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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 December 2008
In Some Thoughts Concerning Education, John Locke intends that gentlemen educated according to his standards quietly dethrone the aristocrats as the model for society. Locke hopes to direct most gentlemen away from a desire to imitate aristocratic manners and toward practical economic goals consistent with the needs of all. The excellent example of the new gentlemen will combine with their good treatment of the lower classes to entice the latter to imitate them. Locke thus hopes to reconcile gentlemen and the common man. Crucial components of this education include a tough physical regimen, the humane treatment of servants, and the re-education of fathers. Locke's educational program supports his political goals in the Second Treatise and is somewhat adaptable to our own democratic age.
1 James Axtell points to the possibility that “that many of the things he said about education, especially its main principles, were equally applicable to all children” (Axtell, , The Educational Writings of John Locke [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968], 52)Google Scholar. Locke, however, is opposed to schools, yet such institutions are necessary in order to apply his insights universally.
2 Horwitz, Robert H., “John Locke and the Preservation of Liberty: A Perennial Problem of Civic Education,” in The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, 3rd ed., ed. Horwitz, Robert H., (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986), 150Google Scholar.
3 Locke, John, “Draft of a Representation Containing a Scheme of Methods for the Employment of the Poor. Proposed by Mr Locke, the 26th October 1697,” in Political Writings of John Locke, ed. Wootton, David (New York: Mentor, 1993), 446–61Google Scholar. See esp. 453–55.
4 Myers, Peter C., Our Only Star and Compass: Locke and the Struggle for Political Rationality (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), 124Google Scholar. Forde similarly argues that Locke aims “to make fundamentally separate and individualistic human beings sociable enough to sustain social order” by means of “civility and ‘good breeding.’” Forde, Steven, “Natural Law, Theology, and Morality in Locke,” American Journal of Political Science 45, no. 2 (April 2001): 404CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Yolton, John, Locke: An Introduction (Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 71–72Google Scholar.
5 Mehta, Uday Singh, Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 61–62Google Scholar; see also 63–64.
6 Locke, John, “Some Thoughts Concerning Education,” in Some Thoughts Concerning Education; and, Of the Conduct of the Understanding, ed. Grant, Ruth W. and Tarcov, Nathan (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1996Google Scholar [1693 and 1706, respectively]), Dedication, §§4, 164, 216. The meaning of ‘yeoman’ is not very clear: “Whatever it may have meant originally, and it seems never to have had any very exact meaning, by the end of the seventeenth century ‘yeoman’ was merely a mark of social status” (Mingay, G.E., English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century [London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963], 88Google Scholar). Locke seems to consider a yeoman to be a freeholder.
7 Habbakuk, H.J., “English Landownership, 1680–1740,” The Economic History Review 10, no. 1 (February 1940): 3Google Scholar.
8 Locke, “Some Thoughts,” Dedication.
9 Selden, John, Titles of Honor, 3rd ed. (London: Thomas Bassett, 1702), 705–706Google Scholar.
10 According to Pierre Coste, a translator with whom Locke collaborated, Locke's intended audience was “tous ceux qui sont au dessus de la qualité de Baron, auxquels on donne le titre de Gentilhomme, quand ils ne sont ni Fermiers, ni Artisans” (“all those who are below the status of Baron, to whom we give the title of Gentleman, when they are neither Farmers, nor Artisans”). Coste, Pierre, “Preface,” in De l'Education des Enfans (On the Education of Children [Some Thoughts Concerning Education]), by Locke, John, trans. Coste, Pierre ([Switzerland,] 1730), 15Google Scholar. The translation comes from Axtell, Educational Writings of John Locke, 81. On the relationship between Locke and Coste, see pp. 91–92 of Axtell's introduction.
11 Locke does not use the order of discussion to diminish the importance of an education of the mind. As Nathan Tarcov points out, “Locke devotes the first part of the Thoughts to physical education not at all because that is most important for him. … Bodily health and strength are instrumental” (Locke's Education for Liberty [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984], 86).
12 Mehta, Uday Singh, The Anxiety of Freedom: Imagination and Individuality in Locke's Political Thought (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 141Google Scholar.
13 Ibid. See also Tarcov, Locke's Education for Liberty, 84–86; Jeffreys, M.V.C., John Locke: Prophet of Common Sense (London: Methuen and Co., 1967), 90–91Google Scholar; Neill, Alex, “Locke on Habituation, Autonomy, and Education,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 27, no. 2 (April 1989): 233–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; , John W. and Yolton, Jean S., “Introduction,” in Some Thoughts Concerning Education, by John Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989 [1693]), 35Google Scholar.
