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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN
ADULT EDUCATION
AND LIFELONG LEARNING

Epistemologies and Ethics

in Adult Education and
Lifelong Learning

Richard G. Bagnall
Steven Hodge
Palgrave Studies in Adult Education and Lifelong
Learning

Series Editors
Marcella Milana
Department of Human Sciences
University of Verona
Verona, Italy

John Holford
School of Education
University of Nottingham
Nottingham, UK
This series explores adult education and lifelong learning, emphasising
the tensions between universal models and approaches that value local
cultures, traditions, histories, and mutual understanding between diverse
communities. Contributions to this series will contribute original knowl-
edge and insights in adult education and lifelong learning, based on origi-
nal empirical research and deep theoretical analysis, and stimulate debate
on policy and practice. Books will be geographically broad, drawing on
contributions from within and without the Anglophone world, and
encompass research-based monographs and edited collections, thematic
edited collections addressing key issues in the field, and trenchant over-
views designed to stimulate intellectual debate among wider audiences.

More information about this series at

https://link.springer.com/bookseries/16183
Richard G. Bagnall • Steven Hodge

Epistemologies and
Ethics in Adult
Education and
Lifelong Learning
Richard G. Bagnall Steven Hodge
School of Education and School of Education and
Professional Studies Professional Studies
Griffith University Griffith University
Brisbane, QLD, Australia Mt Gravatt, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

ISSN 2524-6313     ISSN 2524-6321 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning
ISBN 978-3-030-94979-2    ISBN 978-3-030-94980-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94980-8

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
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 Abstract

This work presents and argues for a framework of competing epistemolo-

gies and conceptions of ethics as a way of understanding many of the
tensions that beset lifelong learning in modernity. The epistemologies are
grounded in a recognition of the normative nature of knowledge that
informs lifelong learning, each being framed by a different account of the
sort of knowledge that is most valued and therefore foregrounded in life-
long learning policy, provision and engagement informed by the episte-
mology. Each epistemology is also characterised by its constituent
conception of ethics. Four such epistemologies and conceptions of ethics
are recognised here as having been important in the lifelong learning
movement to date: disciplinary, developmental, emancipatory, and
design. Design epistemology now dominates the field but is transforming
in response to recent and continuing changes in the broader cultural con-
text of lifelong learning into a reflexive epistemology with a constituent
ethic focusing on ethical authenticity.

v
 Contents

1 Epistemologies and Ethics in Lifelong Learning:

Introduction and Overview  1

2 Adult Education and Lifelong Learning in Modernity 27

3 Epistemologies and Ethics in Lifelong Learning 61

4 Disciplinary Epistemology and Ethics in Lifelong Learning 87

5 Developmental Epistemology and Ethics in Lifelong

Learning127

6 Emancipatory Epistemology and Ethics in Lifelong

Learning161

7 Design Epistemology and Ethics in Lifelong Learning191

8 An Emergent Reflexive Epistemology in Lifelong Learning229

9 An Indicative Ethic of Authenticity in Lifelong Learning255

vii
viii Contents

10 In Reflection: A Postscript293

References297

Index335
 1
Epistemologies and Ethics in Lifelong
Learning: Introduction and Overview

This book is intended to be a scholarly work on matters that are central

to our individual and collective identities as persons: on what it means to
know (epistemology), what means to be (ethics), and how we come to
know and be through lifelong learning. It is a work, though, that ema-
nates from a particular body of scholarship: that about lifelong learning
itself, including non-formal adult education, which stands as the histori-
cally originating foundation of lifelong learning as a modern contempo-
rary movement. As such, the work is informed and structured by the
issues of contemporary import in that movement, with epistemology and
ethics being seen as bodies of scholarship through which those issues may
be better understood.
The work presents those issues as being articulated through five dis-
tinct epistemologies—each based on a different sort of knowledge that is
foregrounded in the epistemology—and their constituent conceptions of
ethics. The first four of those epistemologies have been important in life-
long learning over the course of its modernist history, but the fifth epis-
temology is seen as being currently emergent. Each of the epistemologies
and its constituent conception of ethics captures features of the broader
cultural context in which lifelong learning is located and of which it is a

