Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888) was born to an illiterate flax farmer in Wolcott, Connecticut. Profoundly influenced by John Bunyan's book Pilgrim's Progress, he left home at seventeen to become a peddler in Virginia and the Carolinas. After five years, he returned to Connecticut, determined to become an educator. Attracted to Pestalozzi's innovative child-centered educational ideas, he began a long and varied career as a teacher. Bronson Alcott was singular among the Transcendentalists in boldly embodying his ideals. In his schools he introduced art, music, nature study, field trips, and physical education into the curriculum, while banishing corporal punishment. He encouraged children to ask questions and taught through dialogue and example. When Ralph Waldo Emerson met Alcott in Boston in the late 1830s, he was so impressed with his intellect and innovative ideas that he convinced Alcott to move to Concord and join his circle of friends. Alcott outlived his closest transcendentalist friends, dying on March 4, 1888, just two days before his famous daughter Louisa succumbed to the effects of mercury poisoning. The Concord School of Philosophy closed in July of that year after holding a memorial service honoring Alcott.
'I read these conversations with growing enthusiasm and excitement
-- what enormous vitality and thoughtfulness a brave and great
teacher can encourage in his students. This is a wonderful and
extremely important publishing effort -- a book all of us who work
with children ought to read carefully and visit often.'
--Robert Coles, author of The Spiritual Life of Children
'Here is one of those priceless, quiet books that we hold up and
declare, 'Every parent, every teacher, every lawmaker, should know
this work!' followed by the sobering thought that all too few
parents and teachers, and perhaps no lawmakers, will. How difficult
to explain that the crisis of childhood and education a crisis of
the human spirit, and that until the spiritual dimensions of the
child is recognized and honored, the crisis can only grow worse....
All these issues aside, Alcott's 'Conversations' is immensely
rewarding reading for anyone. It is sheer reading pleasure,
enlightenment, insight, the discovery of a side of children many of
us never see, a side of ourselves generally masked, a glimpse of
history our school texts never touch, and an enrichment of our own
spirit. Time and again, it brings a pang of recognition, something
long-forgotten tugging beneath our fragmented thoughts. I can only
wish the work a wide reading, and will surely do what I can to
promote it.'
--Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of The Magical Child and
Evolution's End
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