Although considered a figure of great importance and influence by his contemporaries, Edmond Holmes has been consigned to relative obscurity in the progressive educational tradition. This book reinstates Holmes as a key figure in the history of progressive education, both as a School Inspector and educational thinker, who was instrumental in forming a set of ideas and principles which continue to resonate in education today.

John Howlett is Lecturer in Education Studies in the School of Social Science and Public Policy at the University of Keele, UK.

Introduction 1. Beginnings and Influences 2. The Years of Inspection 3. Edmond Holmes as Poet and Religious Writer 4. What is and the key educational works 5. Holmes, Society and the Later Writings 6. Final Years and Legacy