"What Will Become of Our Young People?" Goals for Indian Children in Moravian Missions

Abstract

Eighteenth-century European writers showed a heightened awareness of childhood and children, expressed frequently in sentimental or romantic terms. Historian Hugh Cunningham lists key aspects of this sensitivity to children, which had its roots in the Renaissance and Reformation and emerged in the mid-nineteenth century's "ideology of childhood." He includes: "a belief in the importance of early education;... a concern for the salvation of the child's soul;... a growing interest in the way children learn; and ... a sense that children were messengers of God, and that child hood was therefore the best time of life." An exemplar of this type of think ing was Nikolaus Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf, the leader of the Moravian church in the eighteenth century. Emphasizing the child's connection to the divine and portraying childhood as a special stage of life, he wrote in 1739: "Children are little royal majesties. Baptism is their anointing, and from then on they should be treated as none other than a king by birth." Zinzendorf wrote numerous religious works for children and about childrearing, demonstrating a deep concern for early education. 1 For Zinzendorf and the Moravians in general, the child offered every one a model of what the good Christian should be. Thus, not only did Zinzendorf focus on early childhood education, but he also asked adults to look to children for their own religious education. In this sense, the child became both the teacher and the student. The child offered an example of simplicity (Einfali) and through humility and meekness verified Jesus' injunc