Abstract
THE WORK of at least two educationalists, begun as early as the 1750s, foreshadowed some of the experiments usually as-cribed to the new school of educationalists inspired by Rous-seau. 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 in the whole progressive tradition in England. It is to William Gilpin that I turn first of all.
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Notes
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Cited in C. P. Barbier, ‘Gilpin, Master of Cheam ’, Glasgow Herald, 14 Sept. 1957.
W. D. Templeman, The Life and Work of William Gilpin (Urbana, Ill., 1939). pp. 58 –9.
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© 1972 W. A. C. Stewart
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Stewart, W.A.C. (1972). The Eighteenth Century: Experiment and Enlightenment. In: Progressives and Radicals in English Education 1750–1970. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-01220-6_1
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