Editors recommendation

Emil is an educational work created by French thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau. It was first published in 1762. The book is an educational novel with narration and discussion. It takes Emil, a rich orphan, as the protagonist, discusses mens educational reform, criticizes the absurdity and corruption of the old British education, and puts forward the principles and ideals of the new education. And through the education of Emils future wife Sophie, this paper demonstrates the innovation of womens education. The book reflects the naturalistic educational thought and expounds the theory of good nature. His thought has inspired and influenced many educators in the future. The book systematically put forward a new concept of childrens education for the first time in the history of western education, which set off a "Copernican Revolution" in the history of education.

Brief introduction

Emil is an educational work created by French thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau. It was first published in 1762. The book is an educational novel with narration and discussion. It takes Emil, a rich orphan, as the protagonist, discusses mens educational reform, criticizes the absurdity and corruption of the old British education, and puts forward the principles and ideals of the new education. And through the education of Emils future wife Sophie, this paper demonstrates the innovation of womens education. The book reflects the naturalistic educational thought and expounds the theory of good nature. His thought has inspired and influenced many educators in the future. The book systematically put forward a new concept of childrens education for the first time in the history of western education, which set off a "Copernican Revolution" in the history of education.

About the author

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 ~ 1778), a French thinker, philosopher, educator, writer, composer and one of the representatives of the enlightenment. His main works include on the origin and basis of human inequality, on social contract, Emil, confessions, new Eloise, botanical communication, etc.

Wonderful book extracts

God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil. He forces one soil to yield the products of another, one tree to bear anothers fruit. He confuses and confounds time, place, and natural conditions. He mutilates his dog, his horse, and his slave. He destroys and defaces all things; he loves all that is deformed and monstrous; he will have nothing as nature made it, not even man himself, who must learn his paces like a saddle-horse, and be shaped to his masters taste like the trees in his garden. Yet things would be worse without this education, and mankind cannot be made by halves. Under existing conditions a man left to himself from birth would be more of a monster than the rest. Prejudice, authority, necessity, example, all the social conditions into which we are plunged, would stifle nature in him and put nothing in her place. She would be like a sapling chance sown in the midst of the highway, bent hither and thither and soon crushed by the passers-by.

Tender, anxious mother, I appeal to you. You can remove this young tree from the highway and shield it from the crushing force of social conventions. Tend and water it ere it dies. One day its fruit will reward your care. From the outset raise a wall round your childs soul; another may sketch the plan, you alone should carry it into execution.

Plants are fashioned by cultivation, man by education. If a man were born tall and strong, his size and strength would be of no good to him till he

had learnt to use them; they would even harm him

by preventing others from coming to his aid; left to

himself he would die of want before he knew his

needs. We lament the helplessness of infancy; we fail

to perceive that the race would have perished had not

man begun by being a child.

preface