Frontspiece from a 1902 edition
The History of the Fairchild Family; or, the Child's Manual, Being a Collection of Stories Calculated to Show the Importance and Effects of a Religious Education is a didactic children's novel by the English Protestant writer Mary Martha Sherwood, first published in 1818. Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild live in the English countryside. They are a pious couple hard at work raising three children: Lucy, "who was about nine years old when these stories began", Emily who was next in age, and Henry, "who was between six and seven." The parents are devoted to various godly works; they run schools in town for poor children, with Mr. Fairchild running one for boys and Mrs. Fairchild one for girls. However, they homeschool their own children. The primary lesson that the parents have set out to inculcate is the love of God and unquestioning obedience to his commandments, which starts with obedience to one's parents. Throughout the course of the novel, Emily, Lucy and Henry regularly demonstrate failings and vices and are corrected by their parents, at times quite severely. However, the children generally respond well to their parents' admonitions and have a genuine wish to lead a godly life, and are ultimately well on the way toward acquiring the attitudes of a mature Christian.
The stories serve partly as a framing device for Bible lessons and the book is filled with prayers proposed to the reader, as well as hymns and poems that reflect the religious lessons being taught. The brand of religion promoted is Calvinistic in its essence, repeating ad nauseam to the reader the pessimistic doctrine that it is in mankind's fallen nature to want to do evil and that we are incapable of even wanting to do good, let alone actually doing any good, unless we are given God's grace to do so.
Sherwood wrote two further parts to the novel, published much later, in 1842 and 1847. By that time, the author had lightened up somewhat in her attitudes; in these sequels, it was explicitly stated that the children had learned to discipline their souls and some of the harsh discipline that they were exposed to in the first book was not repeated. The lessons in them, while still religious in nature, also include such subjects as good manners and thriftiness.
Praised in its time for its fairly realistic depictions of childhood, this book was once a nursery staple and was sometimes given away as a Sunday school prize. As books for children written principally or purely to entertain, such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, became more common, its popularity waned and eventually it came to be seen as retrograde, if not downright cruel in its approach for educating children; Once a prolific author whose writings were a childhood staple, Sherwood has long since fallen into obscurity.
This work provides examples of:
- Arcadia: There are lovely bucolic descriptions of the English countryside and of life in it. The author seems to suggest that a rustic setting is ideal for raising children.
- Ambition Is Evil: After their visit to Sir Charles Noble's house, Lucy and Emily are dazzled by what the Nobles' daughter Augusta has and wish they were of the same station. This despite the fact that Miss Augusta Noble and her brothers had acted haughtily toward them and their brother. Mrs. Fairchild overhears part of their conversation on this subject and lectures them on the sin of ambition, that is, a lack of contentment with one's station in life, which leads to manifold sins.
- As the Good Book Says...: Not surprisingly for a book of this kind, the Bible is liberally quoted.
- The Atoner: The children sin, and always end up repenting. Sometimes it takes longer (and involves harsher punishments and consequences) than other times, but in the end, their contrition is always marked and genuine.
- Aesop: God should be at the center of your life. Children, specifically, should obey their parents as a means of pleasing God. Parents, specifically, should bring their children up in the fear of the Lord.
- Bowdlerization: When the Evangelical stream declined in popularity, later editions of the book removed some of the religious content. However, this skewed the author's original intent, making the book look like its message was mainly that children should always obey their parents, rather than that they should strive above all to please God. In general, as children's literature became less moralistic and more entertaining on the whole, the book continued to be published but in more expurgated versions.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': No matter what forbidden or ill-advised thing the children attempt, they are always caught and disciplined, or else suffer the natural consequences of their behavior. This always leads to them realizing the error of their ways.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: The final part of the punishment that Mr. Fairchild inflicts on the children for fighting over Emily's doll and saying hateful words to each other. He takes them on a walk through the Blackwood, until they come to a gibbet with the frightening corpse of a hanged criminal still hanging in chains. Mr. Fairchild tells them that the body belonged to Roger, who killed his older brother James, both of them being undisciplined and hating each other in life. The message is that if the children persist in the behavior that they displayed that morning, they could end up in a similar way. Mr. Fairchild indicates that everyone by their guilty nature should be predisposed toward hatred, but that through faith in the Redeemer, that hatred can turn to love.
