Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Emil, or On Education

RUSSO JEAN-JACQUES(1712-1778), philosopher, writer, educator. France.

Born in Geneva in the family of a watchmaker, he did not receive a formal education. As a child, he was apprenticed to an engraver, but fled from him, unable to bear the beatings and hunger, lived in Italy, France, Switzerland, England, changed many professions (footman, music teacher, tutor, secretary, etc.), did a lot of self-education. Turn in the life of R. occurred in 1749: his essay on the topic "Has the progress of the sciences and arts contributed to the improvement of morals?", proposed by the Dijon Academy, is recognized as brilliant and receives a high award. The name R. becomes famous, and after other works, and especially "Emil" (1762) - famous, although this book was recognized by the authorities as harmful and publicly burned.

R.'s ideas met the interests of those who fought against the feudal order, and above all the interests of the petty bourgeoisie. His worldview was based on the theories he created. natural law, natural religions and natural education. The latter was combined with the idea free upbringing, the task of which is to eliminate the harmful influence on the nature of the child, not to interfere with its full development. R. called for the destruction of the entire dogmatic and anti-human in its essence feudal system of education. The new, natural education he proposed was based on the principles of nature and freedom. They meant the natural perfection of the child, a careful and loving attitude towards him, the protection of his rights, following the instructions of nature in education (the principle of natural conformity).

Their pedagogical ideas R. tells in "Emil". The author himself warns in the preface that he does not call his methods of upbringing, rather he rebels against the evil being committed against children today and sometimes expresses thoughts that resemble the dreams of a dreamer. Four books of "Emil" are devoted to each of the periods of upbringing "up to 2 years, from 2 to 12, from 12 to 15, from 15 to 20", and the fifth is the upbringing of Sophie, Emil's girlfriend. For the “purity” of the experiment, Emil is declared an orphan, a tutor takes care of him, and all education takes place outside the society spoiled by wealth and power, in unity with nature, in a natural environment.

Up to 2 years - special attention physical development child, a description of the techniques, ways of hardening the child is given. You should not swaddle Emil: “Do not interfere with nature! Let your body develop freely! » Emil does not walk yet, in the hands of the educator he gets acquainted with the surrounding objects, reaches for them, breaks toys. Give their him, but do not indulge whims.

From 2 to 12 years - the period of "sleep of the mind." Emil should not be forced to memorize fairy tales, reason, read instructions to him. It would be good for him not to know books at all until the age of 12, but to start acquaintance with them from Robinson Crusoe. Emil still improves health, and his knowledge is limited to independent measurement, weighing, comparison. With the scarcity of education, it is still desirable that he learn the complex idea of ​​property. Rejecting punishment, R. puts forward the principle "natural consequences"(see topic 2.13).

From 12 to 15 years - a period of mental and labor education. Emil is strong, independent, well oriented in the world around him. The criteria for choosing subjects are the interest of the child and the need for knowledge of nature. Emil is passionate about geography, natural history, astronomy, he is a talented student, a researcher child. He himself discovers scientific truths, invents a compass, manufactures various devices. The goal is achieved: Emil has the head of a philosopher, and the hands of a craftsman, he respects the man of labor, prepared for life.

From the age of 15, a “period of storms and passions” begins. R. returns Emil to society, where his moral education is completed. The depraved world is not terrible for a young man, he is hardened from vices and temptations, he is even more strengthened in his convictions. From the age of 17, the young man gets acquainted with religion in its "natural" version. Emil matured, it's time to marry him. Sophie's fiancee also went through the right upbringing for a woman's purpose. Her "natural state" is dependence on a man his will and desires. No serious intellectual pursuits, lack of personal opinion and even of one's own religion. A woman should take care of her own health and the health of her children, educate men in their youth, please them , to make their life pleasant, to be meek, not talkative, to know the subtleties of the economy.

On the whole, R.'s pedagogical conception is utopian; it contains many artificial and erroneous views on education, and especially in didactics. In addition, this concept is designed for a system: one teacher - one pupil. Nevertheless, R. had a deep and lasting influence on the development of pedagogy and its social principles. .

The treatise novel “Emil or on Education” is the main pedagogical work of Rousseau, entirely devoted to the problems of human education. To express his pedagogical ideas, Rousseau created a situation where the educator begins to educate a child left an orphan from infancy and takes on the rights and obligations of parents. And Emil is entirely the fruit of his many efforts as an educator.

Rousseau plans three types of education And three types of teacher: Nature, People and Objects . All of them participate in the upbringing of a person: nature internally develops our inclinations and organs, people help to use this development, objects act on us and give us experience. nature education does not depend on us, but acts independently. subject education partly depends on us.

Upbringing - a great thing, and it can create a free and happy person. The natural man - Rousseau's ideal - is harmonious and whole, the qualities of a human citizen, a patriot of his Motherland are highly developed in him. He is absolutely free from selfishness. As an example of such a person, Rousseau cites the Lacedaemonian Pedaret, who wished to become a member of the council of three hundred, and when he was refused this, he was glad that there were three hundred people better than him in Sparta.

The role of the educator for Rousseau is to educate children and give them one single trade - life. According to Emil's teacher, neither a judicial officer, nor a military man, nor a priest will come out of his hands - first of all, it will be a person who can be both.

Each age period should correspond to special forms of education and training.. Education should be of a labor nature and contribute to the maximum development of independence and initiative of students. Intellectual education should be preceded and accompanied by the exercise of the physical forces and senses of the pupils. In his novel Rousseau gives periodization dividing a child's life into four stages:

1 - from birth to two years. This is the period of physical education. Child's caregivers mother and father.

2nd period - children's age from 2 to 12 years;

3 period - adolescence from 12 to 15 years;

4 period - adolescence from 15 to 18 years old.

IN first book Jean-Jacques Rousseau talks about the first period of a child's life in his novel Emile or on Education. Rousseau says: "Plants are given form by cultivation, and men by education." “We are born deprived of everything - we need help; we are born meaningless - we need reason. Everything that we do not have at birth and without which we cannot do when we become adults, is given to us by education. Rousseau believes that it is impossible to rely only on feelings in education, otherwise a person will not know what he wants.

“To be anything, to be yourself and always one, you need to act as you say, you need to be always ready for the decision that you have to make, you need to take boldly and follow it constantly.”

This chapter also says that the child should not be shackled after birth with diapers, the child should lie freely. Rousseau urges people: "Let the body develop freely, do not interfere with nature." He believes that the child needs to be hardened, the child does not need any doctors and medicines. The biggest enemy is hygiene. At this age, it is necessary to accustom to darkness, loneliness, unfamiliar objects, but the child should not have any regimen, only natural needs. “The too precise distribution of food and sleep makes both necessary after each interval of time: soon desire begins to appear not from need, but from habit, or, rather, habit begins a new need for natural need - this is what should be prevented.” It is not necessary, according to Rousseau, forcing, stimulating speech.

So, at this age, the emphasis is on the physical development of children, and the main educators are mother and father.

This society is vicious, and Rousseau sees its change in the re-education of children, in the fact that parents should take care of their children. “But let only mothers deign to feed their children, morals will be transformed by themselves, natural feelings will wake up in all hearts, the state will again be populated; this first step - this one step will put everything together again. The charm of home life is the best antidote to bad morals. The fuss of children, which is considered tiresome, becomes pleasant; it makes father and mother more necessary and dear to each other; it binds the marital bond between them more strongly. When the family is lively and animated, household chores are the wife's dearest occupation and the husband's sweetest entertainment. Thus, the correction of this one defect will soon result in a general reform, and nature will soon come into her own again. Let only women become mothers again - and men will soon become fathers and husbands again.

But right there, Rousseau shows that if a woman wants to fulfill her maternal duties and feed the child herself, then society will be set against her and her husband.

In the same chapter, the author writes that fathers must fulfill three tasks, he must give: "humanity - a person, society - public people, the state - state citizens." If for some reason one of the tasks is not performed, then the man does not have the right to be a father.

The educator of the child must be a young man in order to become a mentor and friend for the child. The child has a caregiver from birth.

This chapter talks about the fact that the author takes up the education of Emil - this is an ideal child, as well as the author - an ideal mentor. Emil is an orphan, so all the rights and obligations are performed by the mentor. Rousseau gives such a starting point in order to show the operation of his pedagogical system.

Emil must honor his parents, but obey - one mentor. Jean-Jacques writes that he would not take up the upbringing of a weak child, because a weak body weakens the soul. He considers the true doctors: abstinence and work, since work sharpens the appetite, and abstinence prevents them from being abused. In order for the child to be healthy, frequent washing with a constant and slow decrease in temperature is also necessary, and in order to develop well, the child should not be swaddled tightly, he must have freedom of movement.

During infancy, it is important to develop the cognitive processes of children to distinguish between objects, to choose one of several objects.

In the first book, Rousseau says that already at this age it is necessary to teach children to explain what they need and help the child when he is calm. You can not indulge the child and fulfill his requirements, otherwise he will become a little tyrant.

To facilitate teething, you need to teach the child to chew, giving him crusts of bread, etc.

So, in the first book Rousseau gives practical advice about how to raise a healthy full-fledged child, the main thing in which is freedom of movement, a kind attitude towards the child, the development of cognitive processes, the physical development of children and the beginning of the formation of speech.

Infancy is followed by the second period of a child's life, at which childhood actually ends. Rousseau calls children's age from 2 to 12 years "the dream of reason."

All second book"Emil or on Education" is dedicated to the second period of a child's life. During this period, the child should not be forbidden anything, should not be punished, should not be angry, but, however, “by educating Emil according to the principle of natural consequences, he punishes Emil by depriving him of his freedom, i.e. break a window - sit in the cold, break a chair - sit on the floor, break a spoon - eat with your hands. At this age, the upbringing role of an example is great, so it is necessary to rely on it in raising a child.

