1. Inikori, Joseph E., and Stanley L. Engerman, eds. The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies and Peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Durham: Duke University Press, 1992.
   This collection of essays from some of the premier scholars in the field is an excellent source for varied perspectives on the Atlantic Slave Trade. Essays in the volume examine how forced migration affected the people of Africa, the role of slavery in the economic development of the Atlantic World, the effects of the slave trade on the health and mortality of the slave population in the Americas, and the impact of abolition.
2. Curtin, Philip D. Africa Remembered: Narratives by West Africans from the Era of the Slave Trade. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1967.
   This book is a collection of ten rare personal accounts of West Africans who traveled the Middle Passage. Not only do they provide readers with very vivid pictures of the slave trade, but they balance out the European perspective so prevalent in the sources available.
3. Curtin, Philip D. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1969.
   The classic work on the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the most accurate source for quantitative evidence, this book looks beyond demographics to discuss points of origin, methods of enslavement and sale, changes in planter demand, and ports of disembarkation. Although this book is nearly forty years old, it is still considered the best in the field.
4. Eltis, David. The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
   This book examines the English Atlantic slave trade in the context of European trade with Africa and the Americas from 1650 to 1800 in order to examine why the Atlantic world established such an exploitative system of slavery dependent upon African slave labor. This book is different from most, as it acknowledges African agency.
5. King, Wilma. Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in 19th Century America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.
   In this monumental work on slave children in American slave society, King discusses slave children and youth through the lenses of family, labor, play, education, spirituality, slavery and freedom. While the book focuses on their childhood and youth, it also focuses on the traumas of slavery to present a well-rounded, and overlooked view of slave childhood in the Antebellum United States.
6. Klein, Herbert S. The Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
   Klein's volume is a good companion to Curtin's Census, offering a survey of the economic, social, cultural, and political history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Furthermore, it gives an excellent survey on the current historiography of the field.
7. Lovejoy, Paul. "The Children of Slavery---The Transatlantic Phase." Slavery & Abolition 27 (2006): 197-217.
   Quantitative evidence for the proportions and number of children entering the trans-Atlantic slave trade varies by region and time, with children not being in demand until late in the trade. Using The Bight of Benin as an example of regional and temporal shifts, Lovejoy shows that the increasing number of children entering the trade corresponds with demands from across the Atlantic and the British abolitionist movement.
8. Schwartz, Marie Jenkins. Born in Bondage: Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.
   Schwartz takes a fresh approach to slave children by discussing their everyday lives, education, labor, play, but also by focusing on the struggle between planter and parent over the socialization and control of slave children in the Antebellum South.
9. Vasconcellos, Colleen A. "'To Fit You All for Freedom:' Jamaican Planters, Afro-Jamaican Mothers, and the Struggle to Control Afro-Jamaican Children during Apprenticeship, 1833-1840." Citizenship Studies 10 (2006): 55-75.
   In this article, Vasconcellos examines slave childhood and youth in relation to the abolitionist movement, arguing that the nature of childhood was dramatically altered as a result of abolitionist efforts. Using Jamaican apprenticeship as an example in shifts of demand and argued value of childhood and youth on Caribbean estates, Vasconcellos discusses the struggle between planter and parent for control over childhood and freedom during the final years of slavery in the British West Indies.

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 question.

Evaluate the role of children in the Atlantic slave trade during the 18th and 19th centuries, based on analysis of evidence in the documents.

• How did the capture, transport, and sale of children affect these enslaved individuals
• What were the advantages and disadvantages of enslaving children to slave merchants and slave owners
• What do these documents indicate in terms of the possible effects of images and narratives of enslaved children on public opinion about slavery and on the abolitionist movement

Your essay should:

• have a clear thesis,
• use at least six of the documents to support your thesis,
• show 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:

• The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record,
• Bedford Books,
• Cambridge University Press,
• Dawsons of Pall Mall, and
• Octagon Books.

About the Author

Colleen Vasconcellos is an Associate Professor of History at the University of West Georgia in Carrollton, Georgia. Her research focuses on childhood in the Atlantic World, in particular colonial Jamaica. In addition to being an editor and advisory board member of several H-Net listservs, Dr. Vasconcellos is author of Slavery, Childhood, and Abolition in Jamaica, 1788-1838 (2015) and co-editor of Girls in the World: A Global Anthology with Jennifer Hillman Helgren (2012).

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.

From the 16th to the 18th centuries, an estimated 12 million Africans crossed the Atlantic to the Americas in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Used on plantations throughout the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, enslaved Africans were shipped largely from West Africa. With an average life span of five to seven years, demand for slaves from Africa increasingly grew in the 18th century leading traders to take their supply from deep within the interior of the continent. Until recently, slave studies rarely discussed children's experiences in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It has been estimated that one quarter of the slaves who crossed the Atlantic were children. Yet, a lack of sources and a perceived lack of importance kept their experiences in the shadows and left their voices unheard.

Enslavement

Like adults, children were unwilling participants within the slave trade that had a variety of sources. Children commonly found themselves enslaved as prisoners of warfare. When men were killed in battle, women, children, and the elderly became especially vulnerable. Those who were not killed or ransomed were sold into slavery. Commercial caravans frequently followed military expeditions, and waited patiently to exchange textiles and goods for captives. In some areas of West Africa, kidnapping was a popular method of acquiring children. Children were snatched while working in the fields, walking on the outskirts of town, or innocently playing outside away from their parents' view. So that communities could make ends meet during times of famine, families sometimes sold their children into slavery. Many children also found themselves as pawns or bargaining chips, sold into slavery to repay debts or crimes committed by their parents or relatives. Some parents sold children who were in poor health, required special needs, or perceived as evil spirits.

Journey to and Sale on the Coast

What happened in the days, weeks, or even months that followed their capture or sale was a whirlwind of events that had devastating effects on the psyches of the enslaved. Some children were sold immediately, and added to coffers of slaves bound for the coast. Others were sold several times over. Many children never left the interior and remained slaves in Africa. Others died somewhere on the route to the sea, along with thousands of other slaves, young and old.

For those children who made it to the coast, they were taken to a factory, castle, or trading post where they were sold to merchants who placed them in holding cells with other slaves. The merchants then stripped the children of any remaining clothing, and oiled their bodies with palm oil. Often coastal merchants shaved the heads. Once purchased, coastal merchants commonly branded the slaves with a symbol of the trading company or voyage owner on either their chest or back as a means of marking their commercial property and distinguishing their cargoes from the rest.

The Middle Passage

Traders generally defined children as anyone below 4'4" in height, and those deemed as "children" were allowed to run unfettered on deck with the women. Those traveling on deck occasionally received special treatment and attention from the captain and crew, who gave them their old clothes, taught them games, or even how to sail. Other children, like Ottobah Cugoano, refused to play or even eat. Some children, held tightly in the comforting arms of the women, cried throughout the night. Taller children, like Olaudah Equiano, were placed in the hold with adults where they experienced horrible, unsanitary conditions. Whatever their size, crying or failing to eat or sleep resulted in harsh punishment.

Although children received some preferential treatment, most children suffered experiences similar if not equal to the adults traveling alongside them. This preferential treatment and travel outside of the hold gave children a better chance of survival, but it did not shield them from corporal punishment, malnourishment, and illness. During the Middle Passage across the Atlantic that lasted anywhere from one month to three, children experienced high mortality rates. Many succumbed to the illnesses that accompanied every slaving voyage across the Atlantic, especially yaws and intestinal worms. Sometimes ill children were thrown overboard in the hope that their disease would not spread to the rest of the slave cargo.

A Demand for Children

Until the 18th century most trading companies had little or no desire to purchase children from the coast of Africa, and encouraged their captains not to buy them. Children were a bad risk, and many planters and traders who purchased them lost money on their investment. Because children (especially the young and infants) were vulnerable to disease, the cost of transporting them lowered overall profits margins. Furthermore, African children would not be able to perform hard labor or produce any offspring until they came of age. As a result, unless a planter or merchant requested a special order, children were extremely hard to sell in West Indian markets.

By the middle of the 18th century, however, planters economically dependent on the slave trade came to depend on children and youth. As the abolitionist movement increasingly threatened their slave supply, planters adopted the strategy of importing younger slaves who would live longer. As a result, youth became an attractive asset on the auction blocks of the slave markets. Ironically, abolitionist sentiment changed 18th-century definitions of risk, investment, and profit. As the plantocracy purchased more breeding women and children in order to save their economic interests, traders modified their ideas of profit and risk and ideas of child worth changed throughout the Atlantic World.

The primary sources are designed to provide a well-rounded examination of children's experiences in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The sources written by Olaudah Equiano, Venture Smith, and Ottobah Cugoano are excerpts of their published accounts of their personal experiences in the slave trade as children. Each of these sources offers a different perspective that will be of great value to students. While Venture Smith and Olaudah Equiano were rescued some time after their kidnappings, Ottobah Cugoano worked in the fields of a West Indian Plantation before obtaining his freedom in England. Equiano's narrative is particularly important, because (despite his young age) Equiano made the Middle Passage in the hold of the ship rather than in private quarters with the rest of the children.

By juxtaposing these narratives against images of the slave trade, students can begin to understand the brutalities of enslavement. In the first image, students see children chained in the same manner as adults in a slave coffle, which they can relate to Equiano's narrative. A second image depicts an advertisement for a slave ship that had recently docked in Charleston harbor listing an equal number of children and adults for sale, while a third shows a great number of children in the cargo of the liberated slave ship, Dhow. These two images, combined with quantitative evidence on the estimated number of children who traveled from Africa to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th centuries enable students to see shifts in supply and demand as more children entered the trade beginning in the 18th century. Students can then read the Dolben's Act of 1788, an English law that helped contribute to an increased number of girls and children in the trade.

Lastly, students can see the growing demand for children in an excerpted request made by Playden Onely to the members of the Royal African Company in 1721 for 130 children to be taken from West Africa to the West Indies for sale as slaves further supports the quantitative evidence supplied. After the success of this voyage, Onely contracted the RAC to deliver 500 children annually to specifically designated ports. While we have no evidence to support whether these voyages actually took place or for how long, Onely's contract request shows a growing demand for children before abolitionist sentiment came to a head in the late 18th, early 19th centuries, contrary to the accepted belief that children were a risk on Atlantic plantations.

Discussion Questions

• After reading excerpts from Equiano, Smith, and Cugoano, do you think that children received special treatment during the Middle Passage based on their age or size? Why or why not? Does the image of the slave coffle change or support your opinion?
• Prior to the threat that abolitionists posed to the future of the slave trade in the middle of the 18th century, children were seen as risky investments by slave traders and plantation owners. Why do you think that this was the case? What risks would children have posed?
• After abolitionism began to threaten the slave trade, and plantation owners began to fear its demise, children were no longer seen as risky investments. Why the change in planter and trader opinion? What benefit could a child bring to a trader or plantation owner? Why would children suddenly make a good investment?

Lesson Plan: Children in the Slave Trade

by Susan Douglass

Time Estimated: two to three 45-50-minute classes

Objectives

1. Examine children's experiences in the trans-Atlantic slave trade in terms of their capture, transport, and usage as laborers.
2. Weigh evidence of the growing number of children taken in the slave trade and the causes and effects of their involvement.
3. Assess factors in the continuation of the slave trade in the Americas, and in its fluctuation over time.
4. Assess efforts by abolitionists to draw attention to the evils of slavery through publication of narratives and images involving children and the brutalities to which they were exposed.

