Emile: On Education

As a boy enters puberty, his emotions take over: “He becomes deaf to the voice he used to obey; he is a lion in a fever” (92). Since his feelings are in turmoil and he doesn’t know why, this is a difficult time for both student and tutor. In this section, Rousseau offers advice on how to guide the pupil during this challenging stage.

Rousseau addresses love of the self. Self-love is vital to survival; loving others develops over time. At first, a child likes his caregivers simply because they take care of him. As children grow and learn, they begin to understand that caregivers are not only useful but desire to be of use, which in turn awakens reciprocal feelings of love in children.

An independent child can love others, but one who depends on approval becomes selfish, and “selfishness, which is always comparing self with others, is never satisfied and never can be” (93). Once feelings arise for the opposite sex, the young man will want them reciprocated; to do so, he must compete for attention while facing possible rivalries and jealousy. This happens to everyone, despite the best training during childhood. For Rousseau, this repetitive cycle demands change.

To curtail this, the tutor should not inform the child about sex too soon, but, if asked about it, should be plain and matter-of-fact. If facts are buried, they’ll appear twisted and shameful. Besides, the student will learn one way or another. Yet it’s best to keep him occupied with the business of growing up instead of preoccupied with lurid imaginings.

As he develops, the well-brought-up lad will discover sympathy for others before he discovers lust. “Adolescence is not the age of hatred or vengeance; it is the age of pity, mercy, and generosity” (97). Badly brought-up teenage boys, on the other hand, become preoccupied with the opposite sex.

To inspire feelings of pity and sympathy, instead of uncaring superiority, the tutor follows three maxims. The first is: “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” (98). Envy cannot generate fondness.

The second maxim is: “We never pity another’s woes unless we know we may suffer in like manner ourselves” (99). High-born men, assured of their station, are incapable of this sentiment, which means that children must be taught that fate can bring misfortune to anyone.

The third maxim is: “The pity we feel for others is proportionate, not to the amount of the evil, but to the feelings we attribute to the sufferers” (99). If we imagine that rich and poor suffer equally, or that the poor are too stupid to suffer, we come to believe that the impoverished are not harmed by lack and therefore don’t deserve our concern. Instead, to the student, “speak in his hearing of the human race with tenderness, and even with pity, but never with scorn” (100).

The unprepared high-born youth, flattered all his life by friends and family, suddenly is thrust into high society, where those of yet higher station inspire envy yet subject him to ridicule. “What insults, what humiliation, must he endure, before he loses among strangers the ideas of his own importance” (101). Even the best-raised boys will become overly excited as new passions stir in them; “put off their dawning imagination with objects which, far from inflaming their senses, put a check to their activity” (102). For example, a visit to a hospital ward filled with sufferers from sexual diseases may be enough to blunt the desire for harlots.

During this stressful time, the tutor may be tempted to control his subject by calling on an obligation that the student owes for all the good service the tutor has provided. If the teacher puts a price on his wisdom, the pupil will resent him. Instead, he should let the student discover for himself the value of the tutor’s advice and friendship.

When it comes time to discuss society and politics, describe men “as they are, not that he may hate them, but that he may pity them and have no wish to be like them” (106). Societies tend to be arranged so that the few take advantage of the many. The tutor should teach that people are good by nature, but he should also allow the child to see how society depraves humankind; he’ll develop respect for the individual while despising the multitude. 

Teaching these maxims as abstract theory will have little effect; however, exposing the pupil to the scheming of his fellows will only make him cynical. Instead, let the stories of history be his guide; in them “he will read the hearts of men without any lessons in philosophy” (106). However, most historians add their own biases to the story, and history is about events more than motives. It’s better, therefore, to read biographies, which lay bare a subject’s character with details from his private life, for these “small moments” are what truly define people. 

Despite all efforts, the tutor will find his charge making foolish decisions in society, especially if he thinks his independent wisdom makes him better than others. It’s best to warn him quietly, then go with him and bear the penalties alongside him, although making sure that nothing too dire happens. The student will respect this method of instruction. 

As to the student’s religious sentiments, it’s important not to try to inculcate beliefs in God and salvation before the pupil is ready to understand them.

Rousseau relates the story of his own tutor relationship with a Savoyard priest—though he doesn’t reveal at first who the young student is. Having been lured to a life of vice and cruel treatment, the young man has escaped into poverty and cynicism. The priest listens open-heartedly to the young man’s experience and then takes him under his wing. Without appearing to, the priest teaches moral lessons, all the while encouraging the young man to think better of himself. For instance, the priest refuses to divert parish alms to the young man, who asks for money on the grounds of poverty; instead, he gives to the young man from his own pocket: “Lessons of this sort seldom fail to make an impression on the heart of young people who are not wholly corrupt” (121).

Rousseau notes that his benefactor, though a priest, does not expect piety from Rousseau, is not shocked by the young man’s indifference toward Catholicism, and in fact shares with the young man a distaste for religious ceremony. Rousseau asks how the priest reconciles these apparent contradictions, and the priest answers with a story, which takes up a large portion of this section of the book:

Unable to resist the temptations of domestic life, the priest breaks his vows and gets married, is found out and exiled. He is then hurled into doubt over his beliefs, which demand that he accept all Catholic precepts without exception. He decides to start from first principles and reason out, from there, his view of the world. First come sensations, then ideas about sensations. Then he notices that matter sometimes is in motion, either from inside, as with living animals, or from outside. Inanimate motion is caused by a previous motion, which in turn is caused by a previous motion, until, at the beginning, some power must have given the first push: “I believe, therefore, that there is a will which sets the universe in motion and gives life to nature” (126). Motion conforms to laws; hence, the original mover displays intelligence. Since, within the universe, “each part of it is fitted to the rest, I admire the workman in the details of his work” (127). The harmony of events cannot have occurred randomly, so the priest calls this mover of the universe God. 

