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Thomas Day (22 June 1748 – 28 September 1789) was a British author and abolitionist. He was well known for the children's book ''The History of Sandford and Merton'' (1783–1789) which emphasized Rousseauvian educational ideals. ==Life and works== Day was born on 22 June 1748 London, the only child of Thomas and Jane Day. Thomas Day, Sr. died when Day was about a year old, leaving him fatherless but wealthy. Day first attended a school in Stoke Newington, Middlesex, but after a bout with smallpox he removed to Charterhouse School. He subsequently attended Corpus Christi College, Oxford where he became a master debater and developed a close friendship with William Jones, but he did not graduate and left the college in 1767. Day moved back to his family estate at Barehill, Berkshire. There he met the progressive educator Richard Lovell Edgeworth, from whom he became almost inseparable. Together they resolved to educate Edgeworth's son, Dick, in the style of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ''Emile''. Edgeworth and the project converted Day to Rousseauism. He declared in 1769 that the two books he would save, were all the world's books to be destroyed, would be the Bible and ''Emile''. He, Edgeworth and Dick even visited Rousseau in France. Because of his connection with Edgeworth, Day was able to join the Lunar Society in Lichfield and meet and converse with Erasmus Darwin as well as Anna Seward. After this education project, Day undertook a second: he tried to train a wife. After failing to find the perfect wife (several women including Honora Sneyd and her sister Elizabeth turned down his proposals of marriage), he decided to adopt two foundlings from orphanages and, using Rousseau's maxims, educate them to be the perfect wife (two would ensure that one of them worked out). He adopted a 12-year-old and an 11-year-old whom he renamed Sabrina and Lucretia and took them to France to educate them in isolation. Unfortunately, the girls became ill and "squabbled" and he decided to give up on Lucretia, whom he did not think could satisfy him intellectually. Sabrina he felt was still a possibility, but her character had to be further strengthened. After dropping hot wax on her arms and hearing her scream, though, he gave up in despair. Although Day was wealthy, he decided to study the law and in 1776 was admitted to Lincoln's Inn; he rarely practised. Day did finally meet his "paragon" of a woman in Esther Milnes (1753–1792), an heiress from Chesterfield. They were married on August 7, 1778. The couple subsequently moved to a small estate at Stapleford Abbotts, near Abridge in Essex. They lived a very ascetic lifestyle and Esther was never allowed to contact her family. In 1780, the couple moved to Anningsley in Surrey, when Day bought a new estate there. It was a philanthropic project for both husband and wife and they laboured to improve the conditions of the working classes around them. In 1773, Day published his first work-"The Dying Negro," a poem he had written with John Bicknell that tells the horrifying story of a runaway slave; it was a bestseller. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Thomas Day」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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