Some Thoughts Concerning Education
Some Thoughts Concerning Education is a 1693 treatise on the education of gentlemen written by the English philosopher John Locke.[1] For over a century, it was the most important philosophical work on education in England. It was translated into almost all of the major written European languages during the eighteenth century, and nearly every European writer on education after Locke, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, acknowledged its influence.
In his
Locke wrote the letters that would eventually become Some Thoughts for an aristocratic friend, but his advice had a broader appeal since his educational principles suggested anyone could acquire the same kind of character as the aristocrats for whom Locke originally intended the work.
Historical context
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Rather than writing a wholly original philosophy of education, Locke, it seems, deliberately attempted to popularise several strands of seventeenth-century educational reform at the same time as introducing his own ideas. English writers such as John Evelyn, John Aubrey, John Eachard, and John Milton had previously advocated "similar reforms in curriculum and teaching methods," but they had not succeeded in reaching a wide audience.[2] Curiously, though, Locke proclaims throughout his text that his is a revolutionary work; as Nathan Tarcov, who has written an entire volume on Some Thoughts, has pointed out, "Locke frequently explicitly opposes his recommendations to the 'usual,' 'common,' 'ordinary,' or 'general' education."[3]
As England became increasingly
Text
In 1684, Mary Clarke and her husband Edward asked their friend John Locke for advice on raising their son Edward Jr.; Locke responded with a series of letters that eventually became Some Thoughts Concerning Education.[7][8] But it was not until 1693, encouraged by the Clarkes and another friend, William Molyneux, that Locke actually published the treatise; Locke, "timid" when it came to public exposure, decided to publish the text anonymously.[9]
Although Locke revised and expanded the text five times before he died,[10] he never substantially altered the "familiar and friendly style of the work."[11] The "Preface" alerted the reader to its humble origins as a series of letters and, according to Nathan Tarcov, who has written an entire volume on Some Thoughts, advice that otherwise might have appeared "meddlesome" became welcome. Tarcov claims Locke treated his readers as his friends and they responded in kind.[11]
Pedagogical theory
Of Locke's major claims in the
Locke also discusses a theory of the self. He writes: "the little and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting consequences."
Locke's emphasis on the role of experience in the formation of the mind and his concern with false associations of ideas has led many to characterise his theory of mind as passive rather than active, but as Nicholas Jolley, in his introduction to Locke's philosophical theory, points out, this is "one of the most curious misconceptions about Locke."[20] As both he and Tarcov highlight, Locke's writings are full of directives to seek out knowledge actively and reflect on received opinion; in fact, this was the essence of Locke's challenge to innatism.[21]
Body and mind
Locke advises parents to carefully nurture their children's physical "habits" before pursuing their academic education.[22] As many scholars have remarked, it is unsurprising that a trained physician, as Locke was, would begin Some Thoughts with a discussion of children's physical needs, yet this seemingly simple generic innovation has proven to be one of Locke's most enduring legacies—Western child-rearing manuals are still dominated by the topics of food and sleep.[23] To convince parents that they must attend to the health of their children above all, Locke quotes from Juvenal's Satires—"a sound mind in a sound body." Locke firmly believed that children should be exposed to harsh conditions while young to inure them to, for example, cold temperatures when they were older: "Children [should] be not too warmly clad or covered, winter or summer" (Locke's emphasis), he argues, because "bodies will endure anything that from the beginning they are accustomed to."[24] Furthermore, to prevent a child from catching chills and colds, Locke suggests that "his feet to be washed every day in cold water, and to have his shoes so thin that they might leak and let in water whenever he comes near it" (Locke's emphasis).[25] Locke posited that if children were accustomed to having sodden feet, a sudden shower that wet their feet would not cause them to catch a cold. Such advice (whether followed or not) was quite popular; it appears throughout John Newbery's children's books in the middle of the eighteenth century, for example, the first best-selling children's books in England.[26] Locke also offers specific advice on topics ranging from bed linens to diet to sleeping regimens.
Virtue and reason
Locke dedicates the bulk of Some Thoughts Concerning Education to explaining how to instill virtue in children. He defines virtue as a combination of self-denial and rationality: "that a man is able to deny himself his own desires, cross his own inclinations, and purely follow what reason directs as best, though the appetite lean the other way" (Locke's emphasis).
What is important to understand is what exactly Locke means when he advises parents to treat their children as reasoning beings. Locke first highlights that children "love to be treated as Rational Creatures," thus parents should treat them as such. Tarcov argues that this suggests children can be considered rational only in that they respond to the desire to be treated as reasoning creatures and that they are "motivated only [by] rewards and punishments" to achieve that goal.[33]
Ultimately, Locke wants children to become adults as quickly as possible. As he argues in Some Thoughts, "the only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it, into which a young gentleman should be entered by degrees as he can bear it, and the earlier the better."