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 1

R. G. Bagnall, S. Hodge, Epistemologies and Ethics in Adult Education and Lifelong
Learning, Palgrave Studies in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94980-8_1
2 R. G. Bagnall and S. Hodge

part. We focus here on the form of the epistemologies, their conceptions

of ethics and their expression in lifelong learning policy and practice. For
those epistemologies about which there has been much published com-
ment in lifelong learning (i.e., the first four), we draw largely on that
comment in evidencing our claims. In presenting what we see, though, as
the contemporarily emergent reflexive epistemology and its constituent
ethic of authenticity, we rely more on published comment from the
broader cultural context, drawing out indications and implications for
adult lifelong education from that material.
As a work of scholarship, this book seeks to present material that will
be of particular interest to scholars of lifelong learning and, to a lesser
extent, to scholars of epistemology and ethics. Its presentation thus fol-
lows pertinent scholarly traditions of argument and evidence. Within
those constraints, though, it has been written as far as possible to ensure
its accessibility to a broader readership of persons with an interest in and
a concern for the place of lifelong learning in contemporary society.
Within the pertinent scholarly traditions of argument and evidence,
we are obligated to provide appropriate evidential grounding of the
claims that we make in the course of this work, which is thus replete with
references to scholarly sources in contemporary lifelong learning, the phi-
losophy of education, the social sciences, epistemology and ethics, where
those points of evidence may be checked. Many of the sources that we
cite parenthetically throughout this work thus elaborate or argue for the
particular point that we are making. Many others, though, serve to illus-
trate, rather than develop a point in those ways. We have not, though,
differentiated in the text between these uses, in the expectation that the
use in each case will be self-evident. Nevertheless, as a serious argument,
the text may best be read without recourse to any of those sources, leaving
them to come into their own only when one reads to more critically
evaluate what is here argued. The notion of an ‘argument’ itself is, of
course, particular to scholarly work of this sort. Within the contempo-
rary scholarly traditions of analytic philosophy, in which this work is
grounded, the notion of an argument is that of a sustained and coherent
trajectory of reasoned analysis—not necessarily a point of negative criti-
cism (Gorovitz et al., 1979). Indeed, the argument here aims to be, not
just critical of contrary views, but also to offer a more meaningful,
 1 Epistemologies and Ethics in Lifelong Learning… 3

coherent and useful alternative view, from which further scholarship,

adult lifelong education policy, provision and engagement, and individ-
ual and collective life-decisions may benefit.
As the authors of this work, we have drawn on rich and deep traditions
of scholarship in each of its informing disciplines: adult education, life-
long learning, educational philosophy and theory, epistemology, ethics,
social philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and psychology. Our sources
are English-language publications, either original or in translation.
Because of the critical nature of our work, their authors are overwhelm-
ingly from countries with strong traditions of liberal enquiry: especially
Western Europe, the USA, the UK, Canada and Australia. The last noted
is also important as the country in which we have largely resided through-
out our respective academic careers to date and hence in which the greater
bulk of our own experience and empirical research have been located.
That research and experience has undoubtedly influenced our own under-
standings and is used here as a source of illustrative examples when such
are needed. We have sought here to give due recognition to the works on
which we have drawn, while seeking also to avoid being unnecessarily
pedestrian. We have drawn also, and significantly, on our own previously
published work. Our references to those latter sources may seem excessive
in the light of the much greater bodies of scholarship that are otherwise
referenced. We would argue, though, that this is not to reflect any mis-
guided sense of self-importance, but rather serves as a pointer to works
that reflect our own academic journeys leading up to the articulation of
the present work.
We examine in the next chapter the concept of lifelong learning, but
we say now a little about how it used in this work, to add clarity to what
follows in the present chapter. Lifelong learning is here seen as a cultural
movement, peculiar to late modernity, that champions the role of learn-
ing in individual adult development and, by extension, also that of politi-
cal, economic and social institutions, organisations and jurisdictions. As
such, it has its nineteenth-century origins in, and it now encompasses,
non-formal adult education as a sector of educational policy, provision
and engagement. Policy and provision to facilitate lifelong learning is
now culturally all-pervasive and a conspicuous aspect of contemporary
globalisation. It has become a social signifier, a measure of organisational
4 R. G. Bagnall and S. Hodge

progressiveness, a cultural imperative, a criterion for evaluating the tra-

jectories and life-plans of individuals, and a touchstone of good educa-
tional policy and practice. Policy and practice in pre-school, primary,
secondary and tertiary education are all subject to judgement as to the
extent to which they facilitate the development of individual commit-
ment and capacity to engage in lifelong learning. There is a vast and
rapidly expanding body of theory, empirical research and critical scholar-
ship about lifelong learning and its advocacy. It is that body of knowledge
on which we particularly draw here and to which we seek to contribute
through this work.