The priest next realizes that, since he can control and manage the things around him, but they can’t do the same to him, it must be the purpose of humans to make use of the things of the world. “It is true, therefore, that man is lord of the earth on which he dwells . . . he alone knows how to control it” (128). He therefore worships God’s omnipotence in gratitude. 

Among humans, however, the priest discovers only moral chaos—even within himself. Freedom comes in choosing what is right, however, rather than opting for slavish dependency on outside influences. “Man is therefore free to act, and as such he is animated by an immaterial substance; that is the third article of my creed” (130). This act, this will, defines the soul. Man’s will gives him the option to do good or evil; the gift of discernment thus opens mankind to the possibility of wickedness. The ability to choose between right and wrong is a blessing, not a curse, for God “could not harm and destroy without injury to himself. The omnipotent can only will what is good” (131). Despite free will, people are undone by their imaginings. “If we were but content to be ourselves we should have no cause to complain of our lot; but in the search for an imaginary good we find a thousand real ills” (130).

The priest next tackles what happens to the soul at death. He decides that “as I cannot imagine how it can die, I presume that it does not die” (131). What will happen then, he cannot know, but a sense of justice dictates that God will reward those who have been honorable in this life. As for those who commit evil: “What need to seek a hell in the future life? It is here in the breast of the wicked” (132). For the priest, wickedness dies with the body and its passions.

How, then, should people behave? he next queries. “Conscience is the voice of the soul, the passions are the voice of the body . . . he who obeys his conscience is following nature and he need not fear that he will go astray” (133). Our first duty is to ourselves; thereafter, we seek to do good for others. “Take from our hearts this love of what is noble and you rob us of the joy of life” (134). This sentiment is universal.

For his part, the priest simply reveres God and his orderly universe. He asks nothing of God except “to correct my error if I go astray” (138).

The priest next turns to organized religion. God’s message should be plain to all who seek it, yet religions introduce extra doctrines and practices: “they add absurd contradictions, they make man proud, intolerant, and cruel; instead of bringing peace upon earth, they bring fire and sword” (138). Yet each religion insists that its ways are correct and all others are false. Thus, people born by chance into the wrong religion will be punished arbitrarily, and “it is unjust to hold them responsible for it […] To dare to say that God judges us in this manner is an outrage on his justice” (139).

The priest also tackles God’s miracles, miracles that purportedly prove his words as written in the testaments.

Where are these miracles? In the books. And who wrote the books? Men. And who saw the miracles? The men who bear witness to them. What! Nothing but human testimony! Nothing but men who tell me what others told them! How many men between God and me! (140).

The world is filled with religions; each claims to be the only true faith, and each condemns all others and threatens damnation to all who fail to worship correctly. To choose among them, it would take a lifetime of research. Instead, perhaps each religion is appropriate to its place and time. Thus, the priest carefully fulfills his Christian duties, as “God rejects no homage, however offered, provided it is sincere” (146). In sum, “to love God above all things and to love our neighbour as ourself is the whole law” (147).

Rousseau presents the Savoyard priest’s testament “as an example of the way in which we may reason with our pupil” (149). Skeptics will claim that all teens are impulsive and fiery, but this is because most children are forced to suppress themselves with study. Emile, on the other hand, having trained vigorously under the guidance of Nature, is now ready for study. “Thus the age of reason becomes for the one the age of licence; for the other, the age of reasoning” (150).

Rousseau returns to the topic of romantic interest. One way to delay the young man’s interest in women, he says, is to teach him a new and challenging skill. Hunting, for example, which, through its violence, keeps the lad’s mind pointed away from romance.

When the student awakens fully to his yearning for the opposite sex, it is futile to try to stop him; he will resent you and push you away. Equally bad is simply to go along with his caprices; this merely enables him and puts him at risk. Instead, “I must make him accountable for his own actions, I must at least preserve him from being taken unawares, and I must show him plainly the dangers which beset his path” (151).

Rather than giving a cold lecture on a difficult topic, the tutor speaks with warm emotion, emphasizing his love for the student and the hard work on the student's behalf. Choosing time and place carefully, in a natural setting that inspires reverence, the tutor can kindle all the earlier precepts he has instructed the child on so that the student’s mind is receptive to the lesson.

Then, “if we paint to him marriage, not only as the sweetest form of society, but also as the most sacred and inviolable of contracts” and “if we give him a true and terrible picture of the horrors of debauch” (155), the student will be eager to learn how to perfect his chastity until he weds. The teacher must take great care to win the student to his side. Rather than warn him against the pleasures that tempt him, the tutor must emphasize the value of love.

To this end, the tutor introduces the student to society, but with a purpose on which the student can focus: a fitting companion. The teacher describes to him the type of young woman whose character is appropriate to the student; “let him delight in the portrait, he will soon desire to find the original” (157).

With proper instruction, in society, Emile will be self-possessed, quiet, respectful, kindly rather than proper, observant rather than showy. He will care little for fashion but will always be in good taste.

If a man comes into wealth, Rousseau advises against displaying it. He would, instead, continue to value Nature, walks, and doing for himself instead of depending on too many others. He wouldn’t waste his money on gambling, collectibles, or baubles. Palaces and servants become a prison; it’s better to have simple lodgings and the freedom of travel. In place of finery, Rousseau would dress simply, so as to encounter all classes of people; his friends would enjoy him for his company, not his riches. He would never expect to purchase affection because money destroys love.

Rousseau would live in a cottage in the country, where friends could gather for an informal meal outdoors on the grass between an orchard and a stream; “our dessert is hanging on the trees” (170). And instead of formal elegance, there would be laughter, singing, and good conversation.