The child begins to walk, but as before, it is necessary to work hard on strengthening the health of the child, and not force him to memorize stories and fairy tales, the child is not yet able to reason. It is not necessary to teach a child under 12 years old. Let him measure, weigh, count, compare everything himself when he feels the need for it. Rousseau denied the expediency of the pupil acquiring any systematic knowledge and the need to use books in the process of his education. Rousseau insisted that only through practice can and should a child learn the elements of various natural and exact knowledge. “... If you want to develop the mind of your pupil,” Rousseau advises, “develop the forces that he must control. Exercise continuously his body, make him strong and healthy in order to make him wise and reasonable, ... let him be an adult in strength, and he will soon be an adult in mind. In this regard, Rousseau elaborated a number of practical recommendations and a set of exercises for the development of vision, hearing and touch. According to Rousseau, when parents and educators, striving to make a child reasonable, begin to educate him with the help of reason, this means that they do not start from the beginning, but from the end. Speaking to children in a language they do not understand, adults teach the child to get rid of them with empty words. The main thing, according to Rousseau, is to arouse the interest and natural desire of the child to learn. In "Emile" Rousseau describes an example of how a pupil learned to read. Emil, main character, receives notes from the educator with an invitation either for lunch or for a walk, but he cannot read them on his own, and is looking for someone who would help him, as a result of which he is constantly late for all events. “Oh, if I could read myself!” the boy exclaims and tries to read the following notes on his own. Over time, with the help of adults, the child reads better and better, and the process of learning to read is faster and easier. The same method applies to teaching writing. Although, Rousseau believed, it would be good for a child under 12 not to know books at all, but if he nevertheless learned to read, then let his first book be Robinson Crusoe, whose hero leads a simple lifestyle on a desert island, which corresponded to pedagogical ideals French teacher.

However, a child under 12 years of age can internalize the idea of ​​ownership. Emil wants to fence off a plot for himself on the plot of the gardener Gobert, in the very place where, it turns out, Gobert planted melons for himself. From the encounter that took place between Emile and Gaubert, the child learns how "the idea of ​​property naturally ascends to the nature of the first possession through labor." Thus, Rousseau, contrary to his main propositions about the impossibility of forming abstract concepts in children of this age, believes that the idea of ​​property is quite accessible to the understanding of the child.

At this age, one should not force a child to study against his will, but his senses should be exercised: vision, with the help of drawing, measuring certain objects, developing an eye; hearing - singing and music; sense of touch - to recognize bodies that fall under the hands.

Between the ages of 2 and 12, it is impossible to keep the child from bruising all the time, but it is necessary that he grows up, knowing the pain. Suffering, according to Rousseau, is the first thing a child must learn, and this skill will be needed most of all, so he brings up Emil in natural conditions, he takes him to a meadow, and there the child runs, jumps, falls, but quickly gets up and continues to play .

Rousseau advocates that children should not be pressured with stories, instructions about grief, troubles, because at this age the children's mind is the least sensitive to this and therefore no one knows and cannot know how many troubles fall to his lot in an adult condition. Jean-Jacques Rousseau addresses dogmatic teachers: “Why do you give him more calamities than are connected with his condition, since you are not sure that these real calamities will serve as relief for the future? And how can you prove that the evil tendencies which you pretend to eradicate are not engendered in him much more by your ill-directed cares than by nature?”

In this book, the author writes that the child should depend, but not blindly obey, that he should ask, and not order. The child is subordinated to others only because of his needs and because they see better than him, what is useful to him, what can promote or harm his self-preservation, even parents do not have the right to "order the child what he does not need for anything."

The second chapter says that there is no need to forbid a bad deed, it is necessary to prevent its commission. Rousseau also urges us not to be generous with refusals, but you can’t change them either. "Most the right way to make a child unhappy is to teach him not to meet refusal in anything; so his desire will constantly increase due to the ease of satisfying them, but sooner or later he will have to resort to refusal, and these unusual refusals will bring him more torment than the very deprivation of what he desires.

The highest art in a good upbringing is to make a person reasonable, and most scholastic teachers try to educate a child with the help of reason. Rousseau says about methods of upbringing: “It is strange that since they are taken to educate children, they have not yet come up with another such way to lead them, except for competition in envy, hatred, vanity, greed, low fear of all passions, the most dangerous, most capable of exciting and corrupt the soul, even before the body is formed. With every premature instruction that is hammered into their heads, vice is planted in the depths of their hearts; reckless educators think of doing a miracle by making them evil in order to teach what kindness is, and then they solemnly tell us: "such is the man." Yes, such is the man you have made." That is why Rousseau says: "Do things contrary to custom, and you will almost always do well."

Rousseau says that every age, and especially in a given period, is characterized by a desire to create, imitate, produce, show power and activity. In the second book, Rousseau also expresses the following idea: one cannot judge childhood, it must show itself that children do not yet have a memory, that everything with them is based on sensations.

IN third book Jean-Jacques Rousseau talks about the third period of a child's life. By the age of 12, Emil is strong, independent, able to quickly navigate and grasp the most important, then the world around him through his feelings. He is fully prepared to master mental and labor education. At this age, a teenager does not have sufficient moral concepts and cannot correctly understand human relationships, and therefore he must study what is connected with the outside world and nature. The choice of subjects should be based on the interests of the child. Naturally, his interest is directed to what he sees, what he studies: geography, natural history, astronomy. Rousseau develops an original "method" for obtaining this knowledge, based on his independent study of phenomena, describes a child - a researcher who discovers scientific truths, invents a compass, etc.

The matter of education should be set up in such a way that the child does not suspect that he is receiving lessons, and the task of the teacher is not to give ready-made truths to children, but to force them to find them on their own. Here is one of the clear examples of how Rousseau solved the problem of generating a desire to study the science of astronomy and arousing interest in it. Arguing on the topic of orientation in space and the movement of the Sun, Emil expressed complete indifference and unwillingness to continue the conversation. The next day, the teacher and his student decided to take a walk in the forest before breakfast and got lost. Exhausted from the heat, tired and hungry, they go farther and farther into the forest. Sitting down to rest, the educator “leads” Emil to the answer of how to find the way home through the Sun and the shadow, recalls that all this was discussed yesterday, but to no avail. Now interest in astronomy is aroused, and the way home is found independently. As a result of such studies, Emil uses his mind, and the knowledge he has acquired is not imposed from outside, but personally acquired.

Rousseau didn't want to tie personal experience a child with the experience of humanity expressed in science. Rousseau rejected systematic knowledge; at the same time, he showed knowledge of amateur performance, observation, inquisitiveness of a teenager.

A free man, according to Rousseau, must master various types of handicraft work, several professions, then he can really earn his bread and maintain freedom, so Emil learns an ore of useful professions. Rousseau believes that "Emile's head is the head of a philosopher, and Emile's hands are the hands of a craftsman."

First, Emil gets acquainted with carpentry, lives the life of a simple worker, imbued with respect for a working person, begins to appreciate work and rest. He eats the bread he has earned himself. Labor is an educational means, and at the same time a social duty of a free person.

During this period, from 12 to 15 years old, it is necessary to develop curiosity, emphasis is placed on learning about the environment through walks and excursions, the child himself answers the questions that arise. "He does not learn science, but invents it himself...".

In the sixteenth year, Emil is prepared for life and Rousseau returns him to society. There comes the fourth period - "the period of storms and passions" - the period of moral education. At this stage of the development of the child, it is necessary to educate a person, and not a representative of the class (to judge one's neighbor by oneself). At this age, Rousseau prioritizes liberal education in educating feelings and aspirations. Also during this period, active physical education continues.

Rousseau puts forward three tasks of moral education- the cultivation of good feelings, good judgments and good will, seeing in front of you all the time an “ideal” person.

Before the age of 17-18, a young man should not talk about religion, Rousseau is convinced that Emile thinks about the root cause and independently comes to the knowledge of the divine principle.

At this age, communication with the opposite sex should be completely excluded.

My fifth book"Emil or about Education" the author devotes to the education of girls, in particular, Emil's bride - Sophie. She must be raised for him, but her upbringing must be the opposite of Emil's. The purpose of a woman is completely different from that of a man. A woman should be brought up in accordance with the desires of a man. Adaptation to the opinions of others, the absence of independent judgments, even of one's own religion, meek submission to someone else's will is the destiny of a woman. Rousseau argued that the "natural state" of a woman is dependence; "girls feel made to obey." They don't need any serious mental work.

