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 and, educational, social and/or interests:
“We do not have to get our children to learn; only to allow and encourage them in their learning. We do not have to dictate what they should learn; only to discern and respond to what it is that they are learning. Such responsiveness is at once the most educational and the most loving.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“Few white citizens are acquainted with blacks other than those projected by the media and the so—called educational system, which is nothing more than a system of rewards and punishments based upon one’s ability to pledge loyalty oaths to Anglo culture. The media and the “educational system” are the prime sources of racism in the United States.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“If twins are believed to be less intelligent as a class than single-born children, it is not surprising that many times they are also seen as ripe for social and academic problems in school. No one knows the extent to which these kind of attitudes affect the behavior of multiples in school, and virtually nothing is known from a research point of view about social behavior of twins over the age of six or seven, because this hasn’t been studied either.”
—Pamela Patrick Novotny (20th century)
“It is sentimentalism to assume that the teaching of life can always be fitted to the child’s interests, just as it is empty formalism to force the child to parrot the formulas of adult society. Interests can be created and stimulated.”
—Jerome S. Bruner (20th century)