{"id":615,"date":"2024-12-22T04:14:30","date_gmt":"2024-12-22T04:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/?p=615"},"modified":"2025-11-13T00:47:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T00:47:29","slug":"the-young-and-devout-audience-of-divine-songs-for-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/2024\/12\/22\/the-young-and-devout-audience-of-divine-songs-for-children\/","title":{"rendered":"The young and devout audience of Divine Songs for Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Divine Songs for Children<\/span><\/i>, or more specifically, its full title <\/span>Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language For the Use of Children<\/span><\/i>, reveals its intended audience plainly and immediately.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Printed by Archibald Loudon in 1812, <\/span>Divine Songs<\/span><\/i> is aimed at young, religious readers.\u00a0 The context of the book is straightforward; it has a title page, twenty-eight hymns, and lastly the Ten Commandments.\u00a0 There is nothing else.\u00a0 The children who would have used this book are not interested in anything else, more information or filler is boring to most children.\u00a0 One exception to this is illustrations.\u00a0 There is only one illustration in the book (a frontispiece); it is small, only taking up about a third of the page.\u00a0 Likely no other illustrations were added to keep production costs down, and the final price low as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Keeping in mind the intended audience, <\/span>Divine Songs <\/span><\/i>was likely not very expensive.\u00a0 This is further supported by the modest craftsmanship of the book itself.\u00a0 It is simply bound; no boards were used, it is only held together with stitching.\u00a0 The text printed throughout the book was not done meticulously.\u00a0 The margins are irregular.\u00a0 On some pages, the text goes fully to the bottom of the page with no lower margin.\u00a0 On others, the text starts immediately at the top.\u00a0 The same inconsistency occurs with the size of the gutter.\u00a0 Considering that<\/span> Divine Songs <\/span><\/i>was deliberately made like this for its audience, its uncomplicated craftsmanship likely allowed the price to be kept relatively low.\u00a0 This way, the book could be realistically accessed by children.<\/span><\/p>\n

The book is very small, measuring 10.25cm x 6.8cm x 0.2cm.\u00a0 To visualize, when closed <\/span>Divine Songs<\/span><\/i> is a little shorter than the size of my hand.\u00a0 I have not tried it myself, but I imagine any pocket that can fit my hand would very easily fit <\/span>Divine Songs<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 It is currently in a fragile state (212 years will do that to any boardless book), so I would not recommend anyone try it.\u00a0 However, being pocket-sized would have applied itself well to a life of travel, perhaps back and forth between church and home?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hymns are songs meant to be sung in worship and are very commonly used during official services.\u00a0 <\/span>Divine Songs<\/span><\/i> has twenty-eight hymns printed in it.\u00a0 Some songs are more broad, such as \u201cA general song of praise to God\u201d and \u201cHeaven and Hell.\u201d\u00a0 Others are a lot more specific and likely personal to a child, such as \u201cLove between Brothers and Sisters.\u201d\u00a0 It has something for every occasion.\u00a0 The book was very likely intended <\/span>to be owned and read by a child and brought back and forth from home to church or school.\u00a0 Hence the content and the small and easily portable size.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We know from the title that <\/span>Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language For the Use of Children<\/span><\/i> was intended to be used by religious children.\u00a0 But looking further at the author, Isaac Watts can give us a more specific understanding.\u00a0 Isaac Watts was a protestant minister, born in England in 1674, he is sometimes known as the \u201cfather of English hymnody\u201d (Watts).\u00a0 Given that he is a very well-known protestant, the book was probably made for other protestants.\u00a0 However, the Church of England did not approve of hymns until 1820 (<\/span>Divine Songs<\/span><\/i> was published in 1812), so Anglicans likely will not purchase the book (Hymn).<\/span><\/p>\n

We have an idea of the type of person who would have owned <\/span>Divine Songs<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we do not have information on <\/span>who<\/span><\/i> this owner actually was.\u00a0 There is a name written in the book, very likely the name of the owner, but it cannot be read with certainty.\u00a0 I have talked more in-depth about Sarah in a previous blog post.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHymn.\u201d <\/span>Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica Online<\/span><\/i>, Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica Inc, 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWatts, Isaac.\u201d <\/span>Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica Online<\/span><\/i>, Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica Inc, 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Divine Songs for Children, or more specifically, its full title Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language For the Use of Children, reveals its intended audience plainly and immediately. Printed by Archibald Loudon in 1812, Divine Songs is aimed at young, religious readers.\u00a0 The context of the book is straightforward; it has a title page, twenty-eight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audience","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":703,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions\/703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/historyofthebook2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}