Everything about Some Thoughts Concerning Education totally explained
Some Thoughts Concerning Education is a
1693 treatise on education written by the
English philosopher John Locke. For over a century, it was the most important philosophical work on education in
Britain. 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
Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke outlined a new
theory of mind, contending that the child's mind was a
tabula rasa or "blank slate"; that is, it didn't contain any
innate ideas.
Some Thoughts Concerning Education explains how to educate that mind using three distinct methods: the development of a healthy body; the formation of a virtuous character; and the choice of an appropriate academic curriculum.
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 allowed women and the lower classes to aspire to the same kind of character as the aristocrats for whom Locke originally intended the work.
Historical context
Rather than writing a wholly original philosophy of education, Locke, it seems, deliberately attempted to popularize 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 hadn't succeeded in reaching a wide audience. 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.”
As England became increasingly
mercantilist and
secularist, the
humanist educational values of the
Renaissance, which had enshrined
scholasticism, came to be regarded by many as irrelevant. Following in the intellectual tradition of
Francis Bacon, who had challenged the cultural authority of the
classics, reformers such as Locke, and later
Philip Doddridge, argued against
Cambridge and
Oxford's decree that “all Bachelaur and Undergraduats in their Disputations should lay aside their various Authors, such that caused many dissensions and strifes in the Schools, and only follow
Aristotle and those that defend him, and take their Questions from him, and that they exclude from the Schools all steril and inane Questions, disagreeing from the antient and true Philosophy [sic].” Instead of demanding that their sons spend all of their time studying
Greek and
Latin texts, an increasing number of families began to demand a practical education for their sons; by exposing them to the
emerging sciences,
mathematics, and the modern languages, these parents hoped to prepare their sons for the changing economy and, indeed, for the new world they saw forming around them.
Text
One of these families was the Clarkes of Chipley,
Somerset. In 1684 Edward Clarke asked his friend, John Locke, for advice on raising his son and heir, Edward, Jr.; Locke responded with a series of letters that eventually served as the basis of
Some Thoughts Concerning Education. But it wasn't 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.
Although Locke revised and expanded the text five times before he died, he never substantially altered the "familiar and friendly style of the work." 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.
Pedagogical theory
Of Locke's major claims in the
Essay Concerning Human Understanding and
Some Thoughts Concerning Education, two played a defining role in eighteenth-century educational theory. The first is that education makes the man; as Locke writes at the opening of his treatise, "I think I may say that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education." In making this claim, Locke was arguing against both the
Augustinian view of man, which grounds its conception of humanity in
original sin, and the
Cartesian position, which holds that man innately knows basic logical propositions. In his
Essay Locke posits an “empty” mind—a
tabula rasa—that is “filled” by experience. In describing the mind in these terms, Locke was drawing on
Plato's
Theatetus, which suggests that the mind is like a "wax tablet". Although Locke argued strenuously for the
tabula rasa theory of mind, he nevertheless did believe in innate talents and interests. For example, he advises parents to watch their children carefully in order to discover their "aptitudes," and to nurture their children's own interests rather than force them to participate in activities which they dislike—"he, therefore, that's about children should well study their natures and aptitudes and see, by often trials, what turn they easily take and what becomes them, observe what their native stock is, how it may be improved, and what it's fit for."
Locke's second most important contribution to eighteenth-century educational theory also stems from his theory of the self. He writes: "the little and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting consequences." That is, the "
associations of ideas" made when young are more significant than those made when mature because they're the foundation of the self—they mark the
tabula rasa. In the
Essay, in which he first introduces the theory of the association of ideas, Locke warns against letting "a foolish maid" convince a child that "goblins and sprites" are associated with the darkness, for "darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they'll be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other."
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 characterize 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." As both he and Tarcov highlight, Locke's writings are full of directives to actively seek out knowledge and reflect on received opinion; in fact, this was the essence of Locke's challenge to innatism.
Body and mind
Locke advises parents to carefully nurture their children's physical “habits” before pursuing their academic education. As many scholars have remarked, it's 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. 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 in order 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're accustomed to." Furthermore, in order 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). Locke posited that if children were accustomed to having sodden feet, a sudden shower that wet their feet wouldn't 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. 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). Future virtuous adults must be able not only to practice self-denial but also to see the rational path. Locke was convinced that children could reason early in life and that parents should address them as reasoning beings. Moreover, he argues that parents should, above all, attempt to create a "habit" of thinking rationally in their children. Locke continually emphasizes habit over rule—children should internalize the habit of reasoning rather than memorize a complex set of prohibitions. This focus on rationality and habit corresponds to two of Locke's concerns in the
Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Throughout the
Essay, Locke bemoans the irrationality of the majority and their inability, because of the authority of custom, to change or forfeit long-held beliefs. His attempt to solve this problem isn't only to treat children as rational beings but also to create a disciplinary system founded on esteem and disgrace rather than on rewards and punishments. For Locke, rewards such as sweets and punishments such as beatings turn children into sensualists rather than rationalists; such sensations arouse passions rather than reason. He argues that “such a sort of
slavish discipline makes a
slavish temper" (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're "motivated only [by] rewards and punishments" to achieve that goal.
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." In the
Second Treatise on Government (1689), he contends that it's the parents' duty to educate their children and to act for them because children, though they've the ability to reason when young, don't do so consistently and are therefore usually irrational; it's the parents' obligation to teach their children to become rational adults so that they won't always be fettered by parental ties.
