kindly of them, its mission will have been accomplished.

Life for Bao-yu after his removal into the garden became utterly and completely satisfying. Every day was spent in the company of his maids and cousins in the most amiable and delightful occupations, such as: reading, practicing calligraphing, strumming on the qin, playing Go, painting, composing verses, embroidering in coloured silks, competitive flower collecting, making flower-sprays, singing, word games, and guess fingers. In a word, he was blissfully happy. . .

Then, quite suddenly, in the midst of this placid, agreeable existence, he was discontented. He got up one day feeling out of sorts. Nothing he did brought any relief. Whether he stayed indoors or went out into the garden, he remained bored and miserable. The garden's female population were mostly still in that age of innocence when freedom from inhibition is the fruit of ignorance. Waking and sleeping they surrounded him, and their mindless giggling was constantly in his ears. How could they understand the restless feelings that now consumed him? In his present mood of discontent he was bored with the garden and its inmates; yet his attempts to find distraction outside it ended in the same emptiness and ennui.

Tealeaf saw how it was with him and racked his brains for a remedy. Unfortunately all the things he could think of seemed to be things that Bao-yu had already tried and grown tired of. But no, there was something he had not yet tried. As soon as Tealeaf thought of it, he set off to the book-stalls and bought a pile of books – books of a kind Bao-yu had never heard about – to give as a present to his young master. His purchases included: Old Inklubber's Stories Old and New; The Secret History of Flying Swallow; Sister of Flying Swallow; The Infamous Loves of Empress Wu; The Jade Ring Concubine, or Peeps in the Inner Palace… and a heap of playbooks – mostly romantic comedies and the like.

Bao-yu took one look at this gift and was enraptured; but Tealeaf uttered a warning: "Don't take these into the garden! If you do, and anyone finds out about them, I'll be in real trouble – more than just a bellyful!"

The injunction was one with which Bao-yu was most unwilling to comply. After a good deal of hesitation he picked out a few of the chaster volumes to keep by his bed and read when no one was about, and left the cruder, more forthright ones behind, hidden somewhere in his outer study.

One day after lunch – it was round about the Midwash of the third month, as our forefathers, who measured the passage of time by their infrequent ablutions, were wont to say – Bao-yu set off for Drenched Blossoms Weir with the volumes of Western Chamber under his arm, and sitting down on a rock underneath the peach-tree which grew there beside the bridge, he took up the first volume and began, very attentively, to read the play. He had just reached the line "The red flowers in their hosts are falling" when a little gust of wind blew over and a shower of petals suddenly rained down from the tree above, covering his clothes, his book, and all the ground about him. . . a voice behind him said, "What are you doing here?"

He looked around and saw that it was Dai-yu. She was carrying a garden hoe with a muslin bag hanging from the end of it on her shoulder and a garden broom in her hand.

"You've come at just the right moment," said Bao-yu, smiling at her. "Here, sweep these petals up and tip them in the water for me! I've just tipped one lot in myself."

"It isn't a good idea to tip them in the water," said Dai-yu. "The water you see here is clean, but farther on beyond the weir, where it flows past people's houses, there are all sorts of muck and impurity, and in the end they get spoiled just the same. In that corner over there I've got a grave for the flowers, and what I'm doing now is sweeping them up and putting them back in this silk bag to bury them there, so that they can gradually turn back into earth. Isn't that a cleaner way of disposing of them?"

Bao-yu was full of admiration for this idea. "Just let me put this book somewhere and I'll give you a hand."

"What book?" said Dai-yu.

"Oh. . . the Doctrine of the Mean and The Greater Learning," he said, hastily concealing it.

"Don't try to fool me!" said Dai-yu. "You would have done much better to let me look at it in the first place, instead of hiding it so guiltily."

"In your case, coz, I have nothing to be afraid of," said Bao-yu; "but if I do let you look, you must promise not to tell anyone. It's marvelous stuff. Once you start reading it, you'll even stop wanting to eat!"

