Juan Luis Vives

Wikipedia - Juan Luis Vives:

Juan Luis Vives y March (6 March 1493– 6 May 1540) was a Spanish (Valencian) scholar and Renaissance humanist who spent most of his adult life in the southern Habsburg Netherlands. His beliefs on the soul, insight into early medical practice, and perspective on emotions, memory and learning earned him the title of the “father” of modern psychology. Vives was the first to shed light on some key ideas that established how psychology is perceived today.

. . .Vives studied at the University of Paris from 1509 to 1512, and in 1519 was appointed professor of humanities at the University of Leuven. At the insistence of his friend Erasmus, he prepared an elaborate commentary on Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, which was published in 1522 with a dedication to Henry VIII of England. Soon afterwards, he was invited to England, and acted as tutor to the Princess Mary, for whose use he wrote De ratione studii puerilis epistolae duae (1523) and, ostensibly, De Institutione Feminae Christianae, on Christian education for young women and which Vives dedicated to Queen Catherine of Aragon.

Wikipedia - The Education of a Christian Woman:

The Education (or Instruction) of a Christian Woman was an early sixteenth-century book by Juan Luis Vives, written for the education of the future Mary I of England, precocious daughter of Henry VIII. Written in 1523, the book was originally published in Latin with the title of De Institutione Feminae Christianae and was dedicated to Catherine of Aragon. The work was translated into English by Richard Hyrde around 1529 becoming then known by the title Instruction of a Christian Woman.

. . .Praised by Erasmus and Thomas More, Vives advocated education for all women, regardless of social class and ability. From childhood through adolescence to marriage and widowhood, this manual offers practical advice as well as philosophical meditation and was recognized soon after publication in 1524 as the most authoritative pronouncement on the universal education of women. Arguing that women were intellectually equal to men, Vives stressed intellectual companionship in marriage over procreation, and moved beyond the private sphere to show how women’s progress was essential for the good of society and state.

An excerpt from, “Juan Luis Vives: Early Innovator In Education” By Paula Howard, Bethlehem University Journal, August 1987: 

Education for women is still a point of controversy in many parts of the world. The length and intensity of this struggle may be brought to focus by the realization that possibly the earliest advocate for equal education for women was born the year Columbus discovered America. He lived to be honored in the courts of Kings, but died impoverished in exile in 1540.

A look at the life and works of this man, Juan Luis Vives, will show that he was an early advocate for many educational innovations which are considered sound practice to the present day.