Robert Owen on Education

Robert Owen was one of the most extraordinary Englishmen who ever lived and a great man. In a way his history is the history of the establishment of modern industrial Britain reflected in the mind and activities of a very intelligent capable and responsible industrialist alive to the best social thought of his time. The organisation of industrial labour factory legislation education trade unionism co-operation rationalism: he was passionately and ably engaged in all of them. His community at New Lanark was the nearest thing to an industrial heaven in the Britain of dark satanic mills; he tried to found a rational co-operative community in the USA. In everything he contemplated he saw education as a key. This selection of his writings on education illustrates his rationalist concept of the formation of character and its implications for education and society; also his growing utopian concern with social reorganisation; and third his impact on social movements. Silver''s introduction shows Owen''s relationship to particular educational traditions and activities and his long-term influence on attitudes to education.