adopted country as well as to modify profoundly that of many others, and when applied to education was to create a new epoch therein as well. In brief, the idea was simple and now commonplace enough. It was that human happiness and human welfare are the natural rights of every individual, not the special possession of a favored class; and that legitimate social organization and education exist but to bring about the realization of this desideratum. To this he added as a main argument, -the fuse which was to explode the bomb,- that science, art, government, education as then constituted prevented this realization and hence were objects for destruction. DOCTRINE OF THE "NATURAL STATE." - In 1749, coming by chance across the theme for a prize essay propounded by the Dijon Academy, Rousseau was seized with what he terms an inspiration. The theme was formulated in the question: "Has the restoration of the sciences contributed to purify or corrupt manners?" Rousseau's answer was the negative one elaborated in the doctrine of the "natural state." This idea was much discussed during this period and by some even given the same form as that now propounded by Rousseau. But, unlike others, Rousseau furnished in defense of this thesis an emotional fervor and a literary style that carried conviction. To him belongs the honor of securing its popular acceptance. Rousseau did but little more than idealize his remembrance of the simple Genevan life and society, together with that of his own aimless, emotional life. As we recognize the primitive man to be, so certainly by his own showing was Rousseau in his worst moments, "lying, faithless, slanderous, thievish, indecent, cruel, cowardly, selfish." But this life had its positive side also; it was entirely spontaneous; it was simple, happy, contented, earnest, honest in the sense of true to life. Compared with the life which Rousseau contrasted it with, the formal, superficial, selfish, and to him inhuman life of Parisian society, the life according to nature had much to commend it. Much character of eight eenth-century society of the unattractiveness of the life of nature was due to the Its formulalack of that sophistication so characteristic of the social life tion due to of the times and was more than counterbalanced by its genuineness. Its strength lay in its recognition of the worth of the individual on his own merits, in the bond of sympathy which it recognized as the universal solvent, in its passion for freedom and for independence from the trammels of usage, tradition and tyranny. experience learned society Rousseau had now spent several years in contact, though Rousseau's not in sympathy, with the society of culture, wealth and posi- with fashiontion. On the other hand, he had mingled with that circle able and of powerful intellects, centered around Voltaire, which controlled the new thought and influenced most of the political and social hierarchies of Europe. With neither of these societies had he any sympathy. The one principle which he honestly lived up to throughout his life was the democratic one, his feeling for the common man, his belief in the worth of the individual. It was this hollow and insincere, though brilliant, wealthy and "cultured" society that was before him when he produced his essays and those works of the following thirteen years, ending with the Emile, which were to render him famous and to revolutionize society. 44 'Essay" Political as pect of the doctrine of the natural Rousseau's second essay On the Origin of Inequality among The Second Men, is devoted largely to an imaginary description of the state of society among primitive men. The idea of this discourse leads to that of Rousseau's chief political treatise, the Social Contract. In this the basal doctrines of the French Revolution as well as of our own Declaration of Independence are set forth. Government is the result of a " contract" among the people, by which some are given delegated power to rule, while the remainder of the people give to the governing class some service in return for services performed. Government, thus formed by agreement, can be dissolved when the parties no longer agree. It is to be noted that the conception of the "natural state" is modified in the Social Contract. state C Relation to the French and American Revolutions Plan of the Use of the term nature Doctrine of "nature" in its social It is no longer the life of the savage that is ideal, but the life in society organized under the rule of the people. In this state the simple tastes and wants of the masses dominate, and an aristocracy with its ill-gained wealth, leisure time and selfish indulgence is wanting. Such a society can devote itself to the development of an ideal life, wherein the "natura man" is not hampered, freedom is not lost, and the arts and sciences of polite society are undeveloped. Just as the great doctrines of liberation of the common man find their origin in the teachings of Rousseau, so also do the great educational doctrines of the liberation of the child. As the Social Contract contains the germs of the American Constitution, so the Émile contains the germinal ideas of the kindergarten, of modern elementary school work and of the entire modern conception of education. THE "ÉMILE" AND EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NATURE. In this long tale, part novel, part didactic exposition, Rousseau describes