Book review
Fifty Major Thinkers on
Education (From Confucius to Dewey)
Routledge, February 2002 (254pp)
Edited by Joy A. Palmer
Review by Donald Clark - Epic
Most would be hard pressed to name 50 major thinkers
on education prior to Dewey. Let’s face it, most would be
hard pressed to name 50 at all. So let’s start with the list
of the fifty thinkers from this book:
1. Confucious
2. Socrates
3. Plato
4. Aristotle
5. Jesus of Nazareth
6. Saint Augustine
7. Al-Ghazzali
8. Ibn Tufayl
9. Desiderius Erasmus
10. Jan Amos Comenius
11. John Locke
12. John Wesley
13. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
14. Immanuel Kant
15. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
16. Mary Wollestonecraft
17. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
18. Wilhelm von Humboldt
19. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
20. Johann Friedrich Herbart
21. Friedrich Wilheim Froebel
22. John Henry Newman
23. John Stewart Mill
24. Charles Darwin
25. John Ruskin
26. Herbert Spencer
27. Mathew Arnold
28. Thomas Henry Huxley
29. Louisa May Alcott
30. Samuel Butler
31. Robert Morant
32. Eugenio Maria de Hostos
33. Friedrich Nietzsche
34. Alfred Binet
35. Emile Durkheim
36. Anna Julia Haywood Cooper
37. John Dewey
38. Jane Adams
39. Rudolf Steiner
40. Rabindranath Tagore
41. Alfred North Whitehead
42. Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
43. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
44. M.K. Ghandi
45. Maria Montessori
46. Bertrand Russell
47. E.L. Thorndike
48. Martin Buber
49. Jose Ortega y Gasset
50. Cyril Lodovic Burt
The title (Fifty Major Thinkers on Education) is misleading on
two counts. First, many of the 50 are not major thinkers ON education.
Some are major thinkers but said little or nothing at all on education.
Second, the subtitle is wrong (From Confucius to Dewey) is the claim,
yet 13 of the thinkers were born AFTER Dewey.
The choices are at times idiosyncratic and inconsistent. Sure,
any list is going to include and exclude your own choices, but in
this case there’s no stated criteria for the choices. The
editor’s preface says little and I could not discern any obvious
criteria for the choices. All became clear, however, when I looked
at the list of 50 contributors. Ten come from the editor’s
own university, some are only students!
Some articles, such as the one on Confucius, are enlightening.
There’s no reliable evidence for him having written anything
but his works held sway in education until the imperial examination
system was abolished in 1905! His educational theory emphasised
active thought - no vexation, no enlightenment - but with a deep
respect for authority. He has been accused of limiting Chinese progress
in practical and scientific knowledge.
Several of the thinkers see education as a function of religious
belief. Jesus is an inspired choice, as the author shows how he
used parables, language reversal and teaching by example, but why
not include the Buddha or Mohammed? The Christian theme continues
with Saint Augustine, Erasmus and John Wesley, so original sin and
the fall of man get big billing. One could argue that Luther was
more important in the long run – it’s the old Calvinist
coming out in me.
Al-Ghazzali and Ibn Tufayl get a hearing, yet Al-Ghazzali’s
works are essentially religious guides for devout muslims with strict
obedience to the shari’a as the only meaningful way of life.
Education, for him, can only be based on the verses of the Koran.
The article on Ibn Tufayl is equally unconvincing.
An amazing fifteen philosophers are included. Some, like Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle, Locke and Rousseau are fair choices, others such
as Fichte are just bizarre. This was puzzling until I noticed on
the back cover that Palmer’s co-author is a Professor of philosophy
– yes you’ve guessed it – from the University
of Durham. The selection gets truly teutonic in the middle with
Kant, Fichte, Humboldt, Hegel, Herbart, Froebel and Nietzsche. The
philosophy department at Durham must specialise in 18th and 19th
century German philosophy.
The Brits get a reasonable look in with Locke, Mill, Ruskin and
Butler. Dewey, an American, is also here. Curiously Darwin, Spencer
and Huxley are included. Evolution is certainly one of the world’s
greatest ideas, yet these thinkers are not really educational thinkers.
Darwin is an intellectual of stature, but his contribution to educational
theory is nil. Spencer could be excused from this charge but it’s
marginal.
A smattering of women from Wollestonecraft through to Alcott and
Addams cover the education of women and feminist themes. Maria Montessori,
the only other woman in the book, is a much deserved entry. Few
realise that the Montessori schools were started by a woman.
It gets more interesting when it moves into the 20th century, apart
from Gasset, who is a truly grotesque figure, rightly attacked by
John Carey in his magnificent book The Intellectuals and the Masses,
but Steiner, Buber, Montessori and others are solid figures. The
editor is also brave in including some lesser known figures such
as Jaques-Dalcroze and du Bois.
However, the book ends on a truly false note with an article on
the famously discredited Sir Cyril Burt, who falsified his results,
published his own work in the journal he edited without peer review,
and was responsible for the incidious 11 plus system. It is truly
perverse to include a cheating civil servant with some of the world’s
greatest thinkers.
It does try to avoid northern European male bias. Unfortunately,
by loading the list up with far too many German philosophers, the
result is a sort of tokenism to redress the balance, with one Chinese,
two Islamic scholars and an Indian.
In general, the content is also weak. It’s high on biographical
detail, low on educational thinking. Where there is critical analysis
it is often on the thinker’s philosophical or political thought,
not on their educational theory. This is the book’s biggest
weakness. There’s actually more written on non-educational
detail and thought than on education itself.
On style, all entries bar one, which is co-written by a journalist,
are written by academics and it tells. The style is often flat and
does little to inspire the reader. This isn’t helped by the
volume of biographical detail. On the whole, it’s hard work
In one sense, the book has an unintended consequence. It shows
that education is an odd and fragmented field. There is a feeling
that it is not an entirely legitimate academic enterprise, really
just a collection of thoughts and reflections on practice, and that
the real work is being done in psychology departments. To ignore
William James and Ebbinghaus is a symptom of this educational wooliness.
Would we be worse off if universities scrapped their education departments?
Discuss.
Interestingly, many of the works of these authors are now freely
available on the internet. If there’s a 51st major thinker
in education it should go to the world wide web.
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