Abstract
W. T. Harris and his colleagues in the St. Louis Movement wanted schools to show children how social restraints enhanced their freedoms. In this way, they created a definition of democracy that differed from that of the New England Transcendentalists. Although Harris believed people should use nature to enhance their well-being, he thought the recognition that everyone lives within a web of systems would prevent people from wasting those valuable resources. To offset individualism, materialism, and conformity, he turned psychological growth toward spiritual development, but he used philosophy and reason rather than religion to aid in this process.
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Notes
Readers should see John R. Shook and James A. Good, John Dewey’s Philosophy of Spirit (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), especially page vii.
Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), 14–20.
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Elwood P. Cubberley, Public School Administration: A Statement of the Fundamental Principles Underlying the Organization and Administration of Public Education (1916 rev., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1929), 75–77.
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© 2015 Joseph Watras
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Watras, J. (2015). Developing Freedom within Social Institutions: William Torrey Harris and the St. Louis Hegelians. In: Philosophies of Environmental Education and Democracy: Harris, Dewey, and Bateson on Human Freedoms in Nature. The Cultural and Social Foundations of Education. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137484215_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137484215_3
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