ABSTRACT
John Ruskin was born in 1819 and died in 1900. For fifty years, as Kenneth Clark pointed out, to read Ruskin was accepted as proof of the possession of a soul. However, since early years of the twentieth century, Ruskin's star has been in decline, just as Nietzsche's has been in the ascendant. This may be partly because of embarrassing aspects of Ruskin's biography, now much dwelt on. One of the difficulties of reading Ruskin is the sheer volume of his works. Another is their highly idiosyncratic approach and style. And a third is the wholly unsystematic nature of his mind and thought. Add to these his apparent changes of mind and it may seem that unearthing Ruskins' views on a topic like education is hardly going to be worth the trouble. Theoria could reach into the true nature of the thing represented, which for Ruskin always contained a spiritual- cum-moral element, even though he pretty certainly abandoned orthodox Christianity.
