Method of Spiritual Culture; being an Explanatory Preface to the Second Edition of Record of a School.
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody's Explanatory Preface for the 2nd Edition of the Account of Amos Bronson Alcott's Temple School in Boston.
“the brilliant saint of my Temple group...”
Method of Spiritual Culture: Being an Explanatory Preface to the Second Edition of RECORD OF A SCHOOL... Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1836.
Presentation Copy, inscribed by EPP: Mrs. Josiah Quincy Jr./from Miss P(eabody). (A remarkable Survivor - that surfaced within a block or two of where it was presented 168 years before)
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804-1894) was an early Transcendentalist, literary sponsor of the relatively obscure Hawthorne, social reformer, creator of an intellectual center in downtown Boston (her store and "Foreign Library” at 13 West Street), fighter for just political causes, and indefatigable promoter of the kindergarten movement. She was the only one of the three famous Peabody Sisters of Salem (MA) who never took a husband: Mary Peabody wed Horace Mann and Sophia Peabody married Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Elizabeth was an assistant in Amos Bronson Alcott's well-known experimental school begun in the Masonic Temple in Boston in 1834 [see Note 1]. She was also the recorder” – and in 1835 published an account of the daily operation of the Temple School: The Record of a School. In the words of perhaps the best biographer of the Alcotts, the Record:
“...had an undeniably commercial message behind it: to elicit interest in prospective parents and thereby increase the roster of students. In spite of, or perhaps precisely because of these limitations, the 'little book'caused quite a public stir. The vivacity of Elizabeth's writing, every word conveying her intense enthusiasm for the subject, every page detailing a concrete example of what otherwise might have been an abstruse and overwrought discussion of Bronson's peculiar philosophy, gave to the book an extraordinary sense of life. Record of a School remains today probably the best exploration of Bronson Alcott's theories on education. [see note 2]”
When the opportunity came to publish a second edition (owing in part to a warehouse fire that consumed almost half of the first printing), Elizabeth added an explanatory preface that was also printed as a pamphlet.
This copy of that stand-alone preface was given to the prominent Boston socialite, Mrs. Josiah Quincy, Jr., daughter-in-law of Boston mayor and Harvard president, Josiah Quincy. The Quincy's five-year old son, Josiah III, was a precocious star of the Temple School - and, along with other students of leading Boston families [see note 3], an important connection for the socio-political health of the school. Elizabeth was probably anxious to get this writing into the hands of Josiah's mother, as there were already beginning whispers about Alcott's unorthodox style in the “parlors of the best families.’” [see note 4]
Amos Bronson Alcott's Temple School (1834 to 1839) was a radical departure from the typical New England Educational experience. Alcott, like all of the Transcendentalists, believed in the innate goodness of the child - Wordsworth's conception of humans coming into the world “trailing clouds of glory” when “Heaven lies about us in our infancy!" [note 5] Alcott’s method of revealing that to the students he taught relied on gentle guidance with much emphasis on the value of what already lay within each child. This knowledge was “revealed” through praxis based on conversations -- questions and answers that dealt with a variety of topics, many of which were seen as too adult for mid 1919 century children. Alcott's individualized approach was stimulated through exposure to the child-centered educational ideas of the Swiss educator, Johann Pestalozzi (1746 - 1827)- a system which taught that education ought to be; moral and religious, organic, harmonious, and complete; not mechanical but designated to penetrate and regulate the entire being; free, natural, and individual; based upon the intuition rather than upon memory and the lower reason; gradual and progressive and linked. Like a chain; social and domestic, and closely related to life.” [note 6]
A contemporary account [note 7] of Alcott's school may give a better flavor than scholarly retrospection. The children's periodical, Parley's Magazine, published a snippet about the school (accompanied by an etching of the Masonic Temple) in the October 1839 issue (Part XXVIII) called “About Mr. Alcott's School.” (pp. 131-132):
“... This large school room does not look much like most of the school rooms you have seen. It is not like a prison, with cold, naked walls, and but little light. The floor is nicely carpeted; the high walls of the room are hung with maps, black boards, portraits, paintings, pictures, &c; there are elegant busts of distinguished persons at the corners of the room, and elsewhere; together with a library, a place for the school books and other apparatus, a clock, a water cistern, &c.
