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From Children to Citizens pp 25–48Cite as

The Historical Legacy

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Abstract

Resourceful, independent, and responsible citizens are the basic elements of a liberal society. Such a society assumes that its citizens have well-formed tastes and values, are capable of expressing and advancing their interests, and are fully responsible for their conduct and condition. In short, its citizens are on their own. These assumptions justify many of the basic institutions of the liberal society such as voting, free speech, private property, a free market in labor, and the criminal law.

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Notes

  1. The municipal laws of all well-regulated states have taken care to enforce this duty [in this case, the maintenance and* support of children]: though providence has done it more effectually than any laws, by implanting in the breast of every parent that... insuperable degree of affection, which not even the deformity of person or mind, not even the wickedness, ingratitude, and rebellion of children, can totally suppress or extinguish. (William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book 1, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765, p. 435)

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  2. For an elegant treatment of the problems that derive from the collision of these basic liberal premises see James S. Fishkin, Justice, Equal Opportunity, and the Family (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983).

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  3. In writing this chapter we relied heavily on two seminal works. One is the comprehensive and thoughtful work of Robert H. Bremner and his associates—Robert H. Bremner, John Barnard, Tamara K. Hareven, and Robert M. Mennel, Eds., Children and Youth in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974).

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  4. The other is an elegant volume of essays edited by LaMar Empey: LaMar T. Empey, Ed., Juvenile Justice: The Progressive Legacy and Current Reforms (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1979).

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  5. In distinguishing the periods, we are following Bremner et al. (see note 3).

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  6. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London, 1924) first published in 1651, p. 124. Quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 27.

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  7. Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 5.

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  8. Ibid., p. 27.

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  9. Ibid., p. 73.

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  10. Ibid., pp. 104–105.

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  11. Ibid., p. 104.

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  12. Ibid., p. 28.

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  13. From Edgar W. Knight, A Documentary History of Education in the South Before 1860, Vol. 1 (Chapel Hill, NC: 1949), p. 60. Quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 67.

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  14. Ibid., p. 28.

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  15. In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967), at 16.

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  16. Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 29.

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  17. John Locke, “Some thoughts concerning education,” in The Works of John Locke IX (London, 1823) sections 40–46. Quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 134.

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  18. De Tocqueville, Democracy in America. Quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. 2, p. 206.

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  19. Joseph F. Kett, Rites of Passage: Adolescence in America 1790 to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 1977), pp. 63–64.

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  20. Bremner et al., Vol. 1, pp. 147–148.

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  21. Trench Coxe, A View of the United States of America (Philadelphia, 1794), quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 172.

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  22. Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 149.

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  23. “An act in addition to an act, entitled ‘An act relating to masters and servants, and apprentices,’” 1813, chap. 2, Public Statutes of Connecticut, Oct. 1808-May 1819, May Session, 1813 (Hartford, 1813), pp. 117–118. Quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 179.

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  24. George S. White, Memoir of Samuel Slater, 2d. ed. (Philadelphia, 1836), pp. 107–108. Quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 177.

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  26. Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 187.

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  27. Society For the Prevention of Pauperism in the City of New York, Second Annual Report, 1819 (New York, 1820), p. 32. Quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 308.

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  28. According to Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 307: “In the eighteenth century, no special facilities existed for the correction or reformation of young offenders....Colonial authorities recognized the inadvisability of incarcerating youths with adult criminals but they could not even afford to maintain the children, much less to establish separate institutions for them. Instead of holding delinquents in jail, town officials bound them out—in effect, sold them for their keep.”

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  29. Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 343.

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  30. Ibid., pp. 343–344.

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  31. Ibid., p. 345.

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  32. James Kent, Commentaries on American Law, 11th ed. (Boston, 1867), Vol. 2, pp. 189–205. Quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. 1, pp. 363–364.

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  34. Ibid., pp. 398–400.

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  35. Paul Boyer, Urban Masses and Moral Orders in America, 1820–1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), chaps. 2, 3, 7.

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  36. Ibid.

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  37. Ibid., pp. 94–107.

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  39. Bremner et al., Vol. 2, p. 601.

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  40. Daniel Webster, “First settlement of New England,” in Edward Everett, Ed., The Works of Daniel Webster (Boston, 1851) Vol. 1, pp. 41–42. Quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 451.

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  41. Horace Mann, Massachusetts Board of Education, Tenth Annual Report (Boston, 1847), pp. 111–113

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  42. 119–120

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  43. 124–125. Quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. l, pp. 455–456.

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  44. Anthony M. Platt, The Child Savers/The Invention of Delinquency (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969).

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  45. Thomas R. Hazard, Report on the Poor and Insane in Rhode Island (Providence, 1851), pp. 85–89. Quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. 1, p. 637.

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  46. Empey, Ed., Juvenile Justice, pp. 25–28.

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  47. Ibid.

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  48. Platt, The Child Savers.

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  49. Ibid.

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  50. Ibid.

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  51. Boyer, Urban Masses, p. 144.

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  52. Ibid., p. 151.

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  53. Ibid., pp. 149–150.

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  54. Ibid., p. 153.

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  55. Ibid., chap. 8.

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  56. Ibid., p. 158.

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  57. Ibid., p. 156.

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  60. Ibid.

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  61. Ibid., p. 1383.

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  62. Arthur J. Klein, Survey of Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, in U.S. Office of Education, Bulletin, 1930, No. 9 (Washington, DC, 1930), Vol. 1, pp. 8–33. Quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. 2, pp. 1480–1487.

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  70. U.S. Bureau of Education, Circulars of Information, Number 6 (Washington, DC, 1875), pp. 42–45, 49–50. Quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. 2, pp. 464–468.

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  71. Bremner et al., Vol. 2, pp. 439–441.

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  72. For an early criticism of the juvenile court, see Timothy D. Hurley, “Necessity for the Lawyer in the Juvenile Court,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction (1905), pp. 173–177. Quoted in Bremner et al., Vol. 2, pp. 539–540.

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Authors
  1. George L. Kelling
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© 1987 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.

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Kelling, G.L. (1987). The Historical Legacy. In: From Children to Citizens. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-8707-7_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-8707-7_2

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