The Argument Developed in this Work

In brief overview, this work presents and argues for a framework of com-
peting epistemologies as a way of understanding many of the tensions
that beset lifelong learning in modernity. The epistemologies are grounded
in a recognition of the normative nature of knowledge that informs life-
long learning, each being framed by a different account of the sort of
knowledge that is most valued and which is therefore foregrounded in
lifelong learning policy, provision and engagement informed by the epis-
temology. The cultural realities that are captured in the epistemologies
have been generated through educational responses to the broader pre-
vailing cultural context. Those responses have led to the epistemologies
becoming increasingly differentiated from each other over time, although,
in their formative period—but rapidly diminishingly so as they become
established—epistemologies may adopt and adapt from other epistemol-
ogies features that are compatible with the contemporary cultural context
and that facilitate the coherence and recognition of the emerging episte-
mology. Each epistemology draws on historically deep roots in social phi-
losophy and on recent lifelong learning policy, practice, advocacy and
theorisation. Four such epistemologies are here recognised as having been
important in the lifelong learning movement to date: (1) disciplinary
epistemology, foregrounding knowledge that informs verifiable under-
standing of the human condition and the world we inhabit; (2) develop-
mental epistemology, foregrounding knowledge that informs individual
 1 Epistemologies and Ethics in Lifelong Learning… 5

and cultural development; (3) emancipatory epistemology, foregrounding

knowledge that informs the radical liberation of individuals and groups
from dehumanising cultural constraints adversely affecting their life
chances; and (5) design epistemology, foregrounding knowledge that
informs the procedural efficacy with which particular desired ends can be
achieved.
Each epistemology has distinctive implications for the generation of
new knowledge and the way knowledge is seen as contributing to human
wellbeing. Each also has particular implications for (1) the form and
focus of lifelong learning theory, policy and practice through which it is
expressed, (2) the criteria appropriate to assessing educational attain-
ment, (3) the sort of knowledge to be sought in its educators, and (4) the
educational approaches developed and advocated through it.
Given its irreducibly normative nature, each epistemology is also char-
acterised by its constituent conception of ethics. Disciplinary epistemol-
ogy is characterised by a conception of ethics focusing on ethical reasoning,
developmental epistemology by a conception of ethics focusing on ethi-
cal humanism, emancipatory epistemology by a conception of ethics
focusing on ethical transformation, and design epistemology by a concep-
tion of ethics focusing on ethical accommodation.
Disciplinary epistemology may be seen as the epistemic foundation of
the field and that has led to the development of the other epistemologies.
Developmental, emancipatory, and design epistemologies have each
become differentiated from the disciplinary over time in response to dif-
ferent phases or emphases in the Enlightenment project of modernity
and to have been refined in reflexive interaction with their respective
cultural contexts. Design epistemology now dominates the field, but, in
response to recent and continuing changes in the broader cultural con-
text of lifelong learning, it is now transforming into a fifth lifelong learn-
ing epistemology: a reflexive epistemology, foregrounding knowledge that
informs individual identity, and with a constituent ethic focusing on
ethical authenticity.
That argument thus gives discursive priority to epistemologies over
conceptions of ethics—the latter being presented as immanent to or con-
stituent of particular epistemologies. The normative nature of the episte-
mologies, though, gives them an irreducibly ethical dimension, suggesting
6 R. G. Bagnall and S. Hodge

the reasonableness of the alternative approach of giving discursive prior-

ity to the conceptions of ethics over their associated epistemologies. We
have, though, chosen here to prioritise the epistemologies precisely
because of their normative embrace of an ethical dimension, which ren-
ders them more inclusive than their immanent conceptions of ethics.

Overview of the Book

In the following chapters of this work, we endeavour to explain each of
the key ideas and relationships mentioned above. In overview, they are
organised as follows.
Chapter 2 (Lifelong Learning in Modernity) first presents an overview
of the historical development of the lifelong learning movement in
modernity. In so doing, it explains the contemporary meanings of and
the interrelationships between the key concepts of ‘adult education’,
‘adult learning’, ‘lifelong education’ and ‘lifelong learning’: locating them
in the socio-political context of the movement. The chapter then presents
an overview of the project of modernity and its relationship to the life-
long learning movement.
It is argued here that the concepts of both lifelong learning and the
contemporary cultural context are, themselves, interpretative construc-
tions of the realities that they purport to describe. The concept of lifelong
learning, as noted above, identifies a contemporary cultural movement
that champions the role of learning in individual adult development and
in political, economic and social institutions, organisations, and jurisdic-
tions. The notion of the contemporary cultural context seeks to make
sense of the social, political and economic realities in which we live.
Lifelong learning may thus be seen as a part of those cultural realities,
which it surely is. However, as an interpretative construct, it may also be
separated out from other aspects of the contemporary cultural context,
allowing its relationships with those other aspects (as its contemporary
cultural context) to be examined. That is the approach taken here, in
arguing that the notion and the role of lifelong learning are importantly
influenced by its contemporary cultural context, but that the
 1 Epistemologies and Ethics in Lifelong Learning… 7

