Sample Book Review On The Relevance Of Hudson, J. W On Adult Education And Its Development

Publisher: Charleston

Place: Nabu
Though many scholars have done deep research on the genesis and the development of adult education, much of the information is quite scanty and shallow. Nevertheless, few scholars such as Hudson, J. W have a reputation of delving deep into these issues and trying to bring out the aspects that people need to be understood on the issue of adult education. In his books Hudson, J. W goes deep in the stages of development and challenges that adult education has gone through over the years. One of his masterpieces is the latest release of the book “The history of adult education (2014)”. The book provides insights into the whole development of adult education. This analysis delves deep into this book and shows the content weakness and relevance of the book.

Overview of the book

Hudson, J. W gives a historical analogy of how adult education has developed. Soon after the formation of the Association for the study of natural philosophy classes were established, and apparatus for the collection of working models were also obtained. This is what set things into motion as students started enrolling for the classes. The book gives a detailed register of principal changes that have occurred in the running of literacy and mechanic institutions in Great Britain towns. The information provided revolves around every other institution giving a lengthy history of particular institutions with tabular returns also included. In addition, there is a wealth of information on the decline of Itinerating and adult evening schools. The book details the reasons that led to the collapse of this institution during the fifty years of Great Britain. Away from the collapse the book shifts its attention to the rise and progress of the present day schools, literacy institutions, museums, factories libraries and literacy institutions. The book focuses much of its attention of the management of the literacy, athenaeums, mechanic’s institutions how they have extended and their present-day state.
Hudson, J. W viewpoint is that there is a lot of effort between the upper and the middle class to improve the state of living of the lower classes. His perspective is that this is an age of many good-hearted men and philanthropists. It is evident that there is a lot of effort from the literate and the scientist who are devoting their efforts and resources to prepare the ignorant. They do this by addressing lectures and even producing publications. Hudson, J. W tries to recognize the efforts that noble men devoted to the development of adult education centers. It is through their efforts that these institutions have increased, and at the same time helped the society. From his point of view, the efforts of people like DR Birkbeck go unnoticed since they are the one that devoted the lives to provide resources for the development of mechanic’s institutions. Hudson, J. W goes ahead to explain and provide detailed information on how mechanic and literacy institutions have developed. There is a lot of advantages that these institutions have brought the society and Hudson, J. W is keen to enumerate them. He goes ahead to provide a statistic of how the institutions have helped the whole society at large. Ideally, Hudson, J. highlights so many things that just revolve around the issue of literacy and adult education institutions in the Great Britain.

Evaluation of the book

Ideally, Hudson, J. W was able to achieve the goal. His main agenda was to address the issues of adult education, and that seems to be clearly pointed out in his book. Since this book was published, more than eight thousand copies were sold, and this is ideally a great achievement. The fact he uses a historical approach provides one with a chronological development of issues. This makes it easy for one to understand the author's viewpoint and as such the author easily addresses his arguments. He develops his ideas and backs them with specific examples so that the point seems easy to understand. It is his use of clear demonstrations and historical data that makes it easy to understand his arguments and at the same time provide a basis to validate issues. Some of the arguments he has presented in his work is that, there was good will between the upper class and the middle class to help the lower class to get educated. He clearly demonstrates this using specific examples and data from the society. As well, he argues that the adult education imparted the society positively, and he also goes ahead to provide numerical data to demonstrate this. Worth mentioning the list the major institutions that have benefited from this program and gives a deep history of these institutions. He does not only mention a few things about these institutions, but rather provides a complete analysis of their development and challenges that they have gone data. There are a lot of data that one can find in this book and from this perspective, one can argue that the author has made his point clear.
There is a lot of strengths that this book has. Of this strength is that the author can address issues in a logical manner. Such approach makes the book a good source of valuable information for analyzing and understanding the history of adult education. The way Hudson, J. W has addressed these issues provides one with a clear and chronological analysis for any person that seeks to understand the early years of adult education. It is without doubt that this book addresses issues deeply and analytically. The analytical approach not only makes it a good book to read, but also a source of information to read. In addition, to the analytic approach he uses an easy to understand language. Such kind of language is good for any reader; from the students, researchers and even experts. This is exactly what makes this book just a good source of not only information but insight on the development of adult education. Ideally, there is not one thing I can say the writer has failed to mention in this book pertaining adult education and its development. From this perspective, therefore, I can say that this book has just as much strength. There isn’t any weakness that I can out rightly point out from his writing.

Recommendations

This book is just a piece of art that is relevant to any scholar that has an interest in the study of adult education. I would recommend this book to student researchers and even tutors. The fact that the book does not only narrate issues, but also provide data, statistics makes it just a good source of research information. As well, the data used in the book is well backed with relevant reference source making this just a good source of information. This book can good for colleague students that are studying something on the adult education. It can also be resourceful in the field education since it can provide quite a good for the practice of adult education. It provides knowledge on the issues that adult education has faced over the year, and thus it can be good for one seeking to understand these problems and thus solve them.

References

Hudson, J. W. (2014). The history of adult education: Primary Source edition. Charleston, Sc:Nabu. (Original Published 1851)