English Children and Their Periodicals

The educational content in children’s periodicals contributed significantly to self-improvement and autodidactism in Victorian England. Rising literacy rates from the mid-nineteenth century onwards provide us with an important context for the expansion of children’s periodical culture. The pedagogic subject matter of such publications is explored primarily, though not exclusively, through the Boys Own Magazine (1855–1874), Aunt Judy’s Magazine (1866–1885), the Monthly Packet (1851–1898), Boys of England (1866–1899) and the Girls Own Paper (1880–1956). Leading religious periodicals included the Child’s Companion or Sunday Scholar’s Reward (1824–1844) and the Children’s Friend (1824–1869; new series 1861–1930) which were evangelical publications aimed initially at economically disadvantaged working-class children. These periodicals published a mixture of fiction, geography, history and botany which represented in the course of the nineteenth century, a shift from a dominant didactic strategy to one that sought to entertain a young readership. The preference for an education in the private sphere as an alternative to formal schooling is closely associated with the Victorian doctrine of self-improvement. As an integral part of that doctrine, autodidactism was promoted through periodicals, libraries and the increasing number of textbooks available to the public. Progressive educational ideas were stimulated by the fiction and non-fiction found in children’s periodicals and novels.