Émile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

First published:Émile: Ou, Del’éducation, 1762 (English translation, 1762-1763)

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Novel of ideas

Time of plot: Eighteenth century

Locale: France

Principal characters

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a tutor
• Émile, a healthy and intelligent French orphan
• Sophie, a wellborn, warmhearted young woman

The Work:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s treatise on education—a novel in name only—is addressed to mothers in the hope that, as a result of learning Rousseau’s ideas on education, they will permit their children to develop naturally without letting them be crushed by social conditions. Children cannot be left to themselves from birth, because the world as it is would turn them into beasts. The problem is to educate a child in the midst of society in such a manner that society does not spoil her or him.

In Émile, Rousseau argues that education comes from nature, from other people, and from things. The education from other people and from things must be controlled, so that habits conformable to nature will develop. Children have natural tendencies that should be encouraged, for nature intends children to be adults; the aim of education, according to Rousseau, is to make a child an adult. However, by swaddling children, by turning them over to wet nurses, and by punishing them for not doing what is said to be their duty, parents turn children from natural ways of acting and spoil them for life.

Rousseau insists that the proper way to bring up a child is to begin by having the mother nurse the child and the father train the child. If substitutes must be found, however, a wet nurse of good disposition who was lately a mother should be selected, and a young tutor should be chosen, preferably one with the qualities of Rousseau.

In order to explain his theory of education, Rousseau refers to an imaginary pupil, Émile. The child should come from France, since inhabitants of temperate zones are more adaptable and more intelligent than those from other climates. The child should be from a wealthy family, since the poor are educated by life itself, and should be an orphan in order to allow Rousseau free range as tutor. Finally, the child should be healthy in body and mind.

Rousseau recommends a predominantly vegetable diet, particularly for the nurse, since the milk will be better if meat is not eaten. The tutor should see to it that the child is taken out to breathe the fresh air of the country, and, if possible, the family should live in the country: “Men are devoured by our towns.”

The child should become accustomed to frequent baths but should not be softened by warm water or by other pampering that destroys natural vigor. The child should also not be allowed to fall into habits other than that of having no habits. Regular mealtimes and bedtimes should not be imposed, and, as far as possible, the child should be free to act as he or she chooses. Injuries or illness may result, but it is better for a child to learn how to live naturally than to become a weak and artificial adult.

“The natural man is interested in all new things,” wrote Rousseau, and he urged that the child be introduced to new things in such a way that things that are not naturally fearful will not be feared. He offers, as an example of the proper kind of education in this respect, an account of what he would do to keep Émile from becoming afraid of masks. He would begin with a pleasant mask, proceed to less pleasing, and, finally, hideous ones, all the while laughing at each mask and trying it on different persons. Similarly, to accustom Émile to the sound of a gun, Rousseau would start with a small charge, so that Émile will be fascinated by the sudden flash, then proceed to greater charges, until Émile can tolerate even large explosions.

Rousseau maintained that cries and tears are the child’s natural expression of needs. The child should not be thwarted, because there is no other way to learn to live in the world, and education begins with birth. On the other hand, the child should not be allowed to control the house, demanding obedience from the parents.

It was Rousseau’s conviction that children must be given more liberty to do things for themselves so that they will demand less of others. A natural advantage of the child’s limited strength is that a child cannot do much damage, even when using his or her power freely. A child will learn to speak correctly, to read and to write, when it is advantageous to do so; threats and coercion only hinder progress.

Speaking of a mode of education that burdens a child with restrictions and that is, at the same time, overprotective, Rousseau wrote,

Even if I considered that education was wise in its aims, how could I view without indignation those poor wretches subjected to an intolerable slavery and condemned like galley-slaves to endless toil . . . ? The age of harmless mirth is spent in tears, punishments, threats, and slavery. You torment the poor thing for his good; you fail to see that you are calling Death to snatch him from these gloomy surroundings.