contemporary cultural context is itself also (reflexively) influenced by the

development and evolution of lifelong learning.
The project of modernity is characterised by its rejection of tradition—
both religious and secular—and its focus on secular, instrumentalist
rational empiricism: a commitment to knowledge that serves cultural
progress and human advancement and that is generated through reason
and the objective, scientific, study of realities and our experience of them
(Dreyfus & Kelly, 2011). The project of modernity is argued here to have
reached the point where the contemporary cultural context, under its
influence, has become a culture of performativity—of instrumentalist
individualism (C. Taylor, 1991). In it, value is highly individualised and
irreducibly economistic, in that its common currency is fiscal: monetary
value pervading all political, social and individual action (Halliday, 2012).
Chapter 3 (Epistemologies and Ethics in Lifelong Learning) explains and
grounds in the literature the core substantive concepts of ‘epistemology’
and ‘ethics’ and their development within the project of modernity. Both
concepts are also interpretative constructs that are directed to capturing
different domains of human experience in both lifelong learning and its
contemporary cultural context. The notion of epistemology here is
grounded in traditional usage in identifying that discipline of inquiry
which is focused on the philosophical study of knowledge: what knowl-
edge is and how it is generated and recognised (Sulkowski, 2013). The
conception of knowledge in traditional epistemology is that of descrip-
tive and procedural knowledge, specifically excluding ethical knowledge
(Hamlyn, 1970). However, in the lifelong learning movement, knowl-
edge must be acknowledged as including the purpose of the movement:
that of identifying, recognising and promoting valued learning. This
acknowledgement introduces a normative dimension to the nature of
knowledge—focusing attention on the sort of knowledge that is most
valued. That normativity points to the recognition of different episte-
mologies based on differences in the sort of knowledge that each fore-
grounds as being most valued.
While the separation or disjunction between traditional epistemology
and ethics may, indeed, reflect human experience of epistemological and
ethical theory, it is argued here that the lifelong learning movement may
be better understood by recognising the irreducible interdependence
8 R. G. Bagnall and S. Hodge

between the experience of and engagement in epistemological realities on

the one hand and ethical realities on the other. That interdependence
may be elucidated through interpretatively recognising a number of indi-
vidually coherent but mutually conflicting epistemologies, each captur-
ing a particular conception of ethics contrasting with those of other
epistemologies.
Each of the epistemologies captures a distinctive approach to the
development of new knowledge and to how it is best learned, and it has
a distinctive view of how such knowledge contributes to enhancing the
human condition. Each thus captures the distinctive normative con-
straints evident in lifelong learning policy, advocacy and practice that
serve, from the perspective of the epistemology, as the grounds for that
policy or practice being judged as properly part of lifelong learning, or as
lifelong learning of a high standard. In particular, the epistemology cap-
tures the nature of particular ways of thinking about lifelong learning
over others, and it captures particular aspects of lifelong learning rather
than others—including the sort of lifelong learning engagements that are
prioritised, the criteria for assessing educational attainment and the qual-
ities that are particularly valued in lifelong learning educators. These life-
long learning characteristics are evidenced in different approaches to
lifelong learning: each epistemology giving expression to a closely related
cluster of approaches evidencing those characteristics as its essential qual-
ities, and each epistemology capturing the arguments for each approach.
The notion of ethics used here is intentionally broad, to be inclusive of
the different understandings that have been promulgated over historical
time and which have impacted significantly on lifelong learning. We see
ethics as being concerned with matters of what we should or might best
be or do—how we should live our lives (C. Taylor, 1989)—out of con-
cern for the wellbeing, or respect for the integrity, of valued object enti-
ties. Ethics thus involves (ethical) subjects in making (ethical) choices:
making (ethical) decisions and taking (ethical) actions. It is deliberative in
that it requires ethical subjects to reason and to act in some sense ratio-
nally in deciding and acting. It involves its subjects in decisions and
actions that are intentionally directed to responding to their concern for
the wellbeing, or respect for the integrity, of the object entities of ethical
concern or respect. Within that general notion of ethics, individual
 1 Epistemologies and Ethics in Lifelong Learning… 9

