Prof. Kevin J. Brehony Early Childhood Research Centre Froebel College University of Roehampton

1. ‘The character thus early formed will be as durable as it will be advantageous to the individual and to the community’ (Robert Owen). Ideologies of British Infant Schooling in the Early Nineteenth Century. Prof. Kevin J. Brehony Early Childhood Research Centre Froebel College University of Roehampton

2. Paper Content • Looks at a sample of promoters of early years educational institutions in Britain – infant schools and kindergartens • Selected figures were outside the hegemonic Tory-Anglican-Landed Capital bloc – to an extent the Evangelicals were too but as the period progressed their supporters in business and commerce entered the ruling bloc • Points of contention: View of the child as innocent rather than depraved. Moralisation not using the formularies of the Established Church • In Raymond Williams’ distinction the ideas of the infant school promoters selected were ‘alternative’ rather than ‘oppositional’ • Infant schools were seen as responses to the disruption caused by industrialisation, urbanisation and the ‘making’ of the working class

3. Persons in the Sample • Robert Owen 1771-1858 • James Pierrepont Greaves 1777-1842 • Samuel Wilderspin 1791-1866 • Johannes Ronge 1813-1887

4. Robert Owen 1771-1858

5. Owen’s Ideology • ‘Millenialism, philanthropy, socialism, communitarianism’ (Harrison, 1969) • Enlightenment Rationality • LockeanEmpricism – some times labeled, ‘materialism • Affinities with some of Rousseau’s thought but no evidence of direct connection • Doctrine of circumstance (McCann, 1982) • Utilitarianism • Infant practices show affinities with Pestalozzi but did not visit him until 1818

6. Working Class Reformation • Owen’s objective was the reform of the character of the working classes, which he divided into two. Firstly, there were ‘the poor and the uneducated profligate among the working classes, who are now trained to commit crimes’ and secondly, there was a remaining mass, ‘who are now instructed to believe, or at least to acknowledge, that certain principles are unerringly true, and to act as though they were grossly false’ (Owen 1813). The condition of the working classes was such that without urgent action, Owen opined, ‘general disorder must ensue’.

7. James PierrepontGreaves 1777-1842

8. Greaves’ Ideology • German Idealism • Read Boehme, William Law and Swedenborg • The New Age – phrenology, mesmerism, hydropathy, astrology, total abstinence and vegetarianism (Latham, p.20) • Social reform through individual spiritual renewal. The Divine Spirit • 1838 Alcott House community at Ham

9. Greaves’ Theosophy • …man must not only believe, not only be convinced, but feel with the same certitude with which he feels his own existence ; that there is one universal love-truth, which is the same to all individuals, at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances. That man must feel that this love-truth is not a dead word, nor a thought to be defined, or described, or expressed in dead words, but that it is the one living Spirit manifesting itself in all things; in the works of nature, in the clear thoughts, in the noble sensations of the human soul. That man must feel this living Love-Spirit has an abode within, and that if he be but humble enough to lay before it his own errors and his own miseries, it will dash to the ground, in him and through him, all the errors and miseries of the world around, and open to his view the prospect of that perfect order and harmony, wherein the complaining voice of rebellion and selfishness is no more heard. (The Dial 1843).

10. Greaves on Education • Stayed at Pestalozzi’s school 1818-1821 • 1825 founded the Infant School Society and was its Secretary until dismissed in 1827 • Divided between Evangelicals like Mayo and Rationalists Like Owen’s followers. Disbanded 1828. • Had published Pestalozzi’s Letters on early education, addressed to J.P. Greaves in 1827 • 1838 Alcott House School – adhered to Greaves’ theosophical principles

11. Bronson Alcott’s Mission • Here are Educational Circulars, and Communist Apostles ; Alists ; Plans for Syncretic Associations, and Pestalozzian Societies, Self-supporting Institutions, Experimental Normal Schools, Hydropathic and Philosophical Associations, Health Unions and Phalansterian Gazettes, Paradises within the reach of all men. Appeals of Man to Woman, and Necessities of Internal Marriage illustrated by Phrenological Diagrams. (The Dial 1842)

12. Utopian Socialism Engels 1878 • The Socialism of earlier days certainly criticised the existing capitalistic mode of production and its consequences. But it could not explain them, and, therefore, could not get the mastery of them. It could only simply reject them as bad. The more strongly this earlier Socialism denounced the exploitations of the working-class, inevitable under Capitalism, the less able was it clearly to show in what this exploitation consisted and how it arose. but for this it was necessary - • to present the capitalistic mode of production in its historical connection and its inevitableness during a particular historical period, and therefore, also, to present its inevitable downfall; and to lay bare its essential character, which was still a secret. This was done by the discovery of surplus-value.” [Socialism, Utopian & Scientific, Chapter 2]

