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Private School

Etcher Thomas Rowlandson British
Publisher Thomas Rowlandson British
May 10, 1802
Not on view
In this second print of a group of eight, young boys surround a bird's nest and two prepare to throw stones at a fallen chick. They are ignored by a distant schoolmaster, and only one boy appears horrified by the cruelty that a companion shows to a butterfly. Related text by Willyams, who also designed the image, suggests satirically that cruel children will grow up to be sucessful adults and that the main purpose of grammar school is to rid them of soft-heartedness. The author-designer was a university-educated lieutenant-colonel from Cornwall who also supplied supporting satirical text under the pseudonym Joel McCringer. Rowlandson, who etched the print, imbues the figures with his own characteristic elegance which does not disguise the dark human impulses being satirized. Like Hogarth's "First Stage of Cruelty," the image implies that boys allowed to mistreat small creatures will grow up to do far worse.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Private School
  • Series/Portfolio: A Compendious Treatise on Modern Education: Title and 8 plates
  • Etcher: Thomas Rowlandson (British, London 1757–1827 London)
  • Artist: After James Brydges Willyams (British, Cornwall 1772–1820 Truro, Cornwall)
  • Publisher: Thomas Rowlandson (British, London 1757–1827 London)
  • Date: May 10, 1802
  • Medium: Hand-colored etching
  • Dimensions: Sheet: 10 1/16 in. × 13 in. (25.6 × 33 cm)
    Plate: 8 15/16 × 10 13/16 in. (22.7 × 27.5 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959
  • Object Number: 59.533.851(3)
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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Imaginary View of Venice, houses at left with figures on terraces, a domed church at center in the background, boats and boat-sheds below, and a seated man observing from a wall at right in the foreground, from "Views" (Vedute altre prese da i luoghi altre ideate da Antonio Canal)
Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal)
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Desire (Le Brun Travested, or Caricatures of the Passions), Thomas Rowlandson British, Etching, printed in brown ink
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