conceptions of ethics focus on either the ethical nature or character of

ethical subjects, or on their ethical conduct as expressed in their ethical
choices (decisions and actions).
The intentionality of ethics is thus over a limited range of intention. If
what we are or do is to be ethical, it must be intended on our part to
respond to our concern for the wellbeing or respect for the integrity of
the object entity. The intentionality of ethical decisions and actions
(including those pertaining to our being or character), though, does not
deny that ethical decisions and actions may become increasingly intuitive
and seemingly unthinking with repetition and refinement, as what
Hubert Dreyfus, Stuart Dreyfus, and Tom Athanasiou (1986, p. 36)
termed a-rational action, and which they argued to be a feature of the
highest level of individual ethical development—that of expertise. How
we arrive at a putatively ethical decision or take a putatively ethical action
is, nevertheless, essentially reasoned and hence rational, to some extent at
least (Wringe, 2006). One cannot, in other words, be accidentally ethical
in what one is or does, and a wide range of intentions or reasons for being
or acting—such as fear, acquisition, defence, retribution, and control—
are excluded.
Such intentionality and rationality entail an advanced degree of intel-
ligence on the part of the intending and acting ethical subject. Ethical
subjects are normally seen as being restricted to human beings. The extent
to which that boundary may be extended to embrace other intelligent
species is certainly a focus of meta-ethical attention (ref., e.g., Monteiro,
2014), but our focus here on lifelong learning places such considerations
beyond the scope of the present volume.
Ethical conduct and character are generally recognised as being essen-
tial to civilised life, including that involving lifelong learning. They have
been taken, traditionally, as entailing three key elements: uncivilised
human nature, the ultimate goal or telos for civilising that human nature
by being ethical, and a set of ethical precepts to guide us in that transfor-
mation. The ultimate goal or telos has been seen as providing a compel-
ling purpose for being ethical. Traditionally, systems of religious belief
have provided those elements, but the Enlightenment project of moder-
nity has undermined faith in and commitment to such systems, particu-
larly their telos. The project of modernity has, though, generated a
10 R. G. Bagnall and S. Hodge

number of competing normative theories of ethics, each intended to fill

the ethical vacuum left by that loss of faith. However, none of those theo-
ries has generated a telos providing sufficient public purchase to guide
ethical conduct and being in lifelong learning or elsewhere.
The ethical vacuum left by the failure of the competing normative
theories of ethics developed in modernity to obtain any degree of public
acceptance has seen ethics develop in lifelong learning through the nor-
mative nature of the lifelong learning epistemologies: ethics being imma-
nent to, and encapsulated by, each of the different epistemologies. Each
epistemology thus encapsulates a distinctive ethical response to the con-
temporary cultural context and the ethical challenges that it presents. In
the following chapters, we have analytically teased out that response from
each epistemology, articulating it as the conception of ethics that is
immanent to or constituent of the epistemology.
Chapter 4 (Disciplinary Epistemology and Ethics in Lifelong Learning) is
directed to examining the nature of disciplinary epistemology, its con-
stituent conception of ethics, lifelong learning practice and scholarship
under its influence, and a review of critique of disciplinary lifelong
learning.
It is argued here that disciplinary epistemology foregrounds knowl-
edge that is seen as informing verifiable understanding of the human con-
dition and the world that we inhabit. It is grounded in formal empiricism:
in which objectified knowledge of the world informs the human condi-
tion through reason. The generation of disciplinary knowledge is primar-
ily through the academic disciplines and the fine arts. Correspondingly,
the learning of disciplinary knowledge involves formal study of those
bodies of knowledge. Disciplinary knowledge is seen as contributing to
human wellbeing through its informing human understanding of and
action in the world, which is not only satisfying in itself, but also
immensely powerful in the technology that it generates, while also serv-
ing as a foundation for a tolerance of difference in others and for resil-
ience to unexpected happenstance and misfortune. Disciplinary
epistemology is characterised by a conception of ethics as focusing on
ethical reasoning: in that reasoned deliberation, argument and justifica-
tion are the core components of its decision-making processes. Such rea-
soning requires knowledge of the world, to inform the identification and
 1 Epistemologies and Ethics in Lifelong Learning… 11

