The various approaches to Educational thought have been classified as conservative versus liberalistic, traditional versus modern, and so on. What we call as conservative position in education finds its origin in the educational thinking of Plato, a Greek philosopher, and his contemporaries. Many traditional philosophers, who were also the educational thinkers, believed that man is composed of body and soul or mind, of which mind is the knowing aspect of man’s nature, while the body is the sensing and feeling aspect of his/her nature. This view asserts that only ‘academic subjects’ are worthy of the name ‘education’; any activities involving the body such as manual skills, crafts, and vocational preparation are not education, but training. This classical view asserts that only the activities of mind designed to develop the rational part of the composed being are truly educative. The classical educationists also believed that human nature is everywhere and at all times essentially the same. Therefore, they held a view that the main purpose of education should be the same throughout the world, from which it follows that the formal curriculum in schools should be essentially the same, allowing some small variations to local needs and differences. This belief accounts for the emphasis placed upon developing the rational powers of man. According to this contention, education – as a formal discipline – needs to be imparted in the same manner to everyone. In such a situation there is a very little scope of variation. The views of some of the classical.
