George Combe - Educational and Social Interests

Educational and Social Interests

In 1836, Combe stood for the chair of Logic at Edinburgh, against two other candidates, Sir William Hamilton and Isaac Taylor; Hamilton won with 18 votes, against 14 for Taylor. In 1838 Combe visited the United States and studied the treatment of the criminal classes there. He initiated a programme of public education about chemistry, physiology, history and moral philosophy.

Combe sought to improve the education of the poorer classes. He advocated a national system of non-sectarian education. He helped set up a school in Edinburgh run on the principles of William Ellis, and did some teaching there himself on phrenology and physiology. It was prompted by the London "Birkbeck School" opened on 17 July 1848. Combe founded a similar institution in Edinburgh, with William Mattieu Williams as headmaster, and it was opened on 4 December 1848 as the Williams Secular School. To begin with it was held in the Trades' Hall, Infirmary Street; soon it was moved to accommodate the numbers, to the premises of the former anatomical school of Robert Knox, at 1 Surgeons' Square. Williams left in 1854, but many years later wrote one of the last serious works on phrenology; his departure saw the effective collapse of the school with its ambitious and encyclopedic curriculum. By the 1870s the school had become a lecture hall. The actual form of education set up by Combe was later regarded as "transient", though as a propagandist of general educational ideas he was more effective. Combe has been seen as a significant figure in his view that government should be involved with the educational system, and as a precursor of Herbert Spencer. His attitudes were supported by William Jolly, an inspector of schools, and noted by Frank Pierrepont Graves in connection with Spencer and T. H. Huxley.

Combe gave public discussion to the reform of criminal behaviour; and, with his assistant William A. F. Browne, he opened a debate about the introduction of the humane treatment of psychiatric disorder into publicly funded asylums.

Read more about this topic:  George Combe

Famous quotes containing the words educational, social and/or interests:

    I am not willing to be drawn further into the toils. I cannot accede to the acceptance of gifts upon terms which take the educational policy of the university out of the hands of the Trustees and Faculty and permit it to be determined by those who give money.
    Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)

    I have more in common with a Mexican man than with a white woman.... This opinion ... chagrins women who sincerely believe our female physiology unequivocally binds all women throughout the world, despite the compounded social prejudices that daily affect us all in different ways. Although women everywhere experience life differently from men everywhere, white women are members of a race that has proclaimed itself globally superior for hundreds of years.
    Ana Castillo (b. 1953)

    Take away from the courts, if it could be taken away, the power to issue injunctions in labor disputes, and it would create a privileged class among the laborers and save the lawless among their number from a most needful remedy available to all men for the protection of their business interests against unlawful invasion.... The secondary boycott is an instrument of tyranny, and ought not to be made legitimate.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)