Two young boys, one the son of a nobly-descended Yorkshire landowner, the other the son of the landowner's cow-herd, approach their education with drastically different attitudes in this children's novel from 1808, and when fortune changes their lives, their respective levels of learning brings dramatically different outcomes. Harry Johnson is the son of privilege, and he does everything he can to avoid his studies, refusing to learn. When the Johnson estate is wrested away by a distant relative, Harry and his parents set out for America with three hundred pounds to their name. Misfortune dogs them on their voyage, and a leak in their ship destroys the goods Mr. Johnson bought to sell in America, leaving the family penniless when they arrive. Harry's parents die soon after making land, leaving the boy poor and alone, in a strange country with few skills. He loses the opportunities of working as a clerk, or as the tutor to a Congressman's son, because he lacks learning, and he eventually is apprenticed to a barber.

Dick Hobson, by contrast, does not allow the fact that he comes from humble folk to deter him, when he is sent to the village school, and he becomes such a promising scholar that the schoolmaster gives him extra tutoring. When the Hobsons must also abandon England for America, the Johnson estate having been sold, they too experience misfortune, with their ship wrecked in a squall just off Long Island. Dick's father dies, leaving the boy alone in a new land, with only five shillings in his pocket. His learning quickly allows him to find employment as a clerk however, and he works his was toward being made partner, marrying his erstwhile employer's daughter. Eventually he is elected to Congress, and the book closes as he visit's Harry's barbershop...

Originally published in 1808 as Learning Better than House and Land, as Exemplified in the History of a 'Squire and a Cow-Herd, this brief novel was released in this third edition in 1813, as Learning Better Than House and Land: As Exemplified in the History of Harry Johnson and Dick Hobson. I am not sure why the sub-title was changed, but those seeking the very first edition can find it included in Anne Markey's excellent Children's Fiction, 1765-1808. This 1813 edition is available online, at the Internet Archive. The didactic purpose of the story here is in little doubt, as everything from the story to the narrative developments point to the all-importance of education to future welfare, especially in an uncertain world. This theme must have been particularly close to John Carey's heart. Born in Dublin in 1756, Carey was the son of a Roman Catholic baker, and he was educated abroad, in France, because the Penal Laws in place in Ireland, during his childhood, forbade the education of Catholics. After the Penal Laws were relaxed in 1782, he returned home to Dublin, where he ran a school. In 1789 he visited his brother, Mathew Carey, noted Irish-American publisher and economist, at his home in Philadelphia, and he worked there for a time, as a bookseller, editing George Washington's correspondence, which was published in London in 1795. He eventually returned to Europe, settling in London, where he became a noted Classical scholar and tutor, publishing many translations and textbooks. He also wrote two children's books, Profitable Amusement for Children; or Puerile Tales, Uniting Instruction with Entertainment, which was published in 1802, and this volume, in 1808.

This biographical sketch, courtesy of the Markey anthology mentioned above, should make plain that not only was Carey personally qualified to speak on the importance of education, he also had first-hand knowledge of life in both America and England. His story, although rather predictable, is also engaging, and it hearkens back to Thomas Day's immensely popular The History of Sandford and Merton, an 18th-century children's novel that also contrasted a wealthy and impoverished English boy. In Carey's tale however, the social status of the two are reversed, thanks to the all-important force of education, and the stage provided by America. Although his books are both set in England (and partially, in America), Carey was one of the earliest Irish authors of children's literature to see print. The influence of his personal experience can be felt in his work, and one only wishes that he has written something featuring characters from his native land. Recommended to anyone interested in early 19th-century children's literature in the Anglophone world, or in Carey specifically. ( )