He handed the book to her, and Dai-yu put down her things and looked. The more she read, the more she liked it, and before very long she had read several acts. She felt the power of the words and their lingering fragrance. Long after she had finished reading, when she had laid down the book and was sitting there rapt and silent, the lines continued to ring on in her head.

"Well," said Bao-yu, "is it good?"

Dai-yu smiled and nodded.

Bao-yu laughed: "How can I, full of sickness and woe, withstand that face which kingdoms could o'erthrow?"

Men at their birth
are naturally good.

Their natures are much the same;
their habits become widely different.

If foolishly there is no teaching,
the nature will deteriorate.

The right way in teaching
is to attach the utmost importance to thoroughness.

Of old, the mother of Mencius
chose a neighborhood;

and when her child would not learn
she broke the shuttle from the loom.

Tou of the Swallow Hills
had the right method.

He Taught five sons,
each of whom raised the family reputation.

To feed without teaching
is the father’s fault.

To teach without severity
is the teacher’s laziness.

If the child does not learn,
this is not as it should be.

If he does not learn while young,
what will he be when old?

If jade is not polished,
it cannot become a thing of use.

If a man does not learn,
he cannot know his duty towards his neighbour.

He who is a son of a man,
when he is young

should attach himself to his teachers and friends,
and practice ceremonial usages.

Hsiang, at nine years of age,
could warm (his parents’) bed.

Filial piety toward parents
is that to which we should hold fast.

Jung, at four years of age,
could yield the (bigger) pears.

To behave as a younger brother towards elders,
is one of the first things to know.

Begin with filial piety and fraternal love,
and then see and hear.

Learnt to count,
and learn to read.

Units and tens,
tens and hundreds,

Hundreds and thousands,
thousand and tens of thousands.

The Three Forces
are Heaven, Earth, and Man.

The Three Luminaries,
are the sun, the moon, and the stars.

The Three Bonds are

1. the obligation between sovereign and subject,
2. the love between father and child,
3. the harmony between husband and wife.

We speak of spring and summer,
we speak of autumn and winter.

These four seasons
revolve without ceasing…

K'uang Heng bores a hole in the wall
Sun Ching shuts his door

K'uang Heng of the Former Han, whose polite name was Chih-kuei, was a native of Ch'eng in Tung-hai. His father and his ancestors before him had been farmers, but K'uang took a great liking to learning. However, because his family was poor, he hired himself out as a day laborer in order to meet expenses. In diligence and energy he far surpassed others. The Confucian scholars used to say to each other, "Don't try to lecture on the Book of Odes – leave it to K'uang. When he expounds the Odes, he makes people laugh so hard they unhinge their jaws!" He passed the civil service examination in the first category and was selected for public office, and in the reign of Emperor Yüan [48-33 B.C.] was promoted to the post of chancellor.

The Hsi-ching tsa-chi or Random Notes on the Western Capital records that when K'uang Heng was hard at work on his studies, he had no lamp to read by. The house next door had a lamp, but its light did not reach to K'uang's house. K'uang thereupon bored a hole in the wall of his neighbor's house and read his books by the light that came through.

In the village there was a prominent man named Wen Pu-chih, who was very rich and owned many books. K'uang went to work for him, but refused any compensation, asking instead that he be allowed to read his way through the man's library. The master of the rich family, much impressed, kept K'uang provided with books to read, and in this way he was eventually able to become a great scholar.

According to the Ch'u-kuo hsien-shien-chuan or Biographies of Former Worthies of the State of Ch'u, Sun Ching, whose polite name was Wen-pao, always kept his door closed and spent all his time reading books. If he felt himself growing drowsy, he would tie a rope around his neck and loop it over the rafters so he would be sure to stay awake. One time when he went to the marketplace, the people in the market, seeing him, all called out, “Here comes Professor Closed Door!” He was invited to take public office but declined the summons.

