ABSTRACT

Mary Wollstonecraft's rationalistic tendencies serve to form the basis of her views on education. The perfectibility of human reason is the cornerstone, and all the various schemes of life, which demand a preparation, that runs counter to the claims of human reason, to attain to a perfection, which should be sought for its own sake, are set aside. Undoubtedly, Mary Wollstonecraft, not only in the tendency of her philosophical, but also of her pedagogical thought, sat at the feet of her great countryman, John Locke. Both Locke and Rousseau were in favor of private education. The former, in Some Thoughts concerning Education dealt with the education by his tutor of a nobleman's soul; and the latter, in his Emile took a boy of common capacity and depicted the help given by a tutor to aid his natural course of development. Mary Wollstonecraft voiced the sentiments of the French Republicans, in advocating national education.