Materials

• Printouts of primary sources sufficient for each student to have a full set of the texts and images in the Children in the Slave Trade Teaching Module. 1
• Six shallow boxes, bins, or baskets in which to collect citations written on half-sheets of paper.
• Enough half-sheets of paper to allow each student to write 10 responses.
• Three markers.

Preparation

If possible, assign students to read as homework the primary sources in the Children in the Slave Trade Teaching Module. This activity will prepare students for writing an essay on the Document Based Question in this teaching module.

Day One

Hook
Display the image Advertisement for Sale of Newly Arrived Africans, Charleston, July 24, 1769 [Advertisement]. Ask students to view, read, and reflect on this advertising poster by thinking for 2—3 minutes and jotting down some historical questions it raises, and what element in the source raises those questions. What does it tell us, and what does it make us curious to know, focusing especially on the element of child slavery?

Responses might include: it tells us that children were being imported to the Americas for sale in significant quantities, that they were intended for use as laborers, and this trade began before a significant abolition movement was established. It raises historical questions such as: How many children were involved in the trade, and how did this change over time? How old were the children involved? How did slave owners and traders justify the increased risks and longer-term return on their "investment"?There are many other possibilities.

Activity
Divide students into three groups. Each group is assigned two containers, and goes to a corner of the room where chairs are set up. Divide the groups in half to represent opposing sides of each issue listed in the bullets below in #4.

Using the three bullet items of the DBQ, assign each group one issue to discuss using the documents. They will label the boxes per instructions that follow:

• The first group will read the slave narratives (The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Kidnapping, Slave Ship, Middle Passage, Slave Auction; A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture A Native of Africa, but Resident Above Sixty Years in the United States of America Related by Himself ; Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery: Slave Coffle, Middle Passage ) in order to identify and cite quotations of (a) evidence of the psychological and social damage done by the experiences related, and (b) evidence of the capacity for survival and resilience related by the narrators. Label the boxes "Damage" and "Resilience." Each half of the group will write citations from the documents on half-sheets of paper and place them in the corresponding box. These citations may include word lists, or they may be citations of whole phrases or sentences such as would be used to bolster an argument in an essay.
• The second group will read the other documents (any of the sources except the slave narratives) seeking evidence of the advantages and disadvantages for slave traders and slave owners. Label the 2 boxes "Advantages" and "Disadvantages." Each half of the group will write citations in support of either side and place the half-sheets in the corresponding box.
• The third group will look at any of the documents they believe are relevant to the issue of abolition. They will label their 2 boxes "Effective" and "Ineffective." Each half of the group will find citations of evidence that the publication of these documents would be effective in supporting abolition efforts, or might be either ineffective or serve as arguments for the continuation of slavery.

Working within the sub-groups, members will go over their findings on each side of the issue for 5–10 minutes. Then the three groups convene and discuss their findings as a whole on each issue. They will use the chart to prepare a summary of the group's findings, perhaps making a 2-column chart. This should take an additional 5—10 minutes.

Then the class comes together to present and discuss each group's findings on their issue. Part of the discussion could be to see if any of the documents a group DID NOT read are relevant to one of the three issues.

Day Two

The class will address the overarching document based question regarding the role of children in slavery during this period, putting all of the evidence together. The discussion is focused on analyzing the evidence as it illuminates the larger question. This discussion should include what the documents DO NOT reveal, and what type of information or documents might shed additional light on the question.

The students then receive the assignment to draft a DBQ essay using the documents, which would address all of the issues as they relate to the larger question. This will be assigned for homework.

Day Three (Optional)

The third class period could be devoted to reading student essays and critiquing their strategies, use of evidence, etc., first in small groups, and then as a class. Students use these critiques to revise their essays for completion of the assignment.

Differentiation

Advanced Students

• Assign the third discussion group in #4, above, since their task involves all of the primary sources, and requires a more subtle analysis of them.
• Have students students search for additional documents and images from The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record, compiled by Jerome S. Handler and Michael L. Tuite Jr. Have them locate other images in the collection that may be relevant to the issue of children in the slave trade, and evaluate these sources in terms of their creators' point of view and their use as evidence.

Less Advanced Students
These students can be given more time and team support, or they can be asked to master just one of the three major issues raised in the document based question and use it to write an essay.

Our children will surely become ill and die if we fail to give attention to their care during childhood. Moreover, if we do not educate them thoughtfully, they will invariably grow up so bigoted and stupid that they will be unable to compete even among barbarians. These are truisms most easy to understand. When it comes to caring for children, there is a natural instinct among parents, regardless of wealth and sophistication, to feel that they must earnestly protect their young. Is it not really strange and regrettable, however, that they are not a few who without reflection ignore the factor of education?

From infancy until they are six or seven, children's minds are clean and without the slightest blemish while their characters are as pure and unadulterated as a perfect pearl. Since what then touches their eyes and ears, whether good or bad, makes a deep impression that will not be wiped out until death, this age provides the best opportunity for disciplining their natures and training them in deportment. They will become learned and virtuous if the training methods are appropriate, stupid and bigoted if the methods are bad. Just as a young tree once bent at planting cannot be straightened when it grows up, what deeply penetrates children's minds during this sensitive and keen period cannot be changed after they grow up, even though one may desire to do so. How can we avoid giving attention to this age that is the dividing point at which it is determined whether an individual throughout his life will be wise or stupid, good or bad?

The countries of Europe and American have naturally left nothing undone in establishing schools everywhere and developing every method for the education of their children. With the advance of modern culture, however, the theory is increasingly widespread that education in the home clearly surpasses that in the schools. The theory runs as follows: A family resembles a country, and for parents to educate their children is their clear responsibility from the point of view of natural ethics (tendō jinri). Parents at home are able to guide children at any time during infancy when the young people are most receptive. Teaching what they desire to teach and transmitting what they desire to transmit, the father by his strictness and the mother by her tenderness carry on together without the injury of outsiders disturbing and tempting the children. Once the children leave home, it will be impossible for them to avoid disturbing and tempting evils even though their education is in a place of upright customs. Since the affection of even good teachers and good friends is vastly different from the guidance of parents as the best teachers for educating small children.

This principle applies, however, only to the comparatively wealthy middle and upper class families since there are few parents even in the enlightened countries, not to mention unenlightened countries, who train their children sufficiently at home. There are times when even such [advantaged] parents can only entrust the training of their children to others for the reason that they are prevented by their occupations from performing their family duties. Under present conditions in society, however, parents take for granted that their children should be entrusted to others, and they seem not to recognize that their children's education is their principle parental responsibility. The homes being without parental training, the children of the rich consequently become accustomed to arrogant and extravagant ways by associating only with ignorant and blind servants, while the children of the poor learn mean and dirty habits by mingling with ignorant and stupid children. How can these children avoid becoming ignorant and stupid and thus waste their days in profitless and harmful activities?

When the children grow up ignorant and delinquent because their parents were prevented by their occupations from training them, not a few parents freely admonish the children or even go so far as to reproach the children's friends and teachers without recognizing that they, the parents, themselves are the guilty. While they may be extremely mistaken, however, they should not be harshly blamed. Should you ask why, it is because they do not know how to educate their children since they, after all, did not themselves receive training from their parents.

What then should we do about the situation? Needless to say, event though we want to halt the illness, the cure cannot be accomplished in a day when the disease has penetrated to the marrow of the bone. Therefore, I do not now suddenly hold the parents wholly responsible for the education of their children. If parents just recognize the training of their children to be their responsibility and if they attentively exhaust their powers to this end, then I hope that their children will also understand their responsibility to educate the succeeding generation and that this may ultimately become a family tradition and regional custom. What I desire still more deeply is only that, by actively establishing girls' schools and devoting our energies to educating girls, we may train these girls to understand how important it is for them to educate the children to whom they give birth.

Napoleon I once observed to the famous woman teacher Campan, "Since all the old methods of education really seem to be worthy of respect, what do we lack for the good upbringing of the people?" When Campan replied "Mothers," the emperor exclaimed in surprise, "Ah, this is true! This single word suffices as the guiding principle of education." These are indeed meaningful words.

In a later number, I shall explain the necessity for girls' schools.

"Heaven did not create men above men nor put men under men," it is said. Therefore, Heaven's aim is that all men are equal at birth without distinction of high and low or noble and mean, and that they should all work with body and soul in a manner worthy of lords of creation, which they are, in order to use nature for fulfilling their needs of clothing, food, and dwelling, freely but without obstructing others, so that each may live happily through life.

However, when we look at our wide world, we find wise men and ignorant men, rich men and poor men, men of importance and men of little consequence, their differences like the cloud and the slime. Why should all this be? The reason is obvious. The Jitsugokyō says: "If a man does not study, he will have no knowledge. A man without knowledge is a fool. The distinction between the wise man and the fool is." The distinction between the wise man and the fool is based on whether he has studied or not.

In society there are difficult tasks and easy tasks. Those who undertake difficult tasks are called men of high standing and those who undertake easy tasks are called men of low standing. Tasks that require the use of the mind and involve much worry are difficult; those that require the labor of hands and feet are easy. Therefore, physicians, scholars, government officials, and large-scale merchants and farmers having many employees are called men of high standing and importance. . . .

But the root of it all. . . is. . . whether a man has learning or not; there are no Heaven-made distinctions. The proverb says, "Heaven does not give riches to men but to the labor of men." Therefore. . . only those who achieve learning will attain rank and riches; those without learning become poor and lowly.

Learning does not mean useless accomplishments, such as knowing strange words, or reading old and difficult texts, or enjoying and writing poetry. These accomplishments give much pleasure to the human mind and they have their own values. But they should not be slavishly worshipped as the usual run of scholars try to persuade us. There have been precious few scholars in Chinese classics at any time who were good providers, or merchants accomplished in poetry and yet clever in business. For this reason, merchants and farmers worry when their songs take to learning seriously, thinking that their fortunes are bound to be ruined.

Therefore this kind of unpractical learning should be left to other days, and one's best efforts should be given to practical learning that is close to everyday needs – the forty-seven letters of the alphabet, the composition of letters, bookkeeping, the abacus, and the use of scales. Beyond that, there are many subjects to study: Geography provides a guide to Japan and all the countries of the world; Natural Philosophy is knowledge of the nature and function of all things under the heavens; History is a chronology and study of the conditions of all countries in the world, past and present; Economics explains the management of the household, the country, and the world; Ethics teaches men the natural principles of self-conduct, relations with his fellow men, and behavior in society.

For the study of these subjects, one should read the translations of Western books. For writing, the Japanese alphabet is usually sufficient. A youth of promise should be encouraged to learn the "letters written sideways" and to grasp the fundamentals of at least one subject relevant to everyday life. This is the Jitsugaku (Practical Learning) that all men, without distinction of rank, should acquire. Only after this should men pursue their separate ways as samurai, farmer, artisan, or merchant and look after their separate private affairs. . . .

In the pursuit of learning, the important thing is to know one's proper limitations. Man is not born bound or restricted by nature; therefore as an adult he should also be free and unrestrained. However, by stressing freedom alone and forgetting one's proper limitations, one is liable to fall into waywardness and licentiousness. What is meant by limitations is conformity to reason of Heaven and Humanity and attain one's own freedom without infringing upon that of other men. . . .

