Science, Nature, and Hatred: ‘Finding Out’ at the Malting House Garden School, 1924–29

Abstract

In reconfigurations of the ‘nature’ of the English child and childhood in the early 20th century a key role was played by the Malting House Garden School in Cambridge, England, founded by the unorthodox trader and inventor Geoffrey Pyke and codirected by pioneer educator and psychoanalyst Susan Isaacs. Known scurrilously in the town of Cambridge as ‘a pregenital brothel’, the Malting House School was supported by ecologist A G Tansley and psychologist Jean Piaget amongst others for its ‘copious and careful record of phenomena’. Though short lived, the Malting House School experiment became widely known through popular and influential books, written by Isaacs on early childhood development and education, based largely on data collected at the school. Less is known concerning Pyke's applications of psychoanalytic knowledge, his powerful scientific networks, and his grand vision for a new form of education. With recently recovered records and other archival documents, I seek to contribute to a historical geography of localized psychoanalytic knowledge by exploring the tangle of disciplinary relations in the mutual and imaginative constitution of two pillars of the Malting House School: natural science and psychoanalysis. In particular, I examine what Isaacs referred to as ‘the ecological point of view’ as well as the place of hatred in relation to the nursery school's attempted manufacture of infant scientists eager to ‘find out’. For Pyke, the main threat to the “vigorous survival of an intelligent bourgeoisie” was the Oedipus situation, as described by Sigmund Freud. Through new educational techniques that recognized powerful emotion between generations, Pyke sought to help mould a race that would be able to survive the great changes which he expected science to create in our environment.

The liberal playground

“…As he was considerably influenced by psychoanalytic theory, he saw Susan Isaacs as the natural choice for running the MH. 17 As Laura Cameron (2006) has shown, Pyke's educational thought deserves more attention than it has received by historians of education, who tend to attribute the theoretical thinking behind the MH solely to Isaacs. He was not only the person who initiated the establishment of the MH, but an original thinker vis-à-vis the historical role of education in the modern world, as can be ascertained from some of his unpublished work.…”

Towards geographies of ‘alternative’ education: a case study of UK home schooling families

“…Such practices include Steiner schools, homeschooling, Montessori schools, Forest schools, informal learning and youth work to name but a few; many take place physically ‘outside’ mainstream education spaces, although some (like Forest schools) may carve out distinctive relationships to mainstream education. Neither is it too problematic to claim that geographers have paid scant attention to avowed alternatives to mainstream education (exceptions include Cameron 2006; Holloway and Pimlott‐Wilson 2011; Jeffrey et al . 2004; Kraftl 2006).…”

Introduction: Geographies, Histories and Practices of Informal Education

“…Significantly, this historical element is relatively new within the subdiscipline of children's geographies and geographies of education, discussed in the previous section. While there have been historical studies of formal schooling and children's built environments within geography (Ploszajska, 1998;Gagen, 2000), the presence and activities of alternative and informal learning spaces over time have been hitherto neglected (although see Mills, 2013, on scouting andCameron, 2006, on an experimental school). In excavating some of the hidden historical geographies of informal education, this text highlights the need to consider informal education over time as well as space.…”