‘Be Not a Copy if Thou Canst Be an Original’: German Philosophy,Republican Pedagogy,Benthamism and Saint-Simonism in the Political Thought of Gioacchino di Prati

Summary

Born to a noble family in the Italian Trentino, Prati studied philosophy in Austria and Germany. Returning to Italy, he joined the carbonari, a network of revolutionary secret societies. Forced into exile in Switzerland, he worked as an educator alongside Pestalozzi. Following his expulsion from Switzerland, Prati sought refuge in Britain, becoming acquainted with Coleridge, the Benthamite utilitarians, and the Owenites. Following the July Revolution, Prati went to Paris, where he became a Saint-Simonian. Returning to Britain, he sought to convert the British to Saint-Simonism, before undertaking a series of other literary projects. He eventually returned to Italy, where he entered into correspondence with the Roman Catholic philosopher Antonio Rosmini. Prati left behind him a trail of letters, newspaper articles, pamphlets, and books, written in four different European languages. These have been hitherto neglected by scholars, and constitute the basis of the current article.     

Pestalozzi, Fellenberg and British nineteenth-century geographical education

The impact that Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) and Philipp Emanuel Fellenberg (1771–1844) had upon nineteenth-century European geographical education and ideas has long been recognised. Their influence upon British geography teaching has, however, been little explored, despite the work already done on the general impact of Pestalozzianism and Fellenbergianism on British education. Using the arguments of nineteenth-century educational theorists such as Compayre and Spencer, this study argues that Pestalozzian educationists such as Phillip Pullen and Charles Mayo in England helped to change the way that geography was taught to middle-class children. A case study of teaching practices at a Pestalozzian institution in Worksop, Nottinghamshire shows how changes in geographical education were encouraged by Pestalozzian ideas on the teaching of geography and the relationship of the subject to other disciplines including topography, natural history and geology.