The important thing is that everyone regulate his conduct according to the principles of Humanity, study earnestly to acquire wide knowledge, and develop abilities appropriate to his nation. Thus the government will be able to rule more easily and the people to accept its rule agreeably, each finding his place and all helping to preserve the peace of the nation. This should be the only aim. The encouragement of learning that I advocate, too, takes this for its aim.

*Gakumon No Susume. Extensively adapted from the translation by Eiichi Kiyooka, 1957, pp. 15–16.

I was adopted by the Katsu family when I was seven. My age was officially given as seventeen, and the hair at the front of my head was cut off accordingly. 1 As part of the adoption procedure, 2 Ishikawa Ukon-no-shôgen, the commissioner of my unit at the kobushingumi, 3 and his assistant, Obi Daishichirô, came to the house.

"How old are you and what is your name?" Ishikawa asked.

"My name is Kokichi and I am seventeen."

Ishikawa pretended to be taken aback. "Well — for seventeen you certainly look old!" He burst out laughing.

My adoptive father's older brother, Aoki Jinbei, who served at Edo Castle as a member of the Great Guard, acted as sponsor.

Until then I had been called Kamematsu. With my adoption my name changed to Kokichi. My adoptive parents had already died, leaving behind a daughter and her grandmother. It was decided that the two would live at my father's place in Fukugawa. I was completely ignorant of these arrangements and spent my time in play.

I got into another fight over a kite, again with some boys from Mae-chô. There must have been 20 or 30. I took them on alone hitting and punching, but they finally got the better of me. I was cornered on a large rock in an open field and struck over and over with bamboo poles. My hair had fallen loose all over my face, and I was sobbing. I took out my short sword and slashed left and right. 4 But I knew I was beaten and decided then and there to commit hara-kiri. I stripped to the waist and sat down on the rock. As it so happened, a rice dealer by the name of Shirokoya was standing nearby. He talked me into giving up the idea and took me home. After this, though, all the boys in the neighborhood became my followers. I was seven at the time . . . .

When I was nine, my father told me to take judo lessons with Suzuki Seibei, a relative of the Katsu family in Yokoami-chô . . . . As I said, everyone in judo class hated me. On the day that an all-night midwinter session was to be held, we received permission from the teacher to bring food. We took a break at midnight. I had packed a lacquer box full of bean jam cakes and had been looking forward all day to this moment when we would share the food. My classmates had other plans. They got together and tied me up with an obi, 5 hoisted me to one of the rafters and began eating, even helping themselves to my cakes. So I pissed on their heads, spraying the food that had been spread out, and naturally, everything had to be thrown away. Served them right, too.

"How to Teach Children"

(Kyôshi hô)

In the education of children, there is a difference between young children (yôshô) and adults (seijin). When children are very young, they learn from the beliefs and behavior of their parents, wet nurses, and so on.

In order to avoid stimulating bad ideas in a child so that he does not become a bad person, it is most important to take care to leave childish behavior such as playful mischief up to the child himself, and not to force your own opinions on him. No matter what happens, childish behavior is resolved with age and disappears on its own. Even they who understand a little about teaching children still do not know how to teach the heart, and by making a very young child exhibit adult behavior, they may make the child become bitter and depressed.

Seeing that this happens, some parents are reluctant to lecture their children, thinking it wrong, and as a result, they give their children too many favors, or let them have their own way in everything, indulging in pleasure. To do so is to allow them to learn to be vulgar, careless, and loose. That is a mistake in raising children. Leave childish things and playful mischief to the child in question, but warn them about the depravity in our hearts.

This way of teaching requires parents and nurses to be cautious about everyday jokes . . . . When parents line up and compare brothers, they joke that this one is my child and that one is not, and thus they instigate quarrels and jealousy between brothers.

Or else, when giving out food and clothing, adults say jokingly, "You may have it, you may not," which stimulates avarice.

Or else, when a child shows resistance to an adult and yells and cries, the parents try to stop his crying by taking his side no matter what, and by blaming the other party. This rewards an attitude of blaming other people, and stimulates a twisted attitude that leads to picking quarrels.

Or else, they readily deceive him, which stimulates in him the idea of opportunistic cheating.

Or else, they readily make up scary stories, which fosters a cowardly personality that is intimidated by threats and scare tactics.

In this way, without being aware of it, parents and nurses stimulate bad attitudes that will cause children to lose their innate virtue.

There are countless cases of this. Understand the reasons why and make it your number one concern not to let children learn avarice, excessive patience, a twisted mentality, and an aggressive, competitive attitude, or a tendency to cheat and degrade others. Even unintentional teasing should involve some kind of teaching, such as how to serve older family members with respect and to nurture the virtue of humility.

How Some Children Played at Slaughtering

I

In a city named Franecker, located in West Friesland, some young boys and girls between the ages of five and six happened to be playing with one another. They chose one boy to play a butcher, another boy to play was to be a cook, and a third boy was to be a pig. Then they chose one girl to be a cook and another girl her assistant. The assistant was to catch the blood of the pig in a little bowl so they could make sausages. As agreed, the butcher now fell upon the little boy playing the pig, threw him to the ground, and slit his throat open with a knife, while the assistant cook caught the blood in her little bowl.

A councilman was walking nearby and saw this wretched act. He immediately took the butcher with him and led him into the house of the mayor, who instantly summoned the entire council. They deliberated about this incident and did not know what they should do to the boy, for they realized it had all been part of a children's game. One of the councilmen, an old wise man, advised the chief judge to take a beautiful red apple in one hand and a Rhenish gulden in the other. Then he was to call the boy and stretch out his hands to him. If the boy took the apple, he was to be set free. If he took the gulden, he was to be killed. The judge took the wise man's advice, and the boy grabbed the apple with a laugh. Thus he was set free without any punishment.

II

There once was a father who slaughtered a pig, and his children saw that. In the afternoon, when they began playing, one child said to the other, "you be the little pig, and I'll be the butcher." He then took a shiny knife and slit his little brother's throat.

Their mother was upstairs in a room bathing another child, and when she heard the cries of her son, she immediately ran downstairs. Upon seeing what had happened, she took the knife out of her son's throat and was so enraged that she stabbed the heart of the other boy, who had been playing the butcher. Then she quickly ran back to the room to tend to her child in the bathtub, but while she was gone, he had drowned in the tub. Now the woman became so frightened and desperate that she did not allow the neighbors to comfort her and finally hung herself. When her husband came back from the fields and saw everything, he became so despondent that he died soon after.

Why I Taught the Source

Folktales and fairy tales are excellent resources for dealing with historical topics related to children and youth. In the first place, the genres themselves are often associated with children and childhood, especially since editors, writers, and pedagogues in 19th-century Europe began presenting folktales and fairy tales as tools to be utilized in the moral and cultural education of children. Secondly, the child characters in these traditional narratives also reveal how children and childhood were perceived by the societies that produced or adapted the tales.

In my course, Understanding the Fairy Tale, I use Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's canonical collection to demonstrate the development of the fairy tale as children's literature and to examine the construction of childhood and the experiences of children from a sociohistorical perspective. Two of the texts that I use appeared under the provocative title "How Some Children Played at Slaughtering" ("Wie Kinder Schlachtens miteinander gespielt haben") in the first edition of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen (commonly translated as Children's and Household Tales) published in 1812. Because the two violent and disturbing stories were omitted from later editions, however, they are not well known to students. The first of the two stories tells of a childhood game that results in one boy being butchered by another who is then tried before the adult authorities. The second story involves the destruction of an entire family through a chain of tragic deaths that begins after one child kills another after witnessing his father slaughter a pig.

How I Introduce the Source

The students are given these stories on a handout at the end of the first class session and asked to read them before the next class meeting. This first, "cold" encounter with the texts is meant to stimulate the students' critical thinking about the Grimms' collection. Inevitably, in their first confrontation with these two stories, the students ask themselves the questions I will eventually ask in class: Why would these gruesome and disturbing tales be included in Grimms' collection? Are they really fairy tales? What are they about?

I identify the stories only as having been published in Grimms' collection of fairy tales, but I do not provide any further contextualization when making this initial assignment. Context is ultimately important in a sociohistorical approach; and during our subsequent discussion, I provide further historical background by pointing out that the Grimms' own sources allow us to trace the tales back to at least the 16th and 17th centuries, respectively. 1

Reading the Source

While students have come to expect that unexpurgated versions of Grimms' 19th-century tales can be more violent than the sanitized versions they remember from childhood, they are not prepared for the senseless violence involving children in these brief stories. Unlike other tales, where violent acts are justified as a form of moral punishment, "How Some Children Played at Slaughtering" depicts gruesome events that have no convincing justification.

The students' own question about the appropriateness of such tales within the Children's and Household Tales was one that contemporary readers also asked. Grimms' German contemporaries had deemed the two tales inappropriate for children as notions of childhood underwent a profound shift. Changing childhood ideals influenced the emergence of a new literature for children that imparted moral training. The Grimms responded to the historical changes they also furthered by reshaping the content of their canonical work.

After the publication of "How Some Children Played at Slaughtering" in the first edition of Grimms' collection in 1812, it was omitted from all subsequent editions. Students are able to discern from this example how canonical texts, which are often assumed to be universal and transcendent, develop in a historical context and are shaped by historically constituted conceptions of childhood.

The most compelling issue for students, however, comes from questions pertaining to the significance of the stories themselves. Since the tales have been disqualified as children's literature, the question arises why adults would compose such troubling stories about children in the first place. I attempt to demonstrate how traditional narratives about children give expression to adult anxieties about childhood and parenting.

I begin this discussion by pointing out that the second of these two stories is related to the legend known as "The Inept Mother." The legend that is still circulated by female friends, relatives, and others is familiar to women and students. "The Inept Mother" can be read as a story whose horrific chain of catastrophes expresses the anxiety of women who feel overwhelmed by the responsibility they bear for the lives of their children. 2 In summarizing this interpretation for students, I attempt to demonstrate how traditional narratives about children give expression to adult attitudes towards childhood and parenting.

Adults' efforts to define childhood and to demarcate it from adulthood finds expression in the first of the two stories, which begins with a fatal game of butchering among children and concludes with the town council's judgment that the boy who played the butcher is innocent of murder. My primary strategy in elucidating adults' understandings about children is to ask my students to explain the test of innocence devised by a member of the town council and to identify the assumptions and ambiguities in the test that requires the boy to choose between an apple and a coin.

Choosing the apple would suggest an innate affinity for the concrete and the natural, and thus signify the child's natural purity and inability to commit a crime with conscious intent. Selecting the coin would suggest that the boy has the ability to reason and to comprehend the value of the abstract, thus signifying a "higher" adult state of mind and the ability to distinguish right from wrong. Students recognize that the boy's choice of the apple is the cause for his being "set free without any punishment." Yet, pressed to search for ambiguities, they also conclude that the boy's laughter might express his witting pleasure in outfoxing the judge instead of his innocent delight in gaining the apple. Indeed, his choice of the all-too-obvious apple might suggest his criminal (sinful) nature instead of his natural purity.

