Author: SPURZHEIM, J.G.
Title: A View of the Elementary Principles of Education, founded on the study of the nature of man.
Description: Edinburgh, for Constable 1821. Octavo slightly later half calf (rubbed); 360pp. Scattered spots or browning. ¶ Abram Combe's copy inscribed with his name and address; the writing of his name looks like George Combe's hand. His brothers George (who revised and had published this book) and Andrew, were the most ardent disciples and prominent expositers of Spurzheim's doctrines but Abram (who seems the most interesting of them) is best known as a disciple of Robert Owen. He ruined himself building an Owenite community in Lanarkshire and died in 1827. There are probably as many phrenologists as quakers among the social reformers of the 19th century and many of them, despite modern views of phrenology, can still be regarded as progressives in the best sense. Spurzheim himself though has a mixed record. Many of his ideas of reform will now be viewed with abhorrence as the foundation of social engineering in the worst sense. And he will be considered no friend of women - here he responds sternly to Mary Wollstonecraft, points out her fundamental error in regarding herself as emblematic of women, and outlines an approach to education that accounts for both the individual and irreconcilable differences between the sexes.

Keywords: philosophy education phrenology social sciences reform c19th women feminism progress