RUSSO JEAN-JACQUES (1712-1778), philosopher, writer, educator. France.
Born in Geneva in the family of a watchmaker, he did not receive a formal education. As a child, he was apprenticed to an engraver, but fled from him, unable to bear the beatings and hunger, lived in Italy, France, Switzerland, England, changed many professions (footman, music teacher, tutor, secretary, etc.), did a lot of self-education. Turn in life RUSSO occurred in 1749: his essay on the topic “Has the progress of the sciences and arts contributed to the improvement of morals?”, proposed by the Dijon Academy, is recognized as brilliant and receives a high award. Name RUSSO becomes famous, and after other works, and especially "Emil" (1762) - famous, although this book was recognized by the authorities as harmful and publicly burned.
Ideas RUSSO met the interests of those who fought against the feudal order, and above all the interests of the petty bourgeoisie. His worldview was based on the theories he created. natural law, natural religions and natural education. The latter was combined with the idea free upbringing, the task of which is to eliminate the harmful influence on the nature of the child, not to interfere with its full development. RUSSO called for the destruction of the entire dogmatic and anti-human in its essence feudal system of education. The new, natural education he proposed was based on the principles of nature and freedom. They meant the natural perfection of the child, a careful and loving attitude towards him, the protection of his rights, following the instructions of nature in education (the principle of natural conformity).
Your pedagogical ideas RUSSO says in "Emil". The author himself warns in the preface that he does not call his methods of upbringing, rather he rebels against the evil being committed against children today and sometimes expresses thoughts that resemble the dreams of a dreamer. Four books of "Emil" are devoted to each of the periods of upbringing "up to 2 years, from 2 to 12, from 12 to 15, from 15 to 20", and the fifth is the upbringing of Sophie, Emil's girlfriend. For the “purity” of the experiment, Emil is declared an orphan, a tutor takes care of him, and all education takes place outside the society spoiled by wealth and power, in unity with nature, in a natural environment.
Up to 2 years - special attention to the physical development of the child, a description of the techniques, ways of hardening the child is given. You should not swaddle Emil: “Do not interfere with nature! Let your body develop freely! » Emil does not walk yet, in the hands of the educator he gets acquainted with the surrounding objects, reaches for them, breaks toys. Give their him, but do not indulge whims.
From 2 to 12 years - the period of "sleep of the mind." Emil should not be forced to memorize fairy tales, reason, read instructions to him. It would be good for him not to know books at all until the age of 12, but to start acquaintance with them from Robinson Crusoe. Emil still improves health, and his knowledge is limited to independent measurement, weighing, comparison. With the scarcity of education, it is still desirable that he learn the complex idea of ​​property. Rejecting punishment, R. puts forward the principle "natural consequences"(see topic 2.13).
From 12 to 15 years - a period of mental and labor education. Emil is strong, independent, well oriented in the world around him. The criteria for choosing subjects are the interest of the child and the need for knowledge of nature. Emil is passionate about geography, natural history, astronomy, he is a talented student, a researcher child. He himself discovers scientific truths, invents a compass, manufactures various devices. The goal is achieved: Emil has the head of a philosopher, and the hands of a craftsman, he respects the man of labor, prepared for life.
From the age of 15, a “period of storms and passions” begins. RUSSO returns Emil to society, where his moral education is completed. The depraved world is not terrible for a young man, he is hardened from vices and temptations, he is even more strengthened in his convictions. From the age of 17, the young man gets acquainted with religion in its "natural" version. Emil matured, it's time to marry him. Sophie's fiancee also went through the right upbringing for a woman's purpose. Her "natural state" is dependence on a man his will and desires. No serious intellectual pursuits, lack of personal opinion and even of one's own religion. A woman should take care of her own health and the health of her children, educate men in their youth, please them , to make their life pleasant, to be meek, not talkative, to know the subtleties of the economy.
In general, the pedagogical concept RUSSO it is utopian, it contains a lot of artificial, erroneous views on education and especially in didactics. In addition, this concept is designed for a system: one teacher - one pupil. But still RUSSO had a deep and lasting influence on the development of pedagogy and its social principles. .

Emil, or about education
Book 11
In the natural system, since people are all equal, their common title is to be a man; who is well brought up for his rank, he cannot be a bad performer in the same ranks that are associated with this. Let them designate my pupil to carry a saber, serve the church, be a lawyer - it's all the same to me. Before the title of parents, nature calls him to human life. To live is the trade that I want to teach him. Coming out of my hands, he will not - I agree in this - neither a judge, nor a soldier, nor a priest: he will be first of all a man; everything that a person should be, he will be able to be in case of need as good as anyone else, and no matter how fate moves him from place to place, he will always be in his place. (…)
The study of the human condition is our true science. He who knows how best to endure the blessings and misfortunes of this life, that of us, in my opinion, is the best brought up; hence it follows that true education consists not so much in rules as in exercises. (...) This does not mean teaching him to endure disasters, this means developing susceptibility to them.
They only think about how to protect their child; this is not enough: it is necessary to teach him how to save himself when he grows up, to endure the blows of fate, to despise excess and poverty, to live, if necessary, in the ice of Iceland or on the red-hot cliff of Malta. Whatever precautions you take so that he does not die, he will still have to die, and if his death were not the result of your cares, the latter were still misdirected. The point is not to prevent him from dying, but to make him live. And to live does not mean to breathe: it means to act, it means to use our organs, feelings and abilities, all parts of our being that give us consciousness of our being. Not that person: he lived most of all, who can count more years, but the one who felt life most of all. Another is buried as a centenary old man, but he died at birth. It would have been better for him to descend into the grave of youths if he had lived at least until his youth.
If you want him to keep his original look cherish this species from the very moment the child enters the world, as soon as he is born, take possession of him and do not leave him until he becomes an adult: without this you will never succeed. Just as a mother is a real nurse, so a father is a real mentor. Let them agree among themselves on the manner in which their duties are performed, as well as on the system; let the child pass from the hands of one into the hands of another. A prudent and narrow-minded father will educate him better than the most skillful teacher in the world, for talent is better replaced by diligence than diligence by talent.
And business, service, duties ... Oh, yes! Responsibilities! Being a father is undoubtedly the last duty (....)!!! There is nothing to be surprised that a man whose wife abhorred to feed the child - the fruit of their union, abhors to educate him. There is no picture more delightful than the picture of a family; but the lack of one feature spoils all the others. If the mother has too little health to be a nurse, then the father will have too much to do to be a mentor. Children removed, scattered in boarding houses, monasteries and colleges, will transfer to another place the love of their parental home, or, rather, they will take out the habit of not being attached to anything. Brothers and sisters will barely know each other. When afterwards they all ceremoniously gather together, they may be very polite to each other, but they will treat each other like strangers. As soon as there is no longer intimacy between relatives, as soon as the company of the family does not constitute life's joy, one has to resort to immoral pleasures instead of it. Who is so stupid that they do not see the connection in all this?
By producing and nourishing children, the father does only a third of his task. He must give the human race people, society - public people, the state - citizens. Every person who can pay this triple debt and does not do so is guilty, and perhaps more guilty, if he pays it halfway. Whoever cannot fulfill the duties of a father has no right to be one. No poverty, no work, no attention to people's opinion relieves him of the obligation to feed his children and bring them up himself. Reader, you can trust me on this! I predict to everyone who has a heart and who neglects such sacred duties that he will shed tears for a long time over his guilt, and yet he will never be comforted. (...)
The upbringing of a person, I repeat, begins with his birth; before he speaks, before he hears, he is already learning. Experience precedes lessons; the moment he recognizes the nurse, he has already gained a lot. We would be amazed at the knowledge of a man, even the most crude, if we traced his development from the moment he was born to the moment he reached. If we divide all human knowledge into two parts and attribute to one the knowledge common to all people, and to the other - peculiar to scientists, then the last part would be the most insignificant in comparison with the first. (...)