Excerpt: #55 "Empress Ma in coarse-woven silk…"

Empress Ma of the Later Han, whose posthumous name was Ming-te or Bright Virtue, was the youngest daughter of Ma Yüan, the General Who Calms the Waves. By the age of ten she was already able to direct household affairs with the competence of an adult. Once, when she had been suffering from a long illness, her mother employed a diviner to divine her fate by means of the milfoil stalks. The diviner replied, "Though this girl has been ill for a long time, she will later become highly honored. The omens are such that I can hardly describe them!" Later the mother called in a physiognomist to examine her daughters and see what fate lay in store for them. When he examined the future empress, he said in astonishment, "The Time will surely come when I will acknowledge myself a subject of this girl!"

In time she was chosen to enter the women’s quarters of the palace, and when Emperor Ming came to the throne [A.D. 58], she was given the rank of Noble Lady. At this time Lady Chia bore the emperor a son, the future Emperor Chang. Emperor Ming instructed the future empress Ma to raise the child, adding, "I only hope that you will not fail to show the child affection although he is not your own son." On the contrary, however, she took even greater pains in raising him than if he had been a child of her own. The boy in turn proved to be intensely filial in nature, endowed by Heaven with a sense of kindness and gratitude. The love and affection that existed between adopted mother and son showed not the smallest trace of discord.

The authorities presented a memorial to the throne asking that Lady Ma be established in the Long Autumn Palace [i.e., declared empress]. The emperor had not yet expressed his opinion in the matter when his mother, Empress Dowager Yin, exclaimed, "Lady Ma is the crowning virtue of the women's quarters. She is the very person to be made empress!" In time Lady Ma was accordingly set up as empress. After assuming the place of honor in the inner palace, she conducted herself with even greater modesty and circumspection than before. She was thoroughly versed in the Book of Changes, loved to read the Spring and Autumn Annals and the Elegies of Ch’u, and was particularly fond of the Chung-shu. She always wore simple robes of coarse-woven silk with no decorative border at the hem. . .

1. Cao Xueqin. The Story of the Stone. Translated by David Hawkes. 5 vols. New York: Penguin Classics, 1973.
   A classic novel from 18th-century China that presents the life of an elite family, offering rich detail of daily life and practice, period humor, and dramatic intrigue.
2. Hsiung Ping-chen. A Tender Voyage: Children and Childhood in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005.
   A path-breaking work on childhood in late Imperial China – an excellent study that explores the lives of children in relation to the social, material, and philosophical context of the period while raising important historiographic issues for further research.
3. Kinney, Anne Behnke, ed. Chinese Views of Childhood. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995.
   An edited volume rich in its thematic and temporal coverage of themes related to childhood in Chinese history.
4. Saari, Jon L. Legacies of Childhood: Growing Up Chinese in a Time of Crisis, 1890-1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press East Asian Monographs, 1990.
   This text provides an insightful examination of the experience of childhood at a moment of historical transition between the established traditions of family and education and the shifts accompanying the rise of a modern China in the early 20th century.

by Susan Douglass
(Suggested writing time: 50 minutes)

Using the images and texts in the documents provided, write a well-organized essay of at least five paragraphs in response to the following prompt.

• Create a portrait describing childhood in late Imperial China in terms of the roles children were socialized to fulfill, the roles parents were expected to play in providing for and nurturing children at different stages of development, and the cultural objects used in teaching, entertaining, and childrearing. Base your description on analysis of evidence in the documents.

Your essay should:

• have a clear thesis,
• use at least six of the documents to support your thesis,
• how analysis by grouping the documents into at least two groups,
• analyze the point of view of the documents, and
• recognize the limitation of the documents before you by suggesting an additional type of document or source to make your discussion more complete or valid.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following institutions for primary sources:

[Information Coming Soon]

About the Author

Sue Fernsebner is a specialist in the cultural and social history of China during the 19th and 20th centuries. Her interests lie in the shared realms of material culture and social experience, gender, and global encounters. Included among her published works is the study "A People's Playthings: Toys, Childhood, and Chinese Identity, 1909–1933." She is currently finishing a book on China's participation in world's fairs and international expositions. She is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Mary Washington.

