ABSTRACT
Basic in Teaching: East and West (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.: London, 1935) was planned at the end of 1934 and written in the opening months of 1935, when Richards was under contract with the General Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation to produce a ‘Statement’ on the application of his interpretational theory to education. Basic in Teaching was designed to strike the right note with his contacts in the Rockefeller Foundation, and much of the work on this book was conducted in tandem with the early stages of work on the ‘Statement’. Composition was rapid, and by the 13th of January he was able to write to his wife Dorothy that ‘I’ve managed to do most of the new book’:
Had to write about 1/2 of it (6–7000 words) fresh, to hit the teachers (and the Board of Education) in the right place. But still it’s pretty swell. 1
