ABSTRACT
The sheer diversity of nineteenth-century theorising can be gleaned from this abrupt transition from the delicately perceptive Coleridge with his concern for 'superiorities' and the power of imagination to Robert Owen, all mechanical energy and clockwork insistence on the power of a simplified formula of human amelioration to usher in the millennium. After the microscopic acuteness of Coleridge's examination of consciousness, Owen's assumption of a macroscopic system of general enlightenment run on the simplest of mechanical perceptions must seem crude and jejune. Nevertheless,
Owen's simplistic approach is, in fact, symptomatic of a number of educational reformers who have similarly trusted to a macroscopic approach, manifesting a hope in large gestures and universal panaceas. Supporters of universal comprehensive education, with its commitment to change of systems, are in no position to criticise Owen's naive faith in the millennial effects of a single educational principle; and, indeed, there are commentators who currently praise Owen's initiative as just such a precursor of a belief in the ameliorative power of organisational change.
