Some Thoughts Concerning Education is a 1693 treatise on the education of gentlemen written by the English philosopher John Locke. 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.
About Some Thoughts Concerning Education in brief
Some Thoughts Concerning Education is a 1693 treatise on the education of gentlemen written by the English philosopher John Locke. 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. Nearly every European writer on education after Locke, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, acknowledged its influence. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke outlined a new theory of mind, contending that the gentleman’s mind was a tabula rasa or ‘blank slate’ Locke argued against both Augustinian view of man, which holds that man knows his basic propositions, and the Cartesian position, which says that man is innately logical and knows his own interests and talents. For example, he advises parents to watch their children carefully to discover their aptitudes, drawing on Plato’s Theatetus, which suggests that the mind is like a tablet, which is like an innately ‘waxed’ tablet. In the same way, Locke was strenuously opposed to the tabula Rasa theory, arguing that he did believe in innate talents and innate interests, which he called ‘the good and the bad’ Locke’s advice to parents was that children should be taught to read, write, and to think in a manner that would help them understand the world in which they were living. He 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.
Locke frequently explicitly opposes his recommendations to the ‘usual,’ ‘common,’ ‘ordinary,’ or ‘general’ education. 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. 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 are what are what, good or evil, useful or not, by their education” The second is that of course, all men are what they are, whether they are good or bad, and they are taught how to be good orbad, by the way they are educated. In the final section of the book, Locke 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. The work was not published until 1693, encouraged by the Clarkes and another friend, William Molyneux, that Locke actually published the treatise. Although Locke revised and expanded the text five times before he died, he never substantially altered the style of his work.
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