BRONSON ALCOTT'S EXPERIMENT IN PRACTICAL TRANSCENDENTALISM
By John Crouch, Attorney at Law,
Crouch & Crouch, Arlington, Virginia; (703)
528-6700;
Other Crouch Articles
Bronson Alcott probably exerted major, though indirect,
influence on American education. His publications were
neither definitive nor systematic, and his affiliations with
institutions were ephemeral, but consequential nonetheless.
Born in 1799, and given little formal instruction, as a
young man he wandered through the South as a Yankee pedlar.
In 1825 he became a schoolteacher, and as he made a name for
himself with his methods and his writings, founded
celebrated schools in Boston and Philadelphia. I propose to
survey the theory and practice of this involved, formative
period of his life from the late 1820s to 1839. After his
last school failed he retreated to Concord and to the
Fruitlands commune, which was immortalized in his daughter's
gentle farce. He mostly flourished -- by transcendentalist
standards, anyhow -- during his second forty years, introducing
well-received reforms as Concord's school superintendent and
remaining eminent thanks to his daughter's works. 1
Any description of Bronson Alcott's educational ministry
must be complex, precisely because he strove for simplicity,
for practical improvisation and natural interaction outside
the confines of method and convention. One writer noted in
wonderment that Alcott made no distinction between theory
and practice. 2 His all-encompassing philosophy was both
practiced and expounded in his every recorded contact with
children and adults alike. As might be expected of one
influenced by Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Locke, Pestalozzi,
Bunyan, the Scottish philosophers, Fox and the Quakers, his
philosophy is so interconnected and circular, ineffable yet
obvious, that perhaps it is best to begin, as he would, with
pictures: an acorn, a robin's egg being incubated through
its mother's unquestioning devotion, a fragile, newly-
hatched butterfly "unfolding" for the first time, "the
warmth which germinates a seed" and develops its inner logic
according to some celestial, yet discernible plan. 3
Alcott's revolutionary pedagogical beliefs are the most
comprehensible, verifiable, and the most relevant to present
concerns. They arose, however, from his intricate philosophy
of God, humans and nature, spirit and matter, morality and
knowledge, which will be explicated further when we examine
how he communicated it in the classroom. Briefly, Alcott
came to see humans, like lower forms of nature, as a
combination of Spirit and matter. Spirit imposes form on
matter, and continually acts to change all beings, making
them more finely formed and more like itself. Alcott saw God
as pure Spirit. Thus he taught that while one's individual
conscience must be the supreme ruler, as it represents
spirit, one's material passions and appetites must be
resisted. 4
Alcott also seemed to hold the common notion that an
individual organism develops according to an inner spiritual
logic which recapitulates all of evolution. Thus he could
see each individual as precious and perfectible, even
unique, but subject to discernible scientific laws which
prescribe similar treatment by those who would cultivate
them. Just as Alcott's study of one child demonstrated
truths about all children and all creatures, so the child
could see all of heaven in one flower.