Book II 2
...People, be humane! This is your first duty. Be so in relation to every condition, every age, in everything that is only alien to man! Is there any wisdom for you outside of humanity? Love childhood, be attentive to its games and amusements, to its sweet instinct! How many of you sometimes regretted the age when a smile does not leave the lips, when the soul constantly enjoys the world? Why do you want to deprive these innocent little ones of the opportunity to use time, so short and so quickly flowing away from them, this precious blessing, which they still do not know how to abuse? Why do you want to fill the first years with grief and suffering, which rush so quickly and will not return for them, just as they cannot return for us? Fathers! Do you know the moment when death awaits your children? Do not prepare regrets by depriving them of that little reserve of minutes that nature gives them: as soon as they are able to feel the pleasure of existence, give them the opportunity to enjoy life: take care that they do not die without tasting life, no matter what hour God called! (...)
In order not to chase after chimeras, let us not forget what is fitting for our position. Humanity has its own place in the general order of the Universe, childhood also has its own place in the general order of human life: in a person one must consider a person, in a child - a child. To indicate to each his place and strengthen him in it, to order human passions in accordance with the organization of man - this is all that we can do for his well-being. The rest depends on extraneous causes that are not in our power. (1...)
Limit, man, your existence to the limits of your being, and you will no longer be miserable. (...)
Only he fulfills his will who, in order to fulfill it, does not need other people's hands in addition to his own; hence it follows that the first of all goods is not power, but freedom. A truly free person wants only what he can and does what he pleases. Here is my main point. It only needs to be applied to childhood, and all the rules of upbringing will automatically follow from it. (...)
a wise man knows how to stay in his place; but a child who does not know his place would not be able to hold on to it. He has a thousand loopholes among us to get out of him: the duty of the leaders is to keep him, and this is not an easy task.1 He should not be a beast, not an adult, but a child: he must be dependent, not blindly obeyed; He needs to ask, not order. He is subject to others only because of his needs and because they see better than him, what is useful to him, what can help or harm his self-preservation. Nobody; even a father has no right to order a child what he does not need for anything.
So long as human prejudices and institutions have not changed our natural inclinations, the happiness of children, as well as adults, lies in the use of their freedom, but in the first place this freedom is limited by weakness. Anyone who does what he wants is happy if he is content with himself - this is the position of an adult living in a state of nature. Anyone who does what he wants is unhappy if his needs exceed the supply of his strength - this is what can be said about a child in the same state. Even in the state of nature, children enjoy only an imperfect freedom like that; used by adults in civilian life. Each of us, not being able to do without others, again becomes weak and unhappy in this respect. We are made to be adults; laws and society plunge us back into childhood. The rich and noble, kings are all children who, seeing how they are busy alleviating their plight, find in this very subject for purely childish vanity and are proud of cares that would not surround them if they were adults.
These considerations are very important and serve to resolve the contradictions of the social system. There are two kinds of dependence: dependence on things, which lies in nature itself, and dependence on people, generated by society. The first, not containing anything moral, does not harm freedom and does not give rise to vices; the second, not being ordered, gives rise to all vices. (...)
Keep the child in one dependence on things, and you will follow the order of nature in the gradual course of his upbringing. Oppose his unreasonable will only physical obstacles or such punishments as follow from the actions themselves and which he recalls on occasion. There is no need to forbid a bad deed, it is enough to prevent it from being done. Experience or impotence should alone take the place of the law for him. Agree to fulfill his desires, not because he requires it, but because he needs it. When he acts, let him not know that this is obedience; when others act for him, let him not know that this is power. Let him equally feel freedom both in his actions and in yours. Reward the lack of strength in him just as much as he needs to be free and not domineering; let him, accepting your services with a kind of humility, dream of the moment when he can do without them and when he will have the honor of serving himself.
To strengthen the body and promote its growth, nature has its own means, which should never be opposed. No need to force the child to stay still when he wants to walk, or force him to walk when he wants to stay still. If the freedom of children is not distorted by our fault, they will not want anything useless. Let them jump, run, scream whenever they want. All their movements are caused by the needs of their body, which seeks to get stronger; but one must be distrustful of those desires which they cannot fulfill themselves, so that others will have to fulfill them instead of them. In this case, it is necessary to carefully distinguish between a true, natural need and an emerging whim or from the need that occurs as a result of the excess of life I have indicated. (...)
Let's go back to the main point. Nature created children so that we love them and come to their aid; but did she create them so that we would obey and fear them? Did she give them an imposing air, a stern look, a rough and formidable voice to instill fear in them? I understand that the lion's roar strikes the animals with terror, that they tremble at the sight of his terrible mouth; but what could be more absurd, more vile and more ridiculous than the spectacle when a whole staff of officials, in ceremonial robes "with the chief commander in front, throws himself in front of a child who is still in diapers, and leads a magnificent speech to him, and he screams and drools in response ?3
If we consider childhood in itself, we can hardly find in the world a being weaker and more miserable than a child, more dependent on everything around him and so much in need of pity, care and protection. It seems that with his tender face, with his touching appearance, he asks that everyone who approaches him should be imbued with pity for his weakness and take care to help him. After that, what could be more disgusting and obscene than how an imperious and stubborn child commands everything around him and, without hesitation, takes on the tone of a master in relation to people who only have to leave him for him to die?
On the other hand, who does not see that the weakness of the first age so fetters children that it would be cruel to add to this subordination also subordination to our whims, depriving them of their already limited freedom, which they can so little abuse and the deprivation of which is so useless for them, and for us? (...)
Treat your student in an age appropriate manner. First of all put him in his right place and know how to keep him so skillfully that he does not try to leave him. Then, not yet knowing what wisdom is, he will receive in practice its most important lesson. Never order him - nothing in the world, absolutely nothing! Do not allow him even the idea that you are claiming any power over him. Let him know only that he is weak and What, you are strong, that, according to your mutual position, he necessarily depends on you. Let him know it, let him learn it, let him feel it; let him from early on feel above his proudly raised head the cruel yoke imposed on man by nature, the heavy yoke of necessity, under which every limited being must bow. Let him see this necessity in things, and not in the whim of people ... let the bridle holding him be strength, not power. Do not forbid him what he must abstain from, only put up an obstacle for him, without explanation, without reasoning; what you allow him, allow from the first word, without begging, without requests, and especially without conditions. Allow with pleasure, refuse only with regret; but let all your refusals be irrevocable, let no perseverance shake you; let your “no” be an indestructible wall, so that, having tested its strength 5-6 times in front of it, the child does not try to overturn it.
In this way, you will make him patient, even, uncomplaining, humble, even when he does not get what he wants, for it lies in the nature of man - to patiently endure the inevitability of things, but not the extravagant will of another. The words "no more" is the answer that the child never rebelled against, unless he considered it a lie. However, there is no middle ground here: you must either demand nothing at all, or from the very beginning accustom him to complete submission. The worst way to educate is to make him vacillate between his will and yours, and constantly dispute which of the two, you or he, will be the master: a hundred times would prefer that he always remain so.
It is strange that since the beginning of educating children, no other way has yet been devised to guide them, except for competition, envy, hatred, vanity, greed, low fear, all the passions, the most dangerous, the most capable of agitating and spoiling the soul, even before, how the body is formed. With every premature instruction that is hammered into their heads, vice is planted in the depths of their hearts; reckless educators think of doing a miracle; making them evil in order to teach what kindness is, and then it is important to tell us: such is a person. Yes, such is the man you made.
All weapons have been tried, except for the one that can lead to success, except for a well-directed freedom. There is no need to take on the upbringing of a child when you do not know how to lead him wherever you want, with the help of some laws of the possible and the impossible. Since the sphere of both is equally unknown, it can, at will, be expanded or narrowed around it. With the help of one bridle-necessity-it can be bound, moved forward, delayed without arousing murmuring in it; with the help of the power of things alone, one can make it flexible and obedient, without allowing one vice to be born in it, for passions are not excited until they are able to produce any effect.
Don't give your student any verbal lessons; he must receive them only from experience; impose no punishment on him, for he does not know what it is to be guilty; never force him to ask for forgiveness, for he would not be able to offend you. Deprived of any moral motive: in his actions, he cannot do anything that would be morally evil and would deserve punishment or reprimand. (...)
Let us accept as an indisputable rule that the first natural movements are always true: there is no primordial corruption in the human heart; is there not one vice in it, about which it would be impossible to say how and from where it got there. The only passion innate in man is self-love, or self-love, in the broadest sense of the word. This self-love in itself, that is, in relation to ourselves, is good and useful. (...)
Do things contrary to custom, and you will almost always do well. Since they want to create from a child not a child, but a scientist, the fathers and mentors only do what they scold, correct, give reprimands, caress, threaten, promise, instruct, give reasons. Do better than this: be reasonable and do not argue with your pupil, especially with the aim of making him agree to something that he does not like, for forever citing arguments of reason in things that are unpleasant for the child - this means boring him with this reason and in advance destroy confidence in him in a soul that is not yet able to understand him. Exercise the child's body, its organs, senses, powers, but leave its soul inactive as long as possible. Be afraid of all feelings that arise before a judgment that knows how to evaluate them. Delay, stop alien impressions and do not hasten to do good in order to prevent evil from arising, for good only then becomes such when it is illuminated by the mind. Look at every stop as a win: moving towards the goal without losing anything means winning a lot. Let childhood mature in children. Finally, if any lesson becomes necessary for them, beware of giving it today if you can safely put it off until tomorrow.
Another consideration confirming the usefulness of this method concerns the special gifts of each child: one must become well acquainted with them in order to know what moral regime is suitable for them. Every mind has its own warehouse, according to which it should be managed. ; for the success of the care taken, it is essential that it be managed in one way and not another. A wise mentor! Study nature longer, observe your pupil well before you say the first word to him; first of all, let the rudiments of his character show themselves in complete freedom; do not force him to do anything in order to better see him in his entirety. Do you really think that this time of freedom is lost for him? Quite the contrary: it will be best used, for in this way you will learn not to lose a single minute of more valuable time, while if you start to act without knowing what to do, you will act at random; you can be deceived, and you will have to go back: you will be further from the goal than if you were less in a hurry to reach it. Therefore, do not act like a miser who, out of a desire to lose nothing, loses a lot. Sacrifice in the first age the time that you return in abundance to more late age. The wise physician does not give rash prescriptions at the first glance, but first examines the patient's temperament before prescribing anything; he begins to treat late, but he cures, while the doctor, too hasty, kills the patient. (...)
Remember that before you dare to undertake the formation of man, you yourself must become men; you need to have a pattern in yourself; which he must follow. While the child is unconsciously related to the environment, there is time to prepare everything so that he casts his first glances only at such objects that he should see. Inspire him with respect for yourself, make him love himself first of all, so that everyone will look for an opportunity to please you. You will not control a child if you are not the master of everything that surrounds him, and this authority will never be sufficient if it is not based on respect for virtue. It's not about emptying your wallet and pouring money in your hands; I have never seen money make anyone love. No need to be stingy and cruel; it is not enough to feel sorry for poverty, which can be alleviated; but at least you have opened all the chests, if you do not open your heart at the same time, the hearts of others will forever remain closed to you. Your own time, your worries, your affections, yourself - that's what you have to give to others, because no matter what you do, people always feel that your money is not you. Other signs of sympathy and benevolence have more effect and are actually more useful than all gifts. How many unfortunate, sick people are in need of consolation rather than alms. How many oppressed people benefit more from patronage than from alms! Reconcile people who quarrel, prevent litigation, incline children to debt; fathers to indulgence; promote successful marriages; put up a barrier to oppression; work hard, widely use the influence of parents on the pupil in defense of the weak, who is denied justice and who is crushed by the strong. Feel free to declare yourself the patron saint of the unfortunate! Be fair, humane, charitable. Do one charity, do deeds of love, deeds of mercy ease more calamities than money. Love others and they will love you; help them and they will help you; be their brothers and they will be your children.
Young mentors! I preach to you a difficult art - to manage without prescriptions, to do everything without doing anything. This art, I confess, is beyond your years; it is not suitable for showing off its talents to your fathers from the very first time or boasting of unprecedented qualities; but it alone is capable of leading to success. You will never be able to create sages unless you first create rascals. Such was the upbringing of the Spartans: instead of sticking them to books, they were first of all taught to steal lunch. Were the Spartans therefore stupid when they grew up? Who does not know the force and accuracy of their objections? Always ready to win, they destroyed their enemies in every kind of war, and the talkative Athenians feared their tongue as much as their blows.