About the Lesson Plan Author

Susan Douglass is a doctoral student in history at George Mason University, and also serves as education outreach consultant for the Al-Waleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. Publications include World Eras: Rise and Spread of Islam, 622-1500 (Thompson/Gale, 2002), the study Teaching About Religion in National and State Social Studies Standards (Freedom Forum First Amendment Center and Council on Islamic Education, 2000), and teaching resources, both online and in print, including and the curriculum project World History for Us All, The Indian Ocean in World History, and websites for documentary films such as Cities of Light: the Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain and Muhammad:Legacy of a Prophet.

An exploration of primary sources on childhood in late imperial China (framed broadly as the Song through Qing dynasties, ca. 960-1911 CE) offers a window into lived experience and the diverse ways in which childhood itself could be imagined and articulated. As with other times and places, the historical record presents a variety of perspectives and different takes on childhood, providing a sense of that realm as socially defined, imagined, and experienced.

Chinese family life in the late imperial period was marked by a complex realm of relationships. Children often grew up amidst an extended family of parents and siblings, grandparents, cousins, and, for the wealthier families, a domestic realm that would also include servants, wet-nurses, as well as the various women of a household including a formal wife and (potentially) multiple concubines. Extended families were thus the norm, offering a rich and complex community for the child.

Practices of child-rearing and the life patterns of children were shaped by class and gender. The management of the household was overseen by females as was child-rearing itself. Women would care for the children and, particularly as the late imperial period progressed through the Ming and Qing dynasties, would also be responsible for much of their early education. Youngsters would be guided in their initial acquisition of literacy and numbers through memorization of basic poetry and childhood primers.

Men in a family would also often play a role in children's lives, particularly in shaping decisions about the continued education and training of children (both boys and girls). Many a father or grandfather would also enjoy and celebrate leisure time with kids at play in the domestic quarters.

Children themselves would share together the joys and endeavors of early childhood through to an age of seven or eight years, at which point gendered divisions would be more clearly defined in their own activities and in their own spaces of learning. Growing girls would learn from other women in the household the essential skills associated with the feminine, including embroidery, sewing, cooking, and, particularly for elite girls, reading and calligraphy.

Elite boys, having shared an early training and playful realm with little girls, would then move to their own education, building up a literacy and experience with the canon of Confucian classics in preparation for the imperial state's civil service exams that could bring true success to their family and lineage. Boys who were not from elite classes, but who were raised in peasant households or by working class families, would also begin to engage in more strenuous work in the fields or perhaps new duties in the shops and artisan studios of an urban center.

Social relationships, meanwhile, were shaped by and articulated through a rich culture of philosophy and practice associated with the family. Confucian classics such as The Book of Rites (Liji) set forth an ideal vision of the proper child and the mandated aims of child-rearing. Here, as in the many instructional texts that circulated amidst China's booming print industry of the late imperial period, an emphasis was placed upon a moral training for the child in appropriate forms of behavior and in a recognition of the value of social relationships.

Moral teachings included the inculcation of a respect for elders and the encouragement of a child's true expressions of filial piety. This latter ideal was one celebrated as the foundation of a good family and of society itself. In ideal examples, children were honored for displaying a heartfelt sense of obligation, gratitude, and loyalty to their family as well as their dedication, throughout life, in caring for their elders.

Actual practice, naturally, was more complex. Reaching beyond the texts devoted to the ideal and exemplary, one also discovers more varied depictions of children's lives. Sources found in literature, poetry, biography and family records as well as in visual images from the time reveal the variety of experiences, emotions, challenges, and playful intrigue found in (or represented through) the experience of childhood.

