Amos Bronson Alcott (November 29, 1799–March 4, 1888) was an American teacher and writer. He is remembered for founding a short-lived and unconventional school as well as a utopian community known as "Fruitlands," and for his association with Transcendentalism. November 29 is the 333rd (in leap years the 334th) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1799 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... March 4 is the 63rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (64th in leap years). ... 1888 is a leap year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ... Transcendentalism was the name of a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture and philosophy that advocates that there is an ideal spiritual state that transcends the physical and empirical and is only realized through a knowledgeable intuitive awareness that is conditional upon the individual. ...

Alcott was born on Spindle Hill in the town of Wolcott, New Haven County, Connecticut. His father, Joseph Chatfield Alcox, was a farmer and mechanic whose ancestors, then bearing the name of Alcocke, had settled in eastern Massachusetts in colonial days. The son adopted the spelling "Alcott" in his early youth. Wolcott is a town located in New Haven County, Connecticut. ... New Haven County is located in the south central part of the state of Connecticut. ... State nickname: The Constitution State Other U.S. States Capital Hartford Largest city Bridgeport Governor M. Jodi Rell Official languages English Area 14,371 km² (48th)  - Land 12,559 km²  - Water 1,809 km² (12. ... State nickname: Bay State Other U.S. States Capital Boston Largest city Boston Governor Mitt Romney Official languages English Area 27,360 km² (44th)  - Land 20,317 km²  - Water 7,043 km² (25. ...

Self-educated and early thrown upon his own resources, he began in 1814 to earn his living by working in a clock factory in Plymouth, Conn., and for many years after 1815 he peddled books and merchandise, chiefly in the southern states. He began teaching in Bristol, Connecticut in 1823, and subsequently conducted schools in Cheshire, Connecticut, in 1825-1827, again in Bristol in 1827-1828, in Boston in 1828-1830, in Germantown, now part of Philadelphia, in 1831-1833, and in Philadelphia in 1833. As a young teacher he was most convinced by the educational philosophy of the Swiss pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Bristol is a city located in Hartford County, Connecticut. ... Cheshire is a town located in New Haven County, Connecticut. ... Nickname: Beantown, The Hub, Athens of America Location in the state of Massachusetts Founded  -Incorporated September 17, 1630  1820, as a city County Suffolk County Mayor Thomas Menino (Dem) Area  - Total  - Water 232. ... Independence Hall Philadelphia (sometimes referred to as Philly or the City of Brotherly Love) is the fifth most populous city in the United States and the most populous city in the state of Pennsylvania, occupying all of Philadelphia County. ... Philosophy of education is the study of such questions as what education is and what its purpose is, the nature of the knowing mind and the human subject, problems of authority, the relationship between education and society, etc. ... Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (January 12, 1746 - February 17, 1827) was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer. ...

In 1830 he married Abby May, the sister of Samuel J. May (1797-1871), the reformer and abolitionist. Alcott himself was a Garrisonian abolitionist, and pioneered the strategy of tax resistance to slavery which Thoreau made famous in "Civil Disobedience." Alcott publicly debated with Thoreau the use of force and passive resistance to slavery; along with Thoreau he was among the financial and moral supporters of John Brown and occasionally helped fugitive slaves escape on the Underground Railroad. William Lloyd Garrison (December 12, 1805, Newburyport, Massachusetts - May 24, 1879, New York City) was a United States Abolitionist and reformer. ... This article is about the abolition of slavery. ... Civil disobedience encompasses the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government or of an occupying power without resorting to physical violence. ... John Brown John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was an American abolitionist who played a major part in the history of slavery in the United States leading up to the American Civil War. ... The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes by which African slaves in the 19th century United States attempted to escape to free states, or as far north as Canada, with the aid of abolitionists. ...

In 1834 he opened the Temple School in Boston, which became famous because of his original methods. Alcott's plan was to develop self-instruction on the basis of self-analysis, with an emphasis on conversation rather than the lecture and drill which were prevalent in U.S. classrooms of the time. The subject matter was often the Gospels, religious and moral principles; some of the school's conversations were published in Alcott's Conversations with Children on the Gospels. Alcott refused corporal punishment as a means of disciplining his students; instead, he offered his own hand for an offending student to strike, saying that any failing was the teacher's responsibility. The shame and guilt this method induced, he believed, was far superior to the fear instilled by corporal punishment. As assistants in the school Alcott had two of nineteenth-century America's most talented women writers, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (who published A Record of Mr. Alcott's School in 1835) and Margaret Fuller; as students he had the children of the Boston intellectual classes, including Josiah Quincy, grandson of the president of Harvard. Alcott's methods were not well received; many in the church found his conversations on the Gospels close to blasphemous, and many in the public found his disciplinary measures ridiculous. The school was denounced in the press and rejected by most public opinion, and was not pecuniarily successful as the controversy caused many parents to remove their students. Finally Alcott alienated many of the remaining parents by admitting an African American child whom he then refused to expel from his classes. In 1839 the school was closed, although Alcott had won the affection of many of his pupils. His pedagogy was a forerunner of progressive and democratic schooling. In Christianity, Gospels are a genre of Early Christian literature essentially concerning the message and meaning of Jesus. ... Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, (May 16, 1804_January 3, 1894) educator who opened the first English_language kindergarten in the United States. ... Sarah Margaret Fuller (May 23, 1810 - June 19, 1850) was a journalist, critic and womens rights activist. ... Josiah Quincy (February 23, 1744 - April 26, 1775) was a famous American lawyer. ... Harvard, see Harvard (disambiguation) Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. ... African Americans, also known as Afro-Americans or black Americans, are an ethnic group in the United States of America whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan and West Africa. ... Educational progressivists believe that education must be based on the fact that humans are social animals who learn best in real-life activities with other people. ... A democratic school is a school run after democratic principles with full and equal participation from both students and staff. ...

