A New View of Society, or, Essays on the Formation of the Human Character: Preparatory to the Development of a Plan for Gradually Ameliorating the Condition of Mankind (London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1816), Fourth Essay, 143–170

Abstract

While A New View of Society’s first three essays had explored Robert Owen’s deterministic theories of character formation in relation to the New Lanark experiment, the fourth instalment was a call to action. In the context of the post-Waterloo crisis, Owen wished to bring the reforms introduced at his factory village not just to the distressed working classes, but to the country as a whole. In particular, he urged for the establishment of a nationwide network of educational provisions inspired by New Lanark’s Institute for the Formation of Character, which had been inaugurated on 1 January 1816. In his eyes, education was not merely a matter of individual improvement, but the main agent of political change through social and moral regeneration. This interest in the collective dimension of education was first publicly expressed in 1812, when Owen gave an address in Glasgow in honour of the pedagogue Joseph Lancaster.