JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
(1712-1778)
The limitation of the Lockean philosophy of education is the limitation
of his personality. His practical, utilitarian, and rationalistic
pedagogy may be good for making an efficient and respectable member
of society, but cannot meet the demands of the whole human soul.
Fortunately his pedagogy found its successor in just the right kind
of man. What Nature spared in this English gentleman she bestowed
luxuriantly upon the French artist.
In Rousseau we strike the prodigy of the pedagogic world. Such a
personality is rare, and Nature will probably not produce another
Rousseau. He was a man of no schooling and no discipline. His life
was, in a sense, a life of vagabondage and of abandonment. He was, in
the eye of Carlyle, “a morbid, excitable, spasmodic man,” whose motive
principle was “a mean hunger,” whose faults and miseries are summarized
by the single word, egoism. But it was to this egoist, this sensualist,
that Madame de Staël attributes the honor of having inspired women to
virtue as no other man ever did. And it was to this uneducated vagabond
that the Western world owes the revolution in its politics and thought.
The Puritan prophet counted Rousseau among his heroes in spite
of his constitutional hate of the man, granting to him this one
virtue--the heroism of intense sincerity. I would add to this another
characteristic which makes him a genius, the intrinsic beauty and
wealth of his emotional nature. He was a Frenchman in whose veins
ran the blood of a Swiss mountaineer. In short, he was a bold
incarnation of the artistic spirit. Absolute independence, freedom,
and satisfaction of all that is instinctive and spontaneous, this was
the claim of his personality. But this, we know, is too beautiful a
dream to be realized in the actual world of ours. Thus his early life
of idyllic intoxication in the beauty of Nature and human sentiments
was soon shattered by the cruel hand of social conventions and prosaic
actuality: seeing the sacredness of instinctive nature everywhere
trampled down by corrupted passions and vanities on the one hand,
and by sophisticated refinement and cold ratiocination on the other,
he raised the voice of protest against what they called culture and
civilization, and made a plea for the entire reorganization of human
society and of the race itself. Freedom from pedantry of superficial
learning and accomplishment, from the hypocrisy of conventional
morality, manners, and religion, from slavery to all artificialities
and externalities, the restoration of man from his accessory life to
his fundamental being, this is the center of his whole philosophy,
which began in his negative answer to the question presented by
the French Academy, “whether the progress of sciences and arts has
contributed to the corruption or the purification of morality,” and
culminates in his greatest work, “Émile,” in which he sets forth what
he conceives as the only salvation of the corrupted race. “Émile” is
the boldest assertion of this boldest child of Nature, and in the
influence it has exercised upon the course of human thoughts and events
we see the wonder of genius, and thus it will remain one of the rarest
treasures in the educational literature of mankind. This book is, in
the words of Niemeyer, like “a meteor which may blind and mislead a
man, but at the same time can illumine regions into which the ordinary
eye can only seldom penetrate.” Even Thomas Davidson, who shows little
sympathy and poor appreciation of Rousseau, is obliged to acknowledge
that “it has been given to few men to exert, with their thought, an
influence so deep and pervasive as that of Rousseau,” and he traces
the way in which this influence extended to “all departments of human
activity, philosophy, science, religion, ethics, art, politics,
economics, and pedagogy” (3: p. 224). Especially in regard to the last
department, with which we are now concerned, we could truly say with
Oscar Browning: “He stands astride across the field of education.
Nothing comes after him which is not affected by him” (1: p. 153). So
I might well add here that every one of us who is actually drinking
from the stream which flowed down from him ought for once to go
directly to its very source, and receive its refreshing benediction,
which, in the phrase of John Morley, “admitted floods of light and air
into tightly closed nurseries and schoolrooms” (8: ii, p. 249).
Return to Nature! was the war cry of Rousseauean pedagogy as it was
that of his whole life and philosophy. Here is his often quoted passage
with which he opens his proclamation of war against the conventional
attitude of education:
“All things are good as they come out of the hand of their Creator,
but everything degenerates in the hand of man.... He is not content
with anything in its natural state, not even with his own species.
His very offspring must be trained up for him, like a horse in the
menagerie, and be taught to grow after his own fancy, like a tree in
his garden” (17: i, p. 7).
This may sound to some like an advocacy of _laissez faire_
principle. But the very word Nature presents an ideal, and to return to
it or to preserve it, there is the need of educative effort. For:
“Should a man in a state of society be given up from the cradle to
his own notions and conduct, he would certainly turn out the most
preposterous of human beings.... His humanity would resemble a shrub,
growing by accident in the highway, which would soon be destroyed by
the casual injuries it must receive from the frequent passenger” (17:
i, pp. 7-8).
To preserve and develop “the natural man in a state of society” (17: i,
p. 337) is the aim of education. By “natural” he does not necessarily
mean primitive and savage traits of man only, but all those tendencies,
dispositions, qualities, which are inherent, essential, and universal
to all mankind, whether inborn or developed in life and society. He
writes:
“After taking a comparative view of as many ranks and degrees of
people as I have met with during a whole life spent in observing them,
I have thrown aside as artificial all the peculiarities of particular
nations, ranks, and conditions; and have regarded those things only
as incontestably belonging to man which are common to men of all
countries, ages, and circumstances of life” (17: ii, p. 79).
From this view follows, however, the elevation of the generic
fundamental traits of man which express themselves in his instincts,
sentiments, intuitions, and common sense, accompanied by the
depreciation of the individual mental superstructure, which is seen in
our reason, learning, artistic accomplishments, etc. Thus, to interpret
in modern terms, the development of the generic psychophysical organism
is the essential task of the education of the young as understood by
Rousseau.
There are three agents of education--Nature, men, and circumstances.
“The constitutional exertion of our organs and faculties is the
education of nature: the uses we are taught to make of that exertion
constitute the education given us by men; and in the acquisitions made
by our own experience on the objects that surround us consists our
education from circumstances” (17: i, p. 10). Of these, the first does
not depend on ourselves, the second depends on us, and the third is
under our power of control to a certain extent. So in order to secure
the harmony of these three it is to the first that we must adjust the
two others. Therefore, Nature--i. e., the law of the psychophysical
organism of the child itself--must be the true nurse and trainer of the
child. The function of an educator is simply to administer her oracle.
Then let us hear some of the oracles of Nature: First of all: “Nature
requires children to be children before they are men”; and “by
endeavoring to pervert this order we produce forward fruits, that
have neither maturity nor taste, and will not fail soon to wither
or corrupt” (17: i, p. 108). Beware of forcing upon the child any
adult standard, for “every age, every state of life has its peculiar
degrees of perfection, a kind of maturity peculiar to itself” (17: i,
p. 246). The end of life is in itself; our aim is to live our life to
the full; and this is happiness. “To live is not merely to breathe;
it is to act, to make a proper use of our organs, our senses, our
faculties, and of all those parts of the human frame which contribute
to the consciousness of our existence. The man who has lived most is
not he who has survived the greatest number of years, but he who has
experienced most of life. A man may be buried at a hundred years of age
who died in his cradle. Such a one would have been a gainer by dying
young, at least if he had lived, in our sense of the word, till the
time of his decease” (17: i, pp. 18-19). Therefore, let the child live
its own present life, which is the only reality to him; “let us promote
the happiness of man in every stage of life.”
From this viewpoint Rousseau directs his indignation upon the current
mode of education. He says:
“What can we think, then, of that barbarous method of education, by
which the present is sacrificed to an uncertain future, by which a
child is laid under every kind of restraint, and is made miserable, by
way of preparing him for we know not what pretended happiness, which
there is reason to believe he may never live to enjoy? Supposing it
not unreasonable in its design, how can we see, without indignation,
the unhappy innocents subjected to a yoke of insupportable rigor and
condemned like galley-slaves to continual labor, without being assured
that such mortifications and restrictions will ever be of any service
to them? The age of cheerfulness and gayety is spent in the midst of
tears, punishments, threats, and slavery” (17: i, pp. 85-86).
Liberty for all their healthful activities and enjoyments prompted and
dictated by Nature, this is the fundamental Rousseauean _dictum_.
Another collateral principle set up by Rousseau, the full significance
of which is only lately beginning to be realized, is that of education
by inaction, by delay. He says:
“May I venture here to lay down the greatest, most important, and most
useful rule of education? It is this, not to gain time, but to lose
it.... We should not tamper with the mind till it has acquired all its
faculties; for it is impossible it should perceive the light we hold
out to it while it is blind.”
“Let the infancy of children therefore have time to ripen. In short,
whatever instruction is necessary for them, take care not to give it
them to-day, if it may be deferred without danger till to-morrow” (17:
i, pp. 114-116).
Do not imagine that there is no education when we ourselves do not
instruct or train a child. “Before he can speak, before he can
understand, he is already instructed. Experience is the forerunner
of precept” (17: i, p. 57). There is little danger in intrusting a
child’s growth to the hand of Nature, and “so long as we know not how
to proceed, wisdom consists in remaining inactive” (17: iii, p. 172).
Thus he opposes teaching a child a multiplicity of things. Ignorance
is better than imbibing superficial knowledge and false ideas. He also
rallies the _encyclopedists_ of his day, who were “enamored by the
charms of universal knowledge,” and likens them to “a child gathering
shells on the seashore. He first loads himself indiscriminately with as
many as he can carry; when, tempted by others of a gayer appearance,
he throws the first away, taking and rejecting till fatigued and
bewildered in his choice, he has thrown all away, and returns home
without a single shell” (17: i, p. 270). There are so many things in
the world which we all need not or should not know. Ignorance is as
much virtue as knowledge. Elimination is probably as necessary for the
true advancement of science and humanity as accumulation.
But the knowledge he so much depreciates and the ignorance he thus
advocates in children refer chiefly to words and books. According to
him, the only true knowledge is that direct experience of reality which
comes through the exercise of our organs and faculties; it is action
that really instructs us. In his opinion:
“The multiplicity of books is destructive of science. Imagining the
theory we have read in authors to be sufficient, we think ourselves
excused from the trouble of learning the practice. Too much reading
only encourages presumption and ignorance.... Such a multitude of
books makes us forget the volume of the world” (17: iii, pp. 188-189).
Naturally he makes mockery of the naturalists who “study natural
history in their cabinets,” and would let his child Émile have “a
cabinet much better furnished than that of crowned heads--the whole
globe.” Teach the child with objects, by its own experience of them;
never substitute the shadow unless where it is impossible to exhibit
the substance; this is his general rule of instruction.
The great psychological discovery proclaimed by Rousseau is that the
child lives in a totally different world from that of grown-up people,
that “childhood has its manner of seeing, perceiving, and thinking,
peculiar to itself” (17: i, p. 108). He says:
“We never know how to suppose ourselves in the place of children;
we never enter into their manner of thinking. On the contrary,
we attribute to them our ideas; and pursuing our own method of
argumentation, fill their heads, even while we are discussing
incontestable truths, with extravagance and error” (17: i, p. 268).
No writer has ever before entered so deeply into the child-soul, and
many facts first discovered by his wonderful power of observation are
borne out by the more recent systematic studies. He is entitled to the
name of the discoverer of childhood, and can be called the forerunner
of child-study.
Another great discovery made by Rousseau, which is related to the
above, is that there are certain definite stages in the natural
development of the child to which modes of education should correspond.
True, Comenius divided the whole educative period, which, in his
conception, covers the period of physical growth, into four, and
assigned for each of them a different institution. But his gradation
was made rather artificially and arbitrarily, while Rousseau’s division
was based on his careful observation of the actual evolution of the
child’s body and mind, the correctness of which is rather surprising in
the light of modern science.
The first epoch of human life begins with birth and ends with the time
when the infant begins to eat and to walk. In this stage the principle
of educating by inaction, on the part of the educator, by leaving the
child to its natural development, is to be strictly observed. Absolute
freedom should be granted to the child’s growing physical being. He
also made a strong plea for the personal care of the child by the
mother, which is said to have created a fashion among aristocratic
mothers of the day, of carrying their nurslings even to balls and
parties.
“Other women, nay brutes, might afford it the milk which she refuses;
but the solicitude, the tenderness of a mother cannot be supplied....
Would you have mankind return all to their natural duties, begin with
the mothers of families; you will be astonished at the change this
will produce. Almost every kind of depravation flows successively
from this source; the moral order of things is broken, the natural
quiet is subverted in our hearts; home is less cheerful and engaging;
the affecting sight of a rising family no more attaches the husband
nor attracts the eyes of the stranger; the mother is less truly
respectable whose children are not about her; families are no longer
places of residence; habit no longer enforces the ties of blood; there
are no fathers, no mothers, children, brothers, nor sisters; they
hardly know, how should they love, each other? Each cares for no one
but himself; and when home affords only a melancholy solitude, it is
natural for us to seek diversion elsewhere” (17: i, pp. 24-25).
This impeachment made upon the depraved condition of the aristocratic
home in France of his day fortunately sounds to us somewhat remote, but
the appeal he made to the fathers is still to the point for our own
generation.
“A father, in begetting and providing for his children, has in that
discharged but a third part of his obligations. He owes a being to his
species, social beings to society, and citizens to the state. Everyone
who is capable of paying this triple debt and refuses is, in that
respect, criminal; and perhaps is more so when he pays it by halves.
He who is incapable of performing the duties of a father has no right
to be one. Neither poverty nor business nor personal importance can
dispense with parents nursing and educating their children” (17: i,
pp. 31-32).
Although it is our duty to assist infants and supply their
deficiencies, since they are yet physical weaklings, yet “every
assistance afforded them should be confined to real utility,
without administering anything to the indulgence of their caprice
or unreasonable humors” (17: i, p. 70). We must carefully study
the meaning of their inarticulate speech and gestures, in order to
distinguish between their natural wants and whimsical claims. The
principle of the whole matter is “to give children more real liberty
and less command; to leave them more to do of themselves than to
require of others” (17: i, p. 70). Thus they shall learn to confine
their desires to their abilities, and harmony shall be established
between the want and the power to satisfy it, the disparity of which is
the source of all human miseries. He also speaks of the uselessness and
harmfulness of providing elaborate toys, and forcing speech too early
upon the child.
