Bronson Alcott’s Maxims for Education

Share on Social Media

I had the pleasure of visiting Orchard House, the home of Louisa May Alcott, in Concord, Massachusetts, this summer. While I was there, I saw a book that featured her father’s maxims for education. Bronson Alcott was a Transcendentalist and an innovative educator at that time. Many of his maxims for education are worth keeping in mind as we teach in our homeschools or at co-ops.

GENERAL MAXIMS: By which to regulate the instructor’s practice in instruction

1. To teach, with a sense of accountableness to the profession
2. To teach, with reference to eternity
3. To teach, as an agent of the Great Instructor
4. To teach, depending on the Divine Blessings for success
5. To teach, as the former of Character, and the promoter of the collective happiness of Man
6. To teach, to subserve the great cause of philanthropy and benevolence
7. To teach, distinct from all sinister, sectarian and oppressive principles
8. To teach, with charitable feelings toward all rational and animal beings
9. To teach, distinct from prejudice, from veneration of antiquity and from excess of novelty
10. To teach, to improve the science of instruction and of mind
11. To teach, duty appreciating the importance of the profession
12. To teach, awed by the clamours of ignorance, yet governed by the dictates of wisdom
13. To teach, nothing from subservience to custom
14. To teach, with unremitted solicitude and faithfulness
15. To teach, appreciating the value of the beings to whom instruction is given
16. To teach, regarding the matter as well as the manner of instruction
17. To teach, that alone, which is useful
18. To teach, in imitation of the Saviour
19. To teach, by exact uniform example
20. To teach, in the inductive method
21. To teach, gradually and understandingly, by the shortest steps, from the more easy and known, to the more difficult and unknown
22. To teach, by the exercise of reason
23. To teach, illustrating by sensible and tangible objects
24. To teach, by clear and copious explanation
25. To teach, by a strict adherence to system

26. To teach, by simple and plain unambiguous language
27. To teach, by short and perfectly obtained lessons
28. To teach, by encouragement 29. To teach, but one thing at the same time
29. To teach, but one thing at the same time
30. To teach, interestingly
31. To teach, principly a knowledge of things, not of words – of ideas, not names
32. To teach, by consulting in the arrangement of lessons, that proportion of variety which is adapted to the genius and habits of the young mind
33. To teach, by keeping curiosity awake
34. To teach, nothing that pupils can teach themselves
35. To teach, as much as possible by analysis
36. To teach, by exciting a laudable ambition for excellence, guarding against its opposite
37. To teach, endeavouring to make pupils feel their importance by the hope which mankind placed in their conduct
38. To teach, endeavouring to preserve the understanding from implicit belief, and to secure the habit of independence of thought and of feeling
39. To teach, endeavouring to invigorate and bring into exercise all the intellectual, moral and physical powers
40. To teach, attempting to associate with literature the idea and perception of pleasure
41. To teach, attempting to induce the laudable ambition of progressive improvement
42. To teach, by consulting the feelings of scholars 43. To teach, with animation and interest
44. To teach, by furnishing constant, useful, and as much as possible, pleasing employment
45. To teach, treating pupils with uniform familiarity, and patience, and with the greatest kindness, tenderness and respect
46. To teach, by cultivating the collective happiness of the school
47. To teach, by consulting the collective happiness of the school
48. To teach, by persuasion, not by coercion
49. To teach, by comparison and contrast
50. To teach, by allusion to familiar objects and occurrences
51. To teach, without indolence and discouragement
52. To teach, pupils to teach themselves
53. To teach, by intermingling Questions with instruction
54. To teach, with relation to the practical business of Life
55. To teach, endeavouring to fix things in the understanding rather than words in the memory
56. To teach without bringing pupils in comparison with one another, or touching the spring of personal emulation
57. To teach, with reference to habit
58. To teach, with Independence