Proposals for an English Academy facts for kids
During the early 1600s, and continuing into the early 1700s, people in England often talked about creating an English Academy. This would be a special group of smart people, supported by the king or queen, who would help guide the country's thinking and learning.
Ideas for an English Academy first appeared around 1617. These ideas were inspired by similar groups in Italy that started in the 1500s. Later, after France created its own famous group, the French Académie, important English thinkers like John Dryden (in 1664), John Evelyn (in 1665), and Daniel Defoe (in 1697) also called for an English version.
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Looking Back: The History of Academy Ideas
The first ideas for an English Academy often focused on old things, like heraldry (family symbols) and medieval history. These groups wanted to preserve old traditions. They also thought about how a "learned society" could help educate people and set rules for knowledge.
Even though many people discussed it, an official English Academy was never actually created. However, the talks about needing one continued for a long time. People especially thought about how an Academy could help set rules for the English language.
A historian named Hermann Martin Flasdieck studied these ideas. He saw three main periods:
- First, private groups tried to start academies up to the mid-1600s.
- Then, after the king returned to power in 1660 (the Restoration period), the Royal Society (a famous science group) and its members became interested.
- Finally, later proposals to copy the French Academy faced strong opposition.
Most of these early plans for a "royal academy" didn't lead to anything directly. But they were part of bigger discussions about education. They also influenced the creation of new places of learning, like Gresham College and the Royal Society. Some grand plans, like those for "pansophic" (all-knowing) projects, never even got started.
Elizabethan Academy Ideas (Late 1500s)
In the early 1570s, a man named Humphrey Gilbert wrote a book called The erection of an achademy in London. He wanted to create a school in London for young gentlemen, especially those who were wards (under legal guardianship). This school would teach practical subjects as well as classic studies.
This idea wasn't completely new. Back when King Henry VIII was alive, Nicholas Bacon had thought about creating a new kind of inn of court (a place where lawyers were trained) that would be like a humanist academy. Bacon later combined this idea with his legal experience and suggested it to Queen Elizabeth I in 1561.
The home and library of John Dee in Mortlake, from 1570 to the early 1580s, was like an early "academy." Smart people like Thomas Hariot and Walter Raleigh were part of his group. This group, along with others at Gresham College, was at the center of scientific life in England at that time.
The Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries
A group called the College (or Society) of Antiquaries met from about 1586 to 1607. Its members were successful lawyers, members of the College of Heralds, rich collectors of old books, and a few professional record keepers. They met in London during each law term, unless there was a plague.
They usually agreed on two topics to discuss before each meeting, and every member was expected to share their thoughts. Their goal was to "build a detailed and believable story of how the English people began and grew." Some members, inspired by William Camden's book Britannia, looked at the broad history from pre-Roman times. Others focused on how common law developed from the 1100s. Still others began to seriously study the early-medieval roots of English culture and identity. To do this, they used many old Anglo-Saxon writings in both Old English and Latin, because there weren't many published books yet.
Many of their discussions were published later by Thomas Hearne in the 1700s. These writings show how the antiquaries worked. For example, on November 24, 1599, the Society talked about the history, meaning, and different types of English words used to measure land.
The Society often asked Arthur Agard for advice on what old materials were available. He had been a deputy in the government's treasury since 1570. His job was to create lists of everything in the four treasuries at Westminster, which held royal and abbey records. This project took him 40 years!
King James I didn't approve of the Society, so it eventually closed down. Some of the people involved included:
- Arthur Agard
- William Camden
- Sir Robert Cotton
- William Lambarde
- John Stow
- Francis Tate
Robert Bruce Cotton and others asked Queen Elizabeth I to create a national library and academy. They imagined a place for studying old things. The Society also paid attention to who would become queen after Elizabeth, and later, the discussions about uniting England and Scotland. Members like Cotton and John Dodderidge wrote papers about these topics.
Jacobean Academy Ideas (Early 1600s)
Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (King James I's son) brought back Humphrey Gilbert's idea for an academy. He combined it with the French idea of a riding academy, which also included different studies. This project was meant to teach math and languages, as well as horse riding skills. However, the Prince's death stopped the plan.
After the Society of Antiquaries was shut down, leaving a gap in intellectual life, Edmund Bolton proposed a plan for a royal academy. In 1617, a list of 27 names was suggested for this academy, including Sir John Hayward and Henry Ferrers. Bolton imagined a complex structure, with many members, and even a role in checking publications outside of religious topics. He got some support from George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, but nothing came of it before the end of King James I's reign.
