A British educator in England at the turn of the twentieth century was inspired by the writings of an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools, and who else?
John Amos Comenius
Title: Taeko Kono
Passage: Taeko Kōno (河野 多惠子 , Kōno Taeko , February 24, 1926 – January 29, 2015) is one of the most important Japanese women writers of the second half of the twentieth century, someone whose influence on contemporary Japanese women writers is acknowledged to be immeasurable.  Kōno is one of a generation of remarkable women writers who made an appearance in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s and who include Kurahashi Yumiko, Mori Mari, Setouchi Harumi, and Takahashi Takako (Japanese name order).  She also established a reputation for herself as an acerbic essayist, a playwright and a literary critic.  By the end of her life she was a leading presence in Japan's literary establishment, one of the first women writers to serve on the Akutagawa Literary Prize committee.  Oe Kenzaburo, Japan's Nobel Laureate, described her as the most "lucidly intelligent" woman writers writing in Japan, and the US critic and academic Masao Miyoshi identified her as among the most "critically alert and historically intelligent."  US critic and academic Davinder Bhowmik assesses her as “…one of the truly original voices of the twentieth century, beyond questions of gender or even nationality.”  A writer who deals with some quite dark themes, Kōno is known to readers in English through the collection of short stories "Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories" (New Directions, 1996), which draws together her best writing from the 1960s.
Title: Historiography of Colonial Spanish America
Passage: The historiography of Spanish America has a long history, dating back to revisionist accounts of the conquest, Spaniards’ eighteenth-century attempts to understand the apparent decline in its empire and ways to revive it, and American-born Spaniards (creoles') search for identity separate from Spain's and the creation of creole patriotism.  Following independence in some parts of Spanish America, some politically-engaged citizens new sovereign nations sought to shape national identity.  In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, non-Spanish American historians began writing chronicles important events, such as the conquests of Mexico and Peru, dispassionate histories of the Spanish imperial project after its almost complete demise in the hemisphere, and histories of the southwest borderlands, areas of the United States that had previously been part of the Spanish empire, led by Herbert Eugene Bolton.  At the turn of the twentieth century, scholarly research on Spanish America saw the creation courses dealing with the region, the systematic training of professional historians in the field, and the founding of the first specialized journal, "Hispanic American Historical Review".  For most of the twentieth century, historians of colonial Spanish America read and were familiar with a large canon of work.  With the expansion of the field in the late twentieth century, there has been the establishment of new subfields, the founding of new journals, and the proliferation of monographs, anthologies, and articles for increasingly specialized practitioners and readerships.  The Conference on Latin American History, the organization of Latin American historians affiliated with the American Historical Association, awards a number of prizes for publications, with works on early Latin American history well represented.
Title: H. L. Mencken
Passage: Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, satirist, cultural critic and scholar of American English.  Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the first half of the twentieth century.  He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians and contemporary movements.  His satirical reporting on the Scopes trial, which he dubbed the "Monkey Trial", also gained him attention.
Title: Philip Larkin
Passage: Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist and librarian.  His first book of poetry, "The North Ship", was published in 1945, followed by two novels, "Jill" (1946) and "A Girl in Winter" (1947), and he came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, "The Less Deceived", followed by "The Whitsun Weddings" (1964) and "High Windows" (1974).  He contributed to "The Daily Telegraph" as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, articles gathered in "All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–71" (1985), and he edited "The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse" (1973).  His many honours include the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.  He was offered, but declined, the position of Poet Laureate in 1984, following the death of Sir John Betjeman.
Title: Matthew Arnold
Passage: Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools.  He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator.  Matthew Arnold has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues.
Title: Matthew Arnold (disambiguation)
Passage: Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) was an English poet and cultural critic.
Title: Charles F. Bretzman
Passage: Charles F. Bretzman (July 26, 1867 – January 19, 1934) founded the Bretzman Photo Company, also called the Bretzman Studio, in Indianapolis, Indiana, at the turn of the twentieth century and was a noted portrait and commercial photographer in the city for more than thirty years.  In addition to operating his own photography studio, Bretzman worked for a few years as a staff photographer for three of Indianapolis's daily newspapers and became the first official photographer of the Indianapolis 500-mile automobile race.  Bretzman's photographs documented Indianapolis's people, places, and events in the early decades of the twentieth century.  His work includes portraits of notable individuals, such as Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley and Carl G. Fisher, a founder of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, as well as photographs of the first Indianapolis 500 race in 1911 and other major events in the city's history.
Title: Charlotte Mason
Passage: Charlotte Maria Shaw Mason (1 January 1842 – 16 January 1923) was a British educator in England at the turn of the twentieth century.  Her revolutionary methods led to a shift from utilitarian education to the education of a child upon living ideas.  She was inspired by , by the writings of John Amos Comenius, Matthew Arnold and John Ruskin.
Title: Peter Birkett
Passage: Sir Peter Birkett is a British educator and entrepreneur, known for being the Chief Executive of Barnfield College, Luton.  It was the first Further Education College in the country and one of only six providers to receive Accredited School Group (ASG) status – a scheme to ensure the best education leaders are able to form federations, in order to drive up standards at primary and secondary levels throughout the country.  This federation made up of a Post 16 FE College, two Secondary Schools, two Primary Schools and two academies for 14-18 year old.  In September 2007 Barnfield broke new ground when it became the first Further Education College in the country to sponsor two underperforming secondary schools in Luton, create a federation and turn them around in just two years . Due to this achievement, Peter Birkett was Knighted in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to further education and the academy movement
Title: Irving Babbitt
Passage: Irving Babbitt (August 2, 1865 – July 15, 1933) was an American academic and literary critic, noted for his founding role in a movement that became known as the New Humanism, a significant influence on literary discussion and conservative thought in the period between 1910 and 1930.  He was a cultural critic in the tradition of Matthew Arnold and a consistent opponent of romanticism, as represented by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  Politically he can, without serious distortion, be called a follower of Aristotle and Edmund Burke.  He was an advocate of classical humanism but also offered an ecumenical defense of religion.  His humanism implied a broad knowledge of various moral and religious traditions.  His book "Democracy and Leadership" (1924), is regarded as a classic text of political conservatism.  Babbitt is regarded as a major influence over American cultural and political conservatism.
Matthew Arnold Charlotte Mason