Description
Book SynopsisScholars have historically associated John Wesleyâs educational endeavours with the boarding school he established at Kingswood, near Bristol, in 1746. However, his educational endeavours extended well beyond that single institution, even to non-Methodist educational programmes. This book sets out Wesleyâs thinking and practice concerning child-rearing and education, particularly in relation to gender and class, in its broader eighteenth-century social and cultural context.
Drawing on writings from Churchmen, Dissenters, economists, philosophers and reformers as well as educationalists, this study demonstrates that the political, religious and ideological backdrop to Wesleyâs work was neither static nor consistent. It also highlights Wesleyâs eighteenth-century fellow Evangelicals including Lady Huntingdon, John Fletcher, Hannah More and Robert Raikes to demonstrate whether Wesleyâs thinking and practice around schooling was in any way unique.
This study sheds light on
Trade Review
"Linda A. Ryan’s thoroughly researched book provides a valuable contribution to the history of children’s education. Exploring John Wesley’s beliefs about schooling, Ryan considers how Wesley developed a philosophy which simultaneously rejected and wove together ‘Enlightenment’ ideals about nurturing the individual with eighteenth-century English concerns centred on the moulding of children’s religious characters. Ryan’s book successfully illustrates that anxieties surrounding the appropriate ways to educate children are not new, although the challenges may change."
—Anna French, University of Liverpool, Journal of Ecclesiastical History
Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1 Child-rearing and Education in Eighteenth-century England; 2 Influences that helped shape John Wesley’s Educational Thinking; 3 The Implementation of John Wesley’s Thinking on Education; 4 Educating Pauper Children: 1723-1780; 5 Kingswood Boarding School: 1746-1780; 6 Growing Tension between Education and Evangelism: 1760-1791; 7 Educating Pauper Children after 1780; Conclusion
