Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Government & Education

Government intro (part 2)

For Rousseau, the only legitimate political authority is the authority consented to by all the people, who have agreed to such government by entering into a social contract for the sake of their mutual preservation.

Government intro (part 1)

• *Rousseau believed how a government can exist in a way that protects the equality and character of its citizens* He states that *the civil society does nothing to enforce the equality and individual liberty that were promised to man when he entered into that society.* For Rousseau, the only legitimate political authority is the authority consented to by all the people, who have agreed to such government by entering into a social contract for the sake of their mutual preservation.

Government (continued )

• *Rousseau writes that this government may take different forms, including monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, according to the size and characteristics of the state, and that all these forms carry different virtues and drawbacks.* • He claims that monarchy is always the strongest, is particularly suitable to hot climates, and may be necessary in all states in times of crisis. He claims that aristocracy, or rule by the few, is most stable, however, and in most states is the preferable form. *Rousseau believed that this delicate balance between state authority and the rights of the individual citizen could be achieved*

Education: Books 1 & 2

• In books I and II, Rousseau insists that young children in the Age of Nature must emphasize the physical side of their education. Like small animals, they must be freed of constrictive swaddling clothes, breast-fed by their mothers, and allowed to play outside, thereby developing the physical senses that will be the most important tools in their acquisition of knowledge. • Later, as they approach puberty, they should be taught a manual trade, such as carpentry, and allowed to develop within it, further augmenting their physical capabilities and hand-brain coordination.

Education

• Rousseau believed that an education gave citizens the opportunity to learn how to be good even though they lived in a corrupt society. *These views on education helped inspire the national education system in France during the French Revolution.* • Views on religion found in fourth work (after the 'Social Contract'), Émile (1762),which takes up five books *Books I and II describe the Age of Nature up to age twelve; books III and IV describe the transitional stages of adolescence; and book V describes the Age of Wisdom, corresponding roughly to the ages of twenty through twenty-five. Rousseau claims that this stage is followed by the Age of Happiness, the final stage of development, which he does not address in Èmile.*

Education: Book 3

• Rousseau goes on to say that as Èmile enters his teenage years, he should begin formal education. However, the education Rousseau proposes involves working only with a private tutor and studying and reading only what he is curious about, only that which is "useful" or "pleasing." • Rousseau explains that in this manner Èmile will essentially educate himself and be excited about learning. He will nurture a love of all things beautiful and learn not to suppress his natural affinity for them. • Rousseau states that early adolescence is the best time to begin such study, since after puberty the young man is fully developed physically yet still uncorrupted by the passions of later years. *He is able to develop his own faculties of reason, under the guidance of a tutor who is careful to observe the personal characteristics of his student and suggest study materials in accordance with his individual nature.*

Education: Book 4

•At this stage, Èmile is also ready for religious education, and in a subsection of book IV called "the Creed of the Savoyard Priest," Rousseau describes that education. • He describes Èmile receiving a lesson from the Savoyard Priest, who outlines the proper relationship a virtuous natural man such as Èmile should hold with God, the scripture, and the church. *The main thrust of the priest's instruction is that Èmile should approach religion as a skeptic and a freethinker and that he should discover the greatness and truth of God through his own discovery of it, not through the forced ingestion of the church's dogma.*

Education: Book 5

•Rousseau writes that only after a final period of studying history and learning how society corrupts natural man can Èmile venture unprotected into that society, without danger of himself being corrupted. • *Èmile does venture out in book V, and he immediately encounters woman, in the form of Sophie.* •Rousseau devotes a large part of the concluding section to their love story as well as to a discussion of female education.