Alcott, Amos Bronson

Amos Bronson (1799-1888), an American philosophical writer and educator. The son of a farmer, he worked, as a boy, for a country storekeeper; made an unsuccessful attempt to peddle merchandise, and in 1823 opened an infant school. Acquiring some local fame by his methods of teaching, he removed to Boston and for some years conducted there a school of the same sort. His method was that of teaching by conversation, his theory being that the child's mind should be developed independently according to individual faculties, not molded by imposing upon it knowledge from the outside. His system met with disfavor and he retired to Concord. From this time Alcott devoted himself to expounding reform views on a great variety of subjects. He was associated intimately with Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Channing, became dean of the Concord School of Philosophy, and was a leader among the Transcendentalists. Emerson and other eminent thinkers have acknowledged an obligation to Alcott. He may be compared with Coleridge, as one who, while his own work was fragmentary, became a powerful agency in changing and directing the current of philosophic thought.