John locke education today

Concerned about the moral laxity of Restoration England, the wealthy landowner and politician Edward Clarke turned to his lifelong friend John Locke for advice about how to raise his son.

Out of a series of letters to Clarke came Some Thoughts Concerning Education, published in 1693.

We know John Locke today as a social and political philosopher. In his “Essay Concerning Human Understanding,” he famously characterized the human mind at birth as a “blank slate.” Less known today is Locke as an educational philosopher; yet, his published letters to Clarke became the most celebrated treatise on education during the Enlightenment, influencing Benjamin Franklin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and untold numbers of anxious parents and uncertain teachers.

Drawing on Locke’s experience as a physician, psychologist, diplomat, and political adviser, Some Thoughts Concerning Education is part medical manual, part guide for parents and teac