The Curriculum of the dissenting academies with special reference to factors determining it: 1660-1800

Abstract

Tutors of English academies between 1660 and 1800 are arranged in three groups: Chapter 2: Tutors trained at Oxford and Cambridge; Chapter 3: Tutors without Oxford or Cambridge experience, but apparently endeavouring to reproduce, with some modification, the traditional curriculum; Chapter 4: Tutors constructing their own curricula - classified thus: I. Doddridge and his successors; II. Unitarians; III. Orthodox; IV. Baptists; V. Methodist Revival.(Appendices contain lists of tutors not included in the body of the Thesis, and an original theory concerning the Short family).Details are given of curricula in a number of academies, and some longer original accounts, with some textbook lists, are reproduced in an appendix. Determining factors for the curriculum are shown principally by investigating (i) statements by tutors (and other influential men), (ii) textbooks written by tutors, (iii) educational and other antecedents of tutors. Evidence is given of the educational effect on the academies of various influences, including that of the Cambridge Platonists and those of foreign (particularly Dutch . and - although not so significantly in some matters concerning the curriculum as sometimes claimed - Scots) universities. In more than one case the inspiration of an innovation is traced back to a less-known predecessor of the tutor (eg. Rowe, Doddridge, Oldfield) who introduced it. The part played by the academies in shaping the curriculum of modern English higher education is indicated, particularly in relation to the introduction of new subjects (English Language and Elocution, English Literature, Modern Languages, Modern History and Political Theory), to the reorientation of approach to traditional subjects, and to other matters (including specialization and integration of the curriculum, lecture-method, freedom of discussion, and the instructional use of the vernacular).