Education

God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil. He forces one soil to yield the products of another, one tree to bear another’s fruit. He confuses and confounds time, place, and natural conditions. He mutilates his dog, his horse, and his slave. He destroys and defaces all things; he loves all that is deformed and monstrous; he will have nothing as nature made it, not even man himself, who must learn his paces like a saddlehorse, and be shaped to his master’s taste like the trees in his garden.

According to Rousseau, education should take advantage of natural impulses rather than distort them. Education should not consist of pouring information into children in a highly structured school. Rather, education should create a situation in which a child’s natural abilities and interests can be nurtured. For Rousseau, the child naturally has a rich array of positive instincts, and the best edu- cation is one that allows these impulses to become actualized.

In Emile (1762/1974), a treatise on education in the form of a novel, Rousseau described what he considered the optimal setting for education. A child and his or her tutor leave civilization and

return to nature; in this setting, the child is free to follow his or her own talents and curiosities. The tutor responds to the child’s questions rather than trying to impose his views on the child. As the child matures, his or her abilities and inter- ests change, and thus what constitutes a meaning- ful educational experience changes. It is always the child’s natural abilities and interests, however, that guide the educational process. Rousseau (1762/1974) described how education should be responsive to each particular student’s interests and abilities: