John Howlett – författare

How and why we should educate children has always been a central concern for governments around the world, and there have long been those who have opposed orthodoxy, challenged perception and called for a radicalization of youth. Progressive Education draws together Continental Romantics, Utopian dreamers, radical feminists, pioneering psychologists and social agitators to explore the history of the progressive education movement. Beginning with Jean Jacques Rousseau's seminal treatise Emile and closing with the Critical Pedagogy movement, this book draws on the latest scholarship to cover the key thinkers, movements and areas where schooling has been more than just a didactic pupil-teacher relationship. Blending narrative flair with thematic detail, this important work seeks to chart ideas which, whether accepted or not, continue to challenge and shape our understanding of education today.

Although considered a figure of great importance and influence by his contemporaries, Edmond Holmes has been consigned to relative obscurity in the progressive educational tradition. This book reinstates Holmes as a key figure in the history of progressive education, both as a school inspector and educational thinker, who was instrumental in forming a set of ideas and principles which continue to resonate in education today. Combining biographical detail and key critical analysis, Edmond Holmes and Progressive Education brings together the key ideas and aspects of Holmes’ life and establishes his writings as amongst the most insightful ever produced by an educationalist.Throughout his inspectorial career, Holmes scorned mechanical obedience in the classroom and was appalled by the inability of teachers to allow pupils to express themselves freely and imaginatively. His seminal publications positioned him at the vanguard of educational reforms. His work, however, was not exclusively educational, and throughout his life Holmes published on religion, philosophy, poetry and literature, subsuming his educational viewpoint into a much wider ‘philosophy of life’. His spiritual leanings and call for an improved education system, which would draw out the potential for development from within the child, inspired successive generations of progressive educators.In studying Edmond Holmes in detail, this book makes an important contribution to current debates surrounding creativity and the curriculum, in particular, the need for alternative educational voices within the state system of regulation. This book will be key reading for postgraduate students and researchers who are interested in progressive education, the history of education and educational policy and politics.

Although considered a figure of great importance and influence by his contemporaries, Edmond Holmes has been consigned to relative obscurity in the progressive educational tradition. This book reinstates Holmes as a key figure in the history of progressive education, both as a school inspector and educational thinker, who was instrumental in forming a set of ideas and principles which continue to resonate in education today. Combining biographical detail and key critical analysis, Edmond Holmes and Progressive Education brings together the key ideas and aspects of Holmes’ life and establishes his writings as amongst the most insightful ever produced by an educationalist.Throughout his inspectorial career, Holmes scorned mechanical obedience in the classroom and was appalled by the inability of teachers to allow pupils to express themselves freely and imaginatively. His seminal publications positioned him at the vanguard of educational reforms. His work, however, was not exclusively educational, and throughout his life Holmes published on religion, philosophy, poetry and literature, subsuming his educational viewpoint into a much wider ‘philosophy of life’. His spiritual leanings and call for an improved education system, which would draw out the potential for development from within the child, inspired successive generations of progressive educators.In studying Edmond Holmes in detail, this book makes an important contribution to current debates surrounding creativity and the curriculum, in particular, the need for alternative educational voices within the state system of regulation. This book will be key reading for postgraduate students and researchers who are interested in progressive education, the history of education and educational policy and politics.

How and why we should educate children has always been a central concern for governments around the world, and there have long been those who have opposed orthodoxy, challenged perception and called for a radicalization of youth. Progressive Education draws together Continental Romantics, Utopian dreamers, radical feminists, pioneering psychologists and social agitators to explore the history of the progressive education movement. Beginning with Jean Jacques Rousseau's seminal treatise Emile and closing with the Critical Pedagogy movement, this book draws on the latest scholarship to cover the key thinkers, movements and areas where schooling has been more than just a didactic pupil-teacher relationship. Blending narrative flair with thematic detail, this important work seeks to chart ideas which, whether accepted or not, continue to challenge and shape our understanding of education today.

This book represents the first scholarly gathering together of the long-neglected poetry of the School Inspector, educationalist and philosopher Edmond Holmes (1850 – 1936). Alongside a generous selection from Holmes’s six volumes of poetry there is also a full reproduction of Holmes’s essay What is Poetry which served to delineate his thinking on the discipline. Supporting these original works is both a lengthy scholarly introduction and extensive endnotes which serve to locate Holmes’s poetry not merely within the context of its time and amongst his own contemporaries but also to make a case for the importance of this body of work in its own right particularly in its promulgation of original and innovative ideas. Holmes’s poetry represents a particularly unique combination of traditional verse form coupled with innovative and esoteric subject matter (often drawing upon Eastern Buddhist philosophy as well as Western Romanticism and Pantheism) and so deserves to be more widely recognized as being wholly distinctive within the canon of Victorian and Modern poetry.

Two of Henry Newbolt’s poems, ‘Vitaï Lampada’ and ‘Drake’s Drum’, became staples of poetry anthologies and were able to be recited by every school-boy. His poetry was also deeply significant in constructing ideas around late Victorian/Edwardian imperial manliness. A consequence of this was that Newbolt became in his own time one of the best known and most popular of writers. However, in the years since his death, his work has fallen into comparative critical neglect and he has been seen as a mouthpiece for the worst aspects of his age. The aim therefore of this new edition is to place the poet’s literary work in a broader context that has hitherto not been addressed as well as offering a fresh appraisal of a significant literary figure. Aside from careful consideration of the poetry, of equal interest is Newbolt’s active public life. He contributed widely to government committees and debates on education, as well as working for the propaganda bureau in the First World War and advising on the Irish question. The links between his poetry - which spanned over three decades - and the socio-economic changes under way in the British Isles at the time are a primary theme of John Howlett’s substantial Introduction to the work. Exploring this wider historical context means that this book is an essential research tool for the field of Victorian and Edwardian poetry but also cultural studies.

This book title derives from Henley's most famous poem 'Invictus', which has been used as the name of a Hollywood film and for the International Paralympic Games sport event created by Britain's Prince Harry. The poem's stanzas have been popularised by Winston Churchill, Aung San Suu Ky and President Obama, and used to literary effect by C. S. Lewis, Oscar Wilde and in Casablanca. But this fine short lyric has unfortunately overshadowed Henley's other considerable literary output. Henley was the archetypal Man of Letters -- a poet, reviewer, essayist, journalist, historian and newspaper hack. His friendships with Robert Louis Stevenson, J. M. Barrie, and Yeats places him at the centre of the Victorian literary milieu. As editor of the National Observer he published writers as diverse as Kipling, Shaw, Hardy and Wells. He promoted new forms of expression in literature and art, and was a close friend of Rodin and Degas. The book reproduces key essays which relate to Henley's thinking on poetry, poets and the writing process, as well as his early and late poetry (some only recently discovered and attributed), unpublished verses, ephemera appearing in manuscript archives and important unpublished (often anonymous) essays. A scholarly introduction and critical notes serve to explain the significance of his poetry, the provenance of the material, and provide a context for his literary work in relation to historical events. Henley is often referenced in literary criticism, but until now has not been subject to book-length critical review. John Howlett set outs the case for his significance as a poet and writer in the context of Henley's central role in the publishing direction of Victorian literature.

This book presents a selection of case studies of pioneers in arts education who were working in the United Kingdom in the period 1890 to 1950.