With the most careful education, the teacher orders and imagines that he controls; in reality, the child is in control. With the help of what you demand from him, he achieves from you what he likes, and he always knows how to make you pay him a week of indulgence for an hour of zeal. Every minute you have to negotiate with him. These contracts, which you propose in your own way, and he fulfills in his own, always turn in favor of his whims, especially if you have been imprudent, fortunately for him, to put in conditions such a thing that he fully hopes to achieve, and in addition to the conditions imposed on him. The child usually reads much better in the mind of the teacher than the teacher in the heart of the child. Yes, this is how it should be; for all the intelligence that the child, left to himself, would use in caring for his own self-preservation, he uses to save his natural freedom from the chains of his tyrant, while the latter, having no urgent need to unravel the child, sometimes finds for himself profitable to give vent to his laziness or vanity.
Choose the opposite path with your pupil; let him consider himself the master, but in fact you yourself will always be the master. There is no subjugation so perfect as that which retains the outward appearance of freedom - here the will itself is enslaved. Isn't the poor child who knows nothing, can do nothing, knows nothing, is not in your power? Don't you have everything around him in relation to him? Are you not in a position to exercise any influence you wish upon him? Are not his activities, games, pleasures, sorrows in your hands, even without his knowledge? Of course, he should only do what he wants; but he should only want what you want from Diego; he must not take a single step not envisaged by Iwami; should not open his mouth unless you know what he will prove.
Then only can he indulge in bodily exercises, required for his age, and not dull his mind at the same time; only then, instead of sharpening his cunning on evasions from an unbearable power for him, he will be busy only in extracting from everything around him as much as possible for his real well-being; then it is you who will be amazed at the subtlety of his ingenuity for appropriating everything he can achieve and for the true enjoyment of life, regardless of conventional concepts.
Leaving him thus the master of your will, you will not rise to challenge him to whims. Not feeling that he is doing the right thing, he will soon do only what he has to do; and even though his body is in constant motion, you will see that all the powers of the mind available to him, as long as the matter concerns real and visible profit, will develop much better and much more expediently than in purely speculative pursuits.
Thus, not seeing in you the desire to contradict him, not distrusting you, having nothing to hide from you, he will not deceive you, he will not lie to you; he will appear as he is when he feels no fear; you will be able to study him in complete freedom, and whatever lessons you want to give him, you can arrange them so that he will never know that he is receiving lessons. (...)
Book III 4
What is it for? These are the words that from now on are made sacred, solving the disagreement between him and me in all the actions of our life; this is the question which, on my part, invariably follows all his questions and serves as a bridle for those numerous, stupid and boring questions with which children, tirelessly and profitably, tire everyone around - rather with the aim of exercising some kind of power over them than to extract from this any benefit. Whoever is taught, as the most important lesson, the desire to know only what is useful, he inquires, like Socrates; he does not ask a single question without giving himself an account of it, which, as he knows, will be required of him before the question is resolved.
See what a powerful means of influencing the pupil I am giving into your hands. Knowing no reason for a single thing, he is almost condemned to be silent when you please, and vice versa, what a huge advantage you have in your knowledge and experience to show him the benefit of everything that is offered to him! For do not forget that to ask him this question means to teach that he, in turn, would ask it to you; you must expect that subsequently, to any of your proposals, and he, following your example, will not fail to object: “But what is this for? »
Here, perhaps, is the most dangerous trap for the educator. If, in response to a child’s question, out of a desire to get rid of him, you bring at least one argument that he is not able to understand, then, seeing that you are based in your reasoning not on his ideas, but on your own, he will consider everything you say suitable for your , and not his age, he will stop believing in you - and then everything is lost. But where is "that" mentor who will agree to stand in a dead end and confess his guilt to the student? Everyone considers it their duty not to confess even to what they are guilty of. As for me, it will be my rule to confess even to what I am innocent, if it is impossible for me to give reasons that are understandable to the child; thus my behavior, always clear to him, will never be suspicious to him, and by assuming errors in myself, I will retain more influence for myself than others who hide their errors.
First of all, you must well remember that only in rare cases will it be your task to indicate what he should study: it is his business to desire, to seek, to find; it is your business to make the teaching available to him, to skillfully engender this desire in him, and to give him the means to satisfy it. From this it follows that your questions should not be numerous, but strictly chosen; and since he has to turn to you more often with questions than you to him, you will always be better off and more often will be able to say to him: “Why do you need to know what you are asking me about?” (…)
Book IV 5
That's where the second birth that I was talking about; this is when a person is truly reborn to life, and nothing human is alien to him. Hitherto our worries have been but child's play; now only they get the true value. In this very epoch, when ordinary education is already ending, our education must begin; but to make this clearer new plan Let us follow from the very beginning the state of things which are related here.
The source of our passions, the beginning and basis of all others, the only passion that is born with a person and never leaves him while he is alive, is self-love; it is an original passion, innate, preceding every other: all others are in a certain sense only its modifications. From this side, all passions, if you like, are natural. But most of these modifications are caused by extraneous causes, without which they would not have appeared; and these modifications themselves are not only not useful, but even harmful to us: they change the main goal and turn against their beginning. It is precisely here that man finds himself outside of nature and becomes in contradiction with himself.
Self-love is always appropriate and always in accordance with the order of things. Since everyone is entrusted first of all with his own self-preservation, the first and most important of his concerns is - and should be - precisely this constant concern for self-preservation; and how could we take care of it if we did not see it as our main interest? (...)
The first feeling of a child is love for himself, and the second, arising from the first, is love for those around him, for in the state of weakness in which he is, he gets to know others only through the help and care that he receives. At first, his attachment to his nurse and governess is nothing but a habit. He seeks them because he needs them and because he is happy that he has them: it is more an acquaintance than a location. He needs a lot of time to understand that they are not only useful to him, but also want to be useful; that's when he starts to love them.
The child, therefore, is by nature disposed towards kindness, because he sees that everything around him tends to help him, and from this observation he draws the habit of benevolently treating his own kind, but, as his intercourse, needs expand, active or passive dependence, a consciousness of his relationship to others awakens in him, leading to a sense of duty and a sense of preference. Then the child becomes arrogant, jealous, deceitful, vengeful. If he is forced into obedience, he, seeing no benefit in being ordered, attributes these orders to a whim, a desire to torment him, and becomes stubborn. If he himself is obeyed, he sees in the very first resistance a rebellion, a deliberate disobedience; for disobedience, he beats a chair or a table. Self-love, which concerns only ourselves, is satisfied when our true needs are satisfied; but self-love, which compares itself, never exists and cannot be satisfied, because this feeling, by making us prefer ourselves to others, requires that others prefer us to themselves, and this is impossible. This is how tender and heartfelt passions are born from selfishness. So what makes a man good is that he has few needs and compares himself little with others; and what makes a man evil is mainly the abundance of needs and excessive respect for human opinion. Based on this principle, it is easy to see how all the passions of children and adults can be directed towards good or evil.
By giving preference, we desire it for ourselves: love must be mutual. To be loved, one must be nice; to deserve preference, one must become nicer than another, nicer than any other, at least in the eyes of the beloved being. Hence - the first comparisons with them, hence - competition, rivalry, jealousy. A heart filled to the brim with feeling loves outpourings; out of the need to have a lover, the need for a friend is soon born. Whoever feels how sweet it is to be loved will want to be loved by everyone; and if everyone desires preferences for themselves, then many dissatisfied people must appear. Along with love and friendship, strife, hostility, hatred are born. And now I see how, from the depths of all these heterogeneous passions, human opinion erects an indestructible throne for itself, and stupid mortals, enslaved by its dominion, base their own existence on the judgments of another.
Expand these concepts, and you will see where the form that we consider natural comes from in your self-love and how self-love, ceasing to be an irrelevant feeling, becomes pride in great souls, vanity in small souls, and in all souls is constantly fed at the expense of the neighbor. . This kind of passion, having no source in the hearts of children, cannot arise here by itself; only we ourselves bring them there, through our fault they take root there; but that is not the case with the heart of a young man: here, whatever we do, they will be born against our will. It is time, therefore, to change the method. (...)
All the preceding reflections can, I think, be reduced to two or three rules, precise, clear and easily understood.
First rule
It is natural for the human heart to put itself in the place not of those people who are happier than us, but only of those who deserve pity more than we do.
Second rule
Pity excites in us only those other people's troubles, from which we do not consider ourselves freed.
Third rule
The pity inspired in us by the "grief of another" is measured by us not by the amount of this grief, but by the feeling that we assume in people who are suffering.
(...) Teach our pupil to love all people and even those who despise them; make it so that it does not put itself in one class, but that it appears in all classes; speak with him about the human race with tenderness, even with pity, but never speak of him with contempt. Man, don't dishonor man!
It is through these paths and others similar to them, but completely different from the beaten paths, that one should penetrate into the heart of a young man in order to arouse the first natural movements in it and open it for sympathy for others; in addition, I will add that as little personal interest as possible should be mixed into these movements; especially there should be no vanity, competition, love of glory, all those feelings that force us to compare ourselves with others; for these comparisons are never without a certain amount of hatred for those who dispute our advantage, even only in our own estimation. In this case, one has to be blinded or irritated, to be angry or stupid;
Let's try to avoid this alternative. They tell me: "These passions, so dangerous, will sooner or later appear against our will." I don't deny it; for every thing there is a time and a place; I only say that we should not help to create them. (...)
When I see that in the years of greatest activity young people are forced to confine themselves to purely speculative pursuits, and then without the slightest danger they immediately plunge into the world and into business, then I find that nature is as much insulted here as reason, and I am no longer surprised. that so few people know how to behave. What a strange mindset it takes to teach so many useless things, and the art of acting is to count for nothing! They claim to educate us for society, but they teach as if each of us should spend his life in lonely thoughts, in his cell or in conversations on various absurd topics with people who are not interested in anything. You think that you teach children how to live if you teach them all sorts of antics and conventional phrases that mean nothing. But after all, I also taught Emil to live, for I taught him to get along with himself and, moreover, to earn his own bread. But this is not enough. In order to live in society, one must know how to deal with people, one must know in what ways one can act on them: one must calculate the action and reaction of private interests in civil society and so accurately foresee events so that one rarely deceives oneself in one's undertakings, or at least always accepts the best measures for success. The laws do not allow young people to run their own business and dispose of their property; but what use would these precautions serve if they could not acquire any experience before the legal age? They would have nothing to gain from this expectation and would be just as new at 25 as they were at 15. Undoubtedly, it is necessary to prevent a young man, blinded by his ignorance or deceived by passions, from harming himself; but it is permissible to be charitable at any age; any age can be patronized under the guidance smart person unfortunate who need only support. (...)
I keep repeating: dress all your lessons to young people in the form of deeds, not speeches; let them not learn from books what experience can teach them. What an absurd task to exercise them in the art of speaking without any intention of saying anything; to make one feel the energy of the language of passions and all the power of the art of persuading at school, when they have no interest in persuading anyone or anything! All the rules of rhetoric seem like empty talk to those who do not know how to use them to their advantage. Why should the student know in what way Hannibal persuaded the soldiers to cross the Alps? If, instead of these magnificent speeches, you had shown him how he should set to work in order to convince his overseer to give him leave, be sure that he would pay more attention to your rules. (...)
We work in harmony with nature, and while it shapes man physically, we try to shape a moral being; but our successes are not the same. The body is already strong and strong, while the soul is still weak and weak; and whatever human art can do, temperament always precedes reason. To restrain the one and excite the other, that is what we have hitherto striven for in every possible way so that man will always be as united as possible. Developing natural properties we delayed the nascent sensibility; we regulated it by developing the mind; mental objects moderated the action of sensitive objects. Going back to the beginning of things, we removed our pupil from the power of the senses; it was not difficult to rise from the study of nature to the question of the Creator.
When we got to this, how many new ways we have acquired to influence the pupil! How many new ways we have to address his heart! Only now he sees his true interest in being kind, doing good away from human eyes without coercion from the side of laws, being fair before God and himself, doing his duty, even sacrificing his life. (...)
Emil, on the contrary, considers it an honor to become a man and submit to the yoke of the emerging mind; his body, already formed, now does not need the previous movements and begins to stop, but his mind, half developed, begins, in turn, to spread its wings. Thus, the age of reason for some is only the age of self-will, for the other it becomes sometimes prudence. (...)
Finally, a solemn moment comes, inscribed by nature: "He needs to come." Since a person needs to die, he must also reproduce himself so that the race continues and the world order is preserved. When, by the signs I have spoken of, you foresee the critical moment, at once leave forever your former tone in relation to it. He is still your pupil, but no longer your pupil. This is your friend, this is a man, from now on treat him like a man. (...)
Comenius J., Locke D., Rousseau J.-J., Pestalozzi I.
pedagogical legacy. -M., 1987.- S. 205-295.

