Cobwebs to catch flies — A Reader’s Guide

The Moral Framework of the Freelove Family

The longest excerpt describes the Freelove family, where children divide apples into eight pieces, keep the smallest for themselves, and share treasures. The father's rule is absolute: children ask permission for everything, and if refused, 'had no longer a wish to do it.' This is not a gentle negotiation but a system of unquestioning compliance. The mother's reward for William's charity is a kiss and the privilege of carrying a message—a concrete, immediate reinforcement. The family is called 'a family of perfect love,' but the love is conditional on perfect obedience. The dialogue 'Do as you would be done by' is demonstrated twice: once with sheep, once with a poor woman. In both cases, the child performs the action after a brief internal monologue, not spontaneous empathy. The text teaches a calculated morality: think what you would wish, then act accordingly.

Short Sentences, Limited Vocabulary, and Repetitive Structure

The author's 'Advertisement' acknowledges the difficulty of writing in 'short words' and 'short sentences.' The excerpts bear this out: sentences rarely exceed fifteen words, and vocabulary is drawn from domestic life—'bread,' 'sheep,' 'greens,' 'kiss,' 'brother.' The dialogues follow a predictable pattern: a child encounters a situation, asks a question, receives a moral explanation, and acts correctly. For example, William sees a poor woman, thinks 'If I had nothing to eat… what should I wish?', then gives his bread. The repetition of this formula across different scenarios (feeding sheep, sharing at the fair) reinforces the lesson through variation. The structure is pedagogical, not narrative: each dialogue is a self-contained moral demonstration, with little plot continuity between them. This makes the book a tool for repeated reading and recitation, not a story to be consumed once.

Natural History as a Secondary, Almost Absent Subject

Despite the catalog listing 'Natural history -- Juvenile literature,' the excerpts contain only two references to animals: sheep that 'eat out of a person's hand' and 'wild beasts' seen at a fair. Neither is described with any naturalistic detail; the sheep are props for a moral lesson about feeding the hungry, and the wild beasts are merely mentioned among fair attractions. The children's gardens are mentioned—'digging, planting, weeding'—but again, the focus is on cooperation and lending tools, not on botany or biology. The 'Natural history' subject appears to be a cataloger's inference from the title's 'Cobwebs' metaphor and the presence of animals, but the text itself does not teach natural history. Readers expecting facts about insects, plants, or animals will find only moralized anecdotes. The book's true subject is conduct of life, as the second catalog subject correctly indicates.

Readers approaching Cobwebs to catch flies should set aside expectations of natural history instruction. The book is best understood as a period artifact of moral education, where every sentence is engineered to shape behavior through repetition and reward. The short sentences and domestic settings make it accessible to early readers, but the lessons are rigid: obedience brings love, sharing brings happiness, and questioning is discouraged. For modern readers, the interest lies in the tension between the author's stated aim—to please children—and the strict moral framework that governs every interaction.

There’s something tender about these old dialogues—the way they nudge a child toward kindness through tiny domestic scenes. Mrs. Lovechild’s world feels so orderly, yet I found myself wondering about the quieter struggles beneath it. That’s why I keep returning to An essay on the government of children, under three general heads, viz. health, manners, and education — Text and Context; it holds the same gentle questions, asked differently. Neither book quite answers them, but that’s the charm.