Now we come to what he calls the age of puerility, extending from
the advent of speech to the dawn of puberty. “His memory extends the
sense of his identity to every moment of his existence; he becomes
always one and the same person, and of course already susceptible of
happiness or misery. From this time therefore he must be considered
as a moral being” (17: i, p. 85). If the preceding stage was the
period of education by natural growth, this one is the period of
training, but without instruction. His sensory-motor being is at its
greatest activity, with the least activity in the thinking self. It
is, therefore, preëminently the age for habit formation. Our principle
still should be “to lose time,” so far as the inculcation of knowledge
or ideas is concerned. “Teach nothing if you can help it” is to be the
motto. Action is the monitor of the child at this age; our business
is simply to guide it without the air of restraint. To those who are
alarmed at this idea Rousseau says:
“Is it nothing, then, to spend his time in freedom and happiness?
Dancing, playing, and running about all day, is this doing nothing?
Depend on it, he will never be so fully employed again during life”
(17: i, p. 142).
He compares the child whose undeveloped intellect is taxed in order
to make the most of its time to one who, in his eagerness for work,
determines never to go to sleep. “Infancy is the sleep of Reason” (17:
i, p. 143); by depriving her of it, you thrust her into the arms of
death.
“The apparent facility with which children seem to learn, operates
greatly to their prejudice and, though we do not observe it, is a
plain proof that they learn nothing.... A child retains the words, but
the ideas accompanying them are reflected back again; those who hear
him repeat, may understand what he means; but he himself knows nothing
of the matter” (17: i, p. 143).
“What, then, does it signify to imprint on their minds a catalogue
of signs which to them represent nothing?... In the very first
unintelligible sentence with which a child sits down satisfied, in
the very first thing he takes upon trust, or learns from others,
without being himself convinced of its utility, he loses part of his
understanding; and he may figure long in the eyes of fools before he
will be able to repair a considerable loss” (17: i, p. 152).
And since “no science consists in the knowledge of words, so there
is no study proper for children” (17: i, p. 152). Rousseau’s pupil,
Émile, “will hardly know what a book is at twelve years of age” (17:
i, p. 162). In his opinion, “reading is a vexation to children; ...
it is good for nothing, but to disgust and fatigue them till they see
its use” (17: i, p. 162). As for writing, he says he is ashamed of
condescending to discuss such a trifling subject. On the other hand,
the acquisition power of which children are possessed can be fully
engaged in other things than studying books. Instead of beginning by
teaching the child how to read and write according to the time-honored
custom of his day, Rousseau would give it as much opportunity to
gather, correct, and broaden sense experience as possible.
“Everything they see or hear appears striking, and they try to commit
it to memory. A child keeps in his mind a register of the actions
and conversation of those who are about him; every scene he is
engaged in is a book, from which he insensibly enriches his memory,
treasuring up his store till time will ripen his judgment and turn it
to profit. It is in the choice of these scenes and objects, in the
care of presenting those constantly to his view with which he ought
to be familiar and in hiding from him such as are improper, that the
true art of cultivating this primary faculty of a child consists. By
such means also it is that we should endeavor to form that magazine
of knowledge which should serve for his education in youth, and to
regulate his conduct afterwards. This method, it is true, is not
productive of little prodigies of learning, nor does it tend to
enhance the character of governess or preceptor; but it is the way to
form robust and judicious men, persons sound in body and mind, who,
without being admired while children, know how to make themselves
respected when grown-up” (17: i, pp. 153-154). “During the time that
their supple and delicate organs are adapted to making experiments
on bodies while their senses are as yet exempt from illusions; this
is the interval in which we should exercise both the one and the
other in their proper functions; this is the time to teach children
the perceptible relations of things. As everything that enters into
human understanding is introduced by the senses, the first kind of
ratiocination in man is a kind of sensitive reasoning; and this serves
as the basis of his intellectual reason. Our first instructors in
philosophy are our feet, hands, and eyes. In substituting books in
their place we do not learn to reason, but to content ourselves with
the reasoning of others; we learn indeed to believe a great deal, but
to know nothing” (17: i, pp. 180-181).
If in the former period the educator simply ministered to the call of
the child’s organism, in this second period he adjusts the environment
to it. The close relation between the muscular and mental development
is a great discovery of modern science. Yet with what an intuition of
genius Rousseau has already seen this! He writes:
“It is a wretched mistake to think the exercise of the body
prejudicial to the operations of the mind; as if the action of both
were incompatible, or that the one could not always direct the other”
(17: i, p. 166).