Notes

1 - The first book of "Emil" covers the period from the birth of a child to the development of speech. Rousseau considered the main task of the upbringing of this period to be the provision of a normal physical growth baby. He recommended a number of rules for hygiene, feeding, hardening, advised to beware of forcing the development of children's speech.
2 - The second book of "Emil" covers the period of childhood up to 12 years (from the moment the child masters speech). Rousseau calls this period the sleep of the mind, when feelings play the leading role in the development of the child. The child masters the world of things and phenomena primarily through sensory perception. Rousseau considers it necessary to improve the organs of hearing, touch, and vision at this time, denying the expediency of any kind of systematic education.
3 - In the book of the French writer Stephanie de Genlis (1746-1830) "Adele and Theodore", the tutor of the French dauphin writes to his pupil: "When you were only a year old, you received greater honors in the cradle than those that you are given now: various estates come to greet you."
4 - In the third book, Rousseau describes the "third state of childhood", the years of the "formation of the intellect" of his hero - from 12 to 15 years. The main goal of Emil's upbringing is the development of critical, independent thinking.
5- The fourth book is devoted to the upbringing of Emil after he reaches 15 years of age. It is from this age, according to Rousseau, that the main thing in education should begin - to learn to love people,
The fourth book of "Emil" was especially dear to the author. When the Parliament of Paris decided to burn the edition of Emile, Rousseau wanted to save this book of the novel from the fire first of all.
There comes a period in Emil's life (up to 25 years) when he must get to know people's lives closely. If before that the basis of Emil's moral education was his own experience, now the hero of the novel had to learn to measure himself with social norms of morality. Entering society means checking the moral health of Emil, who will inevitably face the struggle of self-esteem, human envy, and other spiritual ulcers of society.
In moral education during these years, Rousseau attached great importance to reading books about the lives of prominent people, especially the times of antiquity and religion.

6 - Paraphrased expression of the Roman poet Terence (194-159 BC) “I am a man, nothing human is alien to me” (Terentius the Self-torturer).

BOOK ONE

All is well, leaving the hands of the Creator of the world; everything degenerates in the hands of man. He causes the soil to nourish works that are not natural to it, the tree to bear fruit that is not natural to it. It goes against the climate, the elements, the seasons. He disfigures his dog, his horse, his slave. He puts everything upside down, distorts everything. He loves ugliness, freaks, turns away from everything natural, and even the person himself must be trained for him, like a riding horse, not to distort in his own way, like a garden tree.

Otherwise things would have gone even worse. In the present order of things, a man, left to himself from birth, would be the ugliest creature among other people. Prejudices, authority, need, example, all social institutions that have seized us, will stifle nature in it, and will give nothing in return for it. With nature, it would be the same as it happens with a tree that accidentally grows in the middle of the road and which passersby soon destroy, touching it and forcing it to bend in all directions.

I turn to you, a tender and caring mother, who managed to avoid the big road and protect the young tree from clashes with people's opinions. Cherish and water young plant until it withers; its fruits will be contemporary with your joy.

Primary education is more important than others, and undeniably lies with women: if the Creator of the universe wished to give it to men, he would give them milk to feed their children. Therefore, in treatises on education, it is necessary to refer mainly to women: in addition to the fact that it is more convenient for them to oversee education than for men, and that they always have a greater influence on it, the success of the case is much more dear to them, since most widows remain dependent on their children, and then they vividly feel the good and bad consequences of the methods of education. Laws, which are always so much concerned with property and so little with people, because they aim at tranquility and not virtue, do not give enough power to mothers. Meanwhile, one can rely more on them than on fathers; their duties are heavier; more care is needed for the family. However, it is necessary to explain what meaning I attach to the word mother, which is done below.

We are born weak, we need strength; we are born deprived of everything, we need help; we are born senseless, we need reason. Everything that we do not have at birth and need later, is given to us by education.

This education is given to us either by nature, or by people, or by external phenomena. Internal development our abilities and organs are educated by nature; the ability to use this development is brought up in us by people; and the acquisition of one's own experience on the basis of perceived impressions constitutes education by external phenomena. Therefore, each of us is brought up by three kinds of teachers. The student in whom various lessons these are hostile, brought up badly and will never be in harmony with themselves. The only one in whom they converge and go towards the same common goals is well brought up and will live consistently.

Meanwhile, out of these three different upbringings, education by nature does not depend on us at all; and education by external phenomena depends only to a certain extent. Human education is the only thing that is really in our power; and even here our power is doubtful: who can hope to fully control the speeches and actions of all the people around the child?

Therefore, as soon as education becomes an art, its success is almost impossible, because the assistance necessary for success does not depend in this case on people. With great effort, one can more or less approach the goal; but happiness is needed to fully achieve it.

The goal here is nature. Since the cooperation of the three educations is necessary for the perfection of the whole, it is obvious that according to the one on which we have no influence, both others must be directed. But perhaps the word nature has a too vague meaning; you should try to define it here.

Nature, we are told, is nothing but habit. What does it mean? Aren't there habits that are acquired only through compulsion, and never stifle nature? Such, for example, is the habit of plants which are prevented from growing straight. The plant, left to itself, retains the position it has been forced into; but the plant sap does not change from that original direction, and if the plant does not cease to live, its continuation becomes vertical again. The same is true of human inclinations. As long as we remain in one position, we can retain inclinations that have appeared as a result of habit and are not at all characteristic of us; but as soon as the situation changes, habit disappears and nature takes over. Education, of course, is nothing but a habit. Meanwhile, are there not people in whom education is being erased and lost, while in others it is preserved? Why such a difference? If the name of nature must be limited to habits consistent with nature, then it was not worth talking about such nonsense.

We are born sensitive, and from the moment we are born, things around us make different impressions on us. As soon as we begin, so to speak, to be conscious of our sensations, is the disposition to seek or avoid the objects that produce them. This tendency develops and strengthens as we become more sensitive and enlightened; but, constrained by our habits, it changes more or less according to our opinions. Until such a change, these tendencies constitute what I call nature in us.

Consequently, it would be necessary to reduce everything to these original inclinations, which would be possible if the three kinds of our education were only different: but what to do when they are opposite; when, instead of educating a person for himself, they want to educate him for others? There is no agreement here. The need to struggle either with nature or with public institutions compels either a person or a citizen to do it, since both cannot be done together.

The natural man, the man of nature, is wholly contained within himself; he is a numerical unit, an absolute whole, relating only to himself, or to his like. The civil man, on the other hand, is only a fractional unit, dependent on the denominator, and whose significance lies in its relation to the whole, i.e., to the social organism. Good social institutions best of all change a person, destroy the absolute existence in him, replace him with a relative one and transfer his I to a common unity; so that each particular person does not consider himself a unit, but only a part of the unit, and is sensitive only as a whole. The citizen of Rome was neither Caius nor Lucius: he was a Roman. Regulus considered himself a Kareagenian, and as a foreigner refused to sit in the Roman Senate: for this, an order from a Kareagenian was needed. He resented the desire to save his life. He won, and, triumphant, returned to die in torment. It seems to me that all this bears little resemblance to the people we know.

Pedearet is in the council of three hundred. He is not chosen, and he leaves quite happy that in Sparta there were three hundred people more worthy than him.

Spartan, the mother of five sons, is waiting for news from the battlefield. Is a helot. Trembling, she turns to him for news: your five sons have been killed. Despicable slave, do I ask you this? We have won the battle! The mother runs to the temple and gives thanks to the gods.

These are citizens!