Alcott's first practical exposure to alternative manners
of instruction came when he lived among Quakers, among whom
he underwent his Christian "awakening. "5 In his first formal
teaching post two years later he discovered that "Whatever
children do themselves is theirs. Originality tends to
produce strength. " He found it ridiculous that students
recited statements of fact without being able to define
their terms. 6 He was a strict disciplinarian at a time when
disorder was unexceptional in many classrooms, but his
discipline was not physical. He punished through orderly
indictment, argument, disapproval, and requests for public
apologies. His vision of individuals, and of society,
dictated that all discipline must come from within. 7 Reading
at second hand of Pestalozzi's ideas of guided, step-by-step
induction, he labeled his school Pestalozzian, and soon
reported that he had seventy students, indicating much more
parental confidence than he deserved or could easily
fulfill. 8
When his success attracted the overtures of
Philadelphia's school board president Roberts Vaux, Alcott
displayed a bottomless self-confidence that might have made
him rich in mercantile or financial occupations, and which
later experts and reformers would probably consider
suicidal. He proposed "to operate chiefly on the characters
of the children," ensuring a life of "pure feeling, and
correct action. " Since these results could not "be rendered
immediately obvious," but would grow as slowly as diamonds,
he demanded "parents with the necessary patience. "9
In an 1830 pamphlet, argued that education must be
adapted to "the order in which [the] faculties appear. " He
outlined four vital consecutive stages of growth: "the
animal nature, the affections, the conscience, and the
intellect. " He argued that a child first must be allowed to
roam, play, and interact with the physical world, without
premeditation, but be protected from bodily harm. The
affections were perhaps the most important faculty: since
people learn by free association, everything good and true
must be presented as pleasant. Thus to "facilitate" the
being's natural development was to show reverence for its
designer. The principal qualification for such a
facilitating teacher was not formal education, but patience,
benevolent fairness, and the ability to set a pure moral
example. 10
Alcott found his evangelical Christianity compatible
with John Locke's theory that people learn only through
their senses. He did not limit himself to the usual five
senses, however: he estimated that Thoreau probably had ten!11
For ordinary use, he urged children to exercise, develop and
sensitize their sixth sense, conscience, which would make
them feel bad when they had done something wrong. He was
quite successful in demonstrating this to children by asking
them to recall their own actions and feelings. 12
He found new philosophical or psychological reasons for
the antipathy he and his students felt for harsh punishment
and mindless fact. "Systematic instruction is repulsive,"
especially in "minute detail. " Even to compel the child's
attention too much was harmful, he thought. Young children
learn through "desultory impressions" of "a few elementary
facts wrought up with incident and affection. "13 A teacher
must use ordinary objects and speak simply, he believed,
avoiding any accidentally bizarre impressions and protecting
the tender bud from all "noxious influences. "14 Thus he
advocated teaching through stories with explicit morals,
either Bowdlerized or especially written for children. He
noted that Jesus taught through parables. 15 Alcott's record
of his Temple School indicates that children got quite
involved in moral stories, especially when asked to see
themselves in roles within the story. 16
Alcott conducted his classes by a "living intercourse"
of questioning, making each child's individual decisions
appear all-important. 17 He continually asked how they felt
about things, and why or why not. Occasionally the children
themselves asked questions, which were enthusiastically
discussed. Such questions as the relative primacy of
chickens and eggs, the power of positive thinking, the
location of heaven, and the physical characteristics (if
any) of angels and demons were deemed especially important
and instructive. 18 The scholars even wrestled with the
concepts of "the Idea of Absolute Being" and the typology of
humans as derivatives of the absolute. A few appeared to
understand a little of that one. 19
The scholars of the Temple School, at least, were
responsive as often as not. They often seemed to be
regurgitating his figures of speech, but he was acutely
conscious of this danger, and when he thought they had not
grasped the point he pressed them to define their terms.
When he did this, which was probably not as often as a less
optimistic teacher using the same technique might have, they
usually performed promisingly. It appears, however, that
there were many who rarely spoke, as in most other
classrooms. Some children were conscientious enough to
volunteer that they had not understood a question, or to
dispute whether the spirit really could or would pervade all
material things. 20
Alcott espoused what seemed to be the commonsensical
argument that the teacher, in a natural atmosphere of
"familiar and affectionate conversation," should act as the
student's conscience, appealing to the stirring forces of
reason and conscience to prepare the soil for independent
intellectual development. 21 A child once expressed some
distrust of Alcott's apparent impartiality, responding to
his questioning by asking, "What do you think?" Alcott would
not answer, but said, "I do not wish to influence your
opinions by mine. I teach what every pure person believes. "
He seemed to see himself as a helpful companion to the
children, following them from one interesting object to
another, because he was sure that all their paths would lead
to one idea, especially with his gentle encouragement. He
was able to take joy in facts without seeing them as the
goal or center of education. 22
Alcott's favorite instructional technique was to appeal
to the imagination through pictures, or, even better, by
demanding pictures from the children to make them give
meaning to his words. Thus truth would "clothe herself with
beautiful associations. "23 He once delivered a graphic
visualization of a lamb being slaughtered, apparently
succeeding in convincing his class of the high pleasures of
self-sacrifice. More suitably for contemporary tastes, he
once explained symbolism to the children and demanded
symbols of birth from them. They responded with elaborate
images of rain, sunrises, winds and tides, rivers and
oceans. 24
At the zenith of his teaching career, Alcott published a
brief, relatively clear essay on The Doctrine and Discipline
of Human Culture (in the sense of cultivating and growing
humans), spelling out his philosophy of education in a
framework of high Hegelianism and Christian millennialism.