Academic curriculum
Locke does not dedicate much space in Some Thoughts Concerning Education to outlining a specific curriculum; he is more concerned with convincing his readers that education is about instilling virtue and what Western educators would now call critical-thinking skills.
Class
When Locke began writing the letters that would eventually become Some Thoughts on Education, he was addressing an aristocrat, but the final text appeals to a much wider audience.[43] For example, Locke writes: "I place Vertue [sic] as the first and most necessary of those Endowments, that belong to a Man or a Gentleman."[44] James Axtell, who edited the most comprehensive edition of Locke's educational writings, has explained that although "he was writing for this small class, this does not preclude the possibility that many of the things he said about education, especially its main principles, were equally applicable to all children" (Axtell's emphasis).[45] This was a contemporary view as well; Pierre Coste, in his introduction in the first French edition in 1695, wrote, "it is certain that this Work was particularly designed for the education of Gentlemen: but this does not prevent its serving also for the education of all sorts of Children, of whatever class they are."[46]
While it is possible to apply Locke's general principles of education to all children, and contemporaries such as Coste certainly did so, Locke himself, despite statements that may imply the contrary, believed that Some Thoughts applied only to the wealthy and the middle-class (or as they would have been referred to at the time, the "middling sorts"). One of Locke's conclusions in Some Thoughts Concerning Education is that he "think[s] a Prince, a Nobleman, and an ordinary Gentleman's Son, should have different Ways of Breeding."[47] As Peter Gay writes, "[i]t never occurred to him that every child should be educated or that all those to be educated should be educated alike. Locke believed that until the school system was reformed, a gentleman ought to have his son trained at home by a tutor. As for the poor, they do not appear in Locke's little book at all."[48]
In his "Essay on the Poor Law," Locke turns to the education of the poor; he laments that "the children of labouring people are an ordinary burden to the parish, and are usually maintained in idleness, so that their labour also is generally lost to the public till they are 12 or 14 years old."[49] He suggests, therefore, that "working schools" be set up in each parish in England for poor children so that they will be "from infancy [three years old] inured to work."[50] He goes on to outline the economics of these schools, arguing not only that they will be profitable for the parish, but also that they will instill a good work ethic in the children.[51]
Gender
Locke wrote Some Thoughts Concerning Education in response to his friend Edward Clarke's query on how to educate his son, so the text's "principal aim", as Locke states at the beginning, "is how a young gentleman should be brought up from his infancy." This education "will not so perfectly suit the education of daughters; though where the difference of sex requires different treatment, it will be no hard matter to distinguish" (Locke's emphasis).[25] This passage suggests that, for Locke, education was fundamentally the same for men and women—there were only small, obvious differences for women. This interpretation is supported by a letter he wrote to Mary Clarke in 1685 stating that "since therefore I acknowledge no difference of sex in your mind relating ... to truth, virtue and obedience, I think well to have no thing altered in it from what is [writ for the son]."[52] Martin Simons states that Locke "suggested, both by implication and explicitly, that a boy's education should be along the lines already followed by some girls of the intelligent genteel classes."[53] Rather than sending boys to schools which would ignore their individual needs and teach them little of value, Locke argues that they should be taught at home as girls already were and "should learn useful and necessary crafts of the house and estate."[54] Like his contemporary Mary Astell, Locke believed that women could and should be taught to be rational and virtuous.[55]
But Locke does recommend several minor "restrictions" relating to the treatment of the female body. The most significant is his reining in of female physical activity for the sake of physical appearance: "But since in your girls care is to be taken too of their beauty as much as health will permit, this in them must have some restriction ... 'tis fit their tender skins should be fenced against the busy sunbeams, especially when they are very hot and piercing."
Reception and legacy
Along with Rousseau's
Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education was a runaway best-seller. During the eighteenth century alone, Some Thoughts was published in at least 53 editions: 25 English, 16 French, six Italian, three German, two
By the end of the eighteenth century, Locke's influence on educational thought was widely acknowledged. In 1772 James Whitchurch wrote in his Essay Upon Education that Locke was "an Author, to whom the Learned must ever acknowledge themselves highly indebted, and whose Name can never be mentioned without a secret Veneration, and Respect; his Assertions being the result of intense Thought, strict Enquiry, a clear and penetrating Judgment."[61] Writers as politically dissimilar as Sarah Trimmer, in her periodical The Guardian of Education (1802–06),[62] and Maria Edgeworth, in the educational treatise she penned with her father, Practical Education (1798), invoked Locke's ideas. Even Rousseau, while disputing Locke's central claim that parents should treat their children as rational beings, acknowledged his debt to Locke.[63]
John Cleverley and D. C. Phillips place Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education at the beginning of a tradition of educational theory which they label "environmentalism". In the years following the publication of Locke's work,
Such techniques were also integral to
See also
Notes
- ^ Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1 ed.). London: A.and J. Churchill at the Black Swan in Paternoster-row. 1693. Retrieved 28 July 2016 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Ezell, Margaret J.M. "John Locke's Images of Childhood: Early Eighteenth-Century Responses to Some Thoughts Concerning Education." Eighteenth-Century Studies 17.2 (1983–84), 141.