At this point, the stage is set for a discussion of the problems that societies encounter in defining the difference between children and adults. In this context, the Grimms' text can be easily related to those widely covered news stories in contemporary America involving children who commit crimes and the decision that authorities must make whether to try them as juveniles or adults—stories that tell us about our own struggle to define childhood in the 21st century.

Reflections

The effectiveness of this assignment and the discussion it provokes stems in part from the surprises that await students in their encounter with these two texts. Because the Grimms removed "How Some Children Played at Slaughtering" from the editions of their collection that they published from 1819 onwards, the two tales have not been associated with the Grimms and have not become part of the classical fairy-tale canon. Students are excited to learn that two such unusual and, for some, disturbing stories were once published alongside nursery-friendly tales.

Once juxtaposed with these familiar tales of childhood, "How Some Children Played at Slaughtering" prompts students to reflect not only on the generic and moral issues that influenced Grimms' construction of the fairy-tale genre; it also gives them reason to question and examine more closely the tales that have taken up permanent residence in the nursery and become a part of nearly every child's literary experience. The violence depicted in these two tales now becomes a touchstone for reconsidering the otherwise clichéd questions about violence in fairy tales.

For example, how different is the violence in these two tales from the kind of violence inflicted on children in "Hansel and Gretel" or "The Juniper Tree"? Such questions and comparisons require students to think about the ways in which adults depict children and childhood, and how these depictions can be interpreted. They also demand that students be sensitive to context and ambiguity. Indeed, to make sense of "How Some Children Played at Slaughtering" and its literary reception, students must develop interpretive skills that take into account the editorial history of Grimms' tales, the history of childhood, and the moral ambiguities at play in the two stories.

These are big topics, of course, and teachers will find it necessary to adjust the assignment not only for the level of students in their classrooms but also for the focus of their particular course. A course on the image of children in literature and culture, for example, need not undertake a full-fledged review of Grimms' work as editors of fairy tales. Basic information of the kind offered above (and available in the introduction to Jack Zipes's translation of The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm 3) can be easily presented by the instructor.

While I use lecture and discussion to pursue the questions and issues described in this case study, some instructors might consider other strategies for engaging students. For example, students might be asked to identify and collect news stories and editorials in the media that reflect the ongoing debate about the proper age at which a child becomes—or can be tried in the judicial systems as—an adult. Similarly, the tale of the childhood game of butcher could provide the basis for a mock trial in the classroom, in which students could prosecute, defend, and judge the actions of the accused boy butcher. This could serve as an effective exercise to get to the heart of the questions about childhood and about guilt and innocence at work in this intriguing tale.

Scouts form up in one line with the leader in front, each holding his staff in the right hand, and his left on the next man's shoulder.

Leader sings the Een-Gonyama song. Scouts sing chorus, and advance to their front a few steps at a time, stamping in unison on the long notes. Into the centre [a Scout] steps forward and carries out a war dance, representing how he tracked and fought with one of his enemies. He goes through the whole fight in dumb show, until he finally kills his foe; the Scouts meantime still singing the Een-Gonyama chorus and dancing on their own ground. So soon as he finishes the fight, the leader starts the 'Be Prepared' chorus.

Then they commence the Een-Gonyama chorus, and another Scout steps into the ring, and describes in dumb show how he stalked and killed a wild buffalo. While he does the creeping up and stalking the animal, the Scouts all crouch and sing their chorus very softly, and as he gets more into the fight with the beast, they simultaneously spring up and dance and shout the chorus loudly.

The Een-Gonyama song should be sung in a spirited way, and not droned out dismally like a dirge.

The Adoption History Project is a superb resource for scholars and students alike. Not only does it offer a broad and consistently high-quality range of historical information, the site itself was designed with user accessibility in mind—it is easy to navigate and welcoming for students.

The home page introduces the five major categories. Of these, one that might appeal most immediately to students is the Timeline, which gives a concise, one-page overview of major developments in adoption history from 1851 to 2000. Other categories include: major people and organizations; explanations of adoption studies and adoption science; general topics in adoption history; and a rich collection of primary-source documents that, in itself, offers hours of compelling reading. See, for example, the illustrated excerpts from The Dangerous Classes of New York and Twenty Years' Work Among Them [1872] by Charles Loring Brace, a leading figure in 19th century social reform and child-rescue.

Shorter primary sources appear in full-text form; longer ones are efficiently excerpted for easy reading, with full citations provided. Further Reading offers references to many useful texts. One of the site's nicest design features is that much of this information is cross-indexed, so that visitors can find the same pages easily through a variety of different paths. To make navigation even simpler, a Site Index provides a clear and cogent list of topics.

Written in a clear and engaging style, the site offers quick access to major issues that shape the field of adoption history. For example, Adoption Studies/Adoption Science leads to a paragraph that neatly explains: "Adoption has been the subject of four major types of empirical research: field studies, outcome studies, nature-nurture studies, and psychopathology studies." Each term is hyperlinked to chronological lists of studies in the relevant area. The page also provides descriptions of particular studies and excerpts, making it relatively simple for someone new to the field to quickly grasp the general shape of the discourse of adoption history.

The overall content reflects the impact of Cultural Studies and multiculturalism on the field of adoption history. Pages on transracial adoptions, African-American adoptions, and the Indian Adoption Project complement those devoted to the more traditionally visible history of white orphans, white social workers, and white adoptive parents.

One small critique of the biographies of major figures: the pages devoted to female figures (such as Pearl S. Buck and Anna Freud) mention their marital and/or parental status, often in the very first paragraph, presenting the impression that a woman's personal relationships are the most necessary and relevant facts of her life. Meanwhile, the male figures are discussed solely for their professional importance, with little or no mention of their family life.

Feminist historians will find this irritating, especially in the case of Anna Freud, who is described reductively as an apparent victim of an Elektra complex: "She made her father's profession her own . . . . Anna Freud never married or had children. She was her father's constant companion, his colleague, and his nurse during the final years of his life." Especially because it appears in the first paragraph, this is an inappropriately condescending description of someone who deserves to have her professional accomplishments foregrounded. That flaw, however, could easily be turned into a good teaching opportunity with students who are old enough to grasp the concept of gender bias in historiography.

Overall, the Adoption History Project is among the best-designed and most succinctly comprehensive historical websites currently available. It is useful for students and scholars at all levels of academic proficiency.

1. Ihimaera, Witi, ed. Growing Up Maori. Auckland: Tandem Press, 1998.
   This collection of 37 personal accounts covers a wide spectrum of experiences and provides the best single introduction to Maori childhoods, rural and urban, throughout the 20th century.
2. Gifkins, Michael, ed. Through the Looking Glass: Recollections of Childhood from 20 Prominent New Zealanders. Auckland: Century Hutchinson, 1988.
   In seeking a common theme from the variety of childhood experience reflected in this collection, Gifkins concludes (p. viii) that "the anarchy of childhood" predominates. Each of the contributors attained prominence in his or her chosen field; the majority are writers or poets. Most of the childhoods outlined are set in the 1940s and 1950s.
3. O'Regan, Pauline. Aunts & Windmills: Stories from My Past. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1991.
   A Catholic nun and social activist, O'Regan recounts childhood episodes of the 1920s and 1930s, set in the small West Coast farming community of Cronadun. School, church, and community activities are complemented by evocative memories of sounds, smells, and tastes.
4. Langkilde Christie, Poula. Candles and Canvas; A Danish Family in New Zealand. Auckland: New Women's Press, 1987.
   Emigrating as a child to New Zealand in 1907, Poula Christie and her sister encountered intolerance, hostility, and suspicion as "foreigners" in a British-dominated society. Her autobiography highlights the cultural difficulties of young "aliens" who sought to be accepted by their peers despite parental anxieties that they should not ignore their cultural heritage.
5. Archie, Carol. Skin to Skin: Intimate True Stories of Maori-Pakeha Relationships. Auckland: Penguin Books, 2005.
   A highly respected Pakeha journalist, Archie has had extensive experience covering Maori/Pakeha issues. This book is based upon her interviews with the members of ten New Zealand families of mixed ethnicity. Particular emphasis is given to the recollections of the (now adult) children. Some 70,000 New Zealand couples were in Maori/non-Maori relationships at the beginning of the 21st century.

by Ryba L. Epstein
(Suggested writing time: 50 minutes)

Societies try to pass on their basic beliefs and values to their children through both official and unofficial channels. The ideals about what children should be taught, how they should be raised, and how they should behave vary greatly from one group to another and over time.

Analyze the documents below and determine the changing attitudes toward children in 19th- and 20th-century New Zealand, as well as the official and unofficial ways those values are shaped.

Your essay should:

• have a clear thesis,
• use all of the documents to support your thesis,
• show 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.

Documents

1. S. Locke, Annual Report on Native Affairs [Government Document], 1874.
   
   The Maoris in this part of the country are in that position where they find the balance of power turned in favour of the European. They feel the old mana and customs and power of their chiefs are gone: at the same time they have only acquired that amount of knowledge that makes them jealous of the change going on around them, without having, for the altered position in which they are placed, learnt those habits of steady industry and application of general principles for their guidance, to allow their participating freely in the general progress. . . . [There] is a party of industrious Natives in the district who cultivate extensively, paying attention to improving their properties and educating the rising generation. . . . There are two schools established in the district, under the provisions of the Native Schools Act, . . . both of which are conducted in a most satisfactory manner, and the children show a great deal of progress in their knowledge of the English language, considering the short time they have been learning; so much so that it is time to consider some way of providing for some of them by apprenticing them to useful trades. . . .
2. "Shocking Disaster at Cambridge: Three Children Burn to Death." Newspaper article. 1884.
   
   Mrs. Osborne, having some shopping to do in the town, put her infant child to be, and locked it up by itself in the bedroom, so that it would not be disturbed by the other two children [aged 2 and 4 years]. Seeing that everything was safe, there being no fire in the house since breakfast time, she shut up the boy and the girl in the kitchen, and then proceeded to town on her business. I was the usual thing for Mrs. Osborne to shut up her children, believing that did she not do so they would find their way to the river, only a few chains distant. . . . The Coroner . . . referred to the boys’ habit of using matches as described by the mother, and he had no doubt but that the fire originated by the boy getting hold of the matches on this occasion, and in some way setting fire to their clothes or some paper that may have been lying about. . . . He though that the children might have been left with some neighbor.
   
   A juryman informed the coroner that there were no neighbors in the vicinity, and the unfortunate people were not in a position to employ a girl to look after the house in their absence.
   
   A verdict of accidental death by burning was returned.
3. Parliamentary debate over the "Juvenile Depravity Suppression Bill." 1896.
   
   "Mr. W. Hutchinson: There were a number of young children amongst us painfully demoralised – so young, some of them, that the policeman could not think of interfering with them – children suffering from a so-called liberty run unto utter license and lawlessness; and all this arising largely from parental carelessness or positive neglect. . . . These mere children got together at the street-corner or under a dark verandah; they talked, or they listened to talk, not the sweet babble of childhood, mixed with its laugh of innocence, but talk that need not be described; they got into temptations of all kinds before they understood the disastrous results which certainly followed. He ventured to suggest that these young children should be dealt with before they come to those of more advanced age. The Bill before them took no note of this incipiency in vice, yet it was here the mischief began. The Bill was a police Bill, pure and simple; but they needed more. It was an out-worn but still perfectly true axiom that prevention was better than cure."
4. W. E. Spencer, Inspector of Schools, Taranaki Education Office, 1898.
   
