Amos Bronson Alcott biography at QuotationFun

A Short Biography of Amos Bronson Alcott

Author Name:

Amos Bronson Alcott

Born As:

Amos Bronson Alcott

Other Names:

Amos Bronson Alcott

Born:

29 Nov 1799

Died:

4 Mar 1888




author picture
Teacher, philosopher and reformer                          
                          
Married Abby May in 1830 - the sister of Samual J. May.                          
Along with Samuel J. May, the reformer and abolitionist. Alcott himself was a Garrisonian abolitionist, and pioneered the strategy of tax resistance to slavery which Henry David Thoreau made famous in Civil Disobedience. Alcott publicly debated with Thoreau the use of force and passive resistance to slavery; along with Thoreau he was among the financial and moral supporters of John Brown and occasionally helped fugitive slaves escape on the Underground Railroad.                          
Alcott sometimes refused corporal punishment as a means of disciplining his students; instead, he offered his own hand for an offending student to strike, saying that any failing was the teacher's responsibility. The shame and guilt this method induced, he believed, was far superior to the fear instilled by corporal punishment; when he used physical "correction" he required that the students be unanimously in support of its application, even including the student to be punished.