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John Stuart Mill on education and progress

dc.contributor.authorSilva, Elisabete Mendes
dc.date.accessioned2017-01-16T11:04:26Z
dc.date.available2017-01-16T11:04:26Z
dc.date.issued2016
dc.description.abstractMoney-getting, mechanical progress and human happiness lay at the basis of a utilitarian conception of education in Industrial Britain. “The Benthamic or utilitarian propagandism of that time” (Mill, 1981, p. 105) accounted for the happiness of people at the greatest number possible, even if it implied a mechanical and inadequate instruction. Popular education in the first half of the nineteenth century was not only scarce in quantity, but it was also deficient in quality. John Stuart Mill, the paladin for the provision of state education at a national scale in Victorian England, believed education was a means to foster human mind development as well as it accounted for the future progress of mankind. Mill, a utilitarian and empiricist philosopher and political liberal thinker, unlike Bentham and his father James Mill, believed the state should control education therefore guaranteeing its quality and not only quantity. The reforms in education throughout the nineteenth century accompanied the discussion of what should be included in the curriculum of school or university studies. In fact, many liberal Victorian political thinkers regarded the dissemination of thorough scientific education a sine qua non condition of industrial and human progress. Therefore, education took a rather scientific outlook as Darwinian ideas throve through the educational setting of Britain. Actually, Mill’s concept of education encompassed both the science and the literary studies. Within this context, the purpose of the paper is thus three-fold. First, we intend to validate that Mill’s utilitarian conception of education was different from that of Bentham’s. Even if Mill recognised the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind, his humanistic stance led him to believe “human nature was not a machine to be built after a model.”(Mill, 1997, p. 87) Concurrent with the first aim, we will also describe the changes the national curriculum suffered under the influence of a more scientific outlook, and, lastly, we will put forth Mill’s position on this matter.pt_PT
dc.description.versioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionpt_PT
dc.identifier.citationSilva, Elisabete Mendes (2016). John Stuart Mill on education and progress. Victorians like us: III International Conference “Progress: a blessing or a curse?”. Lisboapt_PT
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10198/13786
dc.language.isoengpt_PT
dc.peerreviewedyespt_PT
dc.publisherUniversidade de Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Anglísticospt_PT
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/pt_PT
dc.subjectEducationpt_PT
dc.subjectProgresspt_PT
dc.subjectLiberalismpt_PT
dc.subjectVictorianismpt_PT
dc.titleJohn Stuart Mill on education and progresspt_PT
dc.typeconference object
dspace.entity.typePublication
oaire.awardURIinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/3599-PPCDT/PEst-OE%2FELT%2FUI0114%2F2013/PT
oaire.citation.conferencePlaceLisboapt_PT
oaire.citation.endPage60pt_PT
oaire.citation.startPage58pt_PT
oaire.citation.titleVictorians like us: III International Conference “Progress: a blessing or a curse?”pt_PT
oaire.fundingStream3599-PPCDT
person.familyNameSilva
person.givenNameElisabete Mendes
person.identifier.ciencia-idEE12-AC24-227B
person.identifier.orcid0000-0002-1782-2567
project.funder.identifierhttp://doi.org/10.13039/501100001871
project.funder.nameFundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
rcaap.rightsopenAccesspt_PT
rcaap.typeconferenceObjectpt_PT
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