Children's Images in the Years of Insurgency. Popular Engravings, Education and Political Culture of Children

This paper reviews the teaching methods for reading in the early 19th century. Particularly, it examines an educational engraving in which letters and syllables were taught by means of a scene where children are playing in the countryside. During the same period, philanthropic groups furthered a change in the image of children, advocating that they be seen as valuable members of society and persons who needed a civic education. Thus, with political catechisms, a political culture developed among children. Prizes, fun and recreational books started to replace punishments. Popular engravings, cheap and with a substantial circulation, presented educational, heterodox, political, and even revolutionary messages to a much larger audience than in previous periods