“In proportion as the sensitive becomes an active being, he acquires a
discernment proportional to his corporeal abilities; when he possesses
more of the latter, also, than are necessary for his preservation,
it is with that redundancy, and not before, that he displays those
speculative faculties which are adapted to the employment of such
abilities to other purposes” (17: i, p. 165).
Moreover, “our limbs and our organs ... are the instruments of our
intelligence; and in order to make the best use of these instruments,
it is necessary that the body furnishing them should be robust and
healthy” (17: i, p. 181).
Therefore, Rousseau advocates the natural motor training which children
receive in their free outdoor play as the most effective and solid form
of intellectual culture. It not only secures the mental vigor, but also
extends the sphere of our experience and knowledge: “it teaches us to
become acquainted with the proper exertion of our forces, the relation
our bodies bear to those which surround us, the use of those natural
implements which are within our reach, and which are adapted to our
organs” (17: i, p. 179). Besides, free play is a good, if not the best,
emotional culture we can give a young child, because the harmony of
heart comes from the balance between desires and capacity to satisfy
them, and in the full exercise of his instinctive healthful activities,
this is vouchsafed.
In this way a full-grown child is built up--not young professors and
old children, of which we have so many; indeed, too many. He does not
represent a perfection of manhood, but of childhood, which is a totally
different thing.
“His figure, attitude, and countenance speak assurance and
contentment; his face is the picture of health; his firm step gives
him an air of strength and vigor; his complexion, delicate without
being pale and wan, has nothing in it of effeminate softness, the
sun and the wind having already given to his skin the honorable tint
of his sex; his features, though still plump, begin to show some
distinguishing marks of physiognomy; his eyes, as yet unanimated by
the glow of sentiment, have all their natural serenity; they are not
grown dull and heavy from care and sorrow, nor have incessant tears
made furrows in his cheeks. On the contrary, you may see, in his
alert but steady motions, the vivacity of his age, the firmness of
his independence, and the experience he has gained from the many and
various exercises to which he has been accustomed. He has an open and
liberal mien, without the least air of insolence or vanity; as he
has not been kept poring over his books, his looks are not directed
downward, nor is there any occasion to bid him hold up his head,
neither fear nor shame ever made him hang it down” (17: i, p. 249).
As to his intellect:
“His ideas, it is true, are confined, but clear; if he knows nothing
by rote, he knows a great deal by experience. If he has read less
than other children in printed volumes, he has read much more in the
volume of nature. His understanding does not lie on his tongue, but
in his brain; he has less memory than judgment; he can speak only one
language, but then he understands what he says, and though he may not
talk of things so well as others, he will do them much better” (17: i,
p. 250).
He is not a shadowy reflection of printed words and external
authorities, but a whole-hearted expression of life and soul.
“Whether he is at work or at play, he knows no difference; both are
alike to him; his diversions are his business. In everything he does,
he is gayly interested, and pleasingly at liberty; displaying at once
the turn of his genius and the compass of his knowledge” (17: i, p.
253).
Till the age of puberty, the whole course of child life was “one
continuous series of imbecility” (17: i, p. 256). His strength was
deficient to meet all the wants and necessities arising from his inner
impulse. It was, on the whole, the period of accumulation of energy.
Now follows that of its superabundance and overflowing. The abilities
he possesses exceed his wants. “Considered as a man, he is very
weak, but as a child, he is abundantly strong.” This period of early
adolescence “contains the most precious moments of his life--moments
never to return, few and transitory, hence the more precious” (16: i,
p. 258).
He is now first freed from the necessities of the immediate
present, and can look for other things than those pertaining to
self-preservation. Consequently, “he should throw ... the superfluity
of his present being into his future existence. The robust child should
provide for the subsistence of the feeble man; ... to appropriate
his acquisitions to himself, he will secure them in the strength and
dexterity of his own arms, and in the capacity of his own head. This,
therefore, is the time for employment, for instruction, for study”
(17: i, p. 259). During the preceding period we had to lose time. “The
case is now altered, and we have not time sufficient for everything
that might be useful.” The moment of emotional storm is approaching;
“the term of impassionate intelligence is short and transitory.” Yet
art is long. The principle, therefore, should be not to make the child
“an adept in the sciences, but to give him a taste for them, and point
out the method of improving it” (17: i, p. 270). As to the subjects of
study and their order, the standard must be our natural inclination and
interest. And, according to Rousseau, our intellectual curiosity and
efforts as well as physical activities are prompted by our fundamental
instinct: the constant pursuit of happiness and avoidance of
unhappiness. “Our innate desire of happiness, and the impossibility of
fully gratifying that desire, are the cause of our constant researches
after new expedients to contribute to that end” (17: i, p. 261).
