Professor Peter Gordon - A History of Western Educational Ideas

A HISTORY OF WESTERN EDUCATIONAL IDEAS

General Series Editor: Professor Peter Gordon

ISSN 1462-2076

For over twenty years this series on the history, development and policy of education, under the distinguished editorship of Peter Gordon, has been evolving into a comprehensive and balanced survey of important trends in teaching and educational policy. The series is intended to reflect the changing nature of education in present-day society. The books are divided into four sections - educational policy studies, educational practice, the history of education and social history - and reflect the continuing interest in this area.

For a full series listing, please visit our website: www.woburnpress.com

The Victorian School Manager: A Study in the Management of Education 1800-1902 Peter Gordon

Selection for Secondary Education Peter Gordon

The Study of Education: Inaugural Lectures

• Volume I: Early and Modern
• Volume II: The Last Decade
• Volume III: The Changing Scene
• Volume IV: End of an Era?

edited by Peter Gordon

History of Education: The Making of a Discipline edited by Peter Gordon and Richard Szreter

Educating the Respectable: A Study of Fleet Road Board School, Hampstead, 1879-1903 W.E. Marsden

In History and in Education: Essays Presented to Peter Gordon edited by Richard Aldrich

An Anglo-Welsh Teaching Dynasty: The Adams Family from the 1840s to the 1930s W.E. Marsden

Dictionary of British Educationists Richard Aldrich and Peter Gordon

Biographical Dictionary of North American and European Educationists Peter Gordon and Richard Aldrich

The Making of the Backward Pupil in Education in England, 1870-1914 Ian Copeland

The First Teenagers: The Lifestyle of Young Wage-earners in Interwar Britain David Fowler

James Kay Shuttleworth: Journey of an Outsider R.J.W. Selleck

Targeting Schools: Drill, Militarism and Imperialism Alan Penn

The English Higher Grade Schools: A Lost Opportunity Meriel Vlaeminke

Denis Lawton
and
Peter Gordon

First published in 2002 in Great Britain by
Woburn Press
Chase House, 47 Chase Side, Southgate
London N14 5BP

and in the United States of America by
Woburn Press
c/o ISBS
5824 N.E. Hassalo Street
Portland, Oregon 97213-3644

Transferred to Digital Printing 2005

Website : www.woburnpress.com

Copyright 2002 D. Lawton and P. Gordon

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Lawton, Denis, 1931
A history of Western educational ideas (The Woburn
education series)
1. Education Western influences History 2. Education
Europe History 3. Education Aims and objectives
Europe History
I. Title II. Gordon, Peter, 1927
370.9'1812

ISBN 0-7130-0219-0 (cloth)

ISBN 0-7130-4041-6 (paper)

ISSN 1462-2076

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lawton, Denis.
A history of western educational ideas / Denis Lawton and Peter Gordon.
p. cm. (Woburn education series, ISSN 1462-2076)
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 0-7130-0219-0 (cloth) ISBN 0-7130-4041-6
1. Education Philosophy History. I. Gordon, Peter, 1927
II. Title. III. Series.
LB 14.7 .L39 2002
370'.1 dc21 2001057514

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book

Typeset by Frank Cass Publishers

Our focus upon the history of ideas in this book is partly an attempt to move history of education away from an approach based on 'great men' to technological, economic, social and political influences on ideas and beliefs. In our view many books on the history of education have moved all too easily from one famous writer to another without sufficient regard for the general historical context of the ideas.

The history of education has, in the past, not only concentrated too much on the story of great thinkers but also on the history of institutions, for example, on topics such as 'The Rise of the University' rather than examining the changes in society which gave rise to those institutions or to changes in them. In reality the twelfth-century universities of Paris and Oxford had very little in common with twentieth-century higher education. One of our purposes will be to explore the reasons for change without ignoring the contributions made by individuals.

We have specified 'Western' in the title because it is not the intention of this book to try to cover aspects of oriental philosophy and education. The Buddhist, Hindu and Chinese traditions are very rich, but beyond the scope of a single volume and beyond our expertise. We will make some reference to Islamic education though mainly to the influence of those ideas on Western education, which were considerable, but do not take us outside the general narrative of this book. Islamic culture shared many aspects of the Judaeo-Christian tradition and benefited from the writings of authors such as Aristotle.

Many historians have suggested that if an individual is ignorant of the history of his or her own country, he or she is rather like someone without a memory: we need the past in order to make sense of the present, or at least to know how we arrived at this point. The same is true for anyone involved in education: there are many aspects of an education system that only make sense if we know how that system has developed over time. Part of that development is the story of how institutions (schools, colleges and universities) have changed, but it is also important to understand how ideas in education have developed.

All societies have the problem of bringing up their young in such a way that they will become the kind of people who will be wanted and accepted in that society. In simple, pre-literate societies this process is usually in the hands of the family, probably the extended family. Parents and other close adults can pass on all the skills, knowledge and values that are needed. This is sometimes referred to as 'informal education'. In pre-literate societies there is usually little discussion about education or the purpose of education: it is taken for granted that the young need to be brought up in certain ways and that the elders know best.

As societies become more complex, and especially when writing is adopted or invented, it may become necessary for some specialist teachers to be employed, often in institutions called schools or universities. It is at this point that ideas about education begin to be developed and discussed. Prior to this, the upbringing of children would have been regarded as commonsense and taken for granted; but when schools exist, those involved in teaching the young, and those who want to criticise the failures of the system, begin to theorise about teaching methods, about the curriculum, about the purpose of education and possibly even about the education of teachers. Different societies, at different times, throw up all kinds of ideas about education and training. It is interesting to relate these ideas to the social conditions and events that have generated them, and also to see how ideas develop and change over time.