- Corporal Punishment / Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: When Mr. Fairchild catches the children physically and verbally attacking each other over Emily's doll. He whips each child's hands with a rod, then makes them stand in the corner without breakfast. In the episode near the end of the book where Henry gets obstinate about learning his first Latin grammar lesson, Mr. Fairchild flogs him with a small horsewhip (it doesn't produce the desired effect and Mr. Fairchild resorts to further harsh discipline). At one point, also, Mrs. Fairchild recalls a time when she was twelve years old and a neighboring girl of lower social standing than her encouraged her to pick cherries that her aunts had forbidden her to, who, being caught, was given up to her mother to be whipped.
- Due to the Dead: Several deaths occur during the story and the ensuing rituals are described in some detail. The Fairchilds visit the widow of an old gardener who has died and view his corpse. Mr. Fairchild and the children attend the funeral of Miss Augusta Noble, whose playing with fire has resulted in her burning herself to death. Being an aristocrat's daughter, the funeral is very ostentatious as befitting her station (but is implied to be likely of little use to her, as, her religious education having been neglected, she did not die in a righteous state and will likely end up in hell). Finally, there is the funeral of Charles Trueman, a highly religious boy, which the clergyman has all the children in the parish attend to show them the example of the state in which a Christian should meet his maker.
- Face Death with Dignity: In particular Charles Trueman, who tells Henry that he is ill and expecting to die, and looking forward to being with his Savior. Henry retorts: "I don't like to hear you talk of dying; and yet I know it is wrong, because I know that you will be happier in heaven than you are here." Charles responds: "Oh, Master Henry! I never was so happy before in all my life as since I have been ill, and have thought of going to my Saviour."
- Fire and Brimstone Hell: The children are taught this, namely that hell is a fearful lake of fire prepared for the unredeemed, but also that the worst aspect of the place is the absence of God there.
- Foil Little Charles Trueman is a foil to Miss Augusta Noble. He is described as "John Trueman's second son; one of the most pious little boys in all that country, and a great favourite of Mr. Fairchild, and of Mr. Somers [the local priest], who had himself taken great pains in his education." While she, during life, was pampered by her wealthy parents and taught to scorn religion, he is of a poor family, but has parents who are as pious as the Fairchilds and who have taught him to love God. Whereas Augusta died a hellish death when her clothes caught on fire as a result of her heedless habit of playing with fire, Charles dies an exemplary death, looking forward to meeting his Savior.
- "Friends" Rent Control: The Fairchilds' lifestyle may seem this way to the modern reader; they live in a lovely country home with a garden and each parent runs a school for poor children in the village; however, the father is not seen to have any employment that would fund the lifestyle. In fact, there is a simple likely explanation: they are probably lower scions of the landed gentry living a good middle-class life off inherited or other family money without having to work for it (that this may be so is also evidenced by the fact that the Fairchilds associate with both high-born and low-born people). The fact that they have land on which to grow some of their own food probably helps.
- Good Parents: This is how the author wants us to see Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild. Their intentions and child-raising methods may be very much at odds with what we would consider appropriate today, but there is no doubt that they love their children and want the best for them. And when not disciplining their children, they are shown to spend a lot of time with them and to be very affectionate and caring.
- Gotta Have It, Gonna Steal It: Mr. Fairchild forbids his children to pick the first two fruits that grew on a young apple tree as he wants to see how they will turn out. Henry cannot stop looking at them and thinking about them, despite Lucy's admonishment that he not do so. He finally decides to get up before everyone else and eat one of them. An investigation on Mr. Fairchild's part yields both evidence and witness testimony, compelling Henry to admit to his crime after initially lying about it. For this he is punished with a sharp rebuke from his father and with having to spend all day without food contemplating his sin in a room on top of the house. Also, Emily is tempted by some preserved damsons, which she can't stop stealing, even though she fully understands that what she is doing is wrong. She is only stopped when, after washing her clothes of a stain from the fruit and then sitting far away from the fire so that her parents wouldn’t notice this under the firelight, she catches cold and nearly dies, causing her to deeply repent of her sin.