And with the development of the organism, with the increase of its
powers and desires, the sphere of its intellectual interest expands.
“During our infant state of weakness and incapacity, all our thoughts,
influenced by self-preservation, are confined within ourselves. On the
contrary, in a more advanced age, as our abilities increase, the desire
of improving our existence carries us out of ourselves, and our ideas
extend to the utmost limits. As the intellectual world, however, is as
yet unknown to us, our thoughts cannot extend further than we can see;
but our comprehension dilates itself with the bounds of the space” (17:
i, p. 202). This is the age we have now reached. So the first science
to be taught shall be physics, in its widest sense--the study of the
phenomena of Nature.
As to the method of teaching natural sciences, Rousseau was the first
who truly and fully embodied the Baconian principle in pedagogy. His
way was to let a child-study the concrete, living nature, with his own
eyes and hands, under the guidance of an expert, who understands the
child nature as well as the objective nature. Although these ideas may
be considered impractical and one-sided, they, nevertheless, sound with
a good ring, in this present age, when science instruction has sunk
into a second scholasticism and verbalism. Let me quote a few passages:
“In the first place, you are to consider how seldom it is proper for
you to propose what he is to learn; it is his place to desire to
know, to seek for, to discover it: it is yours artfully to excite his
desire, to place the object within his reach, and furnish him with the
means of attaining it” (17: i, pp. 285-286).
“Direct the attention of your pupil to the phenomena of nature, and
you will soon awaken his curiosity; but to keep that curiosity alive,
you must be in no haste to satisfy it. Put questions to him adapted to
his capacity, and leave him to resolve them. Let him take nothing on
trust from his preceptor, but on his own comprehension and conviction:
he should not learn, but invent the sciences. If you ever substitute
authority in the place of argument, he will reason no longer; he will
be ever afterwards bandied like a shuttlecock between the opinions of
others” (17: i, p. 263).
“The mere speculative part of science is by no means adapted to
children, even when they approach adolescence;.... In your researches
into the laws of nature, begin always with the most common and obvious
phenomena, accustoming your pupil to look upon them always as mere
facts” (17: i, pp. 280-281).
The following passage because of its recognition of a much neglected
principle deserves to be hung upon the wall of every schoolroom:
“Among the many admirable methods taken to abridge the study of
the sciences, we are in great want of one to make us learn with
difficulty” (17: i, p. 280).
The fundamental cause of the superficiality and ineffectiveness of
our school instruction lies in our mistaken desire to teach as many
things as possible in as short a time as possible. This leads to the
insistence on a precocious application to the studies beyond children’s
interest and experience. And we complacently believe that we can make
them understand these by the abundance of explanation on our part. But
this helps not a whit. In the words of Rousseau:
“I do not at all admire explanatory discourses; young people give
little attention to them, and never retain them in their memory. The
things themselves are the best explanations. I can never enough repeat
it, that we make words of too much consequence; with our prating modes
of education, we make nothing but praters” (17: i, p. 286).
Introduction of work interest--i. e., the motive of utility--belongs
to this stage. “As soon as we are so far advanced as to give our pupil
an idea of the word _useful_, we have attained a considerable
influence over his future conduct, this term being very striking,
provided the sense annexed to it be adapted to his years, and he see
clearly its relation to his present welfare.” Remember that the utility
must always be considered from the child’s point of view, not from
ours. “A child knows he is designed to grow up to manhood; all the
ideas he can form of that state will be to him so many opportunities
of instruction; but as for those which are above his capacity to
comprehend, it is better he should remain in absolute ignorance of
them” (17: i, p. 284).
Rousseau thought that the teaching of history and morality had no place
in the education of early adolescents; their interest is in the objects
of Nature, but not in men and society.
Being thus educated at the end of early adolescence,
“Émile has but little knowledge, but what he has is truly his own....
He possesses a universal capacity, not in point of actual knowledge,
but in the faculties of acquiring it; an open, intelligent genius,
adapted to everything, and, as Montaigne says, if not instructed,
capable of receiving instruction” (17: i, pp. 341-342).
This is, according to Rousseau, by far a better equipment for a boy
than the smattering of multiple knowledge with the sense of saturation.
In point of morality he is still nothing more than an animal following
his natural instincts and impulses, which, not being spoiled by our
artificiality, are healthful, and will build up themselves, as his age
matures, into harmonious sentiments.
Now we come to the period of storm and stress, “the presumptive
period,” the educational significance of which is so great, yet
hitherto has been so little considered.
