Thomas Spence, Children’s Literature and ‘Learning … Debauched by Ambition’

This chapter examines the synergies between Thomas Spence's work as a radical educationalist and the non-canonical utopian children's literature of John Newbery. One of the most infamous phrases of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century ‘war of ideas’ came from Edmund Burke, who described the people as a ‘swinish multitude’. This ‘swinish multitude’ barb was used in the context of scholarship and education, something that the chapter argues would appear particularly provocative to Spence. A teacher himself, Spence recognised how important children's education was to social and political renewal. By juxtaposing Newbery's publications and Spence's writings, this chapter highlights the remarkable radicalism of mid-eighteenth-century children's literature and emphasises the importance of education as a strand of Spence's utopian thinking.