Theories

Both MacLeod’s and Sanchez-Eppler make point of explaining how children were seen as an important part of the future. During the nineteenth century there was a lot of change occurring within American society and adults in that time needed to prepare their kids for the future. In analyzing children’s literature it is important to understand that because adults saw children as a crucial part of the future they needed to bestow on them a strong set of morals and beliefs. It’s possible that while some nineteenth century literature may seem strictly about morals that’s what was important in that time. The constant push of morals seen in different nineteenth century literature is what adults wanted their children to read which then leads to the next idea that perhaps there was some imbalance of power between adults and children.
Sanchez-Eppler points out that although we have countless collections of “children’s literature “which was written for/or about children there is almost no archives of children’s writings. The writing done by children often goes unmarked or unnoticed. This suggests the theory that perhaps there was an imbalance in power between adults and children. Children’s literature was written and based on what adult’s thought or felt, and not necessarily based on what children thought or felt about society. If children in literature were structured solely on adult needs, then one might question the accuracy of nineteenth century children in literature.
Whether there was a balance of power or not both MacLeod and Sanchez-Eppler point out the lack of imagination and fun in nineteenth century books that we tend to see more now days. In society today fantasy books are very popular for children, but you would not see that in nineteenth century literature. Also a sign that maybe the stories were written based on what adults wanted but also suggests that children’s literature was always written in order to provide some form of knowledge. Stories were written for learning purposes. If all stories were mostly the same premise one might say that nineteenth century stories were also based on predictability.
Because of the war and other changes in that time there was a need for predictability. If adults could raise their children the way they wanted too then they could know there was a brighter future. In “The Child’s Part in the Making of American culture” it states “If the outer world could not be frozen into predictable form the inner world could.”This would suggest that children were within the inner world. This style of writing was a form of control. By writing literature that pushed certain morals and ideas it was easy to know that children would follow them; making for a predictable future.