13. Samuel Wilderspin 1791-1866

14. Wilderspin’s Ideology • Swedenborgian but did not proclaim it • Much of his language that of the Evangelicals: infant schools were to eliminate vice and crime among the poor. Also advocated

15. Wilderspin’s Four Swedenborgian Propositions • The conception of education as a series of stages consistent with the developing nature of the child • The importance of early childhood to future development • Belief in the innocence of infancy • The important role given to the senses and the affections in the educational process • (After McCann and Young p 153)

16. Wilderspin’s Contribution • Foundation of infant schools • The infant system : for developing the intellectual and moral powers of all children, from one to seven years of age by Samuel Wilderspin ( Book ) • 6 editions published between 1834 and 1852 in English Early discipline illustrated; or, The infant system progressing and successful by Samuel Wilderspin ( Book ) • 4 editions published between 1832 and 1834 in English On the importance of educating the infant poor by Samuel Wilderspin ( Book ) • 6 editions published between 1824 and 1993 in English Infant education; or remarks on the importance of educating the infant poor, from the age of eighteen months to seven years. With an account of the Spitalfields' Infant School, and the system of instruction there adopted. To which is added, the latest improvements, and a list of schools already established, in England by Samuel Wilderspin ( Book ) • 2 editions published in 1825 in English Infant education, or, Remarks on the importance of educating the infant poor : from the age of eighteen months to seven years : with an account of some of the infant schools in England and the system of education there adopted : selected and abridged from the works of Wilderspin, Goyder, and others : and adapted to the use of infant schools in America ( Book ) • 2 editions published between 1827 and 1828 in English • Early discipline illustrated : or, the infant system progressing and successful / by Samuel Wilderspin by Samuel Wilderspin ( Book ) • 1 edition published in 1840 in English Infant education, or, Practical remarks on the importance of educating the infant poor, from the age of eighteen months to seven years containing hints for developing the moral and intellectual power of children of all classes by Samuel Wilderspin ( Book ) • 3 editions published in 1829

17. Interconnections • Owen met Greaves at Yverdon • Owen visited Wilderspin at Quaker Street Infants School, Spitalfields • Owen and several Owenites visited Alcott House • Owen and Greaves opposed in many respects but also exhibited similarities in thought • Wilderspin and Greaves shared an interest in Swedenborg – Wilderspin adapted some of Greaves’s ideas

18. Discontinuities • By 1840s, working class movements like the Owenites and the Chartists had been defeated • 1836 Home and Colonial Infant School Society Founded – ‘an out-and-out Evangelical organisation • Some adaptation of the ‘alternative’ Owen-Buchanan-Wilderspin approach but it was in retreat in the 1840s if not defeated

19. Johannes Ronge 1813-1887

20. Shrine of Holy Coat at Trier

21. Ronge’s Kindergarten 1854

22. Ronge’s ideology • Opposition to Papal despotism and absolutism and the promotion of a new reformation • We seek to cultivate and elevate the inward man • …in principle, we never separate religion from life but assert, that in all circumstances, at all times, should act in accordance with his moral convictions • Unlike Owen and Wilderspin, no focus on the working class

23. London Humanistic Society • Besides the Ronges, the management committee consisted of John Ellis and his wife, Dr Johan von Veittinghoff and Fanny Veitinghoff. John Ellis was a former Owenite, ‘social missionary’ (Royle 1974) who had a strong interest in educational reform. In 1849, The Reasoner carried advertisements for Ellis’s Academy at 8 George Street, Euston Square. Open to both sexes, it was listed as a secular school, ‘pledged to the principle of secular instruction’. By 1854 the Academy had become connected to the kindergarten in Tavistock Square and was known as the Upper Humanistic School in which kindergarten methods were used with older children ‘to the fullest extent at present practical’. • Graf Joseph Johann Frederick Carl Wilhelm von Viettinghoff, a refugee from the Baltic, was a consulting Physician to the North London Homeopathic Medical Establishment. A doctor of Polish origin, he was associated with a number of alternative cultural movements such as vegetarianism and phrenology and he advertised on homeopathy in Owenite journals (Gregory 2007).

24. Graf Joseph Johann Frederick Carl Wilhelm von Viettinghoff (Reasoner,1854)

25. Continuities • Ellis, an Owenite • Veitinghoff, a vegetarian. Aurora Villa and Aurora Villa School. Familiar with some who had been at Alcott House • In Manchester, the promoter of the Queen’s Street Institute, Free Kindergarten, William Mather, was educated in a Swedenborgian school and married in a New Jerusalem church • Now Dissent in the form of Unitarianism and Judaism forms the milieu of the kindergarten • Home and Colonial Society adapts the kindergarten

26. Conclusion • The presence of a polarised spectrum is observable over time occupied by discontinuous actors – individual and collective • Reformers over estimated the extent to which schooling could bring about social change • Working class communities tended to resist all attempts at moralisation through infant schools in favour of care of children by siblings and the Dame schools