An unidentified source of John Locke's some thoughts concerning education

Abstract

An example of cultural exchange in the second half of the seventeenth century is discussed. The subject is a well-known case: John Locke's ideas on education, formulated during his five-year sojourn in Holland in the 1680s (autumn 1683 until spring 1689), a period during which – as R. Colie stressed – ‘his whole life was to be changed … neither he nor anybody else had any idea that he was the man whose ideas on human nature, on politics, on education … were to cause such a change in English thinking in the course of the next century’. According to Colie it was the intellectual climate of the Arminian (or Remonstrant) medical and theological circle in Amsterdam which stimulated the ‘composition’ of his work, ‘especially for a man as prepared as Locke, who could well carry out the conclusions he had reached in his head’. In place of this interpretation the author shows that Locke’s stay in Holland – regarding educational questions of children – was more than a period of compilation and composition of experiences made earlier, and of concepts prepared beforehand. It is suggested that Locke’s ideas on education were far more influenced and much more stimulated by his encounters with Dutch educational literature (even to literal borrowing), on the one hand, and Dutch educational practice, mentality and culture, on the other, than has been credited by other researchers until now.