The History of Sandford and Merton
The
History of Sandford and Merton
(1783–89) was a best-selling children's
book written by Thomas
Day. He began it as a contribution to Richard Lovell and Honora
Sneyd Edgeworth's Harry and Lucy,
a collection of short stories for children that Maria
Edgeworth continued some years after her
stepmother died. He eventually expanded his original short story into the first
volume of The History of Sandford and Merton, which was published
anonymously in 1783; two further volumes subsequently followed in 1786 and
1789. The book was wildly successful and was reprinted until the end of the
nineteenth century.[1] It retained enough popularity or invoked enough nostalgia
at the end of the nineteenth century to inspire a satire, The New History of
Sandford and Merton, whose preface proudly announces that it will
"teach you what to don't".[2]
Overview
Despite
its title, The History of Sandford and Merton is not a
"history" in the modern sense but rather an assemblage of stories Day
both wrote himself and extracted from a multitude of sources[3]
that is only nominally held together by a thread narrative. The "history
of Sandford and Merton" follows the reformation of Tommy Merton who is
transformed from a spoiled six-year-old boy into a virtuous gentleman (Day
defines virtue as the appreciation of the value of labour). Tommy, having been
pampered and indulged by his mother and their slaves in the West Indies, is a
proud and ignorant aristocrat; he lacks the sterling qualities of "plain,
honest" Henry (Harry) Sandford, the yeoman farmer's son, who becomes his
model and mentor in the book. Both are guided by a mentor, Mr. Barlow. Day
wanted to emphasize the series of stories he had collected, which ranged from
moral tales to scientific lessons to fables, but the book became famous for the
story of Tommy and Harry. Many abridgements which appeared after Day's death
reflect this interest; they condense the book, remove sections on educational
philosophy and highlight the relationship between the two boys.[4] One, for example, was by Lucy
Aikin in 1868 as Sandford and Merton:
In Words of One Syllable.
The
text embodies many of the educational and philosophical tenets espoused by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whom Day admired greatly. Sandford and Merton was
his way of presenting Rousseau's philosophy to British children in the form of
fiction.[5] Harry, the farmer's son, "is the personification of
Rousseau's ideas... He abjures the decadence of modern life... To the surprise
of Tommy Merton and his parents, Harry is unimpressed, and even critical, of
their luxuries, their fine food, their many possessions, preferring his own
uncomplicated life of hard work, active virtue and simple pleasures."[4] Over the course of the narrative, Tommy comes to appreciate
and adopt these values as well.
Legacy
So
prevalent was the ideal of the book portraying good morals for children, that Ethel
Turner started her book Seven Little Australians with the warning "If you imagine you are going to read
of model children, with perhaps; a naughtily inclined one to point a moral, you
had better lay down the book immediately and betake yourself to 'Sandford and
Merton'..." [6]
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