The cultural nature of the concept of the child in American early childhood education from 1880 to the present was examined. Chapters 1 through 10 consider the following concepts: (1) the child as a theoretical construction in a review of the literature; (2) the exaltation of childhood by Froebel and the American Froebelians; (3) the savage child in works from G. S. Hall to A. L. Gesell; (4) the spiritual child in Montessori's work; (5) the poor child in the philanthropic movement and in the Great Society; (6) the experimental child in the works of Thorndike, Watson, and Skinner; (7) the pragmatic child in Dewey; (8) the psychological child of the psychoanalytic tradition; (9) the cognitive child in J. M. Baldwin, Piaget, and Vygotsky; and (10) the eclectic view of the child and its reflection in early childhood education. It was concluded that the nature of the child has frequently and radically been redefined in the period under consideration. Furthermore, no linear development, continuity, or interrelatedness among or between the major conceptualizations of the child exists. Finally, no dominant consensus on the nature of the child based on a unitary theory exists at the present time. (RH)