Since June I have been listening to people berate transcendentalist Bronson Alcott. Visitors to the Fruitlands farmhouse, where the Alcotts lived for seven months in 1843, are hardly inside the door before they say, “So this is where that crazy guy lived.” Or, “Oh, this is the kook who sat around talking philosophy while his wife did all the work.” Chortle, chortle. As an interpreter, I do my best to defend Alcott’s experiment in transcendental living, pointing out that it’s hard to be a passionate idealist and also a pragmatist, that without visionaries and extremists like Alcott, nothing would change. I can see the skepticism on their faces as they smile politely. But there is one thing that I can readily convince even the worst reviler to concede: Bronson Alcott’s philosophy of education shows the perfect mix of idealism and practicality, and it changed the direction of public education.
In these days of common standards, high-stakes standardized testing, evidenced-based teacher evaluation, and use of technology in the classroom, it is interesting to note both the idealism and the relevancy of many of Alcott’s ideas as superintendent of Concord schools from 1859 to 1865. Alcott had long opposed the conventional rote learning of the time, believing instead in inquiry, exploration, and self-expression. He advocated the Socratic method, where a teacher engages students in open discussion of an idea, pursuing it in all its possibilities. Unlike others of his day, he agreed with the ancient Greeks that a sound mind needs a sound body, and he instituted recess. The idea of corporal punishment violated both Alcott’s philosophy and his sensibilities, and he lobbied for its end. More specific ideas are set down in his school records of Concord, where he was in charge of six schools in outlying districts and three in the town center.
Alcott’s criteria for good teaching allow for individuality and at the same time set forth a set of timeless principles. He writes, “I have sought to inspire the teachers with confidence in their chosen ways rather than to interfere with counter-suggestions of my own. We require of each what she has to give, no more. Does the teacher awaken thought, strengthen the mind, kindle affections, call the conscience, so promoting habits that will accompany the children outwards into life? Teaching needs kindly sensibilities, simple feelings, and sincere love abounding. No amount of learning avails without it. Mind refuses to be driven by mechanism. It moves by magnetism.”
Few would argue with Alcott’s priorities: “Next to thinking for themselves, the best service any teacher can render scholars is to show them how to use books. The young should have access to the wisdom and worth of genius. Reading-books should be simple and addressed to the ages and comprehension of the class.”
Whoever has had to parse a sentence would probably agree that “Grammar, taught under that name in our schools, is a waste study. Children dislike it, few find any use for it afterwards.” Alcott believed that it is through daily composition that a child learns correct grammar and also “finds ways of expressing himself simply.”
“The new art of photography should be given to the service of education.” Alcott’s choice of the phrase “to the service of” suggests that technology is not an end in itself or an enrichment but something to be used directly for teaching of ideas.
Modern parents could well heed this 150-year-old bit of advice: “The parent who seldom or never visits the school can not reasonably complain of what happens there. He should be slow of taking hearsay from any, least of all his own children when they are parties interested.”
Happily, most of Alcott’s educational ideals eventually took hold in our schools. However, there is one in particular that did not, and for that I am grateful. Alcott advocated: “I think singing is a proper qualification in a teacher.” I assume he means good singing; I would never have gotten a job.
