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Jim's Reviews > Émile or Education
Émile or Education
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How is it that the same book can at one and the same time be so fascinating and so wrong-headed? The author of Emile indicates that to bring up a child, the parent must be a lifelong tutor -- to the exclusion of any schools or spouses or relatives or anyone else. Rousseau deals with a fictional son named Emile. During the course of the book, he shows his influence from infancy to early marriage.
Perhaps such a controlling type of mentorship was possible only in a rural society; and Rousseau not only confines himself to rural society, but he attacks urban society. As I sit here in Los Angeles, surrounded by 10 million other Angelenos, I must admit that such an education as Rousseau describes is not only impracticable, but it would give rise to early rebellion and a broken family.
Now, one asks is this the way that Rousseau raised his own children? Not at all: The sad fact is that the children that Rousseau fathered were all given up to orphanages, as described by the author in his Confessions.
So what then is the attraction of this book? For perhaps the first time in Western Civilization, a man of penetrating intellect has bothered to systematize education that is separate from religious influences. Rousseau gives a nod to religion, but he prefers natural religion, the religion of common sense. He attacks the whole notion of catechisms and learning by any other means than by deduction from observable facts.
Imagine to yourself Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin sitting thousands of miles away across the North Atlantic reading this book and dreaming of a new nation founded upon "inalienable rights." We all came from Rousseau. He was perhaps only a way station to life as we know it, but he was powerfully influential. A man of intellect and feeling, he was at the same time prey in his life to persecution and jealousy to which he massively overreacted.
I loved reading this book. It was a difficult read, but I feel a rewarding one. You see, I have always believed that one could learn as much from writers with whom one disagrees than from anyone else. Rousseau raises the right issues. It is just that he does not always provide the right solutions.
Perhaps such a controlling type of mentorship was possible only in a rural society; and Rousseau not only confines himself to rural society, but he attacks urban society. As I sit here in Los Angeles, surrounded by 10 million other Angelenos, I must admit that such an education as Rousseau describes is not only impracticable, but it would give rise to early rebellion and a broken family.
Now, one asks is this the way that Rousseau raised his own children? Not at all: The sad fact is that the children that Rousseau fathered were all given up to orphanages, as described by the author in his Confessions.
So what then is the attraction of this book? For perhaps the first time in Western Civilization, a man of penetrating intellect has bothered to systematize education that is separate from religious influences. Rousseau gives a nod to religion, but he prefers natural religion, the religion of common sense. He attacks the whole notion of catechisms and learning by any other means than by deduction from observable facts.
Imagine to yourself Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin sitting thousands of miles away across the North Atlantic reading this book and dreaming of a new nation founded upon "inalienable rights." We all came from Rousseau. He was perhaps only a way station to life as we know it, but he was powerfully influential. A man of intellect and feeling, he was at the same time prey in his life to persecution and jealousy to which he massively overreacted.
I loved reading this book. It was a difficult read, but I feel a rewarding one. You see, I have always believed that one could learn as much from writers with whom one disagrees than from anyone else. Rousseau raises the right issues. It is just that he does not always provide the right solutions.
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Émile or Education.
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December 1, 2009
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December 24, 2009
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I've just started reading it, and already I agree with you. All that nonsense about the evils of medicine, and his racism, and of course the fact that the entire thing is addressed to men and boys - with women and girls sidelined out of it altogether - well, I'm sitting here thinking, so this man's philosophy lies at the heart of western thought, hmmm....
He talks about girls toward the end.
Jim wrote: "He talks about girls toward the end."Well, LOL that's a relief ...
Lisa, you are really going to be steamed up before the end of the book as his role for the ideal woman is merely to support the man and there are loads of statements about what women cannot do because of their nature. It should make any reader gag. The sad fact is that women have only just emerged from being almost entirely ignored (at best) since history began. All we can do is try to extract the worthwhile stuff from the unenlightened chaff.
Clif wrote: "Lisa, you are really going to be steamed up before the end of the book as his role for the ideal woman is merely to support the man and there are loads of statements about what women cannot do beca..." Hi Clif, I'm half way through Bk 2 having read my way through his advice about infancy, he really had a thing about swaddling babies, he raves on about it three times, and his rants about doctors and medicine are even more 'interesting'. (Well, of course, I know that there were a good few quacks around in those days, but still...). Then in Bk 2 he has a go at teachers, not a job one should be paid for because it is too important, eh? As you say, it's a matter of sifting out the nonsense. And keeping a sense of humour!
There's a lot of chaff in EMILE. Anyone who follows Rousseau's advice is doomed to be as unhappy as he was in his own life (see THE CONFESSIONS). OTOH, he writes well, however specious his notions of education might be.
Jim wrote: "There's a lot of chaff in EMILE. Anyone who follows Rousseau's advice is doomed to be as unhappy as he was in his own life (see THE CONFESSIONS). OTOH, he writes well, however specious his notions ..."Yes, I'd agree with that. The translation I have by Foxley is good too.
Great review. I agree that there is a lot of impracticalities in the book, but Rousseau also hated cities in that he believed in the concept of the noble savage. It is interesting to see how these noble savages have degenerated into alcoholics living in reserves. Maybe this would have been the fate of Emile.
That's possible, David.
On the issue of controlling the upbringing in the modern urban environment...even if one could remove a child to a rural area and disconnect TV and Internet, would the resulting kid be able to handle the shock of introduction to the "real" world? It's hard to imagine a way to gradually introduce him to society as Rousseau did. With 80% of us living in cities now, it is the "natural world" of modern man. For all the popularity of environmentalism, we really do live in an almost totally artificial world.