John Bellers: Difference between revisions
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Bellers' essay is a proposal for a "College of Industry", a sort of colony for the poor. Bellers argued that it was in the interest of the rich "to take care of the poor and their education". |
Bellers' essay is a proposal for a "College of Industry", a sort of colony for the poor. Bellers argued that it was in the interest of the rich "to take care of the poor and their education". |
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Bellers appealed in the first edition to his fellow Quakers for funding, although the College was to be a "Civil Fellowship rather than a religious one." The first edition of the pamphlet ends with an appeal - An Epistle to Friends Concerning the education of Children - in favour of the College, signed by about forty-five Quakers, including William Penn, Robert Barclay, Th. Ellwood, and John Hodgskin. The second edition was dedicated to Parliament. He does not appear to have won financial support from either source. |
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The combination of agriculture and manufacture would enable self-sufficiency and even profit. Bellers argued that if all " the present idle hands of the poor of this nation" were put to work, it would bring England "as much treasure as the mines do Spain". |
The combination of agriculture and manufacture would enable self-sufficiency and even profit. Bellers argued that if all " the present idle hands of the poor of this nation" were put to work, it would bring England "as much treasure as the mines do Spain". |
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Revision as of 16:28, 18 April 2007
John Bellers (1654-1725) was an English educational theorist and Quaker, author of Proposals for Raising a College of Industry of All Useful Trades and Husbandry (1697).
Proposals for Raising a College of Industry of All Useful Trades and Husbandry
Bellers' essay is a proposal for a "College of Industry", a sort of colony for the poor. Bellers argued that it was in the interest of the rich "to take care of the poor and their education".
Bellers appealed in the first edition to his fellow Quakers for funding, although the College was to be a "Civil Fellowship rather than a religious one." The first edition of the pamphlet ends with an appeal - An Epistle to Friends Concerning the education of Children - in favour of the College, signed by about forty-five Quakers, including William Penn, Robert Barclay, Th. Ellwood, and John Hodgskin. The second edition was dedicated to Parliament. He does not appear to have won financial support from either source.
The combination of agriculture and manufacture would enable self-sufficiency and even profit. Bellers argued that if all " the present idle hands of the poor of this nation" were put to work, it would bring England "as much treasure as the mines do Spain".
The plans for the education of children at the College were ahead of their time. Practice and experience were to be valued over rote-learning. Bellers advocated the combination of learning and work as a way of preventing idleness. Karl Marx mentions Bellers in a footnote in Das Kapital with reference to his educational theories.
Robert Owen read the proposals in 1817, but acknowledged their resemblance to the community he himself had created at New Lanark. Eduard Bernstein saw Bellers as a precursor of socialism, if not communism, highlighting his argument for valuing goods according to labour, not money.
About the Improvement of Physick
Eduard Bernstein saw in this essay an anticipation of a national health service.
Works
1697 Proposals for Raising a College of Industry of All Useful Trades and Husbandry
1699 Essays about the poor, Manufactures, Trade, Plantations and Immorality, and of the Excellency and Divinity of Inward Light
1710 Some Reasons for an European State proposed to the Powers of Europe...
1712 An Essay towards the Ease of Elections of Members of Parliament
1714 About the Improvement of Physick
1723 An Essay for Employing the Poor to Profit
1724 An Epistle to Friends of the Yearly, Quarterly, and Monthly Meetings
1724 An abstract of George Fox’s Advice and Warning To the Magistrates of London in the year 1657...
External links
- John Bellers, Champion of the Poor Chapter 17 from Eduard Bernstein's Cromwell and Communism