Academic curriculum
Locke doesn't dedicate much space in
Some Thoughts Concerning Education to outlining a specific curriculum; he's more concerned with convincing his readers that education is about instilling virtue and what Western educators would now call critical-thinking skills. Locke maintains that parents or teachers must first teach children
how to learn and to enjoy learning. As he writes, the instructor "should remember that his business isn't so much to teach [thechild] all that's knowable, as to raise in him a love and esteem of knowledge; and to put him in the right way of knowing and improving himself." But Locke does offer a few hints as to what he thinks a valuable curriculum might be. He deplores the long hours wasted on learning
Latin and argues that children should first be taught to speak and write well in their native language. Most of Locke's recommendations are based on a similar principle of utility. So, for example, he claims that children should be taught to draw because it would be useful to them on their foreign travels (for recording the sites they visit), but poetry and music, he says, are a waste of time. Locke was also at the forefront of the
scientific revolution and advocated the teaching of
geography,
astronomy, and
anatomy. Locke's curricular recommendations reflect the break from
scholastic humanism and the emergence of a new kind of education—one emphasizing not only science but also practical professional training. Locke also recommended, for example, that every (male) child learn a trade. Locke's pedagogical suggestions marked the beginning of a new
bourgeois ethos that would come to define
Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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. 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." As James Axtell, who has edited the most comprehensive edition of Locke's educational writings, has written: "though he was writing for this small class, this doesn't 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). 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 doesn't prevent its serving also for the education of all sorts of Children, of whatever class they are."
While it's 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, only believed that
Some Thoughts applied to the wealthy and the
middle-class (or as they'd have been referred to at the time, the "middling sorts"). 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 don't appear in Locke's little book at all." 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're 12 or 14 years old." He suggests, therefore, that "working schools" be set up in each parish in England for poor children so that that'll be "from infancy [threeyears old] inured to work." He goes on to outline the economics of these schools, arguing not only that that'll be profitable for the parish but also that that'll instill a good work ethic in the children.
Gender
Locke wrote
Some Thoughts Concerning Education in response to his friend Samuel 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'll be no hard matter to distinguish" (Locke's emphasis). 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 Mrs. 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 [writfor the son].” 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." 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." Like his contemporary
Mary Astell, Locke believed that women could and should be taught to be rational and virtuous.
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're very hot and piercing.” Although Locke’s statement indicates that he places a greater value on female than male beauty, the fact that these opinions were never published allowed contemporary readers to draw their own conclusions regarding the “different treatments” required for girls and boys, if any. Moreover, compared to other pedagogical theories, such as those in the best-selling conduct book
The Whole Duty of a Woman (1696), the female companion to
The Whole Duty of Man (1657), and Rousseau’s (1762), which both proposed entirely separate educational programs for women, Locke’s
Some Thoughts appears far more egalitarian.
Reception and legacy
Along with Rousseau's (1762), Locke's
Some Thoughts Concerning Education was one of the foundational eighteenth-century texts on educational theory. In Britain, it was considered the standard treatment of the topic for over a century. For this reason, some critics have maintained that
Some Thoughts Concerning Education vies with the
Essay Concerning Human Understanding for the title of Locke's most influential work. Some of Locke's contemporaries, such as seventeenth-century German philosopher and mathematician
Gottfried Leibniz, believed this as well; Leibniz argued that
Some Thoughts superseded even the
Essay in its impact on European society.
Locke's
Some Thoughts Concerning Education was a runaway bestseller. During the eighteenth century alone,
Some Thoughts was published in at least 53 editions: 25
English, 16
French, six
Italian, three
German, two
Dutch, and one
Swedish. It was also excerpted in
novels such as
Samuel Richardson's
Pamela (1740-1), and it formed the theoretical basis of much children's literature, particularly that of the first successful children's publisher,
John Newbery. According to James Secord, an eighteenth-century scholar, Newbery included Locke's educational advice to legitimize the new genre of children's literature. Locke's imprimatur would ensure the genre's success. 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.” Writers as politically dissimilar as
Sarah Trimmer, in her periodical
The Guardian of Education (1802–6), 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.
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,
Etienne Bonnot de Condillac and
Claude Adrien Helvétius eagerly adopted the idea that people's minds were shaped through their experiences and thus through their education. Systems of teaching children through their senses proliferated throughout Europe. In Switzerland,
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, relying on Locke's theories, developed the concept of the "object lesson." These lessons focused pupils' attention on a particular thing and encouraged them to use all of their senses to explore it and urged them to use precise words to describe it. Used throughout Europe and America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these object lessons, according to one of their practitioners "if well-managed, cultivate Sense-Perception, or Observation, accustom children to express their thoughts in words, increase their available stock of words and of ideas, and by thus storing material for thinking, also prepare the way for more difficult and advanced study." Such techniques were also integral to
Maria Montessori's methods in the twentieth century. According to Cleverley and Phillips, the television show
Sesame Street is also "based on Lockean assumptions—its aim has been to give underprivileged children, especially in the inner cities, the simple ideas and basic experiences that their environment normally doesn't provide." In many ways, despite Locke's continuing influence, as these authors point out, the twentieth century has been dominated by the "
nature vs. nurture" debate in a way that Locke's century was not. Locke's optimistic "environmentalism," though qualified in his text, is now no longer just a moral issue - it's also a scientific issue.
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