Lot 197
Godwin, William (1756-1836), political theorist
Rare Books, Maps, Manuscripts & Photographs
Auction: 10 January 2007 at 11:00 GMT
Description
Two page autograph manuscript of the first two pages of Godwin's essay Of Deception and Frankness, marked pages 45-46, c.35 lines on each page, "Nothing tends more effectually to poison morality in its source in the minds of youth, than the practice of holding one language & laying down one set of precepts, for the observation of the young, & another of the adult. You fall into this error, if, for instance, you require your children to go to church & neglect going yourself, if you teach them to say their prayers as a badge of their tender years, if they find that there are certain books which they may not read & certain conversations they may not hear. The usual mode of treating young persons will often be found to suggest to children of ardent fang & inquisitive remark a question, a sort of floating & undefined reverie, as to whether the whole scene of things played before them be not a delusion, & whether, in spite of contrary appearances, they are not a species of prisoner...", discussing Rousseau's treatise on education and the importance of frankness in the education of children, a few authorial corrections and alterations, a few letters obscured by guard attached to album page
Footnote
Note: A fascinating extract from Godwin's essay "Of Deception and Frankness", the title of the twelfth essay Godwin published in his work The Enquirer, reflections on education, manners and literature (1797). An accompanying later note records "Given to me by Mrs J. Stanger [of Keswick] from the manuscript in his own handwriting". Godwin's views on the education of children were considered excessively libertarian at the time; his own daughter, by Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary, eloped at sixteen with Percy Bysshe Shelley and later wrote Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.