The collection of primary sources offered here presents a view of both the normative prescriptions for the proper child as well as alternate perspectives on a culture of childhood in late imperial China.

The texts presented here offer a broad range of perspectives on childhood in late Imperial china. They include historical tales for children that paint the stories of heroes and villains, period literature, images, and folklore collections that offer a view toward the daily life and amusements of children, as well as the rhymed primers intended to train the child not only in literacy but also in a social and moral sensibility.

The sources cover a broad time frame as well as diverse aspects of childhood in late imperial China. They speak to a number of related themes and issues including ideal notions of the child and a child's place in the family, practices of play and amusement, and the complexities of latter-day efforts (and, indeed, those of adults themselves) to recapture and understand childhood as its own realm.

One aspect for students to explore through their readings of this material is the moral instruction and dissemination of values that historical children would have encountered in their own exploration of these texts and stories. Students may read and compare the Meng Ch'iu and San Tzu Ching texts in regard to this issue. These two texts also provide for a view towards a comparison over time as the Meng Ch'iu text was critiqued and later faded from use (see source introductions for more detail).

Useful questions to ask here would include:

• What moral instructions might children have found in these texts?
• What were the idealized social roles that were presented?
• What might adults who shared these texts have hoped that their children would have learned from them?

Students might also explore the visions presented of the relationship between an individual and the social world that they inhabited, sometimes subtly and often less so, in these texts. In exploring these questions, students may discover the closely tied (at least in an idealized realm) relationship between children and parents and the celebrated role of the family as the center of an ordered Chinese society.

A second line of exploration for students lies in a comparative exploration of notions of amusement. Here we may compare pedagogical texts, particularly the San Tzu Ching, with images and impressions gained from literature (Story of the Stone), rhymes (Headland's collections), and images of childhood play.

• How does the evidence offered in these diverse sources complicate a vision of childhood discipline as presented in pedagogical texts?
• What did "fun" mean to different children of the time?
• How did these sources' own presentation of childhood amusement offer evidence towards more complex visions of personal identity, life-paths, and social relationships?

Here one may explore articulations of family relationships, marriage, and education, among other topics, that are revealed in these texts and images.

Finally, Isaac Taylor Headland's study of childhood rhymes and amusements sheds light upon a culture of play shared by children outside the elite class as represented in Hong Lou Meng. His collections introduce their own complexities, however, as material presented by a foreign observer of Chinese life in an era of high imperialism. As such, it offers a valuable opportunity for students to explore the complex nature of a cross-cultural encounter at a particular moment, one defined by a new economy and culture of global exchange, competition, and colonialism.

Worthwhile questions of exploration include:

• How does I.T. Headland describe or define "Chinese" in this discussion?
• What are the points he seeks to make?
• Who might he have imagined as his audience?
• In what ways do our Chinese sources coincide with – or complicate – the depiction and analysis he offers?

Discussion Questions

Sources 1 and 2: Meng Ch'iu, Empress Ma in coarse-woven silk. . . and K'uang Heng bores a hole in the wall Sun Ching shuts his door [Literary Excerpts]

• Are these visions of success or achievement? What makes a good husband, wife, son or daughter? How are the relationships between people in these roles celebrated?
• What are the values that are celebrated here?
• How is friendship or companionship characterized or depicted?
• How does emotion, as shown in these stories, related to moral value(s) or to idealized social roles?

Source 3: Three-Character Classic [Literary Excerpt]

• What are the core social roles presented here?
• What kinds of mutual obligations and responsibilities are encouraged or mandated by these verses?
• How does memorization as a way of learning shape knowledge, and the individual? Is this a practice still known in our own day?

Source 4: The Story of the Stone [Literary Excerpt]

• What constitutes joy (or the opposite) for the elite children depicted in this text?
• What are the visions of talent and success as seen here? What skills do these youngsters celebrate for themselves?
• In what ways does this text complicate our vision of society as seen in the text of the children's primer?

