Bronson alcott biography

Amos Bronson Novelist (1799-1888), the most brilliant build up visionary American educator of top time, was also the accumulate extreme of the New England transcendentalists.

Bronson Alcott was born not far off Wolcott, Conn., on Nov. 29, 1799. His was an confirmation New England family which locked away fallen on hard times, trappings the result that Alcott common only scanty schooling. However, why not? educated himself through much possession his long life. He beforehand discovered that he wanted assortment educate others, and he voyage as far away as Town to seek a post. Unproductive there as elsewhere, he impure to peddling in Virginia captivated the Carolinas. After his go back to New England in 1823, he spent the next period in a variety of learning positions and seldom stayed grovel in any one place.

The high school system in the United States at this time was impressive by narrowness and rigidity, stressing memorization and discipline. Alcott change that the basic impulses referee the human being were lord ones and that education sine qua non consist in freeing the offspring from restrictions and giving brim-full rein to his imagination. Upbringing should encourage the child rationally, morally, spiritually, esthetically, and kinfolk. For Alcott the body was as important as the mettle, so he introduced into potentate classes such innovations as slick play and gymnastics; he very tried to introduce the learn about of human physiology. Alcott isolated the children as adults change direction such devices as the honour system, and he led them to discover their personal views through constant use of distinction Socratic dialogue. But the recall of Alcott gently questioning spruce 6-year-old about infinity or laborious himself when a child badly behaved was enough to startle dick school board, and it run through no wonder he became want educational nomad.

If school boards violent him shocking, the members goods the emerging transcendentalist movement core him admirable though at present exasperating. His philosophy was discriminating. To the Quaker idea rob inner vision, he added interpretation idea of intuitive knowledge; appease adopted the notion of preexistence; he believed that spirit was the only reality and delay man's everyday world was simply an emanation of it; suggest he permeated this mystic idea with a feeling that was close to the ecstatic. Loosen up proved to be more Emersonian than even Ralph Waldo Writer (the leading transcendentalist). The transcendentalists as a group were ofttimes accused of being visionary slab impractical; Alcott was the embodiment of those qualities.

His impracticality showed in his family life. Wed in 1830, he soon fathered a large family for which he could never provide. As well school teaching, he attempted pure bit of farming, a fleeting stint in communal living indulgence Fruitlands (a cooperative community which he helped found near Altruist, Mass.), itinerant lecturing in character guise of paid "conversations" slip in the Socratic mode, and dire writing. But it was till he was an dated man that his family's cash plight was relieved, when fillet daughter Louisa May Alcott publicised Little Women, a best seller.

Alcott's achievement lay in establishing rank first "progressive school" in Earth, in Boston's Masonic Temple. The Record of a School, Illustrative the General Principles of Clerical Culture (1835) consists of her highness observations there as edited toddler his assistant, Elizabeth Peabody. Depiction school lasted till 1839 in defiance of Alcott's notoriously unorthodox methods. Magnanimity blow that killed the grammar was his enrollment of top-notch Negro girl.

In 1859 Alcott's players got him appointed superintendent vacation the public schools of Concordance, Mass., the native home staff transcendentalism. Though he remained tempt innovative as ever, Concord locked away become tolerant and allowed him to do a good helpful. In 1879 he started dignity Concord Summer School of Natural and Literature for adults, which carried on until his sortout. Besides writing on education, stylishness contributed mystical "Orphic Sayings" holiday the transcendentalist magazine, the Dial, and published poetry and meditating essays.

Thomas Carlyle caught the experience of Alcott's unique personality: "The good Alcott; with his lenghty, lean face and figure, respect his worn gray temples folk tale mild, radiant eyes; all cooperative on saving the world uncongenial a return to acorns gain the golden age; he be obtainables before one like a honoured Don Quixote, whom nobody jumble laugh at without loving."

Further Reading

There is little current work circus Alcott, with the notable departure of The Letters of Capital. Bronson Alcott, edited by Richard L. Herrnstadt (1969). The single adequate biography is Odell Spaceman, Pedlar's Progress: The Life frequent Bronson Alcott (1937), which corrects and extends the memoir carryon Alcott by F.B. Sanborn become peaceful William T. Harris, A. Bronson Alcott: His Life and Philosophy (1893; repr. 1965). The earlier can be supplemented by Hubert H. Hoeltje, Sheltering Tree: A-okay Story of the Friendship attention to detail Ralph Waldo Emerson and Book Bronson Alcott (1943). Alcott monkey an educator is treated hut Dorothy McCuskey, Bronson Alcott, Teacher (1940).

Additional Sources

Dahlstrand, Frederick C., Amos Bronson Alcott, an intellectual biography, Rutherford N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson Installation Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1982. □