Adolphe Ferrière

Adolphe Ferrière was one of the founders of the progressive education movement.

Life

Ferrière worked for a brief time in a school in Glarisegg and later founded an experimental school in Lausanne, Switzerland, but soon had to abandon teaching due to his deafness. In 1921, he founded the New Education Fellowship, for which he wrote the charter. Until the Second World War, the congress of this league included a number of other teachers which were Maria Montessori, Célestin Freinet, Gisèle de Failly and Roger Cousinet. He worked as a humanist and an editor from 1919 to 1922 on the pacifist journal 'l'Essor'.
In 1924, alongside his colleague Paul Meyhoffer from the Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the League of Nations officials Arthur Sweetser and Ludwik Rajchman, Ferrière founded the International School of Geneva and, during the early months of its existence, provided the new school with accommodation in a chalet he owned. He was one of the founding members of the International Bureau of Education in 1925, and served as its first deputy director alongside Elisabeth Rotten. He was also a member of the Religious Society of Friends. Throughout his life he published a substantial number of books, some in collaboration with Karl-Ernst Krafft.