Figures in Education - Pre 19th Century

Plato

Plato (427-347 BC), the pupil of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, is thought to be one of the most influential philosophers. He was one of the first thinkers to see play as the ideal form of education. In The Republic, written by  Plato in  360BC, he  states the importance of play in creating a just and good society,  Plato believed that you could discover more about a person in an hour of play than you could in a year of conversation.

Plato wrote about his ideal society in The Republic in which he set out the shape and curriculum of an education system. Plato founded the first university - known as an 'academy' near Athens in around 385 BC. Plato believed that educators must care for the well-being and future of those they work with. He saw education as a moral enterprise; it was the duty of educators to search for truth and virtue.  A teacher  must know his or her subject, as well as the limits of their knowledge.

Plato also believed that people have different needs at different stages in their lives. He  recommended children enter his 'academy' at six where they would first learn reading, writing, counting, music and sports. At 18 they would have military and physical training; at 21 they would enter higher studies; at 30 they would begin to study philosophy and serve in the army or civil service. Ultimately, at 50 they would be ready to govern.

Desiderius Erasmus

Scholars like Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) who studied the classics and the human race, were known as humanists. They were more interested in studying all things human, rather than theological.  Erasmus believed in self-improvement through education. He was one of the first philosophers to see that children learn through imitation, believing that children developed  the power of speech through conversation rather than by learning the rules of grammar.  But Erasmus did not value play as a source of education. Instead, he believed that children's time was best spent reading and writing from a very early age,

Joan Amos Comenius

Born in what is now the Czech Republic, Joan Amos Comenius (1592-1670) was a teacher and philosopher who saw education as the only way for human beings to reach their full potential. He believed education should be universal and free to all.

Comenius believed that grammatical rules could be reduced to universal forms which could be taught quite simply to children. He also planned a series of guides for teachers and valued the role of the mother, writing a book called The School of Infancy, which placed the family as crucial to the education of children. He used textbooks to teach his students with what he considered an exact and fool-proof teaching method for the benefit of teachers and students alike.

Comenius strongly recommended sensory and first hand experiences to encourage learning. When learning Latin he recommended a child learn by physically pointing objects out and naming them to his or her tutor.

John Locke

Up until the 17th century the word 'toy' was synonymous with any pretty commodity and was not considered to be of any value. John Locke (1632-1704) helped to change this attitude by claiming that toys could be used in the education of young children. Locke believed that children could gain more enjoyment from education through play,  Locke, therefore, advocated the use  of  the types of learning toys that are still popular today, such as dice and toys which teach the alphabet.

Locke also  strongly believed that children were best off with minimal toys and playthings. He recommended that children create their own playthings from the simple everyday objects  they found in their surroundings. However, play for play's sake was not valued by Locke, who advised that children's play  should be directed towards good and useful habits. Locke encouraged freedom in education; he could see that more enjoyment (and therefore more learning) would be found in an activity if a child was left to his or her own devices and able to follow at his or her own pace.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

In the 18th century the philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) emphasised the importance of play, experimentation and above all freedom in education and development. Rousseau admired Plato who in his essay, the Republic, advised teaching solely through festivals, games, songs and amusements. He believed children learn from their surroundings and from first hand experiences.. In Emile,  his thesis about the education of a fictional child, he wrote about the importance of allowing children some experience of danger and emphasised the need to let children learn by themselves through trial and error.