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THOMAS DAY (1748-1789)

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Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 875 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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THOMAS See also:DAY (1748-1789)  , See also:British author, was See also:born in See also:London on the and of See also:June 1748 . He is famous as the writer of See also:Sandford and Merton (1783-1789), a See also:book for the See also:young, which, though quaintly didactic and often ridiculous, has had consider-able educational value as inculcating manliness and See also:independence . See also:Day was educated at the See also:Charterhouse and at Corpus Christi See also:College, See also:Oxford, and became a See also:great admirer of J . J . See also:Rousseau and his See also:doctrine of the ideal See also:state of nature . Having See also:independent means he devoted himself to a See also:life of study and philanthropy . His views on See also:marriage were typical of the See also:man . He brought up two foundlings, one of whom he hoped eventually to marry . They were educated on the severest principles, but neither acquired the_high quality of stoicism which he had looked for . After several proposals of marriage to other ladies had been rejected, he married an heiress who agreed with his ascetic See also:programme of life . He finally settled at Ottershaw in See also:Surrey and took to farming on philanthropic principles . He had many curious and impracticable theories, among them one that all animals could be managed by kindness, and while See also:riding an unbroken See also:colt he was thrown near Wargrave and killed on the 28th of See also:September 1789 .

His poem The Dying See also:

Negro, published in 1773, struck the keynote of the See also:anti-See also:slavery See also:movement . It is also obvious from his other See also:works, such as The Devoted Legions (1776) and The Desolation of See also:America (1777), that he strongly sympathized with the Americans during their See also:War of Independence .

End of Article: THOMAS DAY (1748-1789)
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