The Wayside, home in turn to the Alcott family, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Margaret Sidney.

In 1840 Alcott removed to Concord, Massachusetts. After a visit to England, in 1842, he started with two English associates, Charles Lane and Henry C. Wright, at "Fruitlands", in the town of Harvard, Massachusetts, a utopian socialist experiment in farm living and nature meditation as tending to develop the best powers of body and soul. The experiment quickly collapsed, and Alcott returned in 1844 to his Concord home "Hillside" (later renamed "The Wayside" by Hawthorne) near that of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Alcott removed to Boston four years later, and again back to Concord after 1857. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2560x1920, 978 KB) The Wayside, Concord, Massachusetts. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2560x1920, 978 KB) The Wayside, Concord, Massachusetts. ... The Wayside, home in turn to authors Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Margaret Sidney. ... Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was a 19th century American novelist and short story writer. ... Concord is a town located in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 16,993. ... See Utopia (disambiguation) for other meanings of this word Utopia, in its most common and general meaning, refers to a hypothetical perfect society. ... The color red and particularly the red flag are traditional symbols of Socialism. ... The Wayside, home in turn to authors Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Margaret Sidney. ... Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was a famous American essayist and one of Americas most influential thinkers and writers. ...

He spoke, as opportunity offered, before the "lyceums" then common in various parts of the United States, or addressed groups of hearers as they invited him. These "conversations" as he called them, were more or less informal talks on a great range of topics, spiritual, aesthetic and practical, in which he emphasized the ideas of the school of American Transcendentalists led by Emerson, who was always his supporter and discreet admirer. He dwelt upon the illumination of the mind and soul by direct communion with the Creative Spirit; upon the spiritual and poetic monitions of external nature; and upon the benefit to man of a serene mood and a simple way of life. Transcendentalism was the name of a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture and philosophy which emerged in New England in the early- to mid-nineteenth century. ...

Alcott's philosophical teaching was, and is still, often thought inconsistent, hazy or abrupt. But though he formulated no system of philosophy, and seemed to show the influence now of Plato, now of Kant, or of German thought as filtered through the brain of Coleridge, he was, like Emerson, steadily optimistic, idealistic, individualistic. The teachings of Dr. William Ellery Channing a little before had laid the groundwork for the work of most of the Concord Transcendentalists and contributors to The Dial, of whom Alcott was one. Statue of a philosopher, presumely Plato, in Delphi. ... A painting of Immanuel Kant in his middle age Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 in Königsberg – February 12, 1804) was a German philosopher from Prussia, generally regarded as one of Europes most influential thinkers and the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment. ... This page is about the nineteenth century English poet. ... Dr. William Ellery Channing (April 7, 1780 - October 2, 1842) was the foremost Unitarian preacher of the early nineteenth century, and along with Andrews Norton one of its leading theologians. ...

In his last years, his daughter, the writer Louisa May Alcott, provided for him. Alcott was gratified at being able to become the nominal, and at times the actual, head of a Concord "Summer School of Philosophy and Literature", which had its first session in 1879, and in which, in a building next to his house, listeners were addressed during a part of several successive summers on many themes in philosophy, religion and letters. Louisa May Alcott Louisa May Alcott (November 29, 1832 – March 6, 1888) was an American novelist, best known for the novel Little Women (1868). ...

Alcott's published books, all from late in his life, included Tablets (1868), Concord Days (1872), Sonnets and Canzonets (1882). Earlier he had written a series of "Orphic Sayings" which were published in The Dial as examples of Transcendentalist thought. The sayings, though called oracular, were considered sloppy, or vague by contemporary commentators as well as twentieth-century ones. He left a large collection of personal jottings and memorabilia, most of which remain unpublished. He died in Boston on the 4th of March 1888.

References

• Alcott, Amos Bronson. Conversations with Children on the Gospels.
• Geraldine Brooks. "Orpheus at the Plough." The New Yorker, January 10, 2005, pp. 58-65. (The New Yorker article is reproduced on author's website)

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. Geraldine Brooks is an Australian author, who grew up in the Western suburbs of Sydney. ... The New Yorkers first cover, which is reprinted each year on the magazines anniversary. ... January 10 is the 10th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ...