Some General Themes

Abstract

IN THE later eighteenth century Continental educationalists had stressed the value of manual arts in education. Rousseau, in mile, considered that manual labour was the pursuit that came nearest to a state of nature.¹ He would have children learn a trade and gave it the same importance as the more traditional subjects. ‘He must work like a peasant and think like a philosopher,’ he wrote of Émile, ‘if he is not to be as idle as a savage. The great secret of education is to use exercise of mind and body as relaxation one to the other. ’² This recog-nition that work with the hands could be an important aid to mental education was developed by Pestalozzi, Fellenberg, Basedow, and other Continental educationalists,³ and Fellen-berg’s agricultural estate at Hofwyl took the principle to a high level. Thousands of visitors to Hofwyl carried the ideas away into almost every country in Europe, where they became the subject of discussion and experiment within various national cultures.