a To make fair estimate author, and the incon sistencies and contradictions of the work itself. gestures, and know how to give them the feelings which are pleasing to her, without even seeming to think of them." Merits and Defects of the Emile.-Such was Rousof the Emile, seau's notion of a natural individualistic education for one must forget the offen- a man and the passive and repressive training suitable sive personal- for a woman, and of the happiness and prosperity that ity of the were bound to ensue. To make a fair estimate of the Emile and its influence is not easy. It is necessary to put aside all of one's prejudices against the weak and offensive personality of the author and to view the contradictions of his life and work in the proper perspective. It must also be admitted at the start that the Emile is often illogical, erratic, and inconsistent. Rousseau constantly sways from optimism to pessimism, from spontaneity to authority, from liberalism to intolerance. While he holds that society is thoroughly corrupt, he has great confidence in the goodness of all individuals of which it is composed. In the face of history and psychology, he opposes nature to culture, and creates a dualism between emotion and reason. Although the instincts and reactions of Emile are apparently given free play, they are really under the constant guidance of his tutor. Emile is to have his individuality developed to its utmost, but Sophie's is to be trained out of her. However, in spite of such glaring inconsistencies, the Emile has at all times been accounted a work of great richness and power. The brilliant thought, the underlying wisdom of many of its suggestions, the sentimental appeal, and the clear, enthusiastic, and ardent presentation have completely overbalanced its contradictions and logical deficiencies. Its errors and illusions are fully outweighed by great truths, lofty sentiments, and definite contributions to educational theory and practice. surd, but and an trine was necessary. ex The Break with Social Traditions.-The most marked The antisocial educafeature of the Rousselian education and the one most tion of the subject to criticism has been its extreme revolt against Emile is abcivilization and all social control. A state of nature is tradition had held to be the ideal condition, and all social relations to be broken, are regarded as degenerate. The child is to be brought treme docup in isolation by the laws of brute necessity and to have no social or political education until he is fifteen, when an impossible set of expedients for bringing him into touch with his fellows is devised. The absurdity of this anti-social education has always been keenly felt. Children cannot be reared in a social vacuum, nor can they be trained merely as world citizens to the complete exclusion of specific governmental authority. And although society may become stereotyped and corrupt, it furnishes the means of carrying the accumulated race experience and attainments. One should remember, however, that the times and the cause had need of just so extreme a doctrine. The reformer is often forced to assume the position of a fanatic, in order to secure attention for his propaganda. Had Rousseau's cry been uttered a generation later, when society had become less artificial and more responsive to popular rights, it might have contained less exaggeration. But at the time such individualism alone could enable him to break the bondage to the past. By means of paradoxes and exaggerations he was able to emphasize the crying need of a natural development of man, and to tear down the effete traditions in educational organization, content, and methods. struction of Rousseau brought edu cation into closer rela tions with human welfare and opened the way to nu merous social movements in modern education. By this de- The Social Movements in Modern Education.traditionalism Hence, although Rousseau's mission was largely to destroy traditionalism, and most of the specific features of his naturalism have in time been modified or rejected, many important advances in modern education would seem to go back to him. His criticism caused men to rush to the defence of existing systems, and when they failed in their attempts to reinstate them, they undertook the construction of something better. In the first place, his attitude toward the artificial, superficial, and inhuman society of the times led him to oppose its arbitrary authority and guidance of education according to an unnatural and traditional organization. He advocated the virtues of the primitive man and a simpler basis of social organization, and held that all members of society should be trained industrially so as to contribute to their own support and to be sympathetic and benevolent toward their fellows. Through him education has been more closely related to human welfare. The industrial work of Pestalozzi and Fellenberg, the moral aim of education held by Herbart, the social participation in the practice of Froebel, and the present-day emphasis upon vocational education, moral instruction, and training of defectives and of other extreme variations, alike find some of their roots in the Emile. In fact, the fallacy involved in Rousseau's isolated education is too palpable to mislead any one, and those who have best caught his spirit and endeavored to develop his practice have all most insistently stressed social activities in the training of children and striven to make education lead to a closer and more sympathetic coöperation in society. Hence in Rousseau's negative and apparently anti social training are clearly implied many of the social movements in modern education. By his rejec tion of books and the expe past, in favor study and seau helped in the curric ulum. The Scientific Movement in Modern Education.Moreover, since Rousseau repudiated all social traditions and accepted nature as his only guide, he was absolutely rience of the opposed to all book learning and exaggerated the value of nature of personal observation and influence. He consequently observational neglected the past, and wished to rob the pupil of all the work, Rousexperience of his fellows and of those who had gone develop the before. But he stressed the use of natural objects in the use of sciences curriculum and developed the details of nature study and observational work to an extent never previously undertaken. Partly as a result of this influence, schools and colleges have come to include in their course the study of physical forces, natural environment, plants, and animals. Therein Rousseau not only anticipates somewhat the nature study and geography of Pestalozzi, Basedow, Salzmann, and Ritter, but, in a way, foreshadows the arguments of Spencer, Huxley, and the modern scientific movement in education. Rousseau's study of their The Psychological Movements in Modern Educa- Although tion.-A matter of even greater importance is Rousseau's knowledge of belief that education should be in accordance with the children was defective, he natural interests of the child. Although his knowledge started the of children was defective,1 and his recommendations were marred by unnatural breaks and filled with sentimentality, he saw the need of studying the child as the only basis for education. In the Preface to the Emile he declares: "We do not know childhood. Acting on the false ideas we 1 His Confessions tell us how he declined to rear his own children, but consigned all five to the public foundling asylum. development, and while his theory of 'delayed maturing di vided the pupil's development into too definite stages, it outlined the characteris tics at dif have of it, the farther we go the farther we wander from the right path. The wisest among us are engrossed in what the adult needs to know and fail to consider what children are able to apprehend. ferent periods. We are always looking for the man in the child, without thinking of what he is before he becomes a man. This is the study to which I have devoted myself, to the end that, even though my whole method may be chimerical and false, the reader may still profit by my observations. I may have a very poor conception of what ought to be done, but I think I have the correct view of the subject on which we are to work. Begin, then, by studying your pupils more thoroughly, for assuredly you know nothing about them. Now if you read this book of mine with this purpose in view, I do not believe it will be without profit to you." As a result of such appeals, the child has become the center of discussion in modern training, and we may thank Rousseau for introducing a new principle into education. And, despite his limitations and prejudices, this unnatural and neglectful parent stated many details of child development with much force and clearness and gave an impetus to later reformers, who were able to correct his observations and make them more practicable in education. In this connection should especially be considered Rousseau's theory of 'delayed maturing,' which is later restated by Froebel. He makes a sharp division of the pupil's development into definite stages that seem but little connected with one another, and prescribes a distinct education for each period. This is often cited as a ruinous breach in the evolution of the individual, and the reductio ad absurdum of such an atomic training would seem to be reached in his hope of rendering Emile warm-hearted and pious, after keeping him in the meshes of self-interest and doubt until he is fifteen. But such a criticism loses sight of the remark |