Education was now seen as the mission which would bring
about the millennium of human perfection. It was time to
accept Christ's challenge to "Be ye perfect," since "in this
he was true to our nature. " Christ said this because "He
knew what was in man, and the means of perfecting his
being. " The Hegelian construct of Idea and Spirit imposing
themselves on matter was the same as the spirit's mandate to
subdue the flesh; thus, "Man's Mission is to subdue nature. "
A belief that was as basic to Alcott's age as it is foreign
to ours was that there was ultimately a congruence, and not
a contradiction, between respecting nature (i. e. ,
something's highest nature) and subjecting it to spiritual
control. 25
Thus education was "the art of revealing to a man the
true Idea of his Being" so that he might perfect his own
spirit. The child was a holy mystery of nature, whom the
teacher must gently "inspire in order to unfold" into
perfection. To perfect this art, we must know mankind in
every stage of its development. If teachers follow their own
highest natures one step at a time, they, too, should
discover "the means of perfecting" humans. 26
In practical terms, this meant a teacher should be
"simple and extemporaneous" like Jesus and Socrates.
Teachers needed fewer "precepts and rules," and more
practicality. Their principal aim was to develop not mere
knowledge or competence, but "genius," "the free and
harmonious play of all the faculties. " He bemoaned the vast
waste of human potential. "Depravity," he warned, "springs
from our low estimate of human nature. "27
In one of his clearest, simplest images of how Spirit
acts through matter, Alcott told his classes that he
believed that one's soul continually makes one's body, both
in birth and in life. From this principle he deduced a firm
acceptance of phrenology and physiognomy, which his students
comprehended and adopted wholeheartedly. Nearly the whole
class agreed that candies and gravy were demonic temptations
that could corrupt the soul, which in turn would produce a
flabby body. All pain, he assured them, was produced by some
sin, perhaps ancestral sin, as far back as Ham or Adam. 28
Alcott repeatedly suggested to the children that in
birth, they had been pure, and that infancy was related to
heaven and perhaps to some past life of the soul. The most
striking evidence that he did not believe this as a mere
abstraction is contained in his letters to his young
daughters, which address them as if they were perfect
creatures. The letters are not exactly complacent, however;
they express concern that the girls continue to develop
their perfection, and confidence that they are resisting
temptation. On Louisa's seventh birthday he observed that
her only "true pleasure" came from obeying her "CONSCIENCE.
"29
When Alcott asked children at the Temple School to
describe an angel, they moved from a view of angels as
grand, splendiferous things to a consensus that they
probably resembled infants. One girl exclaimed, "We were all
angels when we were babies!"30
Alcott had a persistent interest in the holy mystery of
human birth, which one biographer attributes in part to his
first child's birth and precarious infancy. 31 He pressed
children to think about the question, noting that "vulgar
things" had been said about it. A very young student offered
a theory that birth was made possible by a sort of synthesis
of people's "naughtinesses [which] put together, make a body
for the child, but the spirit is the best part of it. "
Alcott asked them each to form an opinion on the matter. 32
When he published these exchanges in the first volume of
Conversations with Children on the Gospels, beneath such
racy chapter headings as "Conjugal Relations" and
"Gestation," he attracted unfavorable attention from
Calvinist clergymen and some journalists. The Boston Courier
wrote, accurately in my opinion, that "He seemed to delight
in his own person in directing their attention to the more
improper subjects-& when they appeared with intuitive
perception to shrink from contact with them, he has forced
their minds to grapple with them. "33
Alcott took up this accusation in class, in an exchange
which both described and demonstrated his puzzling technique:
"Welles. I got my unclean spirit, partly at home,
and partly at a school I went to.
