''Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life'' (1765) is an educational treatise by the 18th-century British

polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...

Joseph Priestley Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted exp ...

. Dedicated to the governing board of

Warrington Academy Warrington Academy, active as a teaching establishment from 1756 to 1782, was a prominent dissenting academy, that is, a school or college set up by those who dissented from the established Church of England. It was located in Warrington (then ...

at which Priestley was a tutor, it argues that the education of young people should anticipate their practical needs, something Priestley accused the current universities, Dissenting and Establishment alike, of failing to do. In Priestley's eyes, the contemporary focus on a traditional

classical education Classical education may refer to: *''Modern'', educational practices and educational movements: **An education in the Classics, especially in Ancient Greek and Latin **Classical education movement, based on the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) an ...

prevented students from acquiring useful skills. This principle of utility guided his unconventional curricular choices for Warrington's aspiring middle-class businessmen. He proposed that students study English and the modern languages instead of the classical languages, learn practical mathematics, read modern rather than ancient history, and study the constitution and laws of England. He believed that these topics would prepare his students for the commercial middle-class life that most of them would live; he did not believe that the poor should receive this same education, arguing "it could be of no service to their country, and often a real detriment to themselves." The board was convinced and in 1766 Warrington Academy replaced its classical curriculum with Priestley's

liberal arts Liberal arts education (from Latin "free" and "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term '' art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically th ...

model. Some scholars of education have argued that this work and Priestley's later '' Miscellaneous Observations relating to Education'' (1778) (often reprinted with the ''Essay on Education'') made Priestley the "most considerable English writer on educational philosophy" between the 17th-century John Locke and the 19th-century

Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, psychologist, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his hypothesis of social Darwinism. Spencer originated the expression " survival of the fi ...

.Schofield, 121; see also Watts, 92.

Notes

Bibliography

*Schofield, Robert E. ''The Enlightenment of Joseph Priestley: A Study of his Life and Work from 1733 to 1773''. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997. . *Sheps, Arthur. "Joseph Priestley's Time ''Charts'': The Use and Teaching of History by Rational Dissent in late Eighteenth-Century England." ''Lumen'' 18 (1999): 135–154. *Thorpe, T.E. ''Joseph Priestley''. London: J. M. Dent, 1906. *Watts, R. "Joseph Priestley and education." ''Enlightenment and Dissent'' 2 (1983): 83–100.

External links

Full text of the essay
* Joseph Priestley, Biograph
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Lectures on History and General Policy; to Which is Prefixed, an Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life
* Online books by Joseph Priestley
provided by the Library of University of Pennsylvania
* Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: Reviewing Collected Essays
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* Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: Writing a Speech
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* People: Joseph Priestley - facts, information, pictures
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