Educational and Social Interests
In 1836, Combe stood for the chair of Logic at Edinburgh, against two other candidates, Sir William Hamilton and Isaac Taylor; Hamilton won with 18 votes, against 14 for Taylor. In 1838 Combe visited the United States and studied the treatment of the criminal classes there. He initiated a programme of public education about chemistry, physiology, history and moral philosophy.
Combe sought to improve the education of the poorer classes. He advocated a national system of non-sectarian education. He helped set up a school in Edinburgh run on the principles of William Ellis, and did some teaching there himself on phrenology and physiology. It was prompted by the London "Birkbeck School" opened on 17 July 1848. Combe founded a similar institution in Edinburgh, with William Mattieu Williams as headmaster, and it was opened on 4 December 1848 as the Williams Secular School. To begin with it was held in the Trades' Hall, Infirmary Street; soon it was moved to accommodate the numbers, to the premises of the former anatomical school of Robert Knox, at 1 Surgeons' Square. Williams left in 1854, but many years later wrote one of the last serious works on phrenology; his departure saw the effective collapse of the school with its ambitious and encyclopedic curriculum. By the 1870s the school had become a lecture hall. The actual form of education set up by Combe was later regarded as "transient", though as a propagandist of general educational ideas he was more effective. Combe has been seen as a significant figure in his view that government should be involved with the educational system, and as a precursor of Herbert Spencer. His attitudes were supported by William Jolly, an inspector of schools, and noted by Frank Pierrepont Graves in connection with Spencer and T. H. Huxley.
Combe gave public discussion to the reform of criminal behaviour; and, with his assistant William A. F. Browne, he opened a debate about the introduction of the humane treatment of psychiatric disorder into publicly funded asylums.
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