317. Proscription of Intellectual Exercises. ВЂ” Rous-

seau rejects from the education of FLmile all the intellectual

exercises ordinarily employed. He proscribes history on the

pretext that FJmile cannot comprehend the relations of events.

He takes as an example the disgust of a child who had been

told the anecdote of Alexander and his physician : —

" I found that he had an unusual admiration for the cour-

age, so much lauded, of Alexander. But do you know in

what he saw that courage? Simply in the fact that he

swallowed a drink that had a bad taste."

ROUSSEAU AND THE EMILE. 295

And from this Rousseau concludes that the child's intelli-

gence is not sufficiently open to comprehend history, and thnt

he ought not to learn it. The paradox is evident. Because

ВЈmile is sometimes exposed to the danger of falling into

errors of judgment, must he be denied the opportunity of

judging? Similarly, Rousseau does not permit the study of

the languages. Up to the age of twelve, Emile shall know-

but one language, because, till then, incapable of judging and

comprehending, he cannot make the comparison between

other languages and his own. Later, from twelve to fifteen,

Rousseau will find still other reasons for excluding the study

of the ancient languages. And it is not only history and the

languages ; it is literature in general from which Emile is

excluded by Rousseau. No book shall be put into his hands,

not even the Fables of La Fontaine. It is well known with

what resolution Rousseau criticises The Grow and the Fox.

318. Education of the Senses. ВЂ” The grand preoccupa-

tion of Rousseau is the exercise and development of the

senses of his pupil. The whole theory of object lessons, and

even all the exaggerations of what is now called the intuitive

method, are contained in germ in the Emile: —

' ' The first faculties which are formed and perfected in us

are the senses. These, then, are the first which should be

cultivated ; but these are the very ones that we forget or that

we neglect the most."

Rousseau does not consider the senses as wholly formed

by nature ; but he makes a special search for the means of

forming them and of perfecting them through education.

" To call into exercise the senses, is, so to speak, to learn

to feel ; for we can neither touch, nor see, nor hear, except as

we have been taught."

Onlv, Rousseau is wrong in sacrificing everything to this

296 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

education of the senses. He sharply criticises this favorite

maxim of Locke, " We must reason with children." Rous-

seau retards the education of the judgment and the reason,

and declares that " he would as soon require that a child be

five feet high as that lie reason at the age of eight."

319. The Third Book of the Emile. — From the twelfth

to the fifteenth year is the length of time that Rousseau has

devoted to study and to intellectual development proper. It

is necessary that the robust animal, " the roe-buck," as he

calls Emile, after a negative and temporizing education of

twelve years, become in three years an enlightened intelli-

gence. As the period is short, Rousseau disposes of the time

for instruction with a miser's hand. Moreover, Emile is very

poorly prepared for the rapid studies which are to be im-

posed on him. Not having acquired in his earlier years the

habit of thinking, having lived a purely physical existence, he

will have great difficulty in bringing to life, within a few

months, his intellectual faculties.

But without dwelling on the unfavorable conditions of

Emile's intellectual education, let us see in what it will

consist.

320. Choice in the Things to be taught. — The princi-

ple which guides Rousseau in the choice of Emile's studies

is no other than the principle of utility : —

' ' There is a choice in the things which ought to be taught as

well as in the time fit for learning them. Of the knowledges

within our reach, some are false, others are useless, and still

others serve to nourish the pride of him who has them. Only

the small number of those which really contribute to our good

are worthy the care of a wise man, and consequently of a

child whom we wish to render such. It is not a question of

knowing what is, but only what is useful."

ROUSSEAU AND THE EMILE. 297

321. Rousseau and the Abbe de Saint Pierre. — Among

educators, some wish to teach everything, while others de-

mand a choice, and would retain only what is necessary.

The Abbe' de Saint Pierre follows the first tendency. He

would have the scholar learn everything at college ; a little

medicine towards the seventh or eighth year, and in the

other classes, arithmetic and blazonry, jurisprudence, Ger-

man, Italian, dancing, declamation, politics, ethics, astron-

omy, anatomy, chemistry, without counting drawing and the

violin, and twenty other things besides. Rousseau is wiser.

He is dismayed at such an accumulation, at such an obstruc-

tion of studies, aud so yields too much to the opposite ten-

dency, and restricts beyond measure the list of necessary

studies.

322. Emile's Studies. — These, in fact, are the studies to

which Emile is limited : first, the physical sciences, and, at

the head of the list, astronomy, then geography, geography

taught without maps and by means of travel : —

" You are looking for globes, spheres, maps. What

machines ! Why all these representations? Why not begin

by showing him the object itself ? "

Here, as in other places, Rousseau prefers what would be

best, but what is impossible, to that which is worth less, but

which alone is practicable.

But Rousseau does not wish that his pupil, like the pupil of

Rabelais, become an " abyss of knowledge."

" AVhen I see a man, enamored of knowledge, allow him-

self to yield to its charms, and run from one kind to another

without knowing where to stop, 1 think I see a child on the

sea-shore collecting shells, beginning by loading himself with

them; then, tempted by those he still sees, throwing them

aside, picking them up, until, weighed down by their number,

298 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

and uo longer knowing which to choose, he ends by rejecting

everything, and returns empty-handed."

No account is made of grammar and the ancient languages

in the plan of Emile's studies. Graver still, history is pro-

scribed. This rejection of historical studies, moreover, is

systematically done. Rousseau has placed Emile in the

country, and has made him an orphan, the better to isolate

him ; to teach him history would be to throw him back into

society that he abominates.

323. No Books save Robinson Crusoe. — One of the con-

sequences of an education that is natural and negative is the

suppression of books. Always going to extremes, Rousseau

is not content to criticise the abuse of books. He deter-

mines that up to his fifth year Emile shall not know what a

book is : —

" I hate books," he exclaims ; " they teach us merely to

speak of things that we do not know."

Besides the fact that this raving is rather ridiculous in the

case of a man who is a writer by profession, it is evident that

Rousseau is roving at random when he condemns the use of

books in instruction.

One book, however, one single book, has found favor in

his sioht. Robinson Crusoe will constitute bv itself for a Ions

time the whole of Emile's library. We understand without

difficulty Rousseau's kindly feeling for a work which, under

the form of a romance, is, like the Emile, a treatise on natu-

ral education. Emile and Robinson strongly resemble each

other, since they are self-sufficient and dispense with

society.