14 Horwitz accounts for Locke's tough physical program by arguing that he would have the child “made as little dependent as possible on the comforts by which the wealthy generally corrupt and enervate their children” (Horwitz, “John Locke and the Preservation of Liberty,” 155). But Locke must have more than this in mind, since he goes to such lengths to elevate the gentleman's view of the lower classes in connection with physical training.
15 Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §4; emphases in original.
16 Scholars have not been able to make much of Locke's attention to this matter. See, for example, Romanell, Patrick, “Locke's Aphorisms on Education and Health,” Journal of the History of Ideas 22, no. 4 (October–December, 1961): 551–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Jeffreys, John Locke, 90. Passmore, John thinks that it indicates an enlarged understanding of education on the part of Locke, but he doesn't expand on this notion. The Perfectibility of Man (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970), 163Google Scholar.
17 Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §1; emphasis added. Cf. §32 and Locke, “Of the Conduct of the Understanding,” in Grant and Tarcov, Some Thoughts Concerning Education; and, Of the Conduct of the Understanding, §4.
18 Pangle, Thomas L. claims that “Locke evidently expects his treatise to become a kind of textbook for tutors” (The Spirit of Modern Republicanism: The Moral Vision of the American Founders and the Philosophy of Locke [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988], 221)Google Scholar. This may well be true, but since the work is addressed to fathers, it is through them that Locke hopes to have his greatest influence on the education of young men.
19 Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §71.
20 Myers comes close to identifying this mechanism, writing that “children are not the only beneficiaries of the education that the Lockean family provides. In subtle but crucial respects, adults too, and in particular adult (or full-grown) males, are to benefit from its civilizing influence.” Our Only Star and Compass, 197. But Myers does not connect this insight with Locke's specific warning to the father not to misbehave before the son. Other scholars, while noting Locke's warning, have tended to see it strictly in terms of the effect on the son, and have not explored the effect on the father. See, for example, Tarcov, Locke's Education for Liberty, 112–14, 119; Jeffreys, John Locke, 94–95; Schouls, Peter A., Reasoned Freedom: John Locke and Enlightenment (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 212Google Scholar.
21 The model of the gentleman that Locke presents throughout Some Thoughts is neither arbitrary nor simply the product of community standards. Quite the contrary: Locke wants the existing gentry together, by implication, with its community standards, to be “set right” (“Some Thoughts,” Dedication). Locke's non-arbitrary model of a gentleman “set right” is the one that he hopes to see the father adopt as he avoids misbehavior before his son. And so this model is the one the father will ideally pass on to his son. Joseph Carrig's claim that the father imposes or passes on his own arbitrary moral standards, or the arbitrary standards of the community, is therefore questionable. It is Locke's intention that fathers behave as proper gentlemen before their sons, and that they and their sons eventually become proper gentlemen. See Carrig, Joseph, “Liberal Impediments to Liberal Education: The Assent to Locke,” Review of Politics 63, no. 1 (2001): 45–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 51n12, 58–60.
22 Henry Fulton's claim that “the tutor act[s] as a role model in loco parentis” needs qualification (Fulton, Henry L., “Private Tutoring in Scotland: The Example of Mure of Caldwell,” Eighteenth-Century Life 27, no. 3 [fall 2003]: 55CrossRefGoogle Scholar). The tutor is limited by the routine presence of the father and his visible control over the tutor.
23 See Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §§7, 11, 13, 19, 20, 22, 27, 35, 59, 66, 68–70, 76, 89, 90, 107, 117, 130, 138, 191.
24 Tarcov, Locke's Education for Liberty, 188.
25 For example, see Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §§7, 68, 90, 138.
26 We learn elsewhere that some cannot be trained. See Locke, “Of the Conduct of the Understanding,” §4, but cf. §§6 (end) and 23.
27 Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §68.
28 Celestina Wroth notes that for Locke, servants “shar[ed] … in the vices of the upper classes, which they admired and attempted to emulate for the most superficial reasons” (Wroth, , “‘To Root the Old Woman out of Our Minds’: Women Educationists and Plebeian Culture in Late-Eighteenth-Century Britain,” Eighteenth-Century Life 30, no. 2 [2006]: 51CrossRefGoogle Scholar). The father might turn this inclination on the part of servants to his advantage by encouraging the emulation of more salutary characteristics. See also Pfeffer, Jacqueline L., “The Family in John Locke's Political Thought,” Polity 33, no. 4 (2001): 601n16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §82. Locke likely does not have in mind the use of the examples set by servants for the direct education of the son. Were the father to criticize his own servants, he might well run afoul of Locke's demand that the father set a good example, for what sort of father would keep in his employ a servant he censures?