   "The causes of bad attendance, exclusive of bad roads and inclement weather, may be classed under two heads - (1) The home circumstances of the pupils, and (2) the school and its authorities. Under the first head I may mention parental indifference or neglect and excessive work required from children of very tender years. I know that during the milking season some children have to milk as many as ten cows every morning, and, if they come to school at all, arrive late, and are so fatigued as to be unfit for the work of the day. . . . Under the second of the above heads there is ample scope for attraction. When a school building is ill-lighted, gloomy, and depressing one cannot wonder at children preferring to stay away more than at their preferring sunshine to dulness [sic]. Then by all means let our schools be cheerful, bright, and attractive, and let the walls be covered with interesting and instructive charts and pictures such as will arouse and sustain curiosity. . . . Let the first impressions of the school-day be pleasant ones. Let us have means by which the children may amuse themselves during the recesses and before school opens, and they will, if possible, come early and regularly for a brief interval of companionship and amusement. . . . Again, the personality of the teacher is a well-known factor in producing good or bad attendance. Lack of sympathy, harshness, carelessness, and incompetency will inevitably lower the attendance. . . ."
5. Female Interviewee (born 1897). Interview by Colonial Childhoods Oral History Project.
   
   "When my brother was born I was just on 12 and the night before he was born, my mother said: "Would you like to go round and stay with Mrs Andrews?" So I stayed the night and I came home in the morning. Mrs Andrews said "Oh, you can go home now." So I went home. It wasn't far from where we were living in Petone. And when I got into the side I saw a most beautiful baby in a basket, on a chair, in the dining room and then I saw somebody rushing round in a starched apron with a cap on her head and I thought, "Well, who are you?" And I said to her, "Who's this in the basket?" She said, "That's your little brother." "Oh," I said, "Well then, I'll go and tell my mother." She said, "Don't you dare open that door. Your mother is very ill." Well, I was nearly 12 and I had no idea in the wild world where my brother had come from or how he got there or anything else – and I think that was quite wrong. I should have been told but I must have been very naïve or an idiot or something, I don't know what, but I never noticed that my mother was any different or having a baby."
6. Code of Honour from The New Zealand Boys' Diary. 1936.
   
   QUALITIES OF A REAL MAN OR WOMAN
   Are you one or only an overgrown baby? Are you faithful in your duties to God? Are you pure in thought, word and action? Do you study to imitate the greatest men or women of the world? Have you the strength of will to eat, drink and play in moderation and such forms of each as will make you better morally, intellectually and physically? Are you determined to work for the betterment of your fellow men?
   
   As a New Zealander, proud of the privilege, yet humble in the enjoyment of it:
   
   You will scorn all dishonesty, of whatsoever form or degree, as petty and mean and altogether unworthy of your family and the high traditions of your school and your Empire.
   
   In all things you will be temperate – in eating, in play, in rest, in work, exercising always the one true discipline – discipline of self. . . .
   
   You will regard coarseness in thought, language, or action, as belittling and degrading, and always and altogether beneath the dignity of a future citizen of this fair Dominion.
   
   You will cheerfully yield reasonable and prompt obedience to your elders, particularly your parents; and you will show a like respect for the rules of your school, the by-laws of your town, and the laws of your country, since you know that rules and laws are not needlessly made. . . .
   
   You will be punctual and orderly and cheerful. You will keep your promises. You will grudge no effort, no matter how small or how great the task, remembering that only your best is good enough.
   
   . . .
   
   You will ever be pure and true, for there are those who daily trust you. You will remember that in the hands of the Children of To-day is the World of To-morrow and you will strive to be not unworthy of the sacred trust.
7. New Zealand School Photographs 1950 and 1964.
8. Sanitarium Weet-Bix Packet [Advertisement], 1990s.

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

• Australasian Conference Association Ltd.
• Colonial Childhoods Oral History Project (CCOHP),
• Statistics New Zealand, and
• Whitcombe and Tombs.

About the Author

Jeanine Graham recently retired from teaching history at the University of Waikato (New Zealand). Her investigations into New Zealand childhood history have combined extensive use of oral history as well as documentary, material and visual sources. She also brings to her research the insights gained from some three decades of teaching at Waikato University, where papers on the history of Aotearoa/New Zealand are delivered jointly with colleagues from the School of Maori and Pacific Development. In addition to working in the fields of social history, cultural encounters and childhood history, Graham maintains an active interest in the scholarship of teaching and learning in History.

About the Lesson Plan Author

Ryba Epstein teaches World History, Advanced Placement World History, Advanced Placement European History, Humanities, and Advanced Placement English Literature at Rich East High School in Park Forest, Illinois. She is a consultant and table leader for AP World History and has also read for AP European History. Her M.A. and Ph.D. are from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, and she received her A.B. from UCLA. Her dissertation was on African oral epic poetry.

The impact of colonization on childhood experiences in New Zealand was diverse and enduring. Although there was never any formal apartheid system, biculturalism continues to be more commonly a characteristic of Maori (of indigenous ancestry) than Pakeha (non-Maori, generally of European descent). Until very recently most Pakeha children grew up with little knowledge of, or familiarity with, Maori language or custom.

Conversely, most of the children who identified as Maori had little option but to engage with the language, practices, and values of the colonial regime. Many of the urban-raised lost access to their own cultural heritage in the process. Only in the late 20th century, under the combined influences of a Maori cultural renaissance and debates over the nature of a post-colonial New Zealand identity, have Anglo-Saxon assumptions of an inherent cultural superiority been challenged.

Culture and circumstance, location, time period, and family support structures all shaped the nature of antipodean childhoods. Formal colonization began in 1840, when Great Britain declared sovereignty over the islands and their inhabitants. The involvement of some 500 tribal leaders in discussions over the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi that year reflected several decades of encounters. In the preceding half-century, coastal tribes had interacted with seamen, sealers, whalers, traders, or missionaries who introduced their language, food, material culture, values, and diseases. European men who had sexual relations with indigenous women also contributed their gene pool.

The children of these liaisons were normally brought up within their mother's community. Apart from the occasional trader or shore-based whaler who lived long-term with a local woman, European fathers were generally unknown to their progeny. Their offspring were not necessarily disadvantaged. Tribal identification, traced through whakapapa (family trees), incorporated the ancestry of both parents, providing indigenous children with an extensive network of relations, allegiances, and obligations. Few immigrant children grew up with comparable family support. Theirs had to be created over two or three generations of living here.

Traditional lifestyles had evolved over the seven or so centuries during which descendants of Eastern Polynesian voyagers adapted to New Zealand's temperate climate. The changes caused by European values, policies, and diseases were abrupt. By the end of the 1850s, the settler and indigenous populations were roughly equal, at some 59,000 and 56,000 respectively. A rapid influx of Europeans over the next two decades, largely in response to gold discoveries, public works schemes, and assisted immigration policies changed the demographic balance. At the same time, rapid land alienation in both islands and conflict in the North over land sales and sovereignty issues destroyed the economic independence and potential prosperity of many tribes.

Children of both cultures were affected by the upheavals of this era. Some measure of charitable or government aid was normally available to the "deserving"—Victorian distinctions between worthy and unworthy recipients of assistance were well-entrenched in colonial thinking. Maori communities adversely affected by the confiscation or sale of productive land were much less likely to receive assistance in the event of crop failure, poverty, or disease. Even the Native School system, established in 1867, required village communities to contribute land and a portion of the costs for each institution. State-funded secular elementary schools, open to all children between 7 and 13 years of age, with compulsory attendance enforced for both Maori and Pakeha at the turn of the century, concentrated on numeracy, literacy, and physical fitness. These schools also served as powerful agencies of socialization through which contemporary values of citizenship, imperialism, and loyalty to the British Crown were imparted.

Childhoods in New Zealand have long reflected the consequences of external as well as internal events. Lacking immunity against introduced infections, the indigenous population declined steadily, reaching its lowest number (42,000 out of a total New Zealand population of 743,000) in the mid-1890s. An eventual demise was widely predicted. Yet a gradual recovery occurred, despite a disproportionately high Maori death rate during the 1918 influenza epidemic. The children of both cultures lost relatives and friends in the carnage of World War I – and lived with those who returned physically or emotionally impaired.

Many youngsters also experienced economic hardship during the years of the Great Depression. State welfare, social security, and education policies of the late 1930s and following World War II sought to establish equal access to services for all children, although government agencies were initially slow to recognize, and respond to, the major population shift that was occurring, as young adults and Maori families moved en masse from rural to urban areas in search of better employment, lifestyles, and living conditions. A demand for unskilled labor also encouraged many Polynesian people to leave their Pacific Island homes for work opportunities in New Zealand.

Schools in the main cities, Auckland and Wellington especially, soon reflected the greater cultural diversity brought to urban communities by Maori and Pasifika families (Tongan, Samoan, Nuiean and Cook Islanders, for instance), a trend that would accelerate in the latter decades of the 20th century as Asian migrants became a significant minority group in the total population. While the insidious inequalities of colonialism are yet to be fully redressed, a more inclusive educational curriculum now provides New Zealand's children with a much richer understanding of its influence than was available to earlier generations of the colonial-born.

Source 1: The Ancient History of the Maori

Although an aged Horeta Te Taniwha recounted his boyhood experience several times for different Pakeha researchers, there was little inconsistency in his accounts. This excerpt can therefore be explored for the ways in which a child responded to a people whose arrival was completely unexpected and whose appearance was different from anything in his life experience so far. The story unfolds as a narrative of the event, with the commentary on each phase reflecting the means by which god-like figures were revealed to be human.

The points of comparison provide evidence of what was "normal" in an indigenous context. Maori used waka (canoes) constantly: the paddlers always looked to the front. All manner of rituals surrounded the partaking of food, which would not be touched personally by a person of high rank. The response of the "strange beings" when offered kumara, fish, and shellfish was not consistent with tribal notions of how an atua (god) would behave. The physical features of the strangers, with their skin and eye color, indicates that brown was the norm in Te Taniwha's world. His was also a society in which there were clear differences of rank, such as rangatira (chief) and tohunga (skilled person, often in spiritual matters). Hence Te Taniwha recognised Captain Cook's standing amongst his men and found it remarkable that Cook should pay attention to youngsters. His gentle touch was significant, given the tapu (sacred) nature of the adult male head in Maori custom, that of a chief or tribal leader especially. Children could be so caressed without causing offence: Te Taniwha and his companions may well have felt honoured by the gesture of this leader of strange men. Sensory perceptions, sound particularly, feature in this account. (In a section not included here but available electronically, Te Taniwha also refers to a dislike of the salted meat which he was given to taste.) The strangers' curiosity about objects of material culture as well as local flora and rocks also made a lasting impression on the indigenous youngster.

Discussion Questions

• What understanding of the lifestyle of an indigenous child can be gleaned from this extract?
  
  A discussion could note the roles played by various groups—elders, warriors, women and children—within this extended family community (hapu). The sequence by which the strangers were deemed to be human, not supernatural, also reflects traditional beliefs. Thirdly, there is information concerning food, adornment and clothing.
• What questions might arise concerning the authenticity of this account, and how might those issues be addressed?
  
