ABSTRACT
The book from which this extract has been taken was described by Peters in 1971 as ‘one of the first attempts at a precise and well-argued defence of a point of view associated with “progressive” education’. This description remains true well over a decade later. In the interim, little has been done in England to put liberal romanticism on a sound philosophical footing (though see pp. 166-72). In the book, Wilson explored the meanings of interest’ and ‘discipline’ in a variety of contexts and attempted to tease out the connection between such concepts and that of ‘education’. He was careful not to imply that ‘education’ and ‘schooling’ were co-extensive: ‘Although most of what takes place in schools could be called “schooling”, only some of it (and not necessarily any of it) is “educative”.’ In this extract he argues for a very tight connection between ‘education’ and ‘whatever is of intrinsic value’, such that a person’s education ‘can only proceed through the pursuit of his interests, since it is these and only these which for him are of intrinsic value’. On this view, an individual’s education, ‘whether in or out of “school”, consists in 144whatever helps him to develop [his] capacity for valuing and [his] inclination to pursue what is valued’. In the light of his analyses of ‘education’ and ‘interest’, Wilson indicates in general terms what he believes the educative function of the teacher to be.