He who, under the civil system, wants to give first place to natural feelings, does not himself know what he wants. In eternal contradiction with himself, in eternal vacillation between his inclinations and duties, he will be neither a man nor a citizen, he will be unfit for himself and for others. It will be one of the people of our time, a Frenchman, an Englishman, a bourgeois - that is, nothing will happen.

From these two necessarily opposite aims come two opposite forms of education: one public and general, the other private and family.

If you want to get an idea of ​​public education, read Plato's "Republic". It is not at all a political essay, as people who judge books by their titles think. This is the finest of all treatises on education.

Public education no longer exists, and cannot exist, because where there is no longer a fatherland, there can be no citizens either. These two words fatherland and citizen must be expunged from the modern languages.

I don't consider the ridiculous institutions called colleges educational institutions. I am also not talking about a secular education capable of producing only two-faced people who, apparently, are always thinking about others, but in reality they think only about themselves.

What remains is family or natural education; but what will be for others a man brought up solely for himself? If it were possible to combine into one the double goal that we set ourselves, then by destroying the contradictions in a person, we would destroy a serious obstacle to his happiness. To judge this, one would have to see it fully developed; one would have to trace his inclinations, his successes, his development; in a word, it would be necessary to get acquainted with the natural man. I hope that reading this book will make such research somewhat easier.

In a social system where all places are determined, everyone must be educated for his place. If a person brought up according to his rank leaves it, he becomes good for nothing. Education is useful insofar as the state of the parents is consistent with their rank; in all other cases it is harmful to the student, already because of the prejudices that it instills in him. In Egypt, where the son was obliged to inherit the title of his father, education had at least the right purpose; but with us, where only classes remain constant, and people in them constantly move, no one can know that, preparing a son for his rank, he does not harm him.

Under the natural system, where all people are equal, the common vocation for all is to be a man, and whoever is well educated for this cannot badly perform the posts that may fall to his lot. Let my pupil be appointed to military service, to the clergy, to lawyers, I don't care. Nature, first of all, calls him to human life. To live is the trade I want to teach him. Coming out of my hands, he will not - I confess it - neither a judge, nor a soldier, nor a priest; he will be, first of all, a man, but, on occasion, he will be able to be no worse than anyone else in everything that a man should be; and wherever fate throws him, he will always be in his place.

Our real science lies in the study of the conditions of human life. The one of us who is best able to endure the happiness and misfortune of this life is the best educated, in my opinion; from which it follows that real education consists more in experiments than in rules. Our education begins with our life; our first teacher is a nurse. The very word education had, among the ancients, a different meaning, which we no longer attach to it; it meant fed. Therefore, upbringing, training and education are as different things as a nanny, mentor and teacher. But these differences are misunderstood, and in order to always lead a child well, it is necessary to give him only one guide.

So, we should generalize our views and see in the pupil an abstract person, a person subject to all the accidents of life. If a man were born with the certainty never to leave his native country; if the seasons did not change; if his condition were forever secured, the present order would be, in certain respects, good. But, with the variability of human situations, with the anxious and restless spirit of our age, which, with each new generation, turns everything upside down, can you think of a more insane method than that by which a child is brought up as if he would never go out? out of the room and forever surrounded by servants? If the unfortunate one takes one step, if he sinks one step lower, he is lost. This means not teaching the child to bear grief, but developing his receptivity to grief.

It is not enough to take care of the preservation of your child; it must be taught to preserve itself, to endure the blows of fate, to despise luxury and poverty, to live, if necessary, in the snows of Iceland and on the scorching cliffs of Malta. No matter how you protect him from death, he still needs to die; and unless your cares become the cause of his death, they will nevertheless be out of place. The most important thing is to learn how to live. To live does not mean to breathe, but to act; it means to use the organs, the senses, the faculties, all the parts of our being. Not the person who lived longer, who can count more years of life, but the one who felt life more.

All our worldly wisdom lies in servile prejudices; all our customs are nothing but obedience, oppression and rape. A person is born, lives and dies in slavery: at birth, he is dragged with swaddling ropes; after death, they are driven into a coffin; as long as he retains his human form, he is bound by our institutions.

They say that many midwives imagine that by straightening the head of newborn children they can give it better shape: and it's tolerable! Our heads, you see, are badly arranged by our Creator: they need to be remade on the outside for midwives, on the inside for philosophers.

“As soon as the child comes out of the mother’s womb and is barely free to move the limbs, new fetters are imposed on him. He is swaddled, laid with a motionless head, outstretched legs and arms. He is wrapped in various kinds of diapers and swaddling clothes, which do not allow him to change positions. He is happy if he is not pulled to the point of stopping the ability to breathe, and is laid on his side so that the sputum, which should come out through the mouth, can drain by itself, by itself, since he cannot freely turn his head to his side to facilitate their drain. .

It is necessary for the newborn child to reach out and move the limbs to bring them out of the numbness in which they have been for so long, remaining bent. They are stretched out, it is true, but they are prevented from moving; they even wrap a bonnet around their heads: just think, people are afraid that the child would not give a sign of life.

Thus, an insurmountable barrier is placed to the movements of the body, striving for growth. The child incessantly makes futile efforts that exhaust his strength and retard its growth. He was less constrained and less constrained before his birth.

Inactivity, the forced state in which the limbs of the child are left, only hampers the circulation of blood and the expulsion of mucus, prevents the child from strengthening, growing and disfiguring his physique. In those regions where such extravagant precautions are not taken, people are all tall, strong, well-built. The countries where children are swaddled are swarming with hunchbacked, lame, bow-legged, suffering from the English disease and mutilated in various ways. Out of fear that the body would not be damaged by free movements, they rush to mutilate it by placing it in a vise.

Can such cruel coercion fail to affect the disposition as well as the temperament? The first feeling of children is a feeling of pain, suffering: all the necessary movements meet only obstacles. Shackled worse than a criminal, children make vain efforts, get irritated, scream. Are you saying that the first sound they make is crying? Yes, having only one free vote, how can you not use it for complaints? They scream for the pain you are causing them: crumpled up like that, you would have screamed louder than them.

Where did such a reckless custom come from? from the unnaturalness of life. From the time when mothers, neglecting their first duty, no longer wanted to feed their children, it became necessary to entrust them to hired women, who, having thus found themselves mothers of other people's children, care only about facilitating their own work. A child left at large needs constant supervision: but when a child is tightly bound, he can be thrown into a corner without paying attention to his cry. If only there were no evidence of the negligence of the nurse, only the pet would not break its arms or legs, otherwise it is great, in fact, the importance that he will remain a freak for life! Meanwhile, dear mothers who, having got rid of their children, indulge in merriment in city amusements, do not know what kind of treatment a child is subjected to by wet nurses.

It is said that children left at large may assume an awkward position and make movements that may impair the proper development of the limbs. This is empty reasoning, which experience has never confirmed. Among the many children who are brought up by peoples more sensible than we, with complete freedom to move their limbs, not a single one is noticed who would injure or maim himself: children are not able to give their movements a force that could make these movements dangerous; and if the child takes an unnatural position, then the pain immediately forces him to change this position.

We do not yet swaddle puppies and kittens, but is it noticeable that they experience any inconvenience from this negligence? The child is heavier; I agree: but he is also weaker. He can barely move; how will he hurt himself? If put on its back, it will die in that position like a turtle, never being able to turn around.

Women, not content with the fact that they themselves have ceased to feed children, do not want to produce them either; and with it comes the desire to do useless work, in order to continually start over again. Thus, the striving for the reproduction of the human race turns to the detriment of this reproduction.

It is often argued about whether it is all the same for a child to be fed by the mother's milk, or someone else's. I consider this question, which should be judged by physicians, decided by the will of women, and - as far as I personally am concerned - I would also think that better for the child to suck the milk of a healthy nurse than of a sickly mother, if there could be any new danger to him from the blood from which he was born.

But should the question be considered only from the physical side? and does a child need less mother's care than her milk? Another woman, even an animal, can give him milk that his mother refuses him; but maternal care is indispensable. A woman who feeds someone else's child instead of her own is a bad mother: how can she be a good nurse? She could become her, little by little, but for this it is necessary that habit change nature; and a child who is badly cared for will have time to die a hundred times before the nurse feels maternal tenderness for him.

The need to share their maternal rights should one take away the determination of any sensitive woman, let another feed her child. Can she calmly see that her child loves another woman as much, and even more, than her; to feel that tenderness for one's own mother is mercy, and tenderness for a false mother is a duty?

In order to correct this misfortune, the child is instilled with contempt for the nurse, treating her like a servant. When the nurse's business is over, the child is taken away from her and they try to discourage her from visiting the pet. After a few years, he no longer sees her, does not know. The mother, who hopes to replace her and atone for her inattention with cruelty, is mistaken. Instead of making a tender son out of an insensitive pet, she encourages him to ingratitude, teaches him to despise in the same way, in time, the one who brought him into the world, as well as the one who fed him with her milk.

How insistently I would talk about this, if it were not so sad for the futile proof of the most understandable things. More than one thinks depends on this question. If you want to move everyone to the fulfillment of the first duties, start with mothers: you will be surprised at the changes you have made. Everything follows, gradually, from this basic depravity: the whole moral order is broken; natural feelings are extinguished in all hearts; families take on a less lively air; the touching spectacle of the emerging family no longer attracts husbands, no longer inspires respect for strangers; habit does not seal the bonds of blood; there are no more fathers, no mothers, no children, no brothers, no sisters; they all barely know each other: can they love each other? Everyone thinks only of himself. When sad solitude awaits at home, you need to go to have fun somewhere else.

But let only mothers deign to feed their children themselves, morals will change by themselves, natural feelings will wake up in all hearts; the population of the state will begin to increase again. charm family life is the best antidote to bad morals. The fuss of children, which is considered tiresome, becomes pleasant. It makes father and mother more necessary, more dear to each other. When the family is revived family worries are the most expensive occupation for the wife and the most pleasant entertainment for the husband. Let only women become mothers again, men become fathers and husbands again.

