John Colet's Views on Children with a Focus on the Educational Practices at St Paul's School

Abstract

John Colet was an early-Tudor humanist and the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, London. This paper analyses John Colet's views on children by focusing on the educational practice at St Paul's School, which he founded during 1509-1512. Previous studies, based mainly on the educational theory writings of other humanists, do not examine in detail the views their subjects held on children in schools. On the other hand, this study closely examines the articles of admission to St Paul's School, the school statutes, and the textbooks used at the school. The study produced the following observations: 1. Colet saw children as Imago Dei, representing pure divine innocence in contrast to adults, whom he saw as embodiments of worldly sin. This view of children was, for example, reflected in the system of the 'principal child', in which older boys helped to teach younger children. 2. Colet treated children as subjects with free will and dignity. For this reason, the teaching practices at St Paul's were designed to accommodate children's individual volition. 3. Colet regarded children as tender beings that grew and developed naturally. Therefore, textbooks were designed by considering the different stages of child development. 4. Colet's views on children contrasted with those of Erasmus. He thought a child should be brought up as naturally as possible. Therefore, the notion of the 'Perfect Child' was a central educational target for Colet.