Around this time, Francis Bacon also wrote about an ideal research institution called Salomon's House in his book New Atlantis. It was a vision of an organized, royal-approved place for scientific research.
Kynaston's Academy (1630s)
In 1635, the Académie française was founded in France. Around the same time, Francis Kynaston actually started an educational institution called Musaeum Minervae in his own home in Covent Garden, London. The king gave money to this academy, and it only accepted young gentlemen from important families. Kynaston carefully chose the teachers. A play by Richard Brome called The New Academy (from 1636) even made fun of the new institution a little bit.
Kynaston used his own house for the college and hoped to move it to Chelsea College. He filled it with books, old writings, musical instruments, math tools, paintings, and statues, all at his own cost. He was the head of the academy, and his friends were professors in different subjects.
According to the rules Kynaston published in 1636, only noblemen and gentlemen could join. The goal was to prepare them for a "Grand Tour" (a long trip through Europe). The full course was supposed to take seven years. Students were not allowed to study more than two subjects at once: one intellectual (like history) and one physical (like riding). Kynaston himself taught subjects like heraldry, basic knowledge of legal deeds, common law, old artifacts, coins, and farming. Music, dancing, good manners, riding, sculpture, and writing were also important parts of the lessons.
The idea of an academy was still popular before the First English Civil War. Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel suggested a plan during the Short Parliament. Even after the war, in the late 1640s, Balthazar Gerbier brought back the idea of an academy like Kynaston's in his writings.
After the King Returned (1660s)
Around 1660, John Evelyn and Robert Boyle became interested in the academy idea again. Evelyn had seen an academy in Rome that focused on poetry and language. Language became a very important part of the "English Academy" discussion for English writers. Evelyn himself always pushed for more attention to language.
Evelyn sent Boyle a plan for an academy in 1659, estimating it would cost over £1000. In 1660, Bengt Skytte, who followed the ideas of Comenius, suggested a similar large-scale academy that would teach all knowledge. However, these ideas were soon overshadowed by Boyle's involvement in the group that led to the creation of the Royal Society in 1662.
In 1661, Abraham Cowley clearly and in detail suggested a "philosophical college" near central London. He wanted it to be a new kind of educational place that would focus on experiments. Thomas Sprat of the Royal Society was one supporter of an English Academy to set rules for the language. In 1665, a group actually met in Gray's Inn to plan an academy. Evelyn later remembered that Cowley, Sprat, George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, John Dryden, and others were involved. They made a little progress, but then the Great Plague hit London, stopping their plans.
Around 1682, Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon started a literary group that people called an "academy." It included Dryden and other important figures. Their main interest in language was about how to translate things well.
Later Academy Ideas (1700s and Beyond)
At the start of the reigns of King William III and Queen Mary II, there was a plan for a Royal Academies Company that involved a lottery. Lewis Maidwell had some success promoting his school in King Street, London, which he said was approved by King William III and had a modern curriculum. He suggested a tax on publications to support it, but Parliament opposed him, and universities strongly resisted his ideas. Around the same time, Daniel Defoe wrote about academies in his book Essay upon Projects.
Jonathan Swift, in his Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue, argued for an academy to regulate the English language. This idea, for a "national dictionary" to control English, like the French model, was very popular with writers of the time, including Defoe, Joseph Addison, and Alexander Pope. At the end of Queen Anne's reign, it seemed possible that the queen might support it, but that ended when a new monarch took the throne in 1714.
However, the whole idea later faced strong opposition from the dictionary writer Samuel Johnson. He argued for "English liberty" against the idea of an academy telling people how to use language. He thought people would just ignore its rules. Matthew Arnold, in an essay from 1862, thought French and Italian cultural academies were good. But he marked an end to the tradition of wanting an English Academy. In his book Culture and Anarchy, Arnold said he didn't support setting up an English Academy, making fun of the idea that it would just be full of stuffy establishment figures.
During his diplomatic trip to Amsterdam in 1780, John Adams, who later became President of the United States, suggested an official English Academy as part of the U.S. federal government. He wrote about this in a letter to the Second Continental Congress. However, the Continental Congress rejected the idea because they were worried about individual freedom. This was one of the first times the U.S. government thought about how to handle different ways of speaking English.
