Amos bronson alcott biography of abraham

Alongside writing and reading, he gave lessons in "spiritual culture" which often involved the Gospels. Alcott refused corporal punishment as a means of disciplining his students; instead, he offered his own hand for an offending student to strike, saying that any failing was the teacher's responsibility. The shame and guilt this method induced, he believed, was far superior to the fear instilled by corporal punishment; when he used physical "correction" he required that the students be unanimously in support of its application, even including the student to be punished.

In the spirit of transcendentalismAlcott believed that all knowledge and moral guidance are a consistent part of the inner self of every human being. Alcott refused traditional educational methods that existed in most of the American schools at the time, which emphasized memorization and discipline.

Amos bronson alcott biography of abraham: his life for the sheep,

He believed that human beings are born good and that educators needed to give freedom to children to express their inner potential. He emphasized the need to nourish both the mind and body, so he practiced organized play and gymnastics in his classes. Alcott emphasized that the key to social reform and spiritual growth started in one's home—in the family.

Children learn essential values at an early age, and family plays a key role there. He believed that the family teaches self-sacrifice, self-reliance, sense of duty, and charity —values that are very important in daily life. Alcott's School in and more briefly Margaret Fuller. As students, he had the children of the Boston intellectual classes, including Josiah Quincy, grandson of the president of Harvard University.

Alcott's methods were not well received; many readers found his conversations on the Gospels close to blasphemous. A few brief but frank discussions of birth and circumcision with the children were considered obsceneand many in the public found his ideas ridiculous. The school was widely denounced in the press, with only a few scattered supporters, and Alcott was rejected by most public opinion.

Alcott became increasingly financially desperate as the controversy caused many parents to remove their students from his school. Finally, Alcott alienated many of the remaining parents by admitting an African American child to the school, which he then refused to expel from his classes. Inthe school was closed, although Alcott had won the affection of many of his pupils.

Alcott gave numerous lectures and public speeches. Mary Peabody Mann served as a French instructor for a time. Beforeprimary and secondary teaching of writing consisted of rote drills in grammar, spelling, vocabulary, penmanship and transcription of adult texts. These reformers opposed beginning instruction with rules and preferred to have students learn to write by expressing their personal understanding of the events of their lives.

Alcott sought to develop instruction on the basis of self-analysis, with an emphasis on conversation and questioning rather than lecturing and drill. A similar interest in instructive conversation was shared by Abby May who, describing her idea of a family "post office" set up to curb potential domestic tension, said "I thought it would afford a daily opportunity for the children, indeed all of us, to interchange thought and sentiment".

Alongside writing and reading, Alcott gave lessons in "spiritual culture", which included interpretation of the Gospelsand advocated object teaching in writing instruction. During this time, the Alcotts had another child. Born on June 24,she was named Elizabeth Peabody Alcott in honor of the teaching assistant at the Temple School. For example, he asked students to question if Biblical miracles were literal and suggested that all people are part of God.

Buckingham called Alcott "either insane or half-witted" and "an ignorant and presuming charlatan ". The Temple School was widely denounced in the press. Reverend James Freeman Clarke was one of Alcott's few supporters and defended him against the harsh response from Boston periodicals. In late AprilAlcott moved to the town of Concord [ 58 ] urged by Emerson.

He named it Dove Cottage. This proved a difficult task. For example, after several revisions of the essay "Psyche" Alcott's account of how he educated his daughtersEmerson deemed it unpublishable. Fuller herself disliked them, but did not want to hurt Alcott's feelings. Nature is quick with spirit. In eternal systole and diastole, the living tides course gladly along, incarnating organ and vessel in their mystic flow.

Amos bronson alcott biography of abraham: Amos Bronson Alcott's journal,

Let her pulsations for a moment pause on their errands, and creation's self ebbs instantly into chaos and invisibility again. The visible world is the extremist wave of that spiritual flood, whose flux is life, whose reflux death, efflux thought, and conflux light. Organization is the confine of incarnation,—body the atomy of God. With financial support from Emerson, [ 63 ] and leaving his family in the care of his amos bronson alcott biography of abraham Junius, [ 64 ] Alcott departed Concord for a visit to England on May 8, There he met admirers Charles Lane and Henry C.

