Louisa Parsons Hopkins (1834–1895) was an American educator and poet, who spoke and wrote on

progressive education Progressive education, or protractivism, is a pedagogical movement that began in the late 19th century and has persisted in various forms to the present. In Europe, progressive education took the form of the New Education Movement. The term ''pro ...

. Born in

Newburyport Newburyport is a coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, northeast of Boston. The population was 18,289 at the 2020 census. A historic seaport with vibrant tourism industry, Newburyport includes part of Plum Island. The mo ...

in 1834, she attended the Putnam Free School in her youth, and was part of a small writing group under

Thomas Wentworth Higginson Thomas Wentworth Higginson (December 22, 1823May 9, 1911) was an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, politician, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with ...

, along with

Jane Andrews Jane Dawn Elizabeth Andrews (born 1 April 1967) is an English former royal dresser for Sarah, Duchess of York, who was convicted at the Old Bailey in 2001 of murdering her lover, Tom Cressman. She was released from prison in 2015. Early life A ...

and

Harriet Prescott Spofford Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford (April 3, 1835 – August 14, 1921) was an American writer of novels, poems and detective stories. One of the United States's most widely-published authors, her career spanned more than six decades and included ...

. After marriage, her husband's business "suffered a reversal in fortune", which led her to create a small primary school in her home for extra income. Her students did surprisingly well, and she wrote up an article for the Journal of Education on her methods. This led to fame in educational circles, and ultimately to a string of books and speaking engagements. She was appointed to the Board of Supervisors of the Boston Public Schools, and paced by Governor William E. Russell on a commission to investigate the use of manual training in Europe. Her work on that commission was noted by contemporaries as being singular in nature. She retired from that position due to illness and died a few years later.

Works

* Breath of the Field and Shore (1881) * Motherhood: A Poem (1881) * Handbook of the Earth: Natural Methods in Geography (1883) * Educational Psychology: a Treatise for Parents and Educators (1886) * Natural-history Plays, Dialogues, and Recitations for School Exhibitions (1885) * The Spirit of the New Education (1892) * Observation Lessons in the Primary Schools: A Manual for Teachers (1896)

References

External links

* 1834 births 1895 deaths 19th-century American poets 19th-century American women writers People from Newburyport, Massachusetts Writers from Massachusetts {{US-writer-stub