  Questions raised might involve discussion of the reliability of memory, amongst older informants especially, and particularly when the stories are repeated frequently. Cross referencing with the published journal entries and artist images from the Endeavour voyage would provide a European perspective on the same encounter, and verify some of the recollections. Comparisons can also be made between the various printed versions of Te Taniwha's account: these show remarkable consistency. It would be important to emphasise the lack of literacy within Maori society at that time. Knowledge was transmitted through song, chant and oratory. Accuracy was essential and mistakes would be challenged in public.

Source 2: Adventure in New Zealand, from 1839 to 1844

Early cultural encounters in New Zealand's history are a story of active engagement by coastal tribes with the practices, foods, belief structures, and material culture of Europeans. Disease excepted, the interaction was selective, with muskets proving to be one of the more disruptive of the new acquisitions, and literacy, disseminated mostly by missionaries, a more beneficial adaptation.

Imbued as they were with their own sense of superiority, European arrivals did not always recognize their dependence upon Maori goodwill, generosity, and assistance. Shore-based whalers, however, were generally aware of the importance of developing good relationships with local iwi (sub-tribes). Moreover, to have a "resident" European was also a status symbol in a highly competitive tribal society. Hence a settlement such as Te Awaiti represented a situation of mutual advantage, and, with the presence of the children, the beginnings of mixed-race founding families.

Discussion of this extract might develop beyond exploring the social attitudes expressed here concerning the "improved" lifestyle of the Maori women and their children. The references to Barrett and Love indicate a ready acceptance of their progeny by Maori relatives: what difficulties might arise later if such children sought a future in a Pakeha-dominated world? Such youngsters could be cultural intermediaries if they were fluent in both languages, yet not all fathers encouraged this, as was the case with trader John Lees Faulkner who objected to his children observing their mother's customs and speaking her language. Essays in the freely accessible online Dictionary of New Zealand Biography provide additional case studies. Students might also consider what particular blend of circumstances ensured that there has never been legislative discrimination against mixed-race relationships (though the personal case studies cited in Carol Archie's work certainly show episodes of intolerance and hostility expressed towards children).

Discussion Questions

• Did children serve as the vanguard of biculturalism?
  
  This question encourages students to think of the ways in which children are often the intermediaries in situations of cultural adjustment (as in cases of migration, for instance). New Zealand's compulsory schooling system taught Maori children English but it did not provide an opportunity for Pakeha children to learn Maori. Colonial assumptions and policies therefore tended to inhibit the development of biculturalism among both populations. Students may wish to clarify what they mean by the terms, vanguard and biculturalism, and to consider whether there are particular "windows of opportunity" in a colony's history when such a concept might apply.
• How might issues of identity have affected 'half-caste' children throughout the colonial era?
  
  This question is prompted in part by the recollections of Mihi Edwards, whose autobiography, Mihipeka: Early Years (Auckland, Penguin, 1990) relates the extent to which she endeavored to disguise and deny her Maori ancestry when she moved, as a young woman, to seek employment in a Pakeha-dominated environment – at a time when eminent Maori politician and scholar, Sir Apirana Ngata (whose mother had a Scottish father), was widely respected in both societies. Students might like to consider the range of circumstances that can influence a sense of identity. The American civil rights movements of the 1960s, for example, had a profound impact in New Zealand, coinciding as it did with the advent of television, the massive migration of Maori to the cities, and the emergence of a significant group of university-educated young urban Maori leaders.

Source 3: Annual report on Native Affairs, 1874

This regional overview formed part of the annual Department of Native Affairs reporting to Parliament. The various Officers in Native Districts (of whom Locke was one) addressed their reports to the Native Minister since he was the politician who had responsibility for that Department. All government department annual reports were tabled in the Lower House of Parliament and "ordered to be printed," which is how they end up in the Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives each year. The overall heading for the collected entries under G-2 would be "Reports from Officers in Native Districts."

This extract could be used for emphasizing the importance of historical context when considering the situation of indigenous children in a colonial environment. There might also be discussion of the extent to which children have agency.

In this particular East Coast region, one well suited to the sheep-rearing which was already a mainstay of the colonial economy, there were also intra- and inter-tribal divisions as a consequence of some involvement alongside government troops during the armed conflicts of the 1860s. The comments by Samuel Locke, a Crown Land Purchase Officer on the East Coast of the North Island, suggest a clear distinction in his mind between those who are proving to be cooperative and those who are not: the future prospects for the children of the two groups are similarly distinguished. According to Locke, Maori youth will not play a dominant role in the developing economy, though. Just as the first group of adults must "turn again to labour," so the best-educated of the younger generation will be encouraged to take up trades. There is no suggestion that young Maori might aspire to academic careers or to be the employers of Pakeha labourers. Yet, as the outstanding achievements of a local boy, the later Sir Apirana Ngata 1 would demonstrate, such a future was possible.

In compiling his regional overview for the annual report on "Native Affairs," subsequently tabled in the lower house of the colonial parliament, Locke identifies some negative consequences of colonial legislation to change the nature of tribal land tenure, but never questions the validity of the measures. Yet, notwithstanding the impact of conflict and confiscation on tribes affected by the events of the previous decade, government land policies were already proving to be the single most disruptive and divisive influence on indigenous communities. Children growing up in these environments lost an entire cultural heritage, not just a pecuniary asset, when their tribal lands were sold into European ownership. A tribe's history was known and named in relation to territory. Why were colonial authorities so oblivious to this?

Discussion Questions

• Although formal schooling provided indigenous children with access to the values and language of the colonial regime, what factors might affect their educational prowess?
  
  This question aims to encourage students to think about the home environment of Maori pupils, not just what was happening in the classroom and school playground. Circumstances could vary from one village to another, even within the same tribal rohe (territory). Maori as a language was not to be used at school: this prohibition, and the corporal punishment usually associated with flouting it, could make adjustment to the classroom very difficult. Loss of land also meant loss of traditional food resources. In the later decades of the 19th century, for instance, many tribal communities were affected by the mobility of those whanau (family) groups. Seasonal employment in the sheep-shearing or gum-digging industries, for example, generally affected the school attendance pattern of the children who moved with their whanau. There could also be intergenerational tensions as elders feared a loss of contact with their mokopuna (grandchildren) who became reluctant to speak Maori at home, given the harsh strictures against doing so when at school.
• How did government policies to promote the individualization of Maori land tenure reflect Colonialism?
  
  Discussion might also draw on comparisons with other colonial regimes run by other European powers. The Treaty of Waitangi accorded Maori the status of British subjects. With the passing of the New Zealand Constitution Act in 1852, male suffrage was linked with property ownership. (Universal suffrage by 1893 was not.) Viewpoints vary as to whether the individualization of Maori land tenure represented a genuine effort to expand eligibility for the franchise amongst Maori men; or a desire to overturn the land purchase policies that prevailed prior to the 1860s, in which the right of the chief to speak on behalf of his people was widely recognized. Individualization of title led to increased fragmentation of land, which in turn came to mean multiple ownership of small blocks that were uneconomic to farm and almost impossible to administer productively. (See the online Treaty of Waitangi booklets).

Source 4: "Shocking Disaster at Cambridge" [1884]

The report highlights a key difference between Maori and Pakeha childhoods, in the nineteenth century especially: the availability of whanau (family) support. "No other family members and no neighbours"—the difficulties confronting Mrs. Osborne were not ones that a Maori mother would have shared. Ironically, Maori parents would experience a similar isolation in the middle of the 20th century, when urban migration caused many indigenous children to grow up in nuclear families, away from their traditional extended networks of relatives.

The 1880s was a decade of widespread depression in the colonial economy. Falling prices for export staples, such as wool and wheat, had serious consequences for those who had bought land on capital borrowed during the speculative boom of the 1870s. For small-scale farmers, endeavoring to establish a viable unit with very limited financial resources, older children could be advantageous as a labor force. A young family was quite the reverse. The relative isolation noted by the juryman could be set alongside Mrs. Osborne's comment that she was normally absent for one to two hours when she went to town. Students could estimate average walking speed to ascertain the likely distances involved.

Some indication of the living space and conditions in the house can also be gleaned from the report. Only one bedroom is mentioned, along with the kitchen. Washing facilities were usually in a lean-to at the back of such dwellings; the toilet would be a long-drop at some distance from the house. The house would have been built of timber, with the paper lining on the interior walls adding to the flammable nature of the dwelling. An analysis of settler housing images available through the Alexander Turnbull Library Timeframes website would enable students to gain an impression of the range of living conditions at this time. Comparable investigations could be undertaken for other regions and years, using the online newspapers collection.

Discussion Questions

• How can reports of accidents provide insight into the nature of late-19th-century colonial children's lives?
  
  Discussion might focus on the close relationship between children and their physical environment, since playing outdoors was the norm. Such play was often supervised by older siblings, particularly when child-bearing spread over two decades and mothers had little paid assistance with domestic tasks. Although the New Zealand environment contained no snakes or poisonous insects, trees, rivers, creeks, and horses were generally present in country children's lives, while urban youngsters had street traffic to contend with, usually in the form of tramcars and horse-drawn drays and carts. Comparisons between the activities of children in New Zealand with the lifestyles of youngsters in other colonies or "frontier" communities might also be pursued.
• How do the types of accidents reported here differ from the risks confronting children throughout the 20th century?
  
  This invites consideration of changing technology – from carts to cars, bicycles rather than horses, household bleach or dishwasher chemicals instead of phosphorus heads on matches, for instance. There is also the wider context of the increased supervision of children's lives and the reduction in family size that affects the influence of siblings. Household tasks have also changed. Youngsters used to chop wood and kindling for the kitchen stove or the weekday boiling of water in the copper: few 21st-century children would have occasion to use a tomahawk or axe. The advent of electricity has reduced the risks associated with fire, but introduced the risk of electrocution. The likelihood of drowning in a well has diminished only to be replaced by the incidence of childhood deaths in domestic swimming pools. Safety measures have increased, as with artificial surfaces at public playgrounds, for example, yet obesity is now a major lifestyle risk for children and youth, suggesting that a lack of physical activity may be a greater problem than sports-related injuries. Ipod users face hearing loss; constant text messaging and computer use can result in tendonitis. The relationship between child lifestyles and risks can be explored in a variety of contexts.

Source 5: Juvenile Depravity Suppression Bill [1896]

Using this 1896 statement as the starting point, students could explore the changing relationship between children and the state through use of resources on the Ministry of Youth Development website and that of the Commissioner for Children. The emphasis on children's rights that has characterized policy and discussion in recent decades reflects support for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), which New Zealand ratified in 1993.

Students might also seek to define anti-social behavior and aim to set their definition within the wider context of social changes in the 20th century. Youths loitering on street corners in the 1890s were unlikely to be armed (the ubiquitous pocket knife and shanghai were not normally viewed as weapons for use against other people). Late 20th-century youth, "hanging out" on the streets, are more likely to possess a knife or other weapon, and have their outlook impaired by alcohol, drug use, peer pressure, or gang membership, actual or in prospect. Students could explore the two websites above for analyses of the social changes that have contributed to a significant level of gang affiliation amongst Maori and Pacific Islanders. Comparisons between the New Zealand situation and that of "delinquent" youth in other western societies could highlight similarities, for indigenous people especially.