“As the roaring of the sea precedes the tempest, so the murmuring
of the passions portends this stormy revolution. The foaming
surge foretells the approach of danger. A change of disposition,
frequent starts, and a continual agitation of mind, render the pupil
intractable. He becomes deaf to the voice of his preceptor; like a
lion in his fury, he disdains his guide, and will no longer submit to
be governed.”
“These moral indications of changing dispositions are accompanied by
a visible alteration in the person. His features assume a character;
then the soft down upon his chin begins to gather strength. His voice
is lost between hoarseness and squeaking: for being neither man nor
boy, he has the tone of neither. His eyes, those organs of the mind,
hitherto inexpressive, learn to speak; animated with a lively flame,
their looks, though more expressive, are yet pure and innocent; but
they have lost their primitive dullness and insipidity. He already
feels their power of expression,... He perceives his sensibility
before he knows what he feels; he is restless without knowing the
cause of his disquietude” (17: ii, p. 2).
Here commences the second birth of man. “At this stage man is truly
born to live, and enters into full possession of the power of human
nature” (17: ii, p. 3). This dawning of the sexual life is the birth
of the social self: man’s moral relations now truly begin. Up to this
time self-love was the only real motive of his life, but now love of
another self comes in, and if it is directed well, this will extend to
wider and wider range. The time is reached when one’s study should be
man and human society; when youth should be initiated into the world
of his fellow beings; when moral instruction proper should begin; when
religion can be taught effectively. Rousseau’s insight into the infant
mind was wonderful; still deeper is his understanding of adolescent
psychology. He would be immortal even if he left us nothing but just
this part of his “Émile.” Many pedagogues would allow themselves to be
led by Nature, so long as they are treating with young children, but
as soon as they reach the age of puberty or adolescence they leave her
or else loosen their responsibility to their pupil. Rousseau, on the
contrary, would stick more to the laws of Mother Nature, and take the
more responsibility upon his shoulders. He says: “Our care hitherto
has been little more than children’s play; it now becomes of real
importance. This era, where common education ends, is properly the time
where ours should begin” (17: ii, p. 3). What unites man to man is
firstly his heart’s need of companions. “All his connections with his
species, all the affections of his soul, are born with this sensation.
His first passion soon ferments the other into being” (17: ii, p. 7).
Then, secondly, it is one’s sense of weakness, his insufficiency, our
common misery, that render him social, incline his heart to humanity.
Lastly, emotion and imagination are closely connected, and the rise in
emotional life stimulates the power to realize other’s sufferings and
joys--another connecting link of mankind. Until we come to the age of
adolescence these elements are all lacking in the child. But, now, with
the sudden outburst of emotions, moral education is not only possible,
but most ardently needed.
“To excite and nourish this growing sensibility, to guide or follow
it in its natural propensity, it will be necessary to throw such
objects in the way of our young pupil as will most effectually
dilate his heart, extend it to other beings, and separate him from
himself; to hide carefully from his view those objects which, on the
contrary, tend to contract the heart, and compress the spring of human
selfishness; in other terms, to inspire him with goodness, humanity,
compassion, benevolence, and all the soft attractive passions which
are so pleasing to mankind; and to stifle envy, hatred, and all those
cruel and inhuman appetites, which, if I may be allowed the phrase,
render sensibility not only null, but negative, becoming the torment
of those who possess them” (17: ii, p. 22).
The pomp and luxury of rank, class, and wealth, “the charms of public
entertainments, polite circles, and brilliant assemblies,” tend to sow
the seeds of pride, vanity, and envy, and give a man a superficial
view of life and human felicity. These are not the places for youth.
If we come across the splendor of the rich and fortunate, show him the
other aspect of their existence. Let him learn all the vicissitudes of
fortune. Teach him to separate appearance from reality, the accidental
from the inherent; to put no value on birth, rank, or riches, but
estimate and respect man as man. The contact with the life of the
common people is more educative than the society of the rich and high
classes. For the former presents the truer picture of humanity, with
its toils and sufferings. It, at the same time, cultivates in him the
sense of contentment with his lot and compassion with others. By thus
directing the newly arisen impulse of love into a broader channel, we
may hope to “blunt the dangerous edge of inclination and divert the
attention of nature while we follow her dictates” (17: ii, p. 37).
