In rusteloze arbeid : de betekenis van Cornelia Philippi-Siewertsz van Reesema (1880-1963) voor de ontwikkeling van het onderwijs aan het jonge kind

During her life, Cornelia Philippi-Siewertsz van Reesema (1880-1963) endeavoured to contribute to the improvement of preschool education in the Netherlands. She devoted herself to this work until very late in life. Nevertheless, after her death, she was all but forgotten and historians of pedagogy and education had little interest in her work. Historic pedagogical overviews pay ample attention to F. Frobel and M. Montessori, but not to Philippi. Consequently, very few people are familiar with Philippi's contribution to the development of early childhood education, making it an unexplored area in the history of education. Preschool education i tself has been a neglected subject in the history of early childhood education. In this thesis. I would like to explore these areas by researching Philippi's significance to early childhood education and giving her the recognition in the history of the preschool education that she deserves. Philippi left an impressive archive of her work, which I have used extensively during my research. The disadvantage of this approach is that the data are subjective because they have been interpreted by Philippi. However, I could not have written this book without this unexplored source. I have also consulted various other archives, such as the Siewertsz van Reesema family archive that I could use without restriction and the archives of the Dutch Montessori Association, J. Piaget's archive in Geneva and the Teachers College archive in New York where a copy of Philippi's book Pioniers der Volksopvoeding(Pioneers of Education) is stored. I used literature on history and pedagogy to describe the social and cultural context of Philippi's time.