Underpinning the ongoing concerns about child and youth well-being has been a gradual shift in the relationship between families and the state. In the founding decades of the colony, only criminal, neglected, and destitute children were committed to government care, mostly in industrial schools and orphanages. Such interventions were very unlikely to affect Maori children, whose extended family networks provided support and sustenance. The geographical distribution of the two populations, predominantly rural Maori and urban Pakeha, meant that relatively few politicians were aware of the difficult socio-economic circumstances of many Maori communities. By the late 19th century, however, government policies in New Zealand began to reflect trends elsewhere, in Britain and the United States, for instance, concerning the need for state investment in children. As the future income-earners of the country, youth represented a substantial social capital. The Infant Life Protection Act (1896), the Juvenile Smoking Suppression Act (1903), and the 1925 Child Welfare Act all reflect this increased level of state intervention. Late 20th-century interventions are more explicit in acknowledging the citizenship rights of young New Zealanders – as epitomized with the establishment of the Office of the Commissioner for Children in 1989.

Discussion Questions

• How does the work of the New Zealand Commissioner for Children and the Ministry for Youth Development reflect a serious official commitment to the principle of children's rights?
  
  The answer will involve exploration of the Commission and Ministry websites, including the many links to similar agencies elsewhere. The UN Convention is available through the Ministry website. A recent publication by John Barrington, A Voice for Children: The Office of the Commissioner for Children in New Zealand, 1989 -2003 (Dunmore Press, Palmerston North, 2004) contains a useful summary overview of achievements during that period (pp. 117-20).
• What arguments can be advanced for and against the proposition that a sense of social alienation is the principal cause of youth offending?
  
  This question aims to encourage students to take an international perspective, rather than a narrowly local or national one. Just as the issue of street larrikins was being debated in Britain, the United States, the Australian colonies and New Zealand in the 1890s, so the problems associated with youth offending, criminal and petty, may well be found in much of the developed world. Students should be able to contest the basic proposition by reference to all the other contributory factors that they can identify. They might also consider what influences or encourages the majority of young people to stay out of trouble with the law.

Source 6: Taranaki Education Office Report [1898]

Some students may find themselves surprised by the child-friendly nature of this official report. It could therefore be used in a context of exploring the assumptions that readers can bring to a document, and how preconceptions can affect the reading of text or image.

The connection between child experience and family circumstance is obvious here. In new farming areas (and there are ready parallels with North American examples), younger siblings had a very different educational path than their older brothers and sisters whose labor was often crucial in the establishment years. Parents could find this situation difficult because they also wanted the best for their children. There might be significant parental differences, with (usually) mothers endeavoring to find a balance between the demands of education and income. Older children, too, might have mixed feelings about the divergent home/school workloads. A sense of pride or achievement could be greater out of the classroom than within it.

Regional and cultural differences might be explored. The national curriculum was mandatory: access to resources varied enormously. A universal school system could not guarantee a universal standard of education, no matter how diligent the teachers or the inspectors. Students might expand on Spencer's analysis to consider a wider range of factors that could affect student attendance and learning – such as urban and rural differences, religion, housing, and gender. The importance placed upon compulsory schooling at this time also merits close analysis. By the late 1930s, all New Zealand children were required to have at least two years of secondary education and the leaving age was raised to 15. Yet the numbers of teachers in training had been reduced during major periods of economic recessions (1880s and 1930s) and men were lost to the profession during and after World War I. Adult recollections of schooling in the first half of the 20th century frequently refer to corporal punishment, authoritarianism, and feelings of fear. Spencer's vision emphasizes enjoyment. How might the different perspectives been reconciled? And can children's voices be heard?

Discussion Questions

• Why did formal schooling become such an integral part of New Zealand (and other Western European) children's lives by the end of the 19th century?
  
  Discussion should encourage students to think about international trends in the spread of elementary education. Within the British Empire, for example, similar curricula and resources could be found throughout all the settler colonies. There are also parallels between North American and British systems at this time. Industrialization and child labor form part of the background, while notions of children as "social capital" are also influential. The broad trends can be sketched from essays in the three-volume Children and Childhood in History and Society. 2
• What perspectives need consideration when trying to ascertain the nature of childhood experiences of schooling?
  
  Much of the published material on childhood experience draws upon adult recollections, written or oral. Students might be invited to write and then analyze their own memories of elementary school before being challenged to identify a range of other factors which may have affected the nature of their school experience. (Examples might include the physical environment of the school; its financial resources; the age, ethnicity, and gender range of the staff; prevailing philosophies of education and of the particular school itself; levels of parental and community support; levels of student representation in school affairs.) Comparisons across culture and time could be developed.

Source 7: Children's letters, Otago Witness [1918]

Children's own voices might be described as an elusive and problematic resource in childhood history. Taking these letters as an example, do the sentences and ideas reflect childhood priorities or can adult influence be detected? Most letters are likely to have been written at the family table, with some degree of supervision or checking of spelling and grammar. Both "Dot" and "Uncle Ned" insisted on high levels of presentation. Formulaic aspects can also observed, particularly in the endings of all three letters given here. (Additional examples from the Otago Witness up to 1909 available here.)

Age, gender, and language differences can be explored in some detail if students access full pages from the digitized collection. Generally, correspondents were under the age of 18, with the majority under 14. A regular Older Writers Week was always well subscribed and younger writers would sometimes refer to the style or content of those letters or try to emulate them. Occasionally, "Dot" would set a topic for correspondence but the general guidelines can be discerned since children were encouraged to write about animals, events of interest in their local area, holidays, school, and home life. The DLF motto was always printed: "We write for the benefit of others, not ourselves."

Analysis of the pseudonyms as well as the letter content gives some insight into the impact of World War I on these children's lives.

Discussion Questions

• How useful are these letters as a source for accessing children's own voices?
  
  This invites consideration of the various filters that may affect the content and style of these letters. The 350-word limit was rarely a problem (save for some of the older writers). Knowing that parents and peers would be reading the published letter could be a constraint on spontaneity. Social conventions, such as not discussing family affairs outside of the home, would also have been observed. There could also have been some apprehension about editorial feedback. Noted children's author, Ruth Park, for example, long remembered a critical response by the editor of the New Zealand Herald's children's page. 3
• What do Children's Pages reveal about the daily lives of youthful correspondents?
  
  Students might consider the extent to which children wrote about normal routines or focused on exceptional happenings. Since approximately 50 DLF letters on average were reproduced with each issue of the Otago Witness, general impressions concerning school, modes of transport, health issues, and contemporary events can usually be discerned - and consistencies or inconsistencies noted.

Source 8: Oral history, Colonial Childhoods Oral History Project

Changing contexts could be explored, using sexuality as the focus. Contemporary students might consider the range of ways in which knowledge of human reproduction, puberty, and homosexuality is disseminated before contrasting the present-day position with the dearth of printed or visual information suitable for children at the beginning of the 20th century. Social conventions also need investigation. Many of the interviewees in the CCOHP gleaned a basic understanding from an older sibling; others gathered a great deal of misinformation from the school playground. What were the dominant constraints affecting public school education on the subject; or parent/child frankness? Was ignorance regarded as a form of protection or were there underlying moral codes that emphasized innocence? Some basic assumptions might also be discussed. Was sexuality a topic that aroused childhood curiosity to any great extent at this time? Analysis of all of the CCOHP comments suggests that, for those under 15, it was not important – yet could this impression result from interviewees making instinctive comparisons with the present as they commented on the past?

The use of oral histories as a source in childhood history might also be investigated, with particular reference to any issues (such as deafness, fatigue, memory loss) associated with interviewing the elderly (defined as over 80 years). How much reliance can be placed upon such recollections? Without necessarily delving into debates over the nature of memory, students could be encouraged to reflect on their own childhoods. Are their memories predominantly of factual detail or of episodes to which they had some degree of emotional reaction, be that fear, curiosity, anger, pleasure, or pain? Questions about the "construction of the past" in an oral interview could also be raised, especially when comparing the relatively unstructured "life narrative" approach with that of the more structured questionnaire style of interviewing.

Discussion Questions

• Why might parents choose not to tell their children about a mother's pregnancy?
  
  Discussion could include some reference to the incidence of maternal mortality, since the risks associated with child-bearing and childbirth, among working class families particularly, were considerable. The registration of midwives (1904) and the establishment of free maternity care for women (1905) made a significant impact in lowering those rates. Concealment was also a way of avoiding awkward questions about reproduction and sex. Moreover, pregnancy was a private, not a public, matter which might be mentioned in a school playground, for example. Women's dress styles assisted with the strategy, as did the usual convention that children did not enter their parents' bedroom spontaneously. Maori children were less likely to be in ignorance than Pakeha, since sleeping and living arrangements were generally more communal.
• Evidence gathered during the CCOHP suggested that there was relatively little openness in dealing with other facets of Pakeha children's lives, especially where alcoholism, violence, or death were concerned. Does such adult reticence reflect contemporary views on child-rearing?
  
  Several of the CCOHP interviewees lost a sibling, friend, or parent during childhood. Generally, though, Pakeha youngsters did not attend funerals, whereas Maori children were present, and older ones involved with food preparation, during any tangihanga (a farewell that was held over several days) in their community. Cultural experiences also differed in terms of remembrance of the dead, with Pakeha generally choosing silence. Maori did not. Alcoholism was a source of shame within a family, quite apart from its disruptive and damaging effects on relationships and children's well-being. Concealment tended to be the preferred option. Essentially, child rearing was seen as a domestic and private matter, and the family was not a realm in which the state should interfere. Gradually, schools became agencies whereby some level of protection for children could be initiated, if necessary.

Source 9: Code of Honour [1936]

After some initial—probably adverse—reactions to the language and content of the Code, students might be encouraged to work in groups, to analyze a selection of the objectives much more closely. Culture and context could be stressed. The Dominion was slowly beginning to emerge from the Great Depression, the impact of which had been severe on a people who had lost so many young men during World War I. The notion of service for Empire had been well instilled prior to 1914, and a heavy price had been paid. It is noticeable that the emphasis within the Code is much more on a sense of identity as a New Zealand citizen, rather than as the citizen of Empire that had been so prominent a theme in School Journal poems, stories, and articles earlier in previous decades. Yet fundamental values persist - of fair play, honesty, integrity, respect for authority, for instance. Students may benefit from some discussion about English public schools, the class background from which pupils were generally drawn, and the ethos that imbued such institutions. They might also be prompted to consider how and why these values became disseminated so widely during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Responses to these questions could include reference to some of the Empire-wide organizations for young people, the Boy Scout and the Girl Guide movements, for instance.

Further analysis of the Code suggests that its focus was on encouraging youth to develop a sense of civic and community responsibility. Improvement of self is vital, but the individual's growth in principle and awareness is intended to enhance social interaction, not individualism.

Lively debates should develop if students are challenged to consider whether there is anything inherently wrong with such a set of personal values. Do these ideals pertain to any one social class or culture? Within the New Zealand context, Maori children growing up in closely-knit rural communities would have had an additional set of guiding principles, those pertaining to their own cultural beliefs and practices (tikanga).

Discussion Questions

• How do these behavioral objectives for young New Zealanders, Maori and Pakeha, reflect social values of the 1930s?
  
