Yale Bulletin and Calendar

January 17, 2003|Volume 31, Number 15|Two-Week Issue

Pictured is Jean Bukac's illustration for "Le jugement du chat" (Paris, 1940), part of the Beinecke Library's new exhibit.

Show explores children's interest
in the law and law-breakers

When it comes to capturing a child's imagination, the law may not seem to offer much competition to wizards and superheroes, but as an exhibition at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscripts Library demonstrates, legal themes have figured prominently in children's literature from at least the 17th century.

The exhibition, titled "Juvenile Jurisprudence: Law in Children's Literature," presents four centuries of books and documents teaching, preaching and entertaining young people with various aspects of the law -- from lessons on the Constitution to adventurous tales of lawlessness.

The exhibition was the brainchild of Morris Cohen, professor emeritus at the Law School, who started his own collection of legal books for youngsters while accompanying his young son, a budding book collector, on buying missions.

Cohen has lent some of his own books for the show, but the exhibition draws extensively from the Betsy Beinecke Shirley Collection of American Children's Literature at the Beinecke.

The books have been organized into categories according to certain themes, among them "Animal Trials," "Law Enforcement," "Rights of the Child," "Illustrated Classics" and "Pirates."

Many of these books were used in classrooms. One genre of textbook, "Catechisms," exemplifies the blending of religion and civics in the moral education of children. Learning the law by rote was especially characteristic of the pedagogic mindset of early 19th-century America, and the exhibition provides a variety of catechisms from this period; however, this tradition was not restricted to the new nation. According to Noah Webster's 1790 essay "On the Education of Youth in America" which is included in the show: "In Rome it was the common exercise of boys at school to learn the laws of the twelve tables by heart."

Texts in this exhibition concerning the legal rights of children range from the 1697 leather-bound volume, "Law Both Ancient and Modern Relating to Infants," to an illustrated pamphlet of 1979 explaining to children what to expect when "Going to Family Court."

As the exhibit reveals, while much of the literature for children on the subject of the law was meant to instill respect and civil responsibility, factual and fiction works on that theme have provided children through the generations with pure entertainment. The exploits of pirates and cowboys, cops and robbers fill several display cases. The show also includes a comic book edition of "Crime and Punishment."

Children's enduring fascination with courtroom dramas is evidenced by the displays of illustrated editions of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland," Mark Twain's "Puddin' head Wilson" and Dickens' "Bleak House."

The exhibition also includes accounts of famous real-life criminal trials, including the prosecutions of Lizzie Bordon, Sacco and Venzetti and O.J. Simpson, and historical cases such as Dred Scott, the Scopes Monkey Trial and Roe v. Wade.

"Juvenile Jurisprudence" will be at the Beinecke Library Jan. 30-April 11.

To mark the exhibit's opening, Morris Cohen will present a lecture titled "Who Killed Cock Robin?: Law & Crime in Children's Literature" at 5:15 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 30. The talk is free and open to the public.

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, located at 121 Wall St., is open for exhibition viewing 8:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday and, when Yale is in session, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday. Admission is free.

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