Instead of torturing children with excessive care, he argues, one should love them, laugh with them, send them out into the meadows, and play with them.

Rousseau continues: “When our natural tendencies have not been interfered with by human prejudice and human institutions, the happiness alike of children and men consists in the enjoyment of their liberty.” Here, the principle behind Rousseau’s theory of education becomes clear. The tutor or parent should educate the child in such a way that the child will learn through his or her own efforts to be as free as possible within society. A child who is educated by rules and threats becomes a slave and, once free, seeks to enslave others. The most satisfactory general rule of education, Rousseau argued, is to do exactly the opposite of what is usually done.

Since the child is supposed to learn through personal experience, misdeeds should be punished only by arranging matters so that the child comes to experience the natural consequences of what was done. If there is any rule that can be used as a moral injunction, it would be, “Never hurt anybody”; only trouble comes from urging children or adults to do good to others.

Rousseau rejected the use of tales and fables for children. An amusing analysis illustrates his conviction that even the simplest fable, such as “The Fox and the Crow,” strikes the child as ridiculous and puzzling, and encourages the careless use of language and foolish behavior.

After the child reaches adolescence, intellectual education should begin. Prior to this time, the concern of the tutor is to give Émile the freedom to learn the natural limits of his powers. Now he teaches Émile by showing him the natural advantages of the use of the intellect. The tutor answers questions, but only enough to make the child curious. His explanations are always in language the child can understand, and he encourages the child to solve problems independently and to make his or her own investigations. Interest should lead the child to increase his or her experience and knowledge; it is a mistake to demand that the child learn. Jean-Jacques, as the tutor, shows Émile the value of astronomy by gently encouraging him to use the knowledge that he possesses in order to find his way out of the woods.

Rousseau’s accounts of his efforts to teach Émile owe some of their charm to the author’s willingness to show himself unsuccessful in some of his efforts. Nevertheless, the pupil never becomes a distinctive character: Émile is merely a child-symbol, just as Sophie, the author indicates, is a woman-symbol devised to enable Rousseau to discuss marriage problems.

By the time Émile is fifteen years of age, he gains a considerable amount of practical and scientific knowledge; he can handle tools of all sorts, and he knows he will have to find some trade as his life’s work. In book 4 of Émile, Rousseau discusses the most difficult kind of education: moral education, the study of the self in relation to others.

Rousseau presents three maxims that sum up his ideas concerning human sympathy, the foundation of moral virtue:

First Maxim.—It is not in human nature to put ourselves in the place of those who are happier than ourselves, but only in the place of those who can claim our pity.

Second Maxim.—We never pity another’s woes unless we know we may suffer in like manner ourselves.

Third Maxim.—The pity we feel for others is proportionate, not to the amount of the evil, but to the feelings we attribute to the sufferers.

These maxims fortify the tutor, but they are not imparted to Émile. The youth is gradually made aware of the suffering of individuals; his experience is broadened; and he comes to know, through personal experience, the consequences of various kinds of acts. The important thing is to turn his affections to others.

Émile is given insight concerning religious matters by hearing a long discourse by “a Savoyard priest” who tells of the difficult passage from doubt to faith. He affirms humanity’s natural goodness and the reliability of conscience when uncontaminated by philosophers or by mere convention.

Sophie, or “Woman,” is introduced in book 5, since Émile must have a helpmate. Rousseau begins curiously by saying, “But for her sex, a woman is a man”; but when he considers her education, it is apparent that sex makes quite a difference. Woman need not be given as many reasons as man, and she can get along with less intellect, but she must have courage and virtue. Rousseau offers a great deal of advice, even concerning Sophie’s refusal of Émile’s first attempt to share her bed. After a charming digression on travel, the book closes with Émile’s announcement that he is about to become a father and that he will undertake the education of his child, following the example of his beloved tutor.

