Focusing on John Ruskin as a teacher and on his greatest educational work, Fors Clavigera, Sara Atwood examines Ruskin's varied roles in education, the development of his teaching philosophy and style, and his vision for educational reform. Atwood maintains that the letters of Fors Clavigera constitute not only a treatise on education but a dynamic educational experiment, serving to set forth Ruskin's ideas about education while simultaneously educating his readers according to those very ideas. Closely examining Ruskin's life and writings, her argument traces the development of his moral aesthetic and increasing involvement in social reform; his methods and approach as an art instructor; and his dissatisfaction with contemporary educational practice. A chapter on Ruskin's legacy takes account of his influence on late Victorian and Edwardian educators, including J. H. Whitehouse and the Bembridge School; the Ruskin colonies in Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia; and the relevance of Ruskin's ideas to ongoing educational debates about teacher pay, state/national testing, retention, and the theory of the competent child. Historically well-grounded and forcefully argued, Atwood's study is not only a valuable contribution to scholarship on Ruskin and the Victorian period but an enjoinder for us to reconsider how Ruskin's educational philosophy might be of benefit today.

Focusing on John Ruskin as a teacher and on his greatest educational work, Fors Clavigera, Sara Atwood examines Ruskin's life and writings to trace his varied roles in education, the development of his teaching philosophy, and his vision for educational reform. Her study is a valuable contribution to scholarship on Ruskin and the Victorian period and an enjoinder for us to reconsider how Ruskin's educational philosophy might be of benefit today.

Focusing on John Ruskin as a teacher and on his greatest educational work, Fors Clavigera, Sara Atwood examines Ruskin's varied roles in education, the development of his teaching philosophy and style, and his vision for educational reform. Atwood maintains that the letters of Fors Clavigera constitute not only a treatise on education but a dynamic educational experiment, serving to set forth Ruskin's ideas about education while simultaneously educating his readers according to those very ideas. Closely examining Ruskin's life and writings, her argument traces the development of his moral aesthetic and increasing involvement in social reform; his methods and approach as an art instructor; and his dissatisfaction with contemporary educational practice. A chapter on Ruskin's legacy takes account of his influence on late Victorian and Edwardian educators, including J. H. Whitehouse and the Bembridge School; the Ruskin colonies in Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia; and the relevance of Ruskin's ideas to ongoing educational debates about teacher pay, state/national testing, retention, and the theory of the competent child. Historically well-grounded and forcefully argued, Atwood's study is not only a valuable contribution to scholarship on Ruskin and the Victorian period but an enjoinder for us to reconsider how Ruskin's educational philosophy might be of benefit today.

An art historian, cultural critic and political theorist, John Ruskin was, above all, a great educator. The inspiration behind William Morris, Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust and Mahatma Gandhi, Ruskin’s influence can be felt increasingly in every sphere education today. John Ruskin and Nineteenth-Century Education brings together top international Ruskin scholars, exploring Ruskin’s many-faceted writings, pointing to some of the key educational issues raised by his work, and concluding with a powerful rereading of his ecological writing and apocalyptic vision of the earth’s future. In anticipation of the bicentennial of Ruskin’s birth in 2019, this volume makes a fresh and significant contribution to Victorian studies in the twenty-first century. It is dedicated to Dinah Birch, a much-loved Victorian specialist and authority on John Ruskin.