30 Tarcov, Locke's Education for Liberty, 171; see also 139. By contrast, Mehta focuses on Locke's efforts to separate the son from the servants. Anxiety of Freedom, 146–47. Mehta needs to take more fully into account Locke's efforts to reconcile the two classes by guiding the view of servants held by gentlemen and their sons.
31 Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §§201, 210. See Jeffreys, John Locke, 58. See also Pangle, Spirit of Modern Republicanism, 223.
32 Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §207; emphases in original. See also §§202, 204–206.
33 Judges 6:11; Livy 3.26; Cato De re rustica, Pref.; Xenophon Oeconomicus 4.4, 4.20–25, 5.1–17.
34 Wood, Neal correctly observes that Locke wants “greater industry and less frivolous indolence among the gentry.” John Locke and Agrarian Capitalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 105Google Scholar. But his application of the term “capitalism” to Locke's economic views is somewhat improper, since Locke does not describe himself in such terms (106).
35 See also Jeffreys, John Locke, 55–56. Locke writes elsewhere that “there is a greater distance between some Men, and others, in this respect [i.e. “Men's Understandings, Apprehensions, and Reasonings”], than between some Men and some Beasts” (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975 (1700)], IV.xx.5). Locke does not account for this “distance,” but he leaves open the possibility of a natural cause.
36 Horwitz, “John Locke and the Preservation of Liberty,” 163.
37 Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §142.
38 The final section of Some Thoughts clearly indicates that Locke intends that his work be used for the education of gentlemen and not aristocrats. See Pangle, Spirit of Modern Republicanism, 227–28 for a discussion of some of the implications of Locke's un- or anti-aristocratic stance. See also Horwitz, “John Locke and the Preservation of Liberty,” 150–51, and Ruderman, Richard S. and Godwin, R. Kenneth, “Liberalism and Parental Control of Education,” Review of Politics 62, no. 3 (2000): 506CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
39 Tarcov, Locke's Education for Liberty, 194.
40 In Axtell's view, Locke's ideal gentleman is to be a “man of good example to his servants, family, and tenants” (Educational Writings of John Locke, 82).
41 Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §§66, 93, 142–44. See Locke, , “First Treatise,” in Two Treatises of Government, 2nd ed., ed. Laslett, Peter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970 [1689]), §93Google Scholar.
42 See Forde, “Natural Law, Theology, and Morality in Locke,” 403; Forde, Steven, “What Does Locke Expect Us to Know?” Review of Politics 68, no. 2 (2006): 251–52Google Scholar; Myers, Our Only Star and Compass, 196. Wood and Mehta both question Locke's commitment to equality, but they do not adequately account for the reformed relationship between the gentleman and his servants. See Wood, John Locke and Agrarian Capitalism, 108–109; Mehta, Liberalism and Empire, 63.
43 See also Pangle, Lorraine Smith and Pangle, Thomas L., The Learning of Liberty: The Educational Ideas of the American Founders (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 70Google Scholar.
44 Tarcov, Locke's Education for Liberty, 95.
45 Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §§67, 90, 93, 142–43, 145–46, 207, 211.
46 Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §§14–15. See Horwitz, “John Locke and the Preservation of Liberty,” 155. In Peter Gay's view, Locke, “saw the child's mind embedded in his [the child's] total organism.” John Locke on Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 1964), 8Google Scholar.
47 Gay, John Locke on Education, 6. See also Horwitz, “John Locke and the Preservation of Liberty,” 152, 163; Axtell, Educational Writings of John Locke, 60; Marshall, John, John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 317–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
48 Macpherson, C.B., The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke, corrected ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964), 222Google Scholar.
49 Ibid., 232–38.
50 As Schouls points out, Locke understands that rulers can be quite irrational. Reasoned Freedom, 179. See also Marshall's, Paul critique of Macpherson's argument in “John Locke: Between God and Mammon,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 12, no. 1 (March 1979): 79–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
51 Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §§135, 200. See also Schouls, Reasoned Freedom, 179.
52 See Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §§14 (end), 42, 70, 94 (toward end), 146, 164, 207, 216; and Locke, “First Treatise,” §58. Locke does not claim that there is a correspondence between natural gifts and the circumstances of one's birth. An individual of exceptional natural abilities might well be born poor.
