The purpose of this essay is to examine the educational ideals (svenska: bildningsideal) of the Swedish social democratic literary critic and educationist Erik Hedén (1875-1925) and see how it relates to the Swedish labour-movement and democratization of Sweden during the early 20th century. The analysis is done from the theoretical viewpoint of Marxist theorist Antonio Gramscis concept of hegemony and intellectuals. According to Gramsci a revolution is done through the replacement of an existing hegemony that maintains its power through making its ideology common sense. A central part in creating a new understanding and ideology has the radical intellectual unlike the traditional intellectual that maintains the hegemony. Erik Hedén wrote for Swedish newspaper Social-Demokraten and other journals, he wrote on subjects like literature, politics and education also on cultural issues in general. After his passing a share of his texts was published in a five-volume collection of which two are objects of this study. The study shows that Hedén takes most of his ideals from the antiquity and so also his educational ones. Partly central in his educational ideals is science but mostly classical education with its roots in ancient Greece. For Hedén it is unjust that the working class does not get this education and he wants to change that. The study shows that Erik Hedén cannot be counted as a revolutionary intellectual that wants to replace the existing hegemony. Hedén does not want to create a new ideology or understanding, rather he wants to keep alive the classical way of thinking. Although some of Hedéns reasoning and argumentation can be recognized as part of gramscian thought he cannot be counted as a revolutionary intellectual.