Emile

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EMILE

By Jean-Jacques Rousseau


Translated by Barbara Foxley




Author's Preface

This collection of scattered thoughts and observations has little
order or continuity; it was begun to give pleasure to a good mother
who thinks for herself. My first idea was to write a tract a few
pages long, but I was carried away by my subject, and before I knew
what I was doing my tract had become a kind of book, too large indeed
for the matter contained in it, but too small for the subject of
which it treats. For a long time I hesitated whether to publish
it or not, and I have often felt, when at work upon it, that it is
one thing to publish a few pamphlets and another to write a book.
After vain attempts to improve it, I have decided that it is my
duty to publish it as it stands. I consider that public attention
requires to be directed to this subject, and even if my own ideas
are mistaken, my time will not have been wasted if I stir up others
to form right ideas. A solitary who casts his writings before the
public without any one to advertise them, without any party ready
to defend them, one who does not even know what is thought and said
about those writings, is at least free from one anxiety--if he is
mistaken, no one will take his errors for gospel.

I shall say very little about the value of a good education, nor
shall I stop to prove that the customary method of education is bad;
this has been done again and again, and I do not wish to fill my
book with things which everyone knows. I will merely state that, go
as far back as you will, you will find a continual outcry against
the established method, but no attempt to suggest a better. The
literature and science of our day tend rather to destroy than to
build up. We find fault after the manner of a master; to suggest,
we must adopt another style, a style less in accordance with the
pride of the philosopher. In spite of all those books, whose only
aim, so they say, is public utility, the most useful of all arts,
the art of training men, is still neglected. Even after Locke's
book was written the subject remained almost untouched, and I fear
that my book will leave it pretty much as it found it.

We know nothing of childhood; and with our mistaken notions the
further we advance the further we go astray. The wisest writers
devote themselves to what a man ought to know, without asking what
a child is capable of learning. They are always looking for the
man in the child, without considering what he is before he becomes
a man.  It is to this study that I have chiefly devoted myself,
so that if my method is fanciful and unsound, my observations may
still be of service. I may be greatly mistaken as to what ought to
be done, but I think I have clearly perceived the material which
is to be worked upon. Begin thus by making a more careful study of
your scholars, for it is clear that you know nothing about them;
yet if you read this book with that end in view, I think you will
find that it is not entirely useless.

With regard to what will be called the systematic portion of the
book, which is nothing more than the course of nature, it is here
that the reader will probably go wrong, and no doubt I shall be
attacked on this side, and perhaps my critics may be right. You
will tell me, "This is not so much a treatise on education as the
visions of a dreamer with regard to education." What can I do? I have
not written about other people's ideas of education, but about my
own.  My thoughts are not those of others; this reproach has been
brought against me again and again. But is it within my power
to furnish myself with other eyes, or to adopt other ideas? It is
within my power to refuse to be wedded to my own opinions and to
refuse to think myself wiser than others. I cannot change my mind;
I can distrust myself. This is all I can do, and this I have done.
If I sometimes adopt a confident tone, it is not to impress the
reader, it is to make my meaning plain to him. Why should I profess
to suggest as doubtful that which is not a matter of doubt to
myself? I say just what I think.

When I freely express my opinion, I have so little idea of claiming
authority that I always give my reasons, so that you may weigh
and judge them for yourselves; but though I would not obstinately
defend my ideas, I think it my duty to put them forward; for the
principles with regard to which I differ from other writers are
not matters of indifference; we must know whether they are true or
false, for on them depends the happiness or the misery of mankind.
People are always telling me to make PRACTICABLE suggestions. You
might as well tell me to suggest what people are doing already,
or at least to suggest improvements which may be incorporated with
the wrong methods at present in use. There are matters with regard
to which such a suggestion is far more chimerical than my own,
for in such a connection the good is corrupted and the bad is none
the better for it.