There are desks around two or three sides of the room, but the pupils do not always sit at them; for they often sit in chairs, or on a sofa, which stands there. The sofa, however, is chiefly used for visitors. But it would take too long to tell you all about the school room.
Mr. A's pupils are of both sexes, but the greater part are boys. They are of various ages; from 5 or 6, to 10 or 12. They spell, read, define words, write, study arithmetic, grammar, and geography; and listen to readings from the teacher, and converse about them. They also write letters, and keep journals; and a few of them study Latin.
But what renders the school quite different from other schools I am acquainted with, is that the pupils are taught to think and reason; and to talk about their thinking and feeling and reasoning. There are some little boys and girls there, scarcely six years old, who know how to think and reason about things as well as most men and women.
Most of the boys and girls in Mr. A's school appear very happy there. They do not appear to feel as if they were in a prison, and only waited with all the patience they could muster to hear the master say, “You may walk out," or "The school is dismissed.” By no means. They love the school room as well as they do their own homes. Why should they not? They are as happy there as at home; and they love the teacher almost as well as they do their very parents...
Perhaps I may tell you more about Mr. A's school at some future time; but I have said enough for once. If you should ever come to Boston, I hope you will call and visit it for yourself. It is open to all visitors who choose to call,
ED.”
As Elizabeth spent more time with Alcott she sensed the need to impose some distance between his approach and hers. She had some concern that Alcott's method gave to much credence to “evil” as a force or entity in and of itself - whereas she preferred to think of it as an absence of good. More pointedly, she was uncomfortable with Alcott's pension for publicly delving into personal issues (through his conversations with the students and sharing of their individual journals) to elevate the group consciousness. Elizabeth much preferred working with students’ psyches on a one-on-one basis.
The five year old Josiah Quincy III was indeed precocious - as the soon-to-be published “Conversations on the Gospels" (Vol. I in 1836 and Vol. II in 1837) would reveal at length [see Note 8]. When Alcott published the full record of what he was talking about with the students - against strong warnings from Ms Peabody (who had left the Temple School by then) - the public outcry was loud and pointed - and the numbers of students dwindled. Josiah's comments that children are born owing to people's naughtiness put together to make a body for the child...” helped fuel the whispers into a roar. When Alcott admitted an African American child, further students withdrew - and Alcott closed the school feeling much like a failure. [see Note 9]
In 1861, as a young man of thirty-two, Josiah wrote Alcott that the Temple School had been "the best thing attempted in modern times for a properly human culture.” [see Note 10] Alcott was then in the midst of a very successful run as Superintendent of Schools in Concord, Massachusetts. Seven years later, when Quincy came to Concord to speak about the present state of education, Alcott found himself once again listening to "young Quincy." Alcott's notes in his journal that evening have the warm glow that comes from seeing long-standing dreams realized... from having clung to the Ideal in the face of tremendous adversity:
“[1868]
December 3rd – In the evening comes young Quincy (Josiah), the brilliant saint of my Temple group in '36, and reads a rousing lecture on the defects in our system of Common Schools, insisting that heart and head should have positive guidance. The same ethical ascendancy of tone appears in his observations and criticisms, and as far as teacher may take credit for right sentiments and skill in speaking these, I had that satisfaction.
