5 - Locke's Liberal Education
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2011
Summary
The issue of education emerged in the Two Treatises as an element in Locke's broader project to undermine traditional patriarchy. In this way, Locke's critique of patriarchy involved reexamining and reforming the conventional understanding of both marriage and parenting. With respect to the latter, Locke insisted in the Second Treatise that one way to topple the patriarchal support for Filmerian divine right monarchy was to reinterpret paternal authority in terms of the parental duty to educate a child rather than a child's unconditional obedience to the presumed biological source of his or her being. Locke's reformulation of political power not only placed the primary burden of moral obligation on parents rather than offspring, but also advanced a conception of human freedom according to which the undeniable dependence of children on parents in no way diminished the ultimate goal of rational autonomy and full independence upon reaching the age of maturity: “Care and Reason as they grow up, loosen them [the Bonds of Subjection] till at length they drop quite off, and leave a Man at his own free Disposal” (II: 55).
However, in the context of the Two Treatises, Locke had little to say about the pedagogical approach and specific content of the education parents are morally required to provide for their children. This was due both to the narrow political purpose of this discussion of education as an antidote to patriarchal political pretensions, and to the fact that Locke's main focus in his account of the family in the political writings was to radically reform marriage and the relations of adult women and men.
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- John Locke and Modern Life , pp. 171 - 208Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010