Some Thoughts Concerning Education is a 1693 treatise on the education of gentlemen written by the English philosopher John Locke. For over a century, it was the most important philosophical work on education in England. It was translated into almost all of the major written European languages during the eighteenth century, and nearly every European writer on education after Locke, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, acknowledged its influence.

In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke outlined a new theory of mind, contending that the mind is originally a tabula rasa or "blank slate"; that is, it did not contain any innate ideas at birth. Some Thoughts Concerning Education explains how to educate that mind using three distinct methods: the development of a healthy body; the formation of a virtuous character; and the choice of an appropriate academic curriculum.

Locke wrote the letters that would eventually become Some Thoughts for an aristocratic friend, but his advice had a broader appeal since his educational principles suggested anyone could acquire the same kind of character as the aristocrats for whom Locke originally intended the work.

Rather than writing a wholly original philosophy of education, Locke, it seems, deliberately attempted to popularise several strands of seventeenth-century educational reform at the same time as introducing his own ideas. English writers such as John Evelyn, John Aubrey, John Eachard, and John Milton had previously advocated "similar reforms in curriculum and teaching methods," but they had not succeeded in reaching a wide audience. Curiously, though, Locke proclaims throughout his text that his is a revolutionary work; as Nathan Tarcov, who has written an entire volume on Some Thoughts, has pointed out, "Locke frequently explicitly opposes his recommendations to the 'usual,' 'common,' 'ordinary,' or 'general' education."

As England became increasingly mercantilist and secularist, the humanist educational values of the Renaissance, which had enshrined scholasticism, came to be regarded by many as irrelevant. Following in the intellectual tradition of Francis Bacon, who had challenged the cultural authority of the classics, reformers such as Locke, and later Philip Doddridge, argued against Cambridge and Oxford's decree that "all Bachelor and Undergraduates in their Disputations should lay aside their various Authors, such that caused many dissensions and strives in the Schools, and only follow Aristotle and those that defend him, and take their Questions from him, and that they exclude from the Schools all steril and inane Questions, disagreeing from the ancient and true Philosophy [sic]." Instead of demanding that their sons spend all of their time studying Greek and Latin texts, an increasing number of families began to demand a practical education for their sons; by exposing them to the emerging sciences, mathematics, and the modern languages, these parents hoped to prepare their sons for the changing economy and, indeed, for the new world they saw forming around them.

In 1684, Mary Clarke and her husband Edward asked their friend John Locke for advice on raising their son Edward Jr.; Locke responded with a series of letters that eventually became Some Thoughts Concerning Education. But it was not until 1693, encouraged by the Clarkes and another friend, William Molyneux, that Locke actually published the treatise; Locke, "timid" when it came to public exposure, decided to publish the text anonymously.

Although Locke revised and expanded the text five times before he died, he never substantially altered the "familiar and friendly style of the work." The "Preface" alerted the reader to its humble origins as a series of letters and, according to Nathan Tarcov, who has written an entire volume on Some Thoughts, advice that otherwise might have appeared "meddlesome" became welcome. Tarcov claims Locke treated his readers as his friends and they responded in kind.

Of Locke's major claims in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Some Thoughts Concerning Education, two played a defining role in eighteenth-century educational theory. The first is that education makes the man; as Locke writes at the opening of his treatise, "I think I may say that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education." In making this claim, Locke was arguing against both the Augustinian view of man, which grounds its conception of humanity in original sin, and the Cartesian position, which holds that man innately knows basic logical propositions. In his Essay Locke posits an "empty" mind—a tabula rasa—that is "filled" by experience. In describing the mind in these terms, Locke was drawing on Plato's Theatetus, which suggests that the mind is like a "wax tablet". Although Locke argued strenuously for the tabula rasa theory of mind, he nevertheless did believe in innate talents and interests. For example, he advises parents to watch their children carefully to discover their "aptitudes," and to nurture their children's own interests rather than force them to participate in activities which they dislike—"he, therefore, that is about children should well study their natures and aptitudes and see, by often trials, what turn they easily take and what becomes them, observe what their native stock is, how it may be improved, and what it is fit for."