A double one, too, in his case, since he showed most forcibly defects in our schools which, through six years of my superintendence here, I steadily pointed out and urged upon my townspeople for amendment, as my several reports abundantly show." [see Note 11]
Note 1: When Elizabeth left the Temple School in 1836, her sister Sophia took over - soon to be followed by Margaret Fuller -- perhaps as impressive a group of classroom aids ever assembled
Note 2: Madelon Bedell, “The Alcotts: Biography of a Family” (1980) p. 102 ff
Note 3: E.g. children of the Channings, Tuckermans, and Judge Lemuel Shaw -- future father-in-law of Herman Melville
Note 4: Odell Shepard, “Pedlar's Progress: the Life of Bronson Alcott” (1937) p. 187
Note 5: William Wordsworth, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” (1807)
Note 6: Odell Shepard, “Pedlar's Progress: the Life of Bronson Alcott" (1937) p. 85. See also the reference to James P. Greaves on the page 84-85: “At Philadelphia, in May 1828, Alcott got from the famous bookseller Matthew Carey a Pestalozzian pamphlet called “Exposition of the Principles of Conducting Infant Education”, written by one J. P. Greaves - a man then unknown to him, who was to have a deep effect on his later life and thought.” It is Greaves for whom ABA bound and sent RWE and his own writings in 1839 - and who ABA hoped to see on his visit to England (but Greaves - who had begun an Alcott-based school in England - died before ABA arrived). The copies of the books presented to Greaves from ABA are in the KLB WtoG Collection.
William H. Kilpatrick, in his introduction to Heinrich Pestalozzi (1951) “The Education of Man - Aphorisms”, New York: Philosophical Library, has summarized six principles that run through Pestalozzi's efforts around schooling.
I. Personality is sacred. This constitutes the 'inner dignity of each individual for the young as truly as for the adult.
II. As 'a little seed... contains the design of the tree', so in each child is the promise of his potentiality. "The educator only takes care that no untoward influence shall disturb nature's march of developments'.
III. Love of those we would educate is 'the sole and everlasting foundation' in which to work, 'Without love, neither the physical not the intellectual powers will develop naturally'. So kindness ruled in Pestalozzi's schools: he abolished flogging - much to the amazement of outsiders.
IV. To get rid of the 'verbosity' of meaningless words Pestalozzi developed his doctrine of Anschauung - direct concrete observation, often inadequately called 'sense perception' or 'object lessons'. No word was to be used for any purpose until adequate Anschauung had preceded. The thing or distinction must be felt or observed in the concrete. Pestalozzi's followers developed various sayings from this: from the known to the unknown, from the simple to the complex, from the concrete to the abstract.
V. To perfect the perception got by the Anschauung the thing that must be named, an appropriate action must follow. 'A man learns by action... have done with (mere) words!' 'Life shapes us and the life that shapes us is not a matter of words but action'.
VI. Out of this demand for action came an emphasis on repetition - not blind repetition, but repetition of action following the Anschauung. (from the web: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-pest.htm)
Note 7: from the collection of KLB
Note 8: Josiah has many extraordinary original thoughts in the two volumes of Conversations. According to Elizabeth Peabody's footnotes in Vol. I, Josiah had been educated almost solely by his mother - exposed only to the finest literature. A speech impediment that slowed his delivery coupled with his refined clarity of thought and advanced vocabulary (even at age five and six) allowed Elizabeth, she assures us, to "preserve the words better than usual."
Note 9: Two years later, in the winter of 1841-1842, Alcott received a much-needed boost when he heard from a group in England that they were entranced with his educational philosophy and had opened a school called "Alcott House." They invited him to come visit, and, with a ticket purchased by friend and neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alcott headed off to England in May of 1842.
Note 10: See “Amos Bronson Alcott: An Intellectual Biography” by Frederick C. Dahlstrand, 1982, p. 258 (where Dahlstrand cites the comment as being in a letter from Quincy to Ralph Waldo Emerson) and Footnote #48, pp. 268-269 (where Dahlstrand gives the source as an MS letter from Quincy to Alcott at Harvard's Houghton Library : 59M-312 [148]).
Note 11: The Journals of Bronson Alcott, edited by Odell Shepard, 1938 (1966), Vol II, p. 389.
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