“The blessings of civilisation”: nineteenth‐century missionary infant schools for young native children in three colonial settings – India, Canada and New Zealand 1820s–1840s

Abstract

In the context of missionary endeavours of the early nineteenth century there were considerable similarities in the religious and education blueprints for providing the “blessings of civilisation” to the young native “heathen” child in various parts of the British Empire. The three case studies presented illustrate a relatively undocumented aspect of missionary work concerning the adaptation of new European ideas for schooling very young children in so‐called infant schools. The comparative focus on the shared aspects of their colonial experience is illuminating of both the pervasiveness of missionary endeavours and the diversity of contexts to which those ideals were applied. This paper provides an overview of the context of new ideas for educating young children in Europe alongside the focus of British missionary endeavour towards its expanding colonial empire in the early years of the nineteenth century. Short illustrative case studies are presented in relation to the missionary infant schools in British India, Canada and New Zealand, all established in parallel during the 1820s–1840s. The characteristic of all infant schools, whether amongst the poor in Britain or the heathen in its colonies, was to create an ordered environment apart from the perceived disorder of the child’s home, and the focus was to produce an educable and orderly child. Each case study provides a different facet of the missionary quest to save children from their heathen ways through schooling.