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Educational Theory and Human Nature in Fielding's Works

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2020

C. R. Kropf
C. R. Kropf*
Affiliation:
Georgia State University, Atlanta
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Abstract

The question of the extent to which Fielding's works present a consistent view of human nature may in part be answered by a study of his frequent use of educational theory. Fielding was familiar with the major issues and theories treated in the educational literature of his day and also recognized that various theories of education found their basis in various theories of human nature, the raw material with which education deals. In The Fathers, one of Fielding's lesser-known plays, he seems to assume that education is allpowerful in forming character, but in Joseph Andrews the entire question of education and human nature is treated with ironic ambivalence. In Tom Jones education is irrelevant to character development, and the Nightingale episode reads like a specific reversal of the theme of The Fathers. In the course of these three works Fielding apparently reverses his position, beginning with the assumption that human nature may be defined as a tabula rasa and concluding that human character is predetermined. In Amelia Fielding compromises between these extremes in a manner reminiscent of Locke's position in his Some Thoughts concerning Education.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 89 , Issue 1 , January 1974 , pp. 113 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1974

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References

Note 1 in page 119 Battestin's position is best explained in The Moral Basis of Fielding's Art (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1959); cf. Braudy, Narrative Form in History and Fiction (Princeton, N. J. : Princeton Univ. Press, 1970), pp. 91–212.

Note 2 in page 119 Essays on Fielding's Miscellanies (Princeton, N. J.:Princeton Univ. Press, 1961), pp. 218–20.

Note 3 in page 120 (London: John Oswald, 1745); an independent second volume appeared in 1748. All quotations are from Vol. i.

Note 4 in page 120 Precise dating of this play is difficult. It did not come to the stage until 1778 when it was performed under Garrick's direction. In the “Preface to the Miscellanies and Poems” Fielding mentions having had The Fathers in rough form for several years when The Wedding Day was presented on the stage in February 1743 and having written The Wedding Day because he remained dissatisfied with The Fathers as “less completely finished than I thought its plan deserved” (xii, 240).

Note 5 in page 120 The Complete Works of Henry Fielding Esq., ed. William Ernest Henley (New York: privately printed, 1902), xii, 178. All quotations from Fielding are according to this edition and are noted parenthetically by volume and page.

Note 6 in page 120 Bishop Gilbert Burnet as Educationist Being His Thoughts on Education with Notes and Life of the Author, ed. John Clarke, Aberdeen Univ. Studies, No. 67 (Aberdeen, Scotland: Aberdeen Univ., 1914), pp. 1–2.

Note 7 in page 120 George Turnbull, Observations upon Liberal Education . . . Containing the Substance of What Hath Been Said upon That Important Subject by the Best Writers Ancient and Modern (London: A. Millar, 1742), p. 217.

Note 8 in page 120 Quintilian on Education, ed. William M. Smail (New York: Teachers Coll. Press, 1966), p. 22.

Note 9 in page 120 J[ean] Gailhard, The Compleat Gentleman: or Directions for the Education of Youth as to Their Breeding at Home and Travelling Abroad (London: Tho. Newcomb, 1678), p. 18; see also Bishop Gilbert Burnet, p. 21; The Educational Writings of John Locke, ed. James L. Axtell (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1968), pp.165–71.

Note 10 in page 120 “Pamela (London: Chapman & Hall, 1902), iv, 246–47; see also Turnbull, Observations, pp. 12–20.

Note 11 in page 120 The Education or Bringinge vp of Children, trans. Sir Thomas Elyot (London: Thomas Berthelet, 1533), in Four Tudor Books on Education, ed. Robert D. Pepper (Gainesville, Fla.: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1966), p. 10.

Note 12 in page 120 The Education of Children in Learning: Declared by the Dignity. Vtilitie, and Method Thereof (London: Thomas Orwin, 1588), sig. Elr, in Pepper.

Note 13 in page 120 [John Littleton] Costeker, The Fine Gentleman: or, the Compleat Education of a Young Nobelman (London: J. Roberts. 1732), pp. 8–12, describes just such a character as the squire.

Note 14 in page 120 Observations, p. 333; see also [Obadiah Walker], Of Education. Especially of Young Gentlemen, 6th ed., enl. (London: H. Gellibrand, 1699), p. 37; Bishop Gilbert Burnet, p. 27.

Note 15 in page 120 Adventures of Telemachus by Fenelon, trans. Dr. [John] Hawkesworth (1808; rpt. Boston: Houghton, 1887), p. 540.

Note 16 in page 120 The idea was common with everyone from Elyot to Locke. See Henry Herbert Stephen Croft, ed., The Boke Named the Gouernour Diuised by Sir Thomas Elyot, Knight (1531; rpt. New York: B. Franklin, 1967), i, 38; Locke, pp. 159, 173.

Note 17 in page 120 An Essay upon the Necessity and Excellency of Education (London: S.B. & J.B., 1705); The Augustan Reprint Society, No. 51 (Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1955), p. 15.

Note 18 in page 120 v, 92; Fielding has apparently confused the titles and contents of John Essex' two works, For the Further Improvement of Dancing (London: J. Brotherton, 1710), in which he discusses the educational advantages of learning to dance, and The Young Ladies Conduct: Or, Rules for Education (London: J. Brotherton, 1722), where dancing is suggested as one way for a young lady to acquire physical grace.

Note 19 in page 120 Battestin, pp. 16–17; “Strictures on Female Education,” The Works of Hannah More (London: T. Cadell 1830), v, 141, n.