evaluation of alternative courses of action and their possible conse-

quences. It also requires the capability to reason in those ways. Its telos
may be understood as that of individual wellbeing, the search for which
is thus the impetus for being ethical.
Under disciplinary epistemology, lifelong learning takes the form of
formal programmes of educational study, with a focus on descriptive and
procedural knowledge drawn from the traditional disciplines of scholarly
enquiry. Such educational provision and engagement are commonly seen
as being liberal in nature and as exemplified in the programmes of non-­
formal adult education that were foundational to more recent forms of
lifelong education. Criteria for assessing educational attainment in liberal
lifelong education are focused on assessing students’ mastery of the disci-
plinary content through language and numerical symbolic systems.
Educators (as ‘teachers’) under disciplinary epistemology are valued par-
ticularly for their understanding of the disciplinary content of their
teaching and for their continuing commitment to their own further
learning in their disciplines. Formal programmes of study dominate lib-
eral lifelong education: programmes involving lectures, discussion, semi-
nars and tutorials of pre-determined structure and content.
Disciplinary epistemology was particularly influential in the develop-
ment of adult education as the foundational field of lifelong learning.
Under its influence, adult education was taken as mirroring formal disci-
plinary education, to the exclusion of alternatives. Disciplinary episte-
mology progressively lost its dominance of lifelong education as the
contemporary cultural context changed, initially following World War I
and then, more majorly following the second. It has featured most
strongly in lifelong learning scholarship throughout the first three quar-
ters of the twentieth century, in works about liberal adult education.
Earlier works in that period tended to be explanatory, but later works
were variously more critical or defensive, and they continue today in
argument for and against disciplinary lifelong education.
From a developmental epistemological perspective, disciplinary life-
long education is flawed in its failure to embrace non-disciplinary areas
of educational attainment considered important in the contemporary
cultural context: the skills of coping with the contingencies of modern
life, the sensitivities required to negotiate a life of worth and dignity, the
12 R. G. Bagnall and S. Hodge

commitments to do so, and the traditional wisdom of local cultures in

doing so. From an emancipatory epistemological perspective, disciplin-
ary lifelong education is seen as educationally oppressive in its use of
knowledge to normalise and perpetuate existing power imbalances that
disadvantage less powerful sectors of society. From a design epistemologi-
cal perspective, disciplinary lifelong education fails to grasp the point of
education as the skilling of individuals to fulfil their cultural duties as
members of society and their destinies as human beings, through devel-
oping their capacities to function in society as productive, independent
individuals in charge of their own wellbeing. And from a reflexive episte-
mological perspective, disciplinary lifelong education is hopelessly lim-
ited in its rigid formality, reducing it to being a minor contributor to
reflexive lifelong learning.
Chapter 5 (Developmental Epistemology and Ethics in Lifelong Learning)
follows the same structure as its predecessor. It is argued that develop-
mental epistemology foregrounds knowledge that is seen as informing
individual and cultural development. It is grounded in a pragmatic human-
ism, in which experience of and engagement in the world are seen as the
bedrock of human wellbeing and advancement. Thus understood, it is
informed by Enlightenment individualism, focusing on the emancipa-
tion of individuals from traditional cultural constraints by empowering
them in democratic political contexts as self-aware, self-determining,
autonomous beings whose actions are informed by knowledge, values
and commitments grounded in experience and formal, rational enquiry:
an individualism, though, that recognises the irreducibly social nature of
knowledge and language through which it is articulated. It is thus prag-
matic in the sense that knowledge is accepted as being inseparable from
human agency. It is pragmatic also in the sense—captured in progressive
education—that valued knowledge has practical value and is thus essen-
tially useful in the pursuit of human wellbeing and advancement.
Developmental epistemology is thus concerned with qualities of what it
is be human and with the progressive individual and cultural develop-
ment of those qualities. Developmental knowledge is generated, not only
through the academic disciplines and fine arts, but also through a wide
range of communities of practice and engagement. The generation of
knowledge is thus strongly democratised to both formal and informal
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Rhymes of Old
Plimouth
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
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Title: Rhymes of Old Plimouth

Author: Herbert Randall

Release date: December 14, 2023 [eBook #72416]

Language: English

Original publication: Hartford, CT: Herbert Randall, 1921

Credits: Steve Mattern, David E. Brown, and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RHYMES OF

OLD PLIMOUTH ***
 Rhymes
of
Old Plimouth
By
Herbert Randall

Published by the Author

Hartford, Conn.
1921
 Copyright, 1921
By HERBERT RANDALL
 FOREWORD.