  Discussion would draw on student analysis of the key values identified in the Code. They might also note the order in which points are made. The reference to care of property, for instance, comes some way down the list and alludes more to public, than private, property. Students could be invited to consider other "Codes" that would have been well known at the time, such as the Ten Commandments.
• Develop a 21st-century "Code of Honour" that would be relevant for children growing up in contemporary society.
  
  This would involve some preliminary discussions about relating the Code to any particular group of children. Group work would be valuable here, particularly if students were encouraged to identify specific clubs or societies which aim to instill some common principles amongst their members. New Codes could be analyzed to see if they reflect any contemporary attitudes concerning child rearing.

Source 10: School photographs [1950, 1964]

Class photographs are so common in personal collections that they merit analysis to see how useful they may be as a source for childhood history. At one level, they can be explored for evidence of material culture, in terms of clothing, footwear, and hairstyles, for example. There is no sign of "brand" or "label" clothing in the 1950 image, save for the six gymslips that provide some impression of uniformity. Fabric, style, pattern, and color vary considerably. Cardigans and jerseys are hand-knitted; and the varying shapes of the girls' collars reflect the prevalence of home-sewn garments. In both photographs, the girls are all wearing skirts or dresses: only the boys wore shorts. It was still not "proper" for females to wear trousers (though wartime exigencies had made it acceptable then for women in the workforce to do so).

The ethnic composition of both classroom groups reflect population movements of the post-war period and suggest something of the relative isolation which young Maori – and their parents – could feel within the urban school environment. From a roughly equal mix of Maori and Pakeha in the small rural town environment of Kaitaia (15 Pakeha/13 Maori), Maori children in the suburban Auckland classroom were in the minority (29 Pakeha/5 Maori). Discussion could focus on the impact of likely disparities. New urban migrants who came as family units tended to experience difficulties in meeting the costs of city living, so very different from the communal and subsistence patterns of the country. Overcrowded housing and low wages from unskilled work meant that children in these environments had little access to resources or space when doing homework, for instance. Students might also consider how school could also be the principal means by which young Maori could begin to develop networks in their new communities. Church and voluntary organizations, such as clubs for urban Maori, also helped. 4

Discussion Questions

• How would the lives of urban migrant Maori children have differed from those of their peers growing up in rural areas?
  
  Discussion will be aided by a reading of the essays on Maori New Zealanders on the Te Ara website. While the urban-raised had better access to education and employment, many lost contact with their language and culture and were embarrassed to show their ignorance of customary practices. Rural youngsters generally retained much closer links with elders and took part in activities on the marae (meeting place). There was also far more opportunity for rural youngsters to develop traditional subsistence lifestyle skills (hunting, fishing, gardening). Yet these skills could not always be applied in the cities. Underpinning discussion of this question would be an awareness that urban migration was a necessity, given the steady growth of the Maori population and their very limited resource base in country areas.
• How influential was technology in changing children's educational experience in the second half of the 20th century?
  
  Exploration of this question invites students to consider the importance of technology in their own education (within and outside of the classroom) as a preliminary to exploring such changes over the previous half century. Within the New Zealand context, public radio was widely used after WWII, with broadcasts to schools supplementing the universally distributed School Journal. Within vocational courses particular equipment would be used, such as manual typewriters and electric ovens for typing and home economics classes respectively. Going to the Saturday matinee was a popular leisure pastime: newsreels, played before the main feature, normally covered world events. Most families would also listen to the BBC World News, broadcast every evening through the national radio network. The educational impact of television from the 1960s was undermined by commercialization and largely surpassed by access to computers and the Internet.

Source 11: Advertisement

Outdoor activities have long been seen as an integral part of a Kiwi upbringing. The official website of SPARC, Sport and Recreation New Zealand, for instance, describes a (somewhat idyllic) pattern of being on the beach in the morning, the (sports) field after lunch, and on the hills in the evening. In terms of topography, such a routine would certainly be possible throughout much of the country. "Going bush," camping, tramping, mountain bike riding, kayaking: the notion of being close to nature in the "Great Outdoors" is an important element in discussions of national identity. Yet the demonstrable late 20th-century onset of child obesity and related health issues have prompted major government initiatives to encourage more Kiwis, of all ages and ethnicities, to live up to that vision and "get active." (See New Zealand Sport and Physical Activity Surveys and examples of the range of programmes.)

Organized sport in the New Zealand school curriculum stemmed mostly from Britain, as with cricket, rugby football, tennis and hockey. Athletics and swimming also involved large numbers of children, particularly on school sports days. During the 1960s and 1970s, for instance, thousands of children participated weekly in Saturday sporting fixtures, able to do so because of the commitment of teachers, parents, or caregivers, and volunteers. Family financial difficulties, changing workplace patterns, the advent of weekend shopping (and working), and increased workloads on teachers as a consequence of changes within school administration and curricula, are some of the factors affecting children's participation in organized sport outside of normal school hours. Students could be encouraged to consider the influences on their own youthful participation in sport and to consider how these may reflect social or economic patterns.

Discussion Questions

• Food and activity are normally two dominant preoccupations of childhood. What have been the major influences contributing to a reduction in the amount of physical activity undertaken by late 20th-century children and youth?
  
  Discussion could involve modes of transport to and from school and much greater reliance on cars generally; the reduction in childhood autonomy at play as a consequence of urbanization, for instance, more indoor living; and the influence of television and personal computers and other popular pursuits that involve hours of sitting rather than movement. Smaller families mean fewer siblings or relatives to play with, though Maori and Pacific Island youth are frequently active in team sports, such as rugby league, netball, and softball. Students might also consider the costs involved with purchasing equipment.
• Myth or reality? Does sport really contribute to a sense of national identity?
  
  Students could be encouraged to distinguish between amateur and professional sport. The inclusiveness normally associated with the concept of national identity seems to be contrary to the exclusiveness of the professional player. In debating the cultural role of sport, students would need to be mindful of socio-economic differences, gender, and religious or other cultural constraints affecting participation or support. And what might the negative aspects be if sport and identity are closely aligned? What happens to the national psyche when a national team loses?
  
  The SPARC website could be helpful when answering either question.

Source 12: Statistical tables

Risk-taking behavior is a major factor affecting the health and well-being of young New Zealanders. Drug-taking, smoking, alcohol abuse, and unprotected sex are four obvious contributors to low self-esteem, and significant resources have been channeled into remedial and preventative programs for young people. Some focus specifically on Maori for, as the Ministry of Youth Development's 2003 survey, 12 -24: Young People in New Zealand notes, young Maori are more prone to smoke and drink heavily than non-Maori. Students could explore the reports available through this Ministry website and that of Statistics New Zealand with a view to comparing results from the 1996 and 2001 census data. The rate of youth suicide, for example, declined in that period.

Since motor vehicle accidents have consistently been the biggest cause of youth fatalities, students might compare the New Zealand rates with those in other western societies. The particular situation in New Zealand might also be discussed in the context of the age at which youth can drive; the nature of the existing fleet (since air bags are not found in the older cars that young people are more likely to be using); the rapid growth in the number of cars per head of population; the limited public transport systems which contribute to greater personal dependency on cars; the nature of most New Zealand roads (two-lane with barriers only on some motorways and expressways); and the high number of fatal accidents in which both speed and alcohol are factors despite major road safety campaigns against drunk driving. The wearing of seatbelts is compulsory as is using approved child restraints for children travelling in cars. The law is not always observed. The teaching objective would be one of setting the statistical evidence within a wider context to emphasize how external conditions can affect the consequences of personal choices.

Discussion Questions:

• How have the hazards of life changed for young New Zealanders throughout the 20th century?
  
  Discussion would involve some definition and categorization, both of the types of hazards and the age groups involved. Since an earlier source focused on dangers for children earlier in the century, the intention here would be to concentrate on the 15+ group. The influence of consumer advertising, peer group pressure, and transport preferences (cars not bicycles) would be relevant. Socio-economic and family circumstances are important, given the prevalence of alcoholism and domestic violence in affecting young people's lives, with Maori over-represented in those statistics.
• What are the major impediments affecting the employment of 15-19 year-olds and how might these be best addressed by young job seekers?
  
  This question might enable students to draw on their own experiences while also considering the situation facing young people in other countries. Different perspectives to consider include those of employers as well as prospective employees. Minimum wage rates, literacy levels, an increasingly casual youth workforce that encourages part-time employment as a cheaper option, lack of mentoring by older or experienced staff might all be relevant, as are questions of adequate guidance in the preparation of resumes, letters of application, or how to respond in an interview. The issues raised are unlikely to be peculiar to the New Zealand context.

Lesson Plan: Constructing an Author’s Attitude from Tone Words

by Ryba L. Epstein

Time Estimated: one 50-minute class

Grade Level: 10th through 12th grades

Objectives

Students will learn to:

1. Identify tone words and connotations;
2. Detect speaker's/author's attitude using tone and connotation.

Materials

• Projection of online images, if possible (if not available, make transparencies of two photos listed below in Hook activity)
• Copies of primary source documents for each student in the class:
  
  1. Adventure in New Zealand from 1839 to 1844 (document 72)
  2. Annual Report on Native Affairs, 1874 (document 91)
• Paper, pencils/pens

Strategies

Hook
Project image of Apache children as they arrived at Carlisle Indian Industrial School and image after they had become acculturated.

Ask students to quickly brainstorm descriptive words for the first picture and then the second picture.

Ask students to categorize their impressions, looking for the specific words they have used that describe positive or negative attributes, and attempt to determine what factors might underlie their perceptions.

Discuss the meaning of "tone," "connotation," and "attitude."

Group Activity
Next, divide class into small groups (three to five students) and pass out copies of the two primary sources from New Zealand. Each group should choose a recorder to write down the group's responses.

Students should go through the documents, underlining all words that reflect tone or connotation.

Next, students should make two lists from the words they have underlined: one of positive and one of negative tone words.

Then students should analyze their lists to determine what factors generally determined what the authors of the sources considered as positive or negative. (Usually, students will decide that behavior that indicated increased acceptance of Western culture and life-styles was seen as positive by the authors.)

Finally, each group should write one or two sentences explaining the attitude of each author, supporting their opinion by reference to their lists of tone words. Students should also try to identify underlying assumptions that led each author to his attitude.

• Example: Wakefield implies that Maoris who were married to or children of Westerners were superior to those who were not—as supported by his use of words such as "very superior," "strikingly comely," and "remarkable . . . cleanliness and order." His word choice indicates an attitude that assumes the superiority of Western standards of beauty and cleanliness over those of indigenous people.

The recorders for each group should write their group's final statements on the board.

Have the class discuss the similarities and differences between the statements, checking for validity and for appropriate support for each statement's opinion from the tone words cited.

Homework:
Students will write a paragraph trying to identify underlying reasons for the attitudes expressed by the authors by relating those attitudes to broader 19th-century European social and cultural beliefs.

Differentiation

Advanced Students
For more able students, direct them to the website of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School at http://home.epix.net/~landis/histry.html.

List examples of tone words from the primary source documents embedded in the site. How are these similar to the words used in the primary sources from New Zealand?

What similarities can be inferred between the two educational systems' attitudes toward indigenous children and their future roles in "modern" society?

Ask students to write a letter from Mr. Locke (document 91) describing the Carlisle School's successes to the New Zealand Minister for Native Affairs.