Modern pedagogy and the spread of diary writing around 1800

The starting point of the paper is represented by the diary of Otto van Eck, a Dutch boy of the upper class who lived in the eighteenth century. After recalling the debate about the problematic nature of that particular historical source which is represented by ego-documents, the A. shows how these documents can offer new perspectives of research and study methods to historians, and in particular to historians of education, e.g. for exploring the relationship between innovations in educational theory around 1800 and the emergence of children's diaries.