28 h 10 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
How do you raise an honest, kind child in a society that teaches him otherwise?
In Emile, Jean-Jacques Rousseau turns a question about education into the imagined life of a child. Emile is a rich orphan whose tutor takes sole charge of him from birth to marriage. Throughout his education, Rousseau asks how nature, rather than social habit, might guide a boy toward freedom and self-reliance.
The lessons begin with movement, play and the consequences of ordinary choices. A broken window means living with the cold. As Emile grows, curiosity, work, pity, conscience and love enter his education. Rousseau links the raising of a child to larger questions about religion and politics, while leaving readers plenty to challenge.
What you’ll discover
- Nature before social habit Consider Rousseau's claim that education should follow a child's nature rather than society's customs.
- Lessons in broken glass Explore why Rousseau lets cold air teach a lesson that adult commands cannot.
- Curiosity as a guide Follow an education that uses curiosity to build knowledge, practical skill and self-reliance.
- The claims of conscience Meet the Savoyard Vicar, who explains religious beliefs reached through his own honest thought.
- Love and its questions Examine Sophie's proposed education as Rousseau turns toward partnership, adulthood and citizenship.
Who will love it
For parents, teachers and students of philosophy curious about the roots of child-centred learning, and anyone who enjoys Enlightenment ideas about education, nature and freedom.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Follow nature, not social habit
- Let the infant's body move
- Protect the child with negative education
- Teach through consequences, not commands
- Use curiosity to build knowledge and skill
- Awaken the heart through pity and humanity
- Seek faith through conscience, not authority
- Prepare for love, Sophie and citizenship
- Weigh its flaws and long influence
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Emilio
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1762
A tutor raises Emile from birth to marriage, seeking to keep him honest, self-reliant and kind in a society that spoils.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Follow nature, not social habit
Rousseau opens with a bold claim. Everything is good as it leaves the hands of its maker, and everything degenerates in the hands of man. By this he means that children are born with sound instincts, and that human customs bend them out of shape. A man raised by society, he says, is neither one thing nor the other. He is pulled between duties to himself and duties to others, and so he is useful to neither.
He says every person is taught by three masters. Nature teaches through the growth of our bodies and talents. Men teach us how to use that growth. Things teach us through our own experience of the world. Rousseau argues that education works only when the three pull the same way. Since we cannot control nature, the other two must be brought into line with it.
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What is Emile by Rousseau about?
Emile is a treatise on education told through an imagined pupil and his tutor. It follows the boy from birth to marriage and argues that children should be raised in line with nature, learning by experience rather than by lectures.
What is negative education in Emile?
Negative education is Rousseau's idea that, in early childhood, the tutor should not teach virtue or truth by words. Instead, he guards the child from vice and error, and lets the senses and experience do the work.
Why was Emile banned?
Emile was condemned in Paris in 1762 and ordered burned, mainly because of the Savoyard Vicar's Profession of Faith. Its natural religion, which trusts conscience over church authority, offended religious and civil leaders. Rousseau had to flee France.
The author
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
1712–1778 · Genevan philosopher and writer
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva in 1712 and died in Ermenonville, France, in 1778. He lived in Switzerland, France, and England. He wrote philosophy, fiction, autobiography, and music. His works include Discourse on Inequality (1755), Julie (1761), and Emile (1762). His Confessions was published after his death.
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