Nationalist Attitudes During The Late Nineteenth Century

To what extent did the British authors of young children’s literature promote nationalist attitudes during the late nineteenth century? During this time, the genre of children’s literature was growing with topics and began to indirectly teach children what to believe. Also, authors passed on their own beliefs to children so that they would grow up with the same values, and thus maintain the status quo of popular beliefs. Authors would have wanted to do this so that children could either maintain a society that certain authors thought was perfect, or change issues with society so it could become ideal. British authors of young children’s literature largely promoted nationalist attitudes by praising the increase of political rights and developing
In children’s literature from the late 1800s, British authors promoted nationalism by praising their government for granting more civil rights. During this time, the government was concerned with who should have voting rights, and to what extent different classes should have influence in the government. Rohan McWilliam, a social and political historian, discusses the importance of the Reform Act of 1867, which allowed all adult males to vote: “Britain’s moral mission was to promote international justice and understanding” (86). More voting rights led to an increased sense of nationalism because there was more “international justice,” and the government had a greater “understanding” of the people’s problems. The Reform Act of 1867 allowed more people to have a say in their government— and so the people would have been more supportive of their government because they had more voting rights. This greater sense of nationalism as a result of more voting rights is seen in An ABC for Baby Patriots, published in 1899: “F is the flag/ Which wherever you see/ You know that beneath
Robert Louis Stevenson, a Scottish poet, promoted the idea of Social Darwinism in his poem, “Foreign Children”: “Little Indian, Sioux or Crow,/ Little frosty Eskimo,/ Little Turk or Japanee,/ O! don’t you wish that you were me?” (1-4). The speaker is most likely British or Scottish because that was Stevenson’s nationality, and he would have been trying to increase children’s nationalism so that they would grow up to love their country as much as he did. Stevenson would have wanted children to feel an extreme sense of devotion to Britain because he was an avid supporter of the Conservative Party in Great Britain. Stevenson published this poem in a collection titled: A Child’s Garden of Verses and Underwoods, and the fact that it mentions children in the title shows that Stevenson greatly wanted to promote children’s nationalism. Daphne Kutzer, a historian, argues that “the role of children’s texts, both fictional and nonfictional, is to help acculturate children into society and to teach them to behave and believe in acceptable ways” (xv). Nationalism, and the racism that came along, was such a prominent theme during the late nineteenth century that degrading others became the “acceptable” belief. Since children were taught to belittle other nationalities, they would grow up with an extreme sense of nationalism, and an even more