"Mr. Alcott. Does Mr. Alcott know what it is?
"Welles, (blushing. ) Yes; I believe he does.
"Mr. Alcott. Does it seem to you that he often
talks all round it, and that it soon must go out?"
Someone changed the subject, as usual, and the matter was
forgotten as offhandedly as it had been brought up. 34
The public did not forget the controversy, and despite
the support of eminent clergymen enrollment in the school
drifted downward. When Alcott admitted a biracial girl to
the school in 1838, the remaining parents revolted and his
creditors grew impatient. 35 As he put it, "I left Boston,
finding that the people were not ready to support a man who
would reform not only their children but themselves. "36
Many of Alcott's convictions were the same ones that
developmentalists would champion at the turn of the century,
and would, in more diffuse form, become mainstream
assumptions behind all American education, even
undergraduate higher education and extracurricular
activities. These include the belief that schools and other
institutions exist principally to build character and to
encourage children to develop each of their faculties in
healthy proportion, rather than to teach certain knowledge
or skills. They also include less mainstream ideas of
participatory and child-centered learning. All these beliefs
have come down to us through many channels besides Bronson
Alcott, but he was one of the first who dared to test and
practice the promising new notions that were current in his time.
Most of Alcott's practical ideas of education, epistemology
and juvenile morality are solid and worthwhile,
even to one who just does not want to deal with his tangled
Hegelian cosmology. Laying aside his theories about
the
development of the conscience, many whose parents have
emulated him in gently setting high expectations for
children can testify that his techniques often appear to
work. Consistently with his philosophy, most of his
observations about people resonated with his personal
experience, and were corroborated by others. It is this
taste for obvious yet unorthodox truths that are true and
pleasing on several levels that makes transcendental thought
so attractive, yet so frighteningly dubious. As his
scholarly biographer Frederick Dahlstrand put it, Alcott was
"perplexing but captivating. "37
People who have had some form of religious education,
even an occasional Sunday School class, will be reminded by
Alcott's Conversations with Children on the Gospels that
children do occasionally speculate on matters of
epistemology and philosophy, and can get into intense
discussions which usually overwhelm the twentieth-century
teacher. Perhaps there are still ways for schools to unlock
and use this curious spirit.
It is his activity, much more than his ideas, that make
Alcott a compelling, exemplary figure. In the 1830s his life
was one continuing experiment, an interplay of hypotheses,
results and conclusions, foreshadowing John Dewey's
experiments at his Laboratory School. (An even more
irresistible analogy is provided by Fred "Mr. " Rogers. )
Alcott was able to maintain a rare degree of respect for the
human subjects of his studies, though freighted with
numerous assumptions about them which now appear
questionable. His techniques of continual, semi-methodical
searching, challenging students to grasp what is within
reach and adapting himself to their interests, appear as
sensible and warm-hearted now as they did then. Students,
teachers and parents should find them useful, or at least
inspiring, in achieving the less transcendental educational
goals of our own time, or any other time.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alcott, A. Bronson, Concord Days. Philadelphia: Albert Safier, 1872.
Alcott, A. Bronson, Conversations with Children on the
Gospels. Boston: Munroe, 1836. Two volumes.
Alcott, A. Bronson, Essays in Education. Walter Harding,
editor. Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles, 1960.
Alcott, A. Bronson, Observations on the Principles and
Methods of Infant Instruction. Boston: Carter and Hendee, 1830.
Alcott, A. Bronson, The Doctrine and Discipline of Human
Culture. Boston, Munroe, 1836.