Source 5: "Joyous Celebration at the New Year" [Image]

• What objects do the children in these images make use of? How do they appear, how are they handled or used, and what life do they seem to hold for the little ones who possess them? Students are encouraged to explore the visual depictions of the toys and objects themselves, and to imagine the games and play they might suggest.
• What kinds of social relationships within an elite household are represented in this image, both in the arrangement of domestic space and its uses? How does this visual depiction reveal an ideal vision of relationships within the family and between generations, genders, and classes?
• How does this visual image compare to the textual expressions of domestic ideals and relationships? (e.g. a child's feelings of respect and filial piety towards their parents, the joys of play and creative diversions, engagement in productive work in the household?)

Source 6: The Chinese Boy and Girl, Preface [Literary Excerpt]

• How does Isaac Taylor Headland describe or define "Chinese" in his discussion? What are the terms he uses? Points he seeks to make? Who might he imagine as his audience?
• In what ways do the Chinese rhymes and discussion he shares depict Chinese childhood and family life? What perspectives are offered on family roles, gender, socio-economic class? In what ways does Headland invoke discourses of nation and culture?
• How do these sources compare with others, translated from Chinese, that we have seen?

Source 7: Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes [Literary Excerpts]

• What can we learn about specific social values as defined by a role in the family – mother, son, daughter, father, others? How do these rhymes reflect and/or complicate understandings of a traditional family system in imperial China?
• In what way does the humor presented in these rhymes also shed light upon an individual's expectations, hopes, or view of their life-path at that moment in history?

Source 8: "Yin Yu Tang: A Chinese Home" [Online Exhibit]

• How did families organize their domestic space in the late imperial period as seen in this exhibit? What are the ways in which the space is arranged, utilized, and imagined?
• Imagine yourself as a child growing up in this house. Where, in this household setting, did the children fit in? How does it seem that children may have used or experienced this space?
• What objects, in this family home, were designed for children? What were their practical purposes or uses? What might have been the personal value or symbolic meanings attached to them?

Sources 9 and 10: Children and Toys and Selling Toys [Selections]

• Describe, in detail, the toys that we see depicted in these photographs of street scenes in China. Of what materials where they constructed and who made them? Who sold them? Who are the consumers depicted here?
• What attractions might these toys have held for children? What sorts of figures or imagery do they present? What stories, games, or visions of make-believe might they have inspired?

Lesson Plan: Children in Late Imperial China

by Susan Douglass

Time Estimated: three to four 50-minute classes

Objectives

1. Students will make inferences from primary sources about expectations for instruction and roles of children in late Imperial China, 10th to 20th century.
2. Students will differentiate between roles and attributes of boys and girls in China during the period.
3. Students will explain how expectations for child raising changed over time in late Imperial China.
4. Students will explore what a household reveals about ways of life for family members through examination of the Yin Yu Tang house virtual exhibition.

Materials

• Printouts of primary sources sufficient for each student to have a full set of the texts and images in the Late Imperial China Teaching Module. 1
• Computer(s) with internet connection to view the Peabody Museum online exhibit Yin Yu Tang house (lab, projection, assignment, or smartboard for viewing)
• Writing materials, notebooks, pads & pencils for sketching

Strategies

Hook
Think of a favorite children's book of yours, and describe its storyline in a short paragraph or narrative. Explain what moral or ethical message may be inherent in that story, and what it says about the contemporary culture of childhood (or the culture of the period in which it was written) and what expectations for the upbringing of children it reveals. Then, think of a favorite toy and sketch or describe it, explaining how you played with it, and why you enjoyed it. Did the toy have gender-specific attributes? What did it say about childhood in contemporary culture? Was it handmade or mass-produced, generic or a famous brand-name?

