Joseph Priestley and Education - Educational Philosophy

Educational Philosophy

In 1765, Priestley dedicated his Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life (1765), to the governing board of Warrington Academy. In it he argues that young people's education should anticipate their practical needs, something he accused the current universities, Dissenting and Establishment alike, of failing to do. In Priestley's eyes, the contemporary focus on a traditional classical education prevented students from acquiring useful skills. This principle of utility guided his unusual curricular recommendations. He proposed that students study English and the modern languages instead of the classical languages, learn practical mathematics, read modern rather than ancient history, and study the constitution and laws of England. He believed that these topics would prepare his students for the commercial middle-class life that most of them would live; he did not believe that the poor should receive this same education, arguing "it could be of no service to their country, and often a real detriment to themselves." In 1766 Warrington Academy replaced its old classical curriculum with Priestley's new liberal arts model. Some scholars of education have argued that this work and his later Miscellaneous Observations relating to Education (1778) (often reprinted with the Essay on Education) made Priestley the "most considerable English writer on educational philosophy" between John Locke and Herbert Spencer.