If be it so—by chance—this little book should claim for me

a friend, who, sometime, when I’m far away, shall search
and find a bit of rosemary, swept through with light, and
scatter it among the grasses where I sleep,

Then, then will I have found the garland I had hoped to

win, and from that quiet spot, that Land of Youth,
where my immortal spirit dwells, I’ll send a little wandering
prayer of gratitude, that heart hath answered
heart.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT.
Acknowledgment is made to The Outlook, The American
Magazine, The Youth’s Companion, New England
Magazine, The Nautilus, American Forestry Magazine,
Boston Transcript, The Hartford Courant and The Hartford
Times, wherein have appeared many of the poems printed
in this book.
Herbert Randall.
 INDEX.
Foreword 3
Acknowledgment 4
To My Pilgrim Mother 7
The Tryst of Nations 8
Plymouth Rock 9
To the Standish Guards of the Old Colony 11
Burial Hill 13
The Old Road Down to Plymouth 14
Rose of Plymouth 15
The Angelus of Plymouth Woods 16
Plimoth Through an Old Spy Glass 17
The Dream That’s in the Sea 19
The Old Skipper 20
Romp of the Sea 21
The Derelict 22
Salt o’ the Sea 24
Mid-Ocean 25
Easterly Weather 26
“Outside” 28
Off 29
Dawn in Plymouth Harbor 30
Twin Lights 31
White Gulls 32
To the Red Man 33
To Massasoit 34
The Winnetuxet 35
Hymn Ancestral 36
Feel of the Wander-lure 37
Overheard at the Money Changers of Nineveh 38
The Innermost 39
The Autumn Rain 40
Cry of the Wounded Loon 41
The Old Bush Pasture 42
A Garland 43
The Umpame Musketeers 44
A Memory 46
New England 47
Hills o’ My Heart 48
Mascotte 49
Ye Olden Time 50
Sundown on the Marshes 52
Neighbors 54
A Pastoral 55
The White Pine 56
The Colonial Pioneer 57
The Lindens 58
The Old Rockin’ Chair 59
Out of Gethsamane 60
Greetings 61
Love o’ My Heart 62
To a Friend 63
“Aunt Sally” 64
Intimacy 65
My Mother’s “Bible-Book” 66
My Faith 68
An Apostrophe 69
Glimmer 70
A Nocturne 71
The Invisible 72
Antiphonal 73
Lady May 74
A Fragment 75
Away From Home 76
Grandma Brown 78
Slumber Song 80
The Enigma 81
The Passing of the Old Elm 82
Afterward 84
“The Pilgrim Spirit” 86
In Memoriam 87
L’Envoi 88
 TO MY PILGRIM MOTHER.

To her who sanctified the simple things of life,

Across the journeying years I bring
A wreath of amaranth and asphodel
To mingle with the everlasting light about her brow,
And on her breast, serene,
I fold the glory of an angel’s wing.

Singlehurst,
Plympton, Massachusetts.
 THE TRYST OF NATIONS.

Tremendous dawn! that turns its back upon a fumbling

past, and then, in radiant ecstasy, sweeps up the heavens,
down the spaces of the wind, revealing, healing, seeking
out the darkest places of the world.

Night, still crimsoned by the blood of sacrifice, has sung its

Sorrow-Song; we must forget, and pray for those who
day by day must grow more intimate with pain, or some
unspoken loneliness.

O Dawn of Love’s completion, though earth still trembles

we no longer fear imperial will, and, phoenix-like, the
peasant rises from the dust, stares with his blinded eyes,
and praises God.

Cold Royalty, intolerable, an outcast, false and dull, the

cruel lines about its lips still tightly drawn—lost in the
art of savagery—sees not the new rich dawn, hears not
the herald-trumpetings, knows not the meaning of a
broken crown.

Written for the Pilgrim Tercentenary, Plymouth, 1921.

 PLYMOUTH ROCK.

Archaic sphinx, but speak to me

Of things when this old world was new,
When Chaos was baptized in fire,
Such secrets must be known to you.
Would that the magic wand were mine
To rend the silence! Yours the heart
More wise than babbling multitudes;
Of what strange scenes were you a part?
An offspring of some glacial slope,
You may have been a thing of grace
Some ancient caryatid poised,
To hold Earth’s architrave in place.

Mayhap you were a thunderbolt

By Vulcan forged for Thor, red hot;
A miracle was never made,
So this may all be true, or not.
A child of some wild catapult
Who toyed with Sisyphus, and then,
Broke loose, went tumbling down to earth,
To habitat with tribes of men.
A missile from Orion’s belt,
Some dullard chiseled out of clay;
Perchance some treasure, Glancus owned,
Before his Furies ran away.

The throne of Neptune washed ashore

From some old chamber of the sea;
A Dryad-altar, pagan-blest,
An aerolite, lo! such it be!
Made sacred by the pounding waves,
To mark the aeons on the slopes
Where time looks out to heavens afar,
And God again renews man’s hopes
And rallies him to dare and die,
For Liberty, through all the years,
To dyke and drain and build anew,
By labour, gladness, dreams and tears.