Wright, [ 65 ] supporters of Alcott Housean experimental school outside London based on Alcott's Temple School methods. Persuaded in part by Lane's abolitionist viewsAlcott took a stand against President Tyler 's plan to annex Texas as a slave territory and refused to pay his poll tax. Alcott refused to pay his town tax After waiting some time to be committed [to jail], he was told it was paid by a friend.

Thus we were spared the affliction of his absence and the triumph of suffering for his principles. Lane and Alcott collaborated on a major expansion of their educational theories into a Utopian society. Alcott, however, was still in debt and could not purchase the land needed for their planned community. In a letter, Lane wrote, "I do not see anyone to act the money part but myself.

Their goal was to regain Edento find the formula for agriculture, diet, and reproduction that would provide the perfect way for the individual to live "in harmony with nature, the animal world, his fellows, himself, [and] his creator". The experimental community was never successful, partly because most of the land was not arable. So we fell apart".

One rumor is that Page was asked to leave after eating a fish tail with a neighbor. He quit the project and moved to a nearby Shaker family with his son. She wrote to her brother, "All Mr. Lane's efforts have been to disunite us. But Mr. The members of the Alcott family were not happy with their Fruitlands experience. At one point, Abby May threatened that she and their daughters would move elsewhere, leaving Bronson behind.

In JanuaryAlcott moved his family to Still River, a village within Harvard [ 92 ] but, on March 1,the family returned to Concord to live in a home they named "The Hillside" later renamed " The Wayside " by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Alcotts hosted a steady stream of visitors at The Hillside, [ 99 ] including fugitive slaves, which they hosted in secret as a station of the Underground Railroad.

He considered the war a blatant attempt to extend slavery and asked if the country was made up of "a people bent on conquest, on getting the golden treasures of Mexico into our hands, and of subjugating foreign peoples? InAbby May insisted they leave Concord, which she called "cold, heartless, brainless, soulless". The Alcott family put The Hillside up for rent and moved to Boston.

Participants, both men and women, were charged three dollars to attend or five dollars for all seven lectures. Alcott and his family moved back to Concord afterwhere he and his family lived in the Orchard House until He landed at Norfolk, Va. They liked him as a companion, and were glad to hold discussions with him on intellectual subjects. They would keep him under their roofs for weeks, reading and conversing, while he forgot all about his commercial duties.

But when he returned to the north his employer discovered he had not sold five dollars' worth of his stock. He relinquished his trade inand established an infant school, which immediately attracted attention. His method of teaching was by conversation, not by books. In he went to Boston and established another school, showing singular skill and sympathy in his methods of teaching young children.

Peabody, was published in Boston in 3d ed. His school was so far in advance of the thought of the day that it was denounced by the press, and as a result he gave it up and removed to Concord, Mass. In order to disseminate his reformatory views more thoroughly, he went upon the lecture platform, where he was an attractive speaker, and his personal worth and originality of thought always secured him a respectful hearing.

In he went to England, on the invitation of James P. Greaves, of London, the friend and fellow-laborer of Pestalozzi in Switzerland. Before his arrival Mr. Greaves died, but Mr. But Mr. The experiment failed and the Alcotts had to leave Fruitlands.

Amos bronson alcott biography of abraham: Amos Bronson Alcott was an

As winter approached, some members of the Alcott family grew increasingly unhappy with their Fruitlands experience. At one point, Abby May threatened that she and their daughters would move elsewhere, leaving Bronson behind. Partially sourced from Wikipedia. See full Wikipedia article. Amos Bronson Alcott November 29, — March 4, Alcott founded Fruitlands, a transcendental experiment in communal living.

More about Harvard people Samuel H. Houghton, a Harvard Inventor and Small Businessman. The Whitney Portraits. Frederick Fiske Warren.