the education of the youth appropriate to his ideal society. The child is taken from his parents and the schools, isolated from society, and put into the hands of an ideal tutor, who brings him up in contact with nature's beauties and nature's wonders. In this treatise, "education according to nature" receives its fullest exposition. Threefold Meaning of Nature in the "Émile." In the opening sentence of the work the fundamental principle is stated: "Everything is good as it comes from the hand of the author of nature; but everything degenerates in the hands of man." While Rousseau is not consistent in his use of the term nature, and employs it, as is frequently done by others, in a very vague way, yet one of three definite meanings can usually be assigned to it. The first and fundamental meaning of "nature" in the Émile, as in Rousseau's other writings, is the social one. In the Social significance Contract he shows how a state of high culture can be based upon a truer political principle, and thus a nobler type of social life than that of the eighteenth century may be evolved. In the Émile he describes an education based, not on the forms of society, on the meaningless traditions of the school, and on an entire ignorance of childhood, but on a knowledge of the true nature of man. As in the Social Contract he taught that the only rights of man were those found in the laws of his own nature; so, according to the Émile, education is to be guided by these same laws. The "natural man" is not the savage man, but man governed and directed by the laws of his own nature. Such laws are discoverable, as are the laws of any other portion of nature, through investigation. This being the primary meaning of education according to nature, an opposition to society follows as a corollary. "We must choose between making a man and a citizen, for we cannot make both at once." But it must be understood that in making this statement Rousseau had primarily in mind the civilization of the eighteenth century. in A second meaning given to "nature" is that the instinctive "Nature" judgment, primitive emotions, natural instincts, "first impres-chological sions," are more trustworthy as a basis for action than are significance reflection, or the experience that comes from association with others. "Before this alteration (by habits of thought and judgment acquired from others), this disposition is what I call our nature." Hence Rousseau is constantly attacking the formation of "habits" in education. "The only habit which the child should be allowed to form is to contract no habit whatever," he says. Habit, in the sense of primary disposition unaltered by enlightenment or by suggestion from others, is to be followed. Habit, in its usual significance, as that fixed method of action which is acquired by direct imitation, or by suggestion from others, is to be shunned. The third sense in which "nature" is used, is to indicate inanimate and subhuman nature. The mal-education which comes from man is to be counteracted by contact, fearless and intimate, with animals, with plants, and with physical phenomena "Nature" in its phenomenal or physical significance Prevailing "positive" education aimed to repress natural tendencies Rousseau's "negative" education: and forces of all kinds. Rousseau was a "lover of nature," and through his teachings began a movement of finer and fuller appreciation of nature, which found its expression in a wide school of literature both on the continent and in England. Rousseau's conception, however, based upon a wholly misanthropic view of the life of man in society, was not quite so genial. It led to complete isolation from society and to the preference for the life of the recluse. Both morally and physically he held that "Cities are the graves of the human species." Negative Education. —The prevailing conception of human nature, and especially of child nature, reinforced by both educational and religious teachings, was diametrically opposed to that of Rousseau. Human nature was considered essentially bad. The purpose of religious training as well as of education in general was to eradicate the original nature and to replace it by one shaped under man's direction. Rousseau opposed this idea with the following principle: "The first education, then, should be purely negative. It consists, not in teaching the principles of virtue or truth, but in guarding the heart against vice and the mind against error." With him the entire education of the child was to come from the free development of his own nature, his own powers, his own natural inclinations. His will was not to be thwarted. By this negative education, expounded in most startling definition of paradoxes, Rousseau did not maintain that there should be no education at all; but that there should be one very different in kind from the accepted educational practices. In one of his letters in defense of the Émile against the many attacks made upon it, the author wrote: "I call a positive education one that tends to form the mind prematurely, and to instruct the child in the duties that belong to a man. I call a negative education one that tends to perfect the organs that are the instruments of knowledge before giving this knowledge directly; and that endeavors to prepare the way for reason by the proper exercise of the senses. A negative education does not mean a time of training to precede instruction |