(2004-08-03) Locke On Education

I just discovered that John Locke wrote 2 different pieces about Educating Kids.

• As an education manual, this book was not intended for all: in line with the views of his time, it was highly class-specific. About educating children at the other end of the social spectrum, children of the poor, Locke wrote something quite different: his 1697 proposal OnWorkingSchools (which I can't find any other references to). For these children of the masses, he wanted an education that in the very first place would teach them to work: to become useful and god-fearing people who would not be dependent from charity.

• The education described in Some Thoughts Concerning Education was what Locke had in mind only for children of a relatively small elite (and he was thinking mainly of the boys here). Locke wanted this education to create the archetype of a gentleman: a rationally thinking, morally dependable, socially capable person given to both adequate reflection and adequate action. To achieve this, the necessary basis had to be a sober, natural, healthy development of the body. In the second place, it required the development of (in this order) Virtue, Wisdom, Breeding, and Learning. Locke considered good Moral-s and good manners more important than Knowledge; and as far as knowledge was concerned, he stressed it should be selected not just because of some educational tradition, but rather for reasons of usability and practicality - as became apparent, for example, in his exposition about learning foreign languages and one's own.