53 See, for example, Myers, Our Only Star and Compass, 195, 208; Mehta, Liberalism and Empire, 59–60, 75, 198; Carrig, “Liberal Impediments to Liberal Education,” 42; Tarcov, Locke's Education for Liberty, 72, 209–10; Pfeffer, “The Family in John Locke's Political Thought,” 598–600; Horwitz, “John Locke and the Preservation of Liberty,” 148–49. John and Jean Yolton caution readers of Locke about too readily drawing connections between Locke's works, but even so they go on to find “continuities” between Some Thoughts and the Two Treatises, writing that “education for Locke provides the character-formation necessary for becoming a person and for being a responsible citizen.” Yolton and Yolton, “Introduction,” 3; see also 1–2, 4–5, 16. By contrast with these writers, Richard Battistoni claims that “Locke is quite suspicious of any civic education conducted by public institutions, and does not include any political lessons among his general aims of education.” Battistoni, Richard M., Public Schooling and the Education of Democratic Citizens (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1985), 34Google Scholar; see also 33, and Flathman, cf. Richard E., “Liberal versus Civic, Republican, Democratic, and Other Vocational Educations: Liberalism and Institutionalized Education,” Political Theory 24, no. 1 (February 1996): 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar. While Battistoni's first claim is correct, his second is questionable. As the Yoltons and other writers have observed, the habits and virtues aimed at by Lockean education have direct application to Lockean politics. For a discussion of these virtues, see Tarcov, Nathan, “Lockean Liberalism and the Cultivation of Citizens,” in Cultivating Citizens: Soulcraft and Citizenship in Contemporary America, ed. Allman, Dwight D. and Beaty, Michael D. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2002), 64–65Google Scholar.
54 Locke, “Second Treatise,” in Laslett, Two Treatises of Government, §§6, 31, respectively; emphases in original.
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56 Schouls, Reasoned Freedom, 180n4; emphasis in original.
57 Pangle and Pangle, Learning of Liberty, 54.
58 Schouls, Reasoned Freedom, 180n4. Strictly speaking, almost all human beings are made rational. Locke excludes “Lunaticks,” “Ideots,” and “Madmen.” Locke, “Second Treatise,” §60; emphases in original.
59 Tarcov, Locke's Education for Liberty, 112.
60 Locke, “Second Treatise,” §§97, 140.
61 See Horwitz, “John Locke and the Preservation of Liberty,” 148–49.
62 Horwitz, “John Locke and the Preservation of Liberty,” 142, 164. See also Yolton and Yolton, “Introduction,” 43.
63 Connelly, Marjorie, “The Poll Results,” New York Times, 15 May 2005, A27Google Scholar.
64 Johnston, David Cay, “Report Says That the Rich Are Getting Richer Faster, Much Faster,” New York Times, 15 December 2007, C3Google Scholar. See also Congressional Budget Office, Historical Effective Federal Tax Rates: 1979 to 2005 (Washington, DC: CBO, 2007), 6. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/12-11-HistoricalTaxRates.pdf (accessed July 1, 2008).
65 Gelman, Andrew et al. ., “Rich State, Poor State, Red State, Blue State: What's the Matter with Connecticut?” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 2, no. 4 (November 2007): 354CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
66 Locke, “Some Thoughts,” Dedication.
67 Princiotta, Daniel and Bielick, Stacey, Homeschooling in the United States: 2003 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2006)Google Scholar, Rep. NCES 2006-042, 7. http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/2006042.pdf (accessed July 1, 2008). The term “upper class” includes those with household incomes greater than $75,000.
68 Ibid., 10.
69 Ibid., 13.
70 Locke deemphasizes religious instruction in Some Thoughts. See §§136–38, 157–59, 190–92, and esp. §158.
71 O'Brien, Molly, “Free at Last? Charter Schools and the ‘Deregulated’ Curriculum,” Akron Law Review 34, no. 1 (2000): 169–70Google Scholar; Kahlenberg, Richard D., All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools through Public School Choice (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2001), 23Google Scholar.
72 O'Brien, “Free at Last,” 170.
73 Kahlenberg, All Together Now, 2. Kahlenberg draws the line separating low-income from middle-class at $32,000 for a four-member household.
74 The rest attend public schools. See Snyder, Thomas D., Dillow, Sally A., and Hoffman, Charlene M., Digest of Education Statistics 2007 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2006)Google Scholar, Rep. NCES 2008-022, 14. http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008022.pdf (accessed July 1, 2008); and Princiotta and Bielick, Homeschooling in the United States: 2003, 6, 10. In 2003, there were 6,099,000 pre-K to 12 private school students, fifty percent of whom were upper class. There were 14,150,000 total upper class students. And so 50% of 6,099,000/14,150,000 = 21.6%. In addition to this, 1.7% of upper class children were home schooled, for a total of 23.3% of upper class children who were either home schooled or in private schools.
75 Princiotta and Bielick, Homeschooling in the United States: 2003, 13.
76 Kahlenberg, All Together Now, 62.
77 Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II.xx.6. See also Locke, “Some Thoughts,” §126.