As a literary work, Émile stands near the beginning of a tradition common in European fiction: the novel of ideas. Character and incident serve only as pretext for Rousseau’s more important task: the explanation of his ideas about the kind of education proper for men and women if humankind is to free itself from the self-imposed chains of social and political custom that stifle individual happiness. Although dated in its precepts (Rousseau makes it clear that boys should receive significantly more elaborate and extensive education than girls), Émile espouses an attitude toward education that links its author with the great European Romantics who held that expression and imagination should take precedence over reason and socialization in human development. The hallmark of his plan for education is the liberation of the self from conformity to artificial social norms. For Rousseau, education should be a process of individualization, not socialization. Émile’s tutor (a veiled portrait of the author) is little more than a conduit through whom Nature works her magic on the youngster, leading, rather than cajoling, him to appreciate both himself and the world around him.

In Émile and elsewhere, Rousseau attacks the conventional wisdom that elevates refined civilization as the greatest good toward which human society can aspire. He is especially vitriolic in castigating the intellectuals of his day who denigrate the simple life of country folk; in Rousseau’s eyes, these people are promoting false values, especially in their praise for commercial and financial success. In this way, Rousseau is predecessor to two of the great figures of nineteenth century letters: William Wordsworth and Karl Marx. From Rousseau, Wordsworth takes up the cause of the rustic communities whose lifestyles seem to make people happier. His poetry celebrates the same qualities of natural inquisitiveness and appreciation for natural beauty that Rousseau recommends as the hallmarks of education. Marx’s railings against the upper classes and his insistence on economic equality also have their roots in Rousseau’s writings. Unlike the father of communism, however, Rousseau was not an advocate of revolution; instead, he stresses in Émile the necessity for gradual change as means for achieving desired social ends.

Bibliography

Blanchard, William H. Rousseau and the Spirit of Revolt: A Psychological Study. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1967. Explores the psychological motivation for the educational reforms developed in Émile. Describes the many contradictions in Rousseau’s writings on education.

Bloch, Jean. Rousseauism and Education in Eighteenth-Century France. Oxford, England: Voltaire Foundation, 1995. Chronicles Émile’s reception in eighteenth century France, with particular attention to the reactions of the nation’s revolutionaries.

Cranston, Maurice. The Noble Savage: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1754-1762. New York: Penguin Books, 1991. Explores Rousseau’s aesthetic and literary evolution during this prolific period in his literary career. The chapter on Émile describes both practical and unreasonable recommendations by Rousseau for educational reform.

Crocker, Lester G. The Prophetic Voice, 1758-1778. Vol. 2 in Jean-Jacques Rousseau. New York: Macmillan, 1968. Analyzes the last twenty years of Rousseau’s career. The lengthy chapter on Émile examines the conflict between Rousseau’s praise of freedom and his desire for teachers to control their pupils’ activities.

Damrosch, Leo. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. This one-volume biography is a useful addition to Rousseau scholarship, providing an incisive, accessible account of Rousseau’s life and contributions to philosophy and literature. Includes illustrations, time line, bibliography, and index.

Havens, George R. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Boston: Twayne, 1978. Contains an excellent general introduction to Rousseau’s life and career and an annotated bibliography of important critical studies on his work. The analysis of Émile stresses the positive elements in Rousseau’s desire to sensitize parents and teachers to the emotional needs of children.

Novello, Mary K. For All the Wrong Reasons: The Story Behind Government Schools. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1998. Begins with a brief discussion of Rousseau’s philosophy of education, continuing to a more detailed examination of his influence on the nineteenth century progressive education movement and the creation of government-operated school systems.

Riley, Patrick, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Two of the essays analyze Émile: “Émile: Learning to Be Men, Women, and Citizens” by Geriant Parry and “Émile: Nature and the Education of Sophie” by Susan Meld Shell.

Wokler, Robert. Rousseau. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. A thoughtful study of Rousseau’s belief that successful educational reform will eventually make citizens unwilling to tolerate despotic governments. Describes well the many connections between Émile and Rousseau’s Du contrat social (1762; The Social Contract, 1764).