- Green-Eyed Monster: One of the episodes features Lucy being envious of Emily for having been given a doll by Lady Noble; Mrs. Fairchild notices that she is upset, extracts a confession from Lucy, and gives her a lecture on the sin of envy. She admits to Lucy that when she was not able to conceive a child for the first seven or eight years of her marriage, she would envy other mothers, and that even today she sometimes feels envy, though the sin does not have the same power over her that it used to.
- Honor Thy Parent: Invoked and strictly enforced. Obedience to parents is stressed as an essential quality in a child, not merely for its own sake, but chiefly as an instrument of obeying God's will. During the course of the novel, the children's playmate Miss Augusta Noble, daughter of the irreligious Sir Charles and Lady Noble, is shown as not having the value of obedience properly inculcated in her. She ends up being burned to death as a consequence of having played with fire one time too many. As if this were not enough, the local priest laments to Mr. Fairchild after Augusta's funeral that she has not been brought up to have regard for piety nor the duty to obey her parents, and had apparently not been in a state of repentance while dying, implying that she is likely bound for hell! As for the Fairchild children, they are generally respectful of their parents, and while they commit various sins during the course of the book, are not seen to commit a flagrant act of disobedience...until the penultimate chapter. Here, Mr. Fairchild sets Henry to learning Latin, as part of preparing him for a future career in the ministry. Henry finds the first grammar lesson onerous and starts dawdling. His father makes several attempts to get him to do his work, but Henry remains obstinate. Mr. Fairchild resorts to flogging him with a small horsewhip, but even this does not work. Henry tells his father that he does not want to learn Latin; his father replies: "But it is my pleasure that you should, and I expect to be obeyed. Tell me now at once, will you learn this lesson or not?" Henry makes no answer, whereupon his father proceeds to give him a severe lecture, telling Henry that when people obstinately defy God, he may allow them to live and partake of the light of the sun and the fruits of the Earth, but that he shows them no marks of his fatherly love and favor. He categorically states: "I stand in the place of God to you, whilst you are a child; and as long as I do not ask you to do anything wrong, you must obey me: therefore, if you cast aside my authority, and will not obey my commands, I shall not treat you as I do my other children. From this time forward, Henry, I have nothing to do with you: I will speak to you no more, neither will your mamma, or sisters, or John, or Betty. Betty will be allowed to give you bread to eat, and water to drink: and I shall not hinder you from going to your own bed to sleep at night; but I will have nothing more to do with you: so go out of my study immediately." Henry then spends two nights in this state of disfavor; he is very sad but doesn't have the courage immediately to humble himself before his father. Finally, he wanders out of the house and meets Charles Trueman, a very pious boy, who talks to Henry about God, points out his sin to him, and encourages him to make a show of penitence to his father, offering to go with him for moral support. They go up to Henry's family just as they are on their noon walk. Henry falls down on his knees before his father; this is enough for Mr. Fairchild to restore his affection toward him. Family life presently returns to normal, but first Mr. Fairchild admonishes Henry that he hopes his suffering over the past two days should be a warning to him never to rebel against his father.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The book is replete with examples of (not only) children being rewarded for righteous deeds and punished (including through natural consequences) for sinful ones. Some of these are related to the children in old stories told by the adults around them or in fictional stores that they read.
- Lighter and Softer: In the second and third volumes, written many years after the first one, the children have learned to control their sinful nature better; also, the author had moved on by then from some of her harsher religious attitudes. Consequently, the lessons learned in the sequels tend to be less punitive and less about avoiding moral depravity and more about such things as thrift and good manners.
- Meaningful Name: Several. The family's name "Fairchild" likely refers to hope that the children will grow up fair in soul. There is also, for example, a Sir Charles Noble, and a Farmer Greenfield is mentioned.