’Tis here I lift my humble prayers,

And thanks for Life’s sweet mysteries,
For joy of song within my soul,
And chant its solemn histories;
If kings shall reign, O make us kings,
On seas and on the land,
Kings of the One Great Church where all
Shall bow at Love’s command.

Thou prophet, orb, and corner-stone,

As things immortal are as one,
Clad in the garb of wonder-fire,
Of gloom and the Olympian sun,
I bring a spray of arbutus,
From underneath the snow and sleet,
The angels fashioned like a star,
And drop at your anointed feet.
 TO THE STANDISH GUARDS
OF THE OLD COLONY.

New England’s old three-cornered hat still guards this ancient town,
The men who followed Lafayette are marching up and down.
The spirit born at Lexington, and all the men are here,
With fife and drum, and here they come, and each a brigadier!
The heirs of Freedom ne’er broke ranks, or failed to face the brunt,
In every fight for righteousness our men are at the front;
In every battle fought for peace the past and future meet,
And grenadiers and cavaliers still flank each home and street.
The covenants our fathers made forever move in rhyme,
They’ve never found the Port of Rest; the iron tongues of Time
Are bugling men to saddle, and comrades, side by side,
From Gettysburg to Flanders join in a dusty ride!
And here they come! and there they come! The farmer and the
knight,
And dead men, shouting—“load and fire!” from parapets of light.
And every one a mother’s son, the khaki, and the gold,
Old Glory prancing on ahead, a shout in every fold!
In every star a mother’s prayer, in every stripe is found
A country’s solace for the slain to wrap him, ’round and ’round.
March on, and let your scabbards swing, your swords shall never
rust;
Ride! Ride! ye belted horsemen! the sacrificial trust
Of bygone days is haloed by bayonet and scroll,
Where millions read a simple creed that binds a nation’s soul.
High on the walls of Heaven it crowns a lifting sky;
Hats off! ye peoples of the earth, America goes by!

Written on the return of the Plymouth Boys from the World War.
 BURIAL HILL.
How many years have ripened, gone to seed, and died,
Since first this Holy Precinct of the Dead was set apart and
sanctified.
Sunset and purple cloud have kept their vestal watch,
The morning breezes played,
And noontide spanned the waters, day by day;
The lightnings and the frost disturb them nevermore,
Wrapt in a reverie of God, they heed not if the Shepherd-stars be
caring for a weary world or no,
Or violets be budding in the melting snows.
They wonder not at creeds of men,
Or why their prayers are lost in space;
Long since they found the sky-hung stretches of Eternity,
The pastorals of peace.
And yet, as ’twere a spectral mist,
I half suspect they may return sometime,
Remembering the beauty of this sylvan scene,
The wide blue vista of the deep,
Its glinting sails;
Perhaps they come to brush away the withered leaves that clog our
minds,
And blaze a trail for Immortality,
More sunshine and more flowers;
To help us hear the blackbird’s whistle in the trees,
The rustle in the hedge,
The whisper in the grass when dandelions bloom,
The madrigals that lift the dampness hanging over graves.
 THE OLD ROAD DOWN TO
PLYMOUTH.

The old road down to Plymouth can never change for me,
In vagabond abandon it roams a century,
Braids through the dusky mornings, and evening’s afterglow,
An irridescent sunbeam, no matter where I go.

The old road down to Plymouth leads from a farmhouse door,

Leads like a jewelled ribbon, a thousand miles or more;
The door has lost its hinges, the barn has tumbled down,
But the old road down to Plymouth, the only road in town,

Winds in and out the bluets, the butterflies and hay;

I’ve sometimes made the journey a dozen times a day.
And yonder lies the vision, a sheltered, calm retreat,
For the old road down to Plymouth is a balm for weary feet.
ROSE OF PLYMOUTH.
(THE SABBATIA).

By the fairy-gods who nursed thee,

Suns and satellites grown cold,
By the loves our fathers plighted,
By my dearest thoughts untold,

Rose of Plymouth, here’s my promise,

I will wear thee in my heart,
Shield and cherish as a lover,
Nevermore with thee to part.

I will wear thee as a rainbow,

Radiant with light and spray,
Radiant with tomorrow’s splendor,
And a far-off yesterday.

I will wear thee as an emblem.

Of New England’s pride and power,
Wear thee as a starry token,
O my pretty, pretty flower.

Symbol of the pure and comely,

She that maiden of repose,
She the one they called Priscilla,
O my fair, my winsome rose.

Scintilating, brave and blushing,

Like that maiden time adores,
She the one that crossed the waters,
Idol of our Pilgrim shores.