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

'Mary Hilton's comprehensive cultural history convincingly makes the case that women intellectuals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries enlarged and shaped the terms and outcomes of public debates about educating Britain's children. Her highly readable yet learned volume should be of great interest to scholars of social, political and educational history.' Lynne Vallone, Rutgers University, USA ’There is little doubt that Women and the Shaping of the Nation's Young is a thoroughly researched, valuable and welcome addition to our knowledge and understanding of both the history of education and thought, and to the hidden power which women wielded in society between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries.’ Children's Books History Society Newsletter

• 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.

'Mary Hilton's comprehensive cultural history convincingly makes the case that women intellectuals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries enlarged and shaped the terms and outcomes of public debates about educating Britain's children. Her highly readable yet learned volume should be of great interest to scholars of social, political and educational history.' Lynne Vallone, Rutgers University, USA ’There is little doubt that Women and the Shaping of the Nation's Young is a thoroughly researched, valuable and welcome addition to our knowledge and understanding of both the history of education and thought, and to the hidden power which women wielded in society between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries.’ Children's Books History Society Newsletter

• 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.