Toys and Celebrations
Using the images "Joyous Celebration at the New Year," and the photographic collections "Children and Toys" and "Selling Toys," students can make sketches of the toys and play activities shown. The annotations to the primary sources give some explanations of the images, and sketching the toys shown may help give clues as to their play value—what did they do that was attractive to children as play (e.g., movement, making sounds, humorous animals, whirligigs, fireworks, dolls or puppets, etc.) ? A high-resolution image of Joyous Celebration at the New Year, shows much greater detail for the individual figures and groups. Discuss continuity and change over time between the painting and the photographs, as well as universal aspects of play across cultures. Which toys and activities seem gender-specific? What activities in the images do not rely on toys (e.g. putting pine branches in the fireplace in the painting, children playing with each other, etc.), and how are children in the painting and photographs involved in helping, serving adults, etc.

Children's Literature
Building from the hook activity on children's literature, read the selections in the module such as the Three-Character Classic, The Story of the Stone, Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes and the more biographical Meng Ch'iu, Empress Ma in coarse-woven silk and Meng Ch'iu, K'uang Heng bores a hole in the wall Sun Ching shuts his door. Make a list of citations from the excerpts that indicate normative behavior. Mark them with sticky-notes, highlight, or copy the citations. Make a two-column chart with the headings: Qualities of the ideal boy and Qualities of the ideal girl. Using the citations, list the personal and moral qualities the stories instill about proper behavior and moral actions of boys and girls in Chinese society. (Extension: for comparison, the same activity can be done with examples of didactic literature either from other Children & Youth in History primary sources or from historical children's literature for examples).

Exploring the Yin Yu Tang House
Introduce the activity by asking students to quickly sketch the layout of their own house, describe their sleeping space, and list the members of their household. They should use this material to think about how the house relates to the neighboring homes, how the common spaces of the house are shared by family members, and how this shared space reflects rules about adults' and children's roles in the family. What does your bedroom convey about the importance given to individual space and expectations about raising children, or child development? What values does the difference in decoration in common and private spaces say about the culture and how the family is constituted? Share ideas and differences among members of the class in discussion.

Yin Yu Tang House, cont.
Building from the ideas shared about the students' own homes and lives, view the exhibit. Students may be assigned to view the exhibit as homework if this is practical. Pay particular attention to the layout of the house and conventions for who occupied which spaces in the house, who slept in which rooms with whom, and how other spaces in the house were used. In the Yin Yu Tang house, there were also spaces created or reserved for absent persons, and for reverence toward other figures. These figures changed over time (e.g., Buddhist objects of worship, ancestor images, lists of past family members, and later images of Mao).

Optional Activity
The letters reproduced in the exhibit provide considerable evidence concerning lasting expectations and relations between adult children and their parents. Inquiries about health, concern for the raising of children from afar by absent fathers, duties concerning marriage of siblings and others, requests for goods from the city, formulas of politeness required in addressing family members, all make for interesting inferences about the nature of family life and the results of traditional upbringing of children.

Optional Activity
The sections of the exhibit on Ornamentation and Belongings are very revealing of change over time, as traditional carving and invocation of legends, lore, and protective decoration give way to the use of industrially produced decorative elements such as wallpaper, newspapers, and nationalist iconography such as Mao images vs. images and writing related to ancestors and religious imagery.

DBQ

Writing the essay as a culminating activity can be done as a timed writing or as a homework assignment (see: Document Based Question).

Differentiation

Advanced Students
Students may explore the objects and layout of the house in further detail, reporting on clothing, furnishings, and other aspects of interest. They may also explore additional passages from the literature excerpted in this module and evaluate these sources in terms of their use as evidence in explaining childrearing and education in late Imperial China.

Less Advanced Students
Students can work with a limited number of documents, focusing their writing on one or more of the following three choices:

1. comparison between their own family home and the Yin Yu Tang house;
2. comparing toys in contemporary society with the toys and games shown; or
3. a familiar didactic work of children's literature may also provide a concrete foil for comparison with some of the examples given in this module.

Use one or more of these three possibilities to compose a concluding essay that utilizes evidence from the two sets of sources.