Edith COBB

EDITH COBB (1895–1977)

Edith Cobb was a writer whose vast interests ranged from philosophy, psychology, poetry, and art to science and ecology. In the 1940s, she attended the New York School of Social Work, which marked the beginning of her clinical research into the imaginative experiences of childhood. She spent over half a century collecting autobiographical, biographical and literary materials to explore the imagination of children in different countries and historical periods.

THE ECOLOGY OF IMAGINATION IN CHILDHOOD

With a foreword by SHAUN McNIFF and an introduction by MARGARET MEAD

Kindle/Apple Books, $9.99
ISBN: 978-0-88214-044-5

Is genius shaped by the imagination of childhood? Cobb's collection of autobiographies and biographies of creative people, as well as her observations of children's play, suggest just that. She sees the child to be innately connected with the natural world. Inner powers alone do not further the imagination. Her book remains a groundbreaking philosophical meditation on the importance of children's deep experience of nature to their adult cognition and psychological well-being.

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Since the imagination arises from the child’s contact with nature, each child is a born ecologist. Thus save the children to save the imagination to save the planet.
—JAMES HILLMAN