Career
Van Alphen was appointed as Treasurer-General of the Dutch Republic in June 1793 but, as an Orangist, was relieved of his position as a result of the Batavian Revolution in 1795. Van Alphen’s children's poems express a modern vision of children for his time. As these booklets were a great success, they were reprinted dozens of times and also translated into French, German, English, Frisian and in the Malay language.
Composers as Bartholomeus Rulofs, Ernst Christian Graf and Christian Friedrich Ruppe put them to music
Van Alphen was of the opinion that children should be able to learn playfully.