Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888)

Educator - Reformer

Amos Bronson Alcott, teacher, mystic, writer and the father of Louisa May Alcott, 

became an itinerant teacher before settling in Boston to found his own school. Born in 1799, 

Amos Bronson Alcott was self-educated with a voracious appetite for learning. After a 10-year stretch as an itinerant teacher, he founded Temple School in Boston, in 1834. 

He later became a major figure in the transcendentalist movement. He returned to education and was appointed superintendent of Concord Massachusetts Schools, where he perfected many of his progressive methods. 

Alcott's daughter Louisa May penned the famous novel Little Women. He lived out his remaining years in Concord, where he died at age 82, on March 4, 1888. 

[Early Life] Amos Bronson Alcott was a self-educated son of a farming family in old New England. Born in Connecticut on November 29, 1799, he had a curious mind and embraced learning all his life. 

He started out as a traveling salesman in the South, but soon discovered an early interest in teaching. Unsuccessful in seeking a permanent position in Virginia, he began a 10-year sojourn as an itinerant teacher throughout Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.

Unconventional Methods: Influenced by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Alcott focused on moral and spiritual development rather than rote memorization. He promoted a "conversational" style of teaching in classrooms decorated with art and Busts of thinkers.

Temple School (1834–1839): His most famous school in Boston brought him brief acclaim followed by scandal, particularly after he published Conversations with Children on the Gospels, which was criticized for its liberal interpretation of the Bible and discussions of birth.

Progressive Pedagogy: He abolished corporal punishment, introduced school libraries, physical education, and art to the curriculum.

Controversy: His reputation was further damaged by his defiance of societal norms, including his decision to admit a Black child to his school despite protests. 

Mystic and Philosopher

Transcendentalism: A close friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alcott was considered one of the most dedicated and "comprehensive" transcendentalists, often focusing on the inner divine spark in children.

Orphic Sayings: He contributed to the transcendentalist journal The Dial, but his writing was often described by contemporaries—including Emerson—as opaque, incondite, or "hazy".

Fruitlands: In 1843, he co-founded a short-lived utopian community named "Fruitlands," which was intended to be an agrarian, vegetarian, and pacifist paradise. The experiment failed after seven months, partly due to the rigorous, unsustainable rules imposed by his partner, Charles Lane. 

Writer and Personal Life

Publications: His works, mostly published later in life, include Tablets(1868), Concord Days(1872), and Sonnets and Canzonets(1882).

Family: In 1830, he married Abby May Alcott, a dedicated social worker and reformer. They had four daughters, including Louisa May Alcott, who would become the author of Little Women.

Financial Struggle: Because of his inability to secure a stable income and his refusal to work in a capitalist framework, his family often faced extreme poverty. They were only supported in his later years by the literary success of their daughter, Louisa May. 

In his final years, Alcott fulfilled his goal of a successful school by opening the Concord School of Philosophy and Literature in 1879. He passed away in 1888, just two days before his daughter Louisa.

Inspiration ~ Bhagavad Gita

Amos Bronson Alcott wrote:

"I read more of the Bhagavad Gita and felt how surpassingly fine were the sentiments. These, or selections from this book should be included in a Bible for Mankind. I think them superior to any of the other Oriental scriptures, the best of all reading for wise men. Best of books - containing a wisdom blander and far more sane than that of the Hebrews, whether in the mind of Moses or of Him of Nazareth. Were I a preacher, I would venture sometimes to take from its texts the motto and moral of my discourse. It would be healthful and invigorating to breathe some of this mountain air into the lungs of Christendom."

Context of the Quote:

Source: The passage is from Alcott's journals, sometimes associated with his 1868 book Tablets, a collection of essays and meditations.

The Sentiment: Alcott expressed deep admiration for the Bhagavad Gita, describing it as "surpassingly fine" and superior to other "Oriental scriptures".

"Bible for Mankind": Alcott suggested that selections from the Gita should be included in a universal "Bible for Mankind".

Comparison: He characterized the wisdom of the Gita as "blander and far more sane than that of the Hebrews," indicating a preference for the Hindu text over Western canonical traditions.

