Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) was a poet, philosopher, educationist, artist and social activist. Hailing from an affluent land-owning family from Bengal, he received traditional education in India before traveling to England for further study. He abandoned his formal education and returned home, founding a school, Santiniketan, where children received an education in consonance with Tagore's own ideas of communion with nature and emphasis on literature and the arts.