Vain speeches! Women have ceased to be mothers, and do not want to be them anymore. Even if they wanted to, they would hardly be able to; now that the nasty custom had already been established, each would have to contend with the opposition of all the others.

Sometimes, however, there are young women who, daring to despise the dominion of custom, with virtuous courage perform the sweet duty imposed on them by nature. May God grant that their number increase, attracted by the reward that awaits those who fulfill it! Based on the conclusions drawn from the simplest reasoning, and on observations that I have not met with refutation, I dare to promise these worthy mothers a strong and permanent affection on the part of husbands, really filial tenderness on the part of children, respect and reverence on the part of society, a happy birth , lasting and strong health and, finally, the pleasure of seeing, in time, that daughters follow their example.

No mother, no child. Between them the obligations are mutual; and if one side performs these duties badly, the other will also neglect them. The child must love the mother before he realizes that he is obliged to love her. If the voice of the blood is not supported by habit and care, it is muffled in the very first years, and the heart, so to speak, dies before it awakens. From the very first steps we are at odds with nature.

They diverge from her in another, opposite way, when, instead of neglecting maternal cares, a woman takes them to the extreme; when she makes an idol of her child; when she increases and maintains weakness in him, not wanting to let him feel it, but, hoping to remove him from the laws of nature, removes heavy impressions from him, not thinking about how many misfortunes and dangers she is preparing for him in the future, instead of some inconveniences from which it relieves for a moment, and what a barbaric precaution to prolong a child's weakness to the labor hole of adults! Thetis, in order to make her son invulnerable, immersed him in the waters of the Styx. This allegory is clear and beautiful. But the cruel mothers of whom I speak act differently: by pampering their children, they thereby prepare them for suffering; they open all their pores to the perception of various kinds of diseases, the prey of which children will certainly have to become when they grow up.

Watch nature and follow the path that it shows you. She constantly exercises the children, strengthens their temperament by trials of every kind; she lets them know early on what labor and pain are. Their teeth make them feverish; acute colic produces convulsions; long coughs choke them; worms torment; various emaciations roam and produce dangerous eruptions. Almost the entire first age passes in illnesses: half of all children die before the age of eight.

Here is the rule of nature. Why are you stopping her from doing it? Don't you see that by thinking of correcting nature, you are destroying her work. To act from without, as it does within, means, in your opinion, to increase the danger, and this, on the contrary, means to reduce it. Experience shows that pampered children die even more than others. If only you do not exceed the measure of childish forces, then you risk less by using these forces than by sparing them. So accustom your children to the inconveniences they will eventually have to endure. Make their body insensitive to the variability of weather, climates, elements, hunger, thirst, fatigue: dip them in the waters of the Styx. As long as the body is not accustomed to anything, it is easy to accustom it to anything without endangering it; but as soon as it is formed, any change becomes dangerous for it. The fibers of a child, soft and flexible, easily get used to anything; the fibers of an adult, more hardened, can only forcibly change their habit. A child can be made strong without endangering his life and health, and even if there were any risk, then still one should not hesitate. Since this risk is inseparable from human life, is it not better to transfer it to that time of life when it is the least dangerous?

Growing up, the child becomes more expensive. It becomes a pity not only for himself, but also for those worries that he cost. Therefore, in taking care of its preservation, one must primarily think about the future. If life becomes more and more expensive in proportion to the age of a person, then is it not madness to rid childhood of certain evils, accumulating them for a mature time?

The fate of man is to suffer forever. Happy childhood, knowing only physical pains! These pains are incomparably less severe than others, and much less often make us give up on life. From the pain produced by gout, one does not dare to commit suicide: mental pain some breed despair. We regret the fate of the child, but we should regret our own fate. We ourselves generate our greatest disasters.

The baby cries at birth; the first time of his childhood passes among weeping. To calm him down and silence him, they use either rocking and caresses, or threats and beatings. We either do what the child likes or demand from him what we like - there is no middle ground: he must either order or obey. Therefore, his first ideas are the ideas of domination and slavery. Not yet able to speak, he already orders; not being able to act, he already obeys; and sometimes he suffers punishment before he could recognize his guilt, and even before he could be guilty. In this way, passions are planted in the young heart, which are then dumped on nature, and. having tried to make him angry, they complain that the child has become angry.

For six or seven years the child spends in this way in the hands of women, constantly being the victim of their caprices and his own. His memory is burdened with an abyss of words that he is unable to understand, and ideas about objects that are good for him. Having drowned out everything natural in him by arousing passions, this artificial creation is handed over to the educator, who completes the development of artificial embryos, which he finds already formed, and teaches the child everything except knowing himself, the ability to derive satisfaction from himself, the ability to live and be happy. Finally, when this child, a slave and a tyrant, full of knowledge and devoid of common sense, equally paralyzed in body and soul, comes into the world and shows his stupidity, his arrogance and all his vices, people begin to mourn human insignificance and corruption. This is a mistake: this man was created by our imagination; the natural man is quite me.

If you want to preserve naturalness in it, take care of it from the moment the child is born; do not leave him until he grows: without that you will never succeed. Just as the mother must be the real breadwinner, the father must be the real educator. Both of them must agree in the order of classes, as well as in the system. From the hands of the mother, the child must pass into the hands of the father. A prudent, though limited, father will bring up a child better than the most skillful teacher in the world: diligence will more successfully replace talent than talent diligence.

And what about business, service, duties? .. Oh, yes! Are the duties of a father supposed to be the last of all duties?

When you read in Plutarch that the censor Cato, who ruled Rome with such glory, himself brought up his son from the cradle and was constantly present when the nurse, that is, the mother, washed the child; when you read from Suetonius that Augustus, the ruler of the universe, himself taught his grandchildren to write, swim, gave them elementary scientific information and was constantly with them, you involuntarily laugh at these naive eccentrics. It must be assumed that they only engaged in this nonsense because they were too narrow-minded to engage in the great things of the great men of our time.

There is nothing to be surprised that a man whose wife did not want to feed the fruit of their union would not want to raise him. If the mother is not healthy enough to be a nurse, the father will have too much to do to be an educator. Children who are removed, scattered in boarding houses, monasteries and colleges, will lose their attachment to their parental home, or, rather, will acquire the habit of not feeling attachment to anything. Brothers and sisters will barely know each other. Perhaps, when they meet later, they will be very polite to each other; but as soon as there is no intimacy between relatives, as soon as the company of the family no longer constitutes the joy of life, so is entertainment a depravity. Who is stupid enough not to see the connection of all this?

By producing and feeding children, the father fulfills only a third of his duty. He must give the human race people; he must give the society reliable members, he must give the state citizens. Every person who can pay this triple debt and does not do so is guilty, and perhaps even more guilty if he pays it in half. He who cannot fulfill the duties of a father has no right to be one. No poverty, no occupation, no human greatness relieves him of the obligation to feed and educate his children himself. I predict to anyone who has a heart and who neglects these holy duties, that he will long and bitterly mourn his guilt.

But what does this rich man do, this father, preoccupied with business and forced, but to him, to leave the children? He pays another to take care of himself, which is a burden to him. Corrupt soul, do you really think for money to find another father for your son? Do not lie to yourself; you find for him not even a teacher, but only a lackey, who will soon form another lackey.

Rousseau adds that this happens “first according to whether these sensations are pleasant or unpleasant to us, then according to the degree of agreement or disagreement between you and these objects, and finally, according to the judgments that we make about them on the basis of the concepts of happiness. and perfection generated in us by reason. - It is clear that both the last positions are reduced to the first, since in all cases sensation remains the main engine - it does not matter whether it is generated by the mental or exclusively sensual side of your organism.

It is easy for the reader to notice all the precariousness of this definition. How can we catch the moment when habit and environment have not yet begun to act on our inclinations, especially if we classify heredity as a habit?

In his novel, Jean-Jacques Rousseau describes in detail the ideal of the upbringing of the new man. It is worth saying that the novel enjoyed significant popularity both in his time and after, many ideas were used in practice in different countries.

It is based on the story of the upbringing of Emil, who was in the care of Emil. Rousseau's pedagogical ideas are presented in the novel itself in the form of dialogues, situations and reasoning. The book consists of four parts, according to the stages of growing up a child:

• up to two years;
• 2-12;
• 12-15;
• 15-18.

In the first part, Rousseau talks about the benefits of naturalness. When a child is very small, he needs only care and the opportunity to provide natural needs. Rousseau is against diapers and feeding on a schedule, he calls for letting nature itself act and only help in this, and not create unnecessary habits and stiffness.

In the second period (part), it is necessary to continue to develop the health of the child, and also make upbringing natural, that is, do not specifically incline the child to do something, do not force it. Even punishments as such are absent, the child learns from the consequences of his own actions. For example, if he broke a chair, then in the future he will have to sit on the floor.

Also in this part, Rousseau discusses the possibility of instilling in children deeper mental structures such as a sense of ownership. In the novel, the feeling of ownership is described through the example of Emil and the gardener Gobert, from whom he wanted to take a piece of land where the gardener grew melons.

In the third part, the child has developed mentally and physically, can actively comprehend the world, but he lacks morality. Rousseau describes the possibility of letting the child choose subjects for study and also a method where much is learned in practice, for example, biology through available plants.

The fourth part begins moral education, which, according to Rousseau, includes: good feelings, good judgments, good will. It is to the development of these qualities that one must strive and educate a person, and not a representative of some class. It is necessary to educate feelings and aspirations, but not to impose anything in the sphere of religion, since a reasonable person will be able to come to the right conclusions on her own.

There is also a fifth part, which is devoted to the education of girls. It tells about the bride of Emile Sophie. For women, the main qualities are obedience and dependence on others (respectively, on a man), so Rousseau did not see any special requirements for intellectual development and comprehensive education of the representatives of the beautiful half of humanity.

Picture or drawing of Rousseau - Emil, or On education

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