Impact: He noted that reading it was "healthful and invigorating" and would bring "mountain air into the lungs of Christendom". 

This perspective was shared by his contemporaries, including Henry David Thoreau, who also studied the Gita at Walden Pond, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, highlighting the Transcendentalist admiration for Hindu philosophy.

American Transcendentalism

Amos Bronson Alcott wrote: "I read more of the Bhagavad Gita and felt how surpassingly fine were the sentiments. These, or selections from this book should be included in a Bible for Mankind. I think them superior to any of the other Oriental scriptures, the best of all reading for wise men. Best of books - containing a wisdom blander and far more sane than that of the Hebrews, whether in the mind of Moses or of Him of Nazareth. Were I a preacher, I would venture sometimes to take from its texts the motto and moral of my discourse. It would be healthful and invigorating to breathe some of this mountain air into the lungs of Christendom."

 

Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), the most brilliant and visionary American educator of his time, was also the most extreme of the New England transcendentalists. Bronson Alcott was born near Wolcott, Conn., on Nov. 29, 1799. His was an old New England family which had fallen on hard times, with the result that Alcott received only scanty schooling. However, he educated himself through much of his long life. He early discovered that he wanted to educate others, and he traveled as far away as Virginia to seek a post. Unsuccessful there as elsewhere, he turned to peddling in Virginia and the Carolinas. After his return to New England in 1823, he spent the next decade in a variety of teaching positions and seldom stayed long in any one place. The school system in the United States at this time was marked by narrowness and rigidity, stressing memorization and discipline. 

Alcott felt that the basic impulses in the human being were noble ones and that education should consist in freeing the child from restrictions and giving full rein to his imagination. Education should encourage the child mentally, morally, spiritually, esthetically, and physically. For Alcott the body was as important as the mind, so he introduced into his classes such innovations as organized play and gymnastics; he also tried to introduce the study of human physiology. Alcott treated the children as adults through such devices as the honor system, and he led them to discover their personal views through constant use of the Socratic dialogue. But the picture of Alcott gently questioning a 6-year-old about infinity or punishing himself when a child misbehaved was enough to startle any school board, and it is no wonder he became an educational nomad.

If school boards found him shocking, the members of the emerging transcendentalist movement found him admirable though at times exasperating. His philosophy was eclectic. To the Quaker idea of inner vision, he added the idea of intuitive knowledge; he adopted the notion of preexistence; he believed that spirit was the only reality and that man's everyday world was merely an emanation of it; and he permeated this mystic philosophy with a feeling that was close to the ecstatic. He proved to be more Emersonian than even Ralph Waldo Emerson (the leading transcendentalist). The transcendentalists as a group were often accused of being visionary and impractical; Alcott was the personification of those qualities. His impracticality showed in his family life. Married in 1830, he soon fathered a large family for which he could never provide. 

Besides school teaching, he attempted a bit of farming, a brief stint in communal living at Fruitlands (a cooperative community which he helped found near Harvard, Mass.), itinerant lecturing in the guise of paid "conversations" in the Socratic mode, and some writing. But it was not till he was an elderly man that his family's financial plight was relieved, when his daughter Louisa May Alcott published Little Women, a best seller. Alcott's achievement lay in establishing the first "progressive school" in America, in Boston's Masonic Temple. The Record of a School, Exemplifying the General Principles of Spiritual Culture (1835) consists of his observations there as edited by his assistant, Elizabeth Peabody. The school lasted till 1839 despite Alcott's notoriously unorthodox methods. 

The blow that killed the school was his enrollment of a Negro girl. In 1859 Alcott's friends got him appointed superintendent of the public schools of Concord, Mass., the native home of transcendentalism. Though he remained as innovative as ever, Concord had become tolerant and allowed him to do a good job. In 1879 he started the Concord Summer School of Philosophy and Literature for adults, which carried on until his death. Besides writing on education, he contributed mystical "Orphic Sayings" to the transcendentalist magazine, the Dial, and published poetry and reflective essays. Thomas Carlyle caught the flavor of Alcott's unique personality: "The good Alcott; with his long, lean face and figure, with his worn gray temples and mild, radiant eyes; all bent on saving the world by a return to acorns and the golden age; he comes before one like a venerable Don Quixote, whom nobody can laugh at without loving." 

