Educating the ‘Unconstant Rabble’: Arguments for Educational Advancement and Reform during the English Civil War and Interregnum
Author: Ann McGruer
Date Of Publication: Aug 2010
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-2231-2
Isbn: 1-4438-2231-0

‘The English Revolution was a revolution in reading.’ For the first time more people had access to books and other printed media containing a far broader spectrum of information than had previously been the case. But an increase in access to material meant an increase in discussion and expression of opinions, some of which had the potential to be detrimental to the stability of the state. It was therefore in the interest of the state to restrict access to this material to those that possessed the requisite educational training with which to understand the ideas and opinions now in circulation. For Samuel Hartlib, John Dury, Johan Amos Comenius, John Hall, John Milton and Marchamont Nedham however, the answer lay not in restricting access to information and education, but rather in the extension of educational opportunity beyond the governing elite of the country in order to equip the emerging ‘reading public’ with the skills they needed to take an active part in the political life of the country. In the opinion of these writers it was only through effective educational reform that the political and religious growth of the country could continue.

A strong theme emerging within the tracts discussed in this book is that an adequately reformed educational system will provide the state with an able and useful populace on which they can depend in times of crisis. Allied to this is the notion that the populace is entitled to receive a level of education appropriate to their abilities and talents and that the state bears a responsibility to play at least some part in providing that education, whether formally or through the dissemination of information through the printing press. As will be seen from the discussion of the literature produced at the time, the ideas and reforms suggested within these tracts were the continuation of an intellectual context in which the development of learning and the expansion of knowledge were seen as paramount. Drawing on the religious ideas of the millennium, as well as the philosophical ideas of Bacon especially, the writers to be considered here sought the reformation of the educational system, as well as a broader series of social reforms, in order to perfect the Reformation and make England ready for the new age.

Ann McGruer gained her MA from the University of Aberdeen and then went on to obtain her PhD from Keele University in March 2009. Her main research interest lies in early modern polemical literature, especially literature of the English Civil War. She also has an interest in representations of the supernatural within early modern literature, particularly in relation to the changing religious and ideological contexts in which that literature is produced.

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