John Locke on the Origin of Child Behaviour

John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education has been very influential on pedagogy and education from the late seventeenth century onwards. In his Thoughts, Locke describes what he thinks the education of young gentlemen should look like, and he discusses how behaviour can be influenced through education. This work is very much in line with Locke’s more general empirically oriented philosophy, where he assumes that human characteristics, such as knowledge and behaviour, are learned rather than innate. Following this, concerning the origin of the behaviour of children, Locke can be placed on the nurture-side of the nature/nurture debate within modern pedagogy. However, we must be aware that the dichotomy between nature and nurture is not as strict as it seems, and that Locke’s Thoughts contains some elements from the nature-side as well.