A Compendious Treatise on Modern Education

Related etcher Thomas Rowlandson British
 Related artist and author James Brydges Willyams British
 Printer Joseph Smeeton British

Not on view

This title page introduces a set of prints that Rowlandson etched after drawings by Willyams, a Cornish, university-educated lieutenant-colonel who supplied supporting text using the pseudonym Joel McCringer. Rowlandson's characteristic elegance does not disguise the dark human impulses being satirized. Modern education, it is suggested, does little to teach self-control, wisdom or empathy. Scenes show boys hurting chicks and insects, youths drinking, and young men carousing and gambling. Many of the images respond to themes that Hogarth addressed in his print series "Stages of Cruelty" and "A Modern Midnight Conversation" (1751 and 1733, MMA 32.35(118) and 19.1.77).

A Compendious Treatise on Modern Education, Related etcher Thomas Rowlandson (British, London 1757–1827 London), Hand-colored etching

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