A Study On Francis Bacon's Thoughts Of Education: From The Theory Of Knowledge To The View Of Education

Francis Bacon(1561-1626) is one of modern materialism philosophy founders in Britain; he is the first figure of English experience philosophy and modern experimental philosophy; he is the true ancestor of modern experimental science. Bacon was born in a British official family of new nobility. He got a good education in his early years. He cultivated the interest in scientific knowledge and developed a good habit of analyzing things independently and exploring new things. Though Bacon didn't write works on education or involve in educational practice directly, he was much concerned about schools and education. At that time, scholasticism not only monopolized the entire idealistic circle, but also controlled the entire education field. It impeded the progress of human knowledge and science seriously. In Bacon's times (the second half of the 16th century to the early 17th century), the capitalism developed rapidly. In order to complete the revolution mission, develop capitalism and prosper its economy, capitalists urgently needed to explore the knowledge area and develop science and technology. With great courage and undaunted spirit, Bacon went with the times'trend to promote the tremendous power of knowledge."knowledge is power"is a great slogan, which advocated the practical skills and identified a new purpose on education. In order to give human a more convenient way to the scientific knowledge, Bacon proposed a scientific induction according to the deficiencies of scholasticism's deductive method. The science inductive method provided the basic of methodology for the rise of modern science education.The full text is divided into 6 parts.Part I: Preface. It mainly introduces the background and the significance of selected topic, the review of literature research books at home and abroad and research methods used in this article. Part II: The time background of Bacon's thought of education; Bacon's family background and his life. The background includes the development of various fields, such as social, political, economical, cultural, science, education in 16th century and 17th century. Part III: Bacon's theory of knowledge, including analysis of knowledge, transformation of original knowledge, new classification principles of knowledge, new knowledge system and encyclopedia. Part IV: Bacon's ideas on university. It mainly studied on"New Atlantis"of Bacon, including Solomon's House's mission, function, internal facilities, the internal labor division and training for labor. Part V: Bacon's thoughts of education, including three education principles, four teaching methods and some theories on curriculum. Part VI: Bacon's ideas on moral education. It introduced the connotation of goodness of Bacon firstly. Then, it introduced three specific ways to cultivate goodness—habit, truth and life target of goodness.Bacon's thoughts are the product of his era, so his ideas had the time limitations inevitably. But, his thoughts went beyond restraints of the time, sounded the call of modern education and opened up a path of developing modern science education. There appeared changes in education principles, teaching methods, curriculum, textbooks, etc. It made great contribution to scientific progress for human beings.