Mary Hilton addresses a neglected area in historical research by examining the educational writings of leading women moralists and activists, including Sarah Fielding, Hester Chapone, Sarah Trimmer, Maria Edgeworth, Jane Marcet, and Mary Carpenter. In connecting the young citizen, the family, and the local parish to wider social, religious, and political issues, these women moralists were highly influential in the public realm, spurring their many readers to action and reform.

Contents: Introduction. Part I The Young Citizen: Issues of Enlightenment, Gender, and Virtue: Manners, patrimony, gender: education in mid 18th-century England; 'Wiser and better': constructing a rational piety for girls; 'Partizans of liberty and necessity': forming the enlightened citizen; 'An honourable distinction': enriching the familial culture of rational dissent; 'Nature's coyest secrets': enlarging the sphere of ideas. Part II Vice and Misery: Educating the Young in the Counter Enlightenment: 'The paths of religion and virtue': reaching and teaching the children of the poor; Schemes of salvation: instructing the young in piety and economy. Part III Childhood Contested: Social and Educational Reform in the Mid 19th Century: 'One human family': rescuing the children of the 'dangerous and perishing classes'; 'The elevation of child nature': planting the English kindergarten. Conclusion: the long conversation; Bibliography; Index.

Mary Hilton is a University Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, UK.