- Never Say "Die": Thoroughly averted. The children are regularly faced with the reality of death and are exposed to two corpses (of a murderer and a righteous gardener) and two funerals (of two children of very different families and moral character) in the first book. The "pretty" moralistic storybooks that they read have characters who die in order to make a religious point. When appropriate, the children are reminded that the flesh of a corpse corrupts, but that the soul of a righteous person will go to be with God while that of an evil person will suffer in Hell.
- Scare 'Em Straight: The book repeatedly resorts to this technique to motivate the reader to become aware of their wickedness and turn to God. The temporal and religious consequences of disobeying one’s parents and God are expounded, including threats of damnation and hellfire for the ungodly. The technique is used in-universe as well to induce the children to pursue godliness.
- Secret Diary: Inverted. In a twist on the trope, Mrs. Fairchild decides to give Lucy an empty book in which she tells her she is to write down her wicked thoughts, as an exercise in realizing how sinful she actually is. Lucy asks if she should show what she writes to anyone. Her mother replies that Lucy may show it to her if she wants, but that she herself will not ask to see it. On the very first day, Lucy contemplates the thoughts that she has had until midday, and realizes that she has had a series of wicked thoughts despite having behaved very civilly on the outside. She penitentially writes this down and actually volunteers the entry to her mother. The latter uses it as an opportunity to remind Lucy that everyone is sinful, exhorts her to continue writing down her wicked thoughts, and prays with her daughter.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Several righteous people are shown dying (or referred to in stories related to the children). The most poignant example is that of Charles Trueman at the end of the book, a boy who had exemplary piety while alive.
- The Unfavorite: In one of the Christian-themed storybooks that the Fairchilds' manservant John brings back for the children from the fair, there is a story about a dissolute and irreligious Marquis and Marchioness living in France during the Ancien Regime. When their first son is born, they are full of pride and joy and shower him with love; when a second son, Henrie, is born to them, they have no interest in him for the simple reason that their eldest is the center of their world, and abandon him in the care of his mother's sister. The latter is a deeply religious woman and a member of the Waldensiansnote sect, and Henrie is brought up to be a pious Christian. One day, his brother takes ill and dies, and the bereaved parents suddenly remember that they have another son. They summon Henrie to them and he becomes their new darling. He tries to convince them to adopt a more religious outlook; at first his pleas fall on deaf ears, but then the Marquis is imprisoned for treason against the King and his wife and son are locked up with him. At first, the parents despair, but now the conditions are ripe for Henrie to evangelize them and he manages to convert them to the faith and put hope of God's kingdom into their hearts.
- Vanity Is Feminine: The girls' best dresses are plain in comparison to those of Miss Augusta Noble, Sir Charles Noble's daughter. Before a family visit to the Nobles, Lucy and Emily start talking about how nice they look, having been dressed in their best for the visit. Mrs. Fairchild reminds them not to be conceited, as Miss Augusta will surely have a better frock, and also that it is not on the basis of fine clothes that one is to judge a person's godliness. Mrs. Fairchild's prediction comes true when Augusta puts on a very fine dress for dinner, snubbing Lucy and Emily for not having better clothes to change into, causing them to them feel ashamed, something which is compounded by the adults at dinner praising Augusta for her entirely superficial graces (which is insinuated to be ironic, given that underneath it all she has no Christian goodness in her heart).
- The Vicar: The local clergyman, Mr. Somers, is a close associate of Mr. Fairchild's and is shown to wield moral authority in the community.
- Wicked Stepmother: The pious old lady Mary Bush tells Lucy, Emily and Henry about her childhood and how when, after her pious widowed mother died, she was placed with Mr. and Mrs. Stinton. Though Mr. Stinton could be kind to her, she was principally under Mrs. Stinton's charge and was systematically bullied and exploited by the latter, who used her essentially as a house slave. She was eventually saved from this predicament when a long-lost cousin came searching for her. He got her a position at the farm where he was working she eventually married him.