- ^ Tarcov, Nathan. Locke's Education for Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1984), 80.
- ^ Axtell, James L. "Introduction." The Educational Writings of John Locke. Ed. James L. Axtell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1968), 60.
- ^ Qtd. in Frances A. Yates, "Giodano Bruno's Conflict with Oxford." Journal of the Warburg Institute 2.3 (1939), 230.
- ^ Axtell, 69–87.
- ^ Axtell, 4.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/66720. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Axtell, 13.
- ^ Axtell, 15–16.
- ^ a b Tarcov, 79.
- ^ Locke, John. Some Thoughts Concerning Education and of the Conduct of the Understanding. Eds. Ruth W. Grant and Nathan Tarcov. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., Inc. (1996), 10; see also Tarcov, 108.
- ^ Ezell, 140.
- ^ Simons, Martin. "Why Can't a Man Be More Like a Woman? (A Note on John Locke's Educational Thought)." Educational Theory 40.1 (1990), 143.
- ^ Yolton, John W. The Two Intellectual Worlds of John Locke: Man Person, and Spirits in the Essay. Ithaca: Cornell University Press (2004), 29–31 and John Yolton, Locke: An Introduction. New York: Basil Blackwell (1985), 19–20; see also Tarcov, 109.
- ^ Yolton, John Locke and Education, 24–5.
- ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 41.
- ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 10.
- ^ Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Ed. Roger Woolhouse. New York: Penguin Books (1997), 357.
- ^ Jolley, 28.
- ^ Tarcov, 83ff and Jolley 28ff.
- ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 11–20.
- ^ Hardyment, Christina. Dream Babies: Child Care from Locke to Spock. London: Jonathan Cape (1983), 226; 246–7; 257–72.
- ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 11.
- ^ a b Locke, Some Thoughts, 12.
- ^ For example, in the "Preface" to A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, Newbery recommended that parents feed their child a "common Diet only, cloath him thin, let him have good Exercise, and be as much exposed to Hardships as his natural Constitution will admit" because "the Face of a child, when it comes into the World, (says the great Mr. Locke) is as tender and susceptible of Injuries as any other Part of the Body; yet by being always exposed, it becomes Proof against the severest Season, and the most inclement Weather." A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, Intended for the Instruction and Amusement of Little Master Tommy, and Pretty Miss Polly. 10th edition. London: Printed for J. Newbery (1760), 6.
- ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 25.
- ^ Yolton, Two Intellectual Worlds, 31–2.
- ^ See, for example, Locke, Essay, 89–91.
- ^ Yolton, Introduction, 22–4.
- ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 34–8.
- ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 34.
- ^ Tarcov, 117–8.
- ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 68.
- ^ Yolton, John Locke and Education, 29–30; Yolton, Two Intellectual Worlds, 34–37; Yolton, Introduction, 36–7.
- ^ Yolton, Introduction, 38.
- ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 195.
- ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 143.
- ^ Bantock, G. H. "'The Under-labourer' in Courtly Clothes: Locke." Studies in the History of Educational Theory: Artifice and Nature, 1350–1765. London: George Allen and Unwin (1980), 241.
- ^ Bantock, 240-2.
- ^ John Dunn, in his influential Political Thought of John Locke, has interpreted this "calling" as a Calvinist religious doctrine. Tarcov has criticized this reading, however, writing: "Dunn’s exposition of the doctrine and its providentialist character is based on Puritan and secondary sources, and he gives no clear evidence for attributing it in this form to Locke." (Tarcov 127)
- ^ Bantock, 244.
- ^ Leites, Edmund. "Locke's Liberal Theory of Parenthood." Ethnicity, Identity, and History. Eds. Joseph B. Maier and Chaim I. Waxman. New Brunswick: Transaction Books (1983), 69–70.
- ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 102.
- ^ Axtell, 52 and Yolton, John Locke and Education, 30–1.
- ^ Qtd. in Axtell, 52.
- ^ Locke, John (1764). Some thoughts concerning education (13 ed.). London: Printed for A. Millar, H. Woodfall, J. Wiston and B. White ... p. 324.
