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THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: EXPERIMENT AND ENLIGHTENMENT

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The Educational Innovators 1750–1880

Abstract

THE work of at least two educationalists, begun as early as the 1750s, foreshadowed some of the experiments usually ascribed to the new school of educationalists inspired by Rousseau. These pioneers were William Gilpin of Cheam School and David Manson of Belfast. Unknown to each other, they made some highly original reforms in school discipline, organization, and teaching method. Their innovations were the expression of a critical attitude to traditional forms of education, but neither Gilpin nor Manson was influenced by Continental theorists. They did not consciously start a movement, yet they were the pioneers of the whole progressive tradition in England. It is to William Gilpin that we turn first of all.

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© 1967 W. A. C. Stewart and W. P. McCann

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Stewart, W.A.C., McCann, W.P. (1967). THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: EXPERIMENT AND ENLIGHTENMENT. In: The Educational Innovators 1750–1880. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00531-4_1

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