-Source: American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions By Arthur Versluis Publisher: Oxford University Press (1 Jun. 1997) Language: English ISBN-10: 0195076583 

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Available online: Archive.org

Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), the most brilliant and visionary American educator of his time, was also the most extreme of the New England transcendentalists. Bronson Alcott was born near Wolcott, Conn., on Nov. 29, 1799. His was an old New England family which had fallen on hard times, with the result that Alcott received only scanty schooling. However, he educated himself through much of his long life. He early discovered that he wanted to educate others, and he traveled as far away as Virginia to seek a post. Unsuccessful there as elsewhere, he turned to peddling in Virginia and the Carolinas. After his return to New England in 1823, he spent the next decade in a variety of teaching positions and seldom stayed long in any one place. The school system in the United States at this time was marked by narrowness and rigidity, stressing memorization and discipline. 

Alcott felt that the basic impulses in the human being were noble ones and that education should consist in freeing the child from restrictions and giving full rein to his imagination. Education should encourage the child mentally, morally, spiritually, esthetically, and physically. For Alcott the body was as important as the mind, so he introduced into his classes such innovations as organized play and gymnastics; he also tried to introduce the study of human physiology. Alcott treated the children as adults through such devices as the honor system, and he led them to discover their personal views through constant use of the Socratic dialogue. But the picture of Alcott gently questioning a 6-year-old about infinity or punishing himself when a child misbehaved was enough to startle any school board, and it is no wonder he became an educational nomad.

If school boards found him shocking, the members of the emerging transcendentalist movement found him admirable though at times exasperating. His philosophy was eclectic. To the Quaker idea of inner vision, he added the idea of intuitive knowledge; he adopted the notion of preexistence; he believed that spirit was the only reality and that man's everyday world was merely an emanation of it; and he permeated this mystic philosophy with a feeling that was close to the ecstatic. He proved to be more Emersonian than even Ralph Waldo Emerson (the leading transcendentalist). The transcendentalists as a group were often accused of being visionary and impractical; Alcott was the personification of those qualities. His impracticality showed in his family life. Married in 1830, he soon fathered a large family for which he could never provide. 

Besides school teaching, he attempted a bit of farming, a brief stint in communal living at Fruitlands (a cooperative community which he helped found near Harvard, Mass.), itinerant lecturing in the guise of paid "conversations" in the Socratic mode, and some writing. But it was not till he was an elderly man that his family's financial plight was relieved, when his daughter Louisa May Alcott published Little Women, a best seller. Alcott's achievement lay in establishing the first "progressive school" in America, in Boston's Masonic Temple. The Record of a School, Exemplifying the General Principles of Spiritual Culture (1835) consists of his observations there as edited by his assistant, Elizabeth Peabody. The school lasted till 1839 despite Alcott's notoriously unorthodox methods. 

The blow that killed the school was his enrollment of a Negro girl. In 1859 Alcott's friends got him appointed superintendent of the public schools of Concord, Mass., the native home of transcendentalism. Though he remained as innovative as ever, Concord had become tolerant and allowed him to do a good job. In 1879 he started the Concord Summer School of Philosophy and Literature for adults, which carried on until his death. Besides writing on education, he contributed mystical "Orphic Sayings" to the transcendentalist magazine, the Dial, and published poetry and reflective essays. Thomas Carlyle caught the flavor of Alcott's unique personality: "The good Alcott; with his long, lean face and figure, with his worn gray temples and mild, radiant eyes; all bent on saving the world by a return to acorns and the golden age; he comes before one like a venerable Don Quixote, whom nobody can laugh at without loving." 

-Source: American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions By Arthur Versluis Publisher: Oxford University Press (1 Jun. 1997) Language: English ISBN-10: 0195076583 

Available on Amazon

Available online: Archive.org