- ^ Gay, Peter. "Locke on the Education of Paupers." Philosophers on Education: Historical Perspectives. Ed. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty. London: Routledge (1998), 190.
- ^ Locke, John. "An Essay on the Poor Law." Locke: Political Essays. Ed. Mark Goldie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1997), 190.
- ^ Locke, "Essay on the Poor Law," 190.
- ^ Locke, "An Essay on the Poor Law," 191.
- ^ Locke, John. "Letter to Mrs. Clarke, February 1685." The Educational Writings of John Locke. Ed. James L. Axtell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1968), 344.
- ^ Simons, 135.
- ^ Simons, 140; see also Tarcov, 112.
- ^ Simons, 139 and 143.
- ^ Locke, "Letter to Mrs. Clarke," 344.
- ^ Leites, 69–70.
- ^ Ezell, 147.
- ^ Pickering, Samuel F., Jr. John Locke and Children's Books in Eighteenth-Century England. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press (1981), 10; See Axtell 100–104 for a complete list of editions.
- ^ Secord, James A. "Newton in the Nursery: Tom Telescope and the Philosophy of Tops and Balls, 1761–1838." History of Science 23 (1985), 132–3.
- ^ Qtd. in Pickering, 12.
- ^ Trimmer, Sarah. The Guardian of Education. Bristol: Thoemmes Press (2002), 1:8–9, 108; 2:186–7; 4:74–5.
- ^ See, for example, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or on Education. Trans. Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books (1979), 47 and 107–25.
- ^ Qtd. in John Cleverley and D.C. Phillips, Visions of Childhood: Influential Models from Locke to Spock. New York: Teachers College (1986), 21.
- ^ Cleverley and Phillips, 26.
- ^ Cleverley and Phillips, Chapter 2.
Bibliography
- Bantock, G. H. "'The Under-labourer' in Courtly Clothes: Locke." Studies in the History of Educational Theory: Artifice and Nature, 1350–1765. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1980. ISBN 0-04-370092-6.
- Brown, Gillian. The Consent of the Governed: The Lockean Legacy in Early American Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-674-00298-9.
- Brown, Gillian. "Lockean Pediatrics." Annals of Scholarship 14.3/15.1 (2000–1): 11–17.
- Chambliss, J. J. "John Locke and Isaac Watts: Understanding as Conduct." Educational Theory as Theory of Conduct: From Aristotle to Dewey. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987. ISBN 0-88706-463-9.
- Chappell, Vere, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Locke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-521-38772-8.
- Cleverley, John and D. C. Phillips. Visions of Childhood: Influential Models from Locke to Spock. New York: Teachers College, 1986. ISBN 0-8077-2800-4.
- Ezell, Margaret J. M. "John Locke’s Images of Childhood: Early Eighteenth Century Responses to Some Thoughts Concerning Education." Eighteenth-Century Studies 17.2 (1983–84): 139–55.
- Ferguson, Frances. "Reading Morals: Locke and Rousseau on Education and Inequality." Representations 6 (1984): 66–84.
- Gay, Peter. "Locke on the Education of Paupers." Philosophers on Education: Historical Perspectives. Ed. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty. London: Routledge, 1998. ISBN 0-415-19130-0.
- Leites, Edmund. "Locke's Liberal Theory of Parenthood." Ethnicity, Identity, and History. Eds. Joseph B. Maier and Chaim I. Waxman. New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1983. ISBN 0-87855-461-0.
- Locke, John. The Educational Writings of John Locke. Ed. James L. Axtell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968. ISBN 0-5210-4073-6.
- Pickering, Samuel F., Jr. John Locke and Children’s Books in Eighteenth-Century England. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1981. ISBN 0-87049-290-X.
- Sahakian, William S. and Mabel Lewis. John Locke. Boston: Twayne, 1975. ISBN 0-8057-3539-9.
- Simons, Martin. "What Can't a Man Be More Like a Woman? (A Note on John Locke's Educational Thought)" Educational Theory 40.1 (1990): 135–145.
- Tarcov, Nathan. Locke's Education for Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. ISBN 0-226-78972-1.
- ISBN 0-394-31032-2.
- Yolton, John. "Locke: Education for Virtue." Philosophers on Education: Historical Perspectives. Ed. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty. London: Routledge, 1998. ISBN 0-415-19130-0.
External links
- Works related to Some Thoughts Concerning Education at Wikisource
- Some Thoughts Concerning Education at Standard Ebooks
- Free full text of Some Thoughts Concerning Education at Bartleby.com
- First edition of Some Thoughts Concerning Education at Internet Archive
- John Locke at Project Gutenberg