ABSTRACT
Cecil Reddie was an educational pioneer who founded Abbotsholme School in England. He was thought of as the father of the international “New School” movement and railed against the limits of the classical education provided by Victorian Public Schools. He was also a radical intellectual who had a direct infl uence on the educational thinking of Kurt Hahn, Hermann Lietz, and many others. For all this he remains an enigma, a man described as an indefatigable fi ghter against the very powerful social and educational infl uences of the public school and the wider society (Giesbers, 1970), yet someone who could be an authoritarian who ruled his class with a rod of iron. He was a man who believed in liberty, yet was obsessed with rules. In order to understand Reddie’s legacy and Giesbers’ (1970) assertion that he was the father of the “New School” movement and progenitor of the progressive education movement, some thought needs to be given to Reddie the man, who was described by Searby as a “volcanic personality” (1989, p. 1).