Dahlstrand, Frederick, Amos Bronson Alcott: An Intellectual
Biography. East Brunswick, N. J. : Associated University presses, 1982.
Herrnstadt, Richard, editor, The Letters of A. Bronson
Alcott. Ames, Ia. : Iowa State, 1969.
McCuskey, Dorothy, Bronson Alcott, Teacher. New York: Macmillan, 1949.
Morrow, Honoré Willsie, The Father of Little Women. Boston:
Little, Brown, 1927.
Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer, Record of a School. Boston, 1835.
Sanborn, F. B. , A. Bronson Alcott: His Life and Philosophy.
Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1893.
Shepard, Odell, Pedlar's Progress: The Life of Bronson
Alcott. Boston: Little, Brown, 1937.
_______________________________
1Frederick Dahlstrand, Amos Bronson Alcott: An Intellectual
Biography. East Brunswick, N. J. : Associated University
presses, 1982, pp. 7, 13.
2Dorothy McCuskey, Bronson Alcott, Teacher. New York:
Macmillan, 1949. p. 166.
3Dahlstrand, p. 7. Richard Herrnstadt, editor, The Letters
of A. Bronson Alcott. Ames, Ia. : Iowa State, 1969. p. 26.
4A. Bronson Alcott, Conversations with Children on the
Gospels. Boston: Munroe, 1836. p. 71.
5Dahlstrand, p. 32.
6F. B. Sanborn, A. Bronson Alcott: His Life and Philosophy.
Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1893. p. 73-4. Odell Shepard,
Pedlar's Progress: The Life of Bronson Alcott. Boston:
Little, Brown, 1937. p. 87.
7Dahlstrand, p. 39. McCluskey, p. 152.
8Letter of January 3, 1826. Herrnstadt, p. 11.
91830 letter to Vaux. Herrnstadt, p. 20.
10A. Bronson Alcott, Observations on the Principles and
Methods of Infant Instruction. Boston: Carter and Hendee,
1830. pp. 4-9, 27.
11Dahlstrand, p. 41.
12A. Bronson Alcott, Conversations with Children on the
Gospels. Boston: Munroe, 1836. pp. viii, 9.
13Infant Instruction, pp. 12, 25-26.
14Infant Instruction, pp. 11-13, 15.
15A. Bronson Alcott, The Doctrine and Discipline of Human
Culture. Boston, Munroe, 1836. p. 8.
16Conversations with Children, v. 2, p. 255.
17 A. Bronson Alcott, The Doctrine and Discipline of Human
Culture. Boston, Munroe, 1836. p. 38.
18Conversations with Children, v. 2, pp. 13, 60, 100, 135,
183, 198.
19Conversations with Children, v. 1, p. 184.
20Conversations with Children, v. 1, p. 51, v. 2, p. 265.
21Infant Instruction, p. 9, 21, 23.
22Conversations with Children, v. 1, p. 185.
23Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Record of a School. Boston, 1835.
p. 9. Infant Instruction, p. 14.
24Conversations with Children, v. 1, pp. 63, 180-181.
25Human Culture, pp. 5, 10, 54.
26Human Culture, pp. 3, 4, 6, 10 46, 52, 53.
27Human Culture, pp. 8, 41, 44, 49. Peabody, p. 17.
28Conversations with Children, v. 1, pp. 50, 133, 239, v. 2,
138-9.
29Herrnstadt, pp. 43-45. Letter to Louisa, November 29, 1839,
p. 43.
30Conversations with Children, v. 1, 52, 79.
31Shepard, p. 85.
32Conversations with Children, v. 1, pp. 68, 228, 232.
33Shepard, p. 193.
34Conversations with Children, v. 2, p. 139.
35Honoré Willsie Morrow, The Father of Little Women. Boston:
Little, Brown, 1927. pp. 201-4.
36Letter of June 21, 1840. Herrnstadt, p. 48.
37Dahlstrand, p. 14.
Copyright John Crouch 1991
- John Crouch
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