Sex pedagogy, which has lately come to be one of the burning questions
in education, already received full attention from Rousseau. “A total
ignorance of certain things,” he thinks, “were perhaps the most to be
wished; but children should learn betimes what it is impossible always
to conceal from them.” Avoid any words or conduct before them, which
might become the cause of their curiosity. When their curiosity about
the matter is premature or not genuine, you may impose silence upon
them with safety. It is much better than telling a falsehood. “Your
conduct with regard to your pupil greatly depends on his particular
situation; the people by whom he is surrounded, and many other
circumstances. It is of importance to leave nothing to chance; and if
you are not positively certain that you can keep him ignorant of the
difference of sex till the age of sixteen, be careful to let him know
it before the age of ten” (17: ii, p. 11). But when he reaches the age
of sixteen or so, “make no scruple to instruct him in those dangerous
mysteries, which you so long and so carefully concealed from his sight”
(17: ii, p. 204). Your instruction must “be concise, serious, and
determined, without seeming to hesitate” (17: ii, p. 11). Of course,
strict truth must be told and at the same time the matter impressed
upon him as the most sacred thing.
As for the measures to retard the progress of Nature in him, books,
solitude, idleness, a sedentary and effeminate life, the company of
young people is to be avoided. The city is not a proper abode for many
plain reasons, so the boy should be taken out into the country. “He
must have some new exercise, which shall engage him by its novelty,
keep him fully employed, and administer to his pleasure and diversion”
(17: ii, p. 207).
However, as age advances there will come a time when these negative
means no longer work. Then must positive measures be taken in order to
lead the youth to the proper road of sex relation. “The passions can
never be mastered but by themselves: by their empire you must combat
their tyranny.” So Rousseau would flatter now, instead of suppress,
this noble passion in his pupil, and endeavor to make its fire burn
pure. “By rendering him sensible of the charms which a union of
hearts adds to the allurement of sense, I shall give him a disrelish
to debauchery, and render him wise, by inspiring him with love” (17:
ii, p. 221). Then, after preparing him by the formation, in his mind,
of the picture of an ideal girlhood or womanhood, we lead him to the
society of the other sex, to the life of courtship, which is a great
education in itself.
The interest in the world is now keen; the judgment and discretion
are fairly matured. The youth can go into it with much benefit and
little danger, if his previous training has been successful. The study
of history and biography will now give him also a knowledge of human
nature.
Rousseau’s pupil Émile finds his angel in Sophia, who is by no means
“such a model of perfection as nowhere exists,” but an innocent healthy
country girl, “with such defects as shall hit his taste, shall please
him, and help to correct his own” (17: ii, p. 225). While courting
Sophia, Émile learns a trade, mingles with the common people, and
extends his service to those who need it. By this means not only
his feelings, which are now intensified and deepened, expand to all
humanity, but he also learns the psychology of unsophisticated souls,
the sociology of real life, the vital problems of civics and economics.
He conceives such social service as a great educational means for later
adolescence. And striking it is that Rousseau so perfectly anticipated
the essential principles of social-settlement work in the following
passages:
“The practice of the social virtues roots the love of humanity in the
bottom of our hearts. By doing good actions we become good ourselves;
I know of no method more certain. Employ your pupil in every good
action within his power; teach him to consider the interest of the
indigent as his own; let him not only assist them with his purse, but
with his care; he must protect them and dedicate his person and time
to their service” (17: ii, pp. 70-71).
“His active beneficence produces a knowledge which, with a more
obdurate heart, he would have acquired much later, or perhaps not at
all. If discord reigns among his companions, he endeavors to reconcile
them; if he sees his fellow-creatures in affliction, he inquires into
the cause; if the wretched groan under the oppression of the great and
powerful, he will not rest till he has detected the iniquity of the
oppressor” (17: ii, p. 73).
“Thus interested in the welfare of his fellow-creatures, he will soon
learn to estimate their actions, their tastes, their pleasures, and
in general to fix a truer value on what will promote or destroy human
felicity than those who know no interest separate from their own, and
who act only for themselves” (17: ii, p. 75).
Comenius already stood for education according to Nature; in Locke
the conception developed and became more psychological. But with the
former, the child was subjected to the Bible; with the latter, to
the present society; it was in the “Naturevangelium der Erziehung”
of Rousseau that the nature of the child was entirely liberated from
every bondage, and made the sole guidance for education. His pedagogy
rested on his observational psychology, and his psychology had a basis
in biology. The body was not for him as it was for his predecessors, a
mere “clay cottage” for the mind. But the soul and life were one. Man
as a unified psychological organism was the conception on which his
pedagogy rested.
Some one has said that Romanticism is the vacation of philosophy. We
may also say that it is a rejuvenation, a revitalization of philosophy.
No matter what our opinions are, it would do us all great good to take
a vacation, if you please, and take fresh air, in this great gospel of
educational Romanticism, especially when we reflect that our education
has been so long under control of the pedagogic theories made by
scholars whose interest and viewpoint always smell of the air of their
study rooms. Man does not live by brain alone; he lives more by action
and by heart. This discovery we owe to the great book of prophecies
left by the greatest vagabond the world of letters has ever crowned
with honor, Jean Jacques Rousseau.
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