Rousseau on education

Rousseau vs culture (popular culture)

Everything comes out good from the hands of the Creator, everything degenerates in the hands of man. He forces one soil to nourish the plants grown on another, one tree to bear the fruit of another. He mixes and confuses climates, elements, seasons. He disfigures his dog, his horse, his slave. He turns everything upside down, distorts everything, loves the ugly, the monstrous. He does not want to see anything as nature created it, not excluding man: and he needs to train a man, like a horse for an arena, he needs to remake in his own way, as he uprooted a tree in his garden.

Without it, everything would go even worse, and our breed does not want to receive only half the finish. In the current order of things, a man left to himself from birth would be the ugliest of all. Prejudices, authority, necessity, example, all social institutions, which completely subjugated us, would stifle nature in it and give nothing in return for it. It would be like a tree that has accidentally grown in the middle of the road and which passers-by will soon destroy, touching it from all sides and bending it in all directions.

Types of education

This education is given to us either by nature, or by people, or by things. The inner development of our faculties and our organs is education received from nature; learning how to use this development is education on the part of people; and the acquisition by us of our own experience of the objects which give us perception is an education on the part of things.

Why do we need human education

Plants are given a certain look through processing, and people through education. If a man were born tall and strong, his stature and strength would be useless to him until he learned to use them; moreover, they would be harmful to him, since they would eliminate the reason for others to help him *, and left to himself, he would die of poverty before they knew about his needs. They complain about the condition of childhood, but do not see that the human race would perish if man did not come into the world primarily as a child. We are born weak — we need strength; 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.

Educate a person or a citizen

You have to choose one of the two — to create either a person or a citizen, because you cannot create both at the same time.

Every patriot is harsh towards foreigners: for him they are only people in general, they are nothing in his eyes*. This inconvenience is inevitable, but it is not so important. The most important thing is to be kind to the people you live with. Outside the home, the Spartiate was ambitious, greedy, unjust; but within the walls of his house disinterestedness, justice, harmony reigned.

The Lacedaemonian Pedaret appeared to gain access to the council of three hundred; he was rejected, and he returns home, very glad that in Sparta there were three hundred people worth more than him. I assume that this expression of joy was sincere: there is reason to believe that it was. Here is a citizen!

One Spartan woman released five sons into the army and waited for news from the battlefield. A helot appears: with trepidation, she asks what’s new. «Your five sons have been killed!» — «Contemptible slave! Did I ask you about it?» — «We won!» Mother runs to the temple and gives thanks to the gods. Here is a citizen!

Out of these contradictions is born that which we constantly experience on ourselves. Carried away by nature and people along completely different paths, forced to divide ourselves between these different impulses, we follow a middle direction that does not lead us to one or the other goal. Having spent our whole life in such a struggle and vacillation, we end it, unable to harmonize ourselves with ourselves and becoming fit neither for ourselves nor for others.

For natural feeding

Personally, I would also think that it is better for a child to suckle the milk of a healthy nurse than an unhealthy mother, if one has to fear some new misfortune from the same blood from which he is created.

Against tight swaddling

Inactivity, the forced state in which the limbs of the child are kept, only restricts the circulation of blood and juices, prevents the child from strengthening and growing, and disfigures his physique. In areas where these extravagant precautions are not taken, people are all tall, strong, well-built *. Countries where children are wrapped in diapers are teeming with humpbacked, lame, clubfoot, bow-legged, rickets, people mutilated in every way.

Tempering by difficult trials

Thetis, in order to make her son invulnerable, plunged him, as the myth tells, into the waters of the Styx. This allegory is beautiful and clear, The cruel mothers of whom I speak act differently: plunging their children into bliss, they prepare them for suffering; they open their pores to the perception of all kinds of diseases, the victims of which they will certainly become, having become adults.

Watch nature and follow the path that it lays out for you. She is continually exercising the children; it hardens their temperament by all sorts of trials; she teaches them from an early age what labor and pain are. Teething gives him fever; acute colic bring them to convulsions; prolonged coughs suffocate them; worms torment; plethora spoils their blood; various acids ferment and give them dangerous eruptions. Almost the whole of early life is full of disease and danger; half of the children born die before the eighth year. But now the trials are over, and the child has gained strength; and as soon as he is able to use life, the foundation of the latter becomes more solid.

These are the rules of nature. Why are you contradicting her? Don’t you see that by thinking of correcting her, you are only destroying her work and hindering her cares? To do from without what she does from within, in your opinion, is to double the danger; not at all: it means to reject it, to reduce it. Experience shows that children who have received a pampered upbringing die more than others. If only not to exceed the measure of children’s strength, otherwise, using them in business, you risk less than sparing them. Teach your children about the hardships they will eventually have to endure. Accustom their body to the severity of the seasons, climates, elements, hunger, thirst, fatigue: dip them in the waters of the Styx. As long as the body has not acquired a habit, it can be safely trained to do whatever you like; but once it is in full development, any change becomes disastrous for it. The child will endure changes that an adult could not endure: his fibers, soft and flexible, effortlessly accept the warehouse that is given to them; the fibers of an adult, more hardened, can only forcibly change the structure obtained earlier. A child can, therefore, be made strong without endangering his life and health. And even if there was any risk, still one should not hesitate. Since this is a risk inseparable from human life, would it not be best to transfer it to the time of life when it is least unprofitable?

About the role of father and mother

Just as a mother is a real nurse, so a father is a real mentor.

Intelligibility: who to take as pupils

I would not take up the upbringing of a sickly and emaciated child, even if he had to live for eighty years. I do not need a pupil, always useless both for himself and for others, who is occupied solely with self-preservation and in whom the body harms the education of the soul. What would I achieve by wasting my cares in vain, would I only double the loss of society and, instead of one, take away two from it? Let another instead of me fight for this weak one — I agree to this and approve of his philanthropy; but with me — my talent is not like that: I don’t know how to teach how to live someone who only thinks about how to save himself from death.

Against indulgence

The first cry of children is a request; if you do not take precautions, then it soon becomes an order; they begin by forcing themselves to be helped, and end by forcing them to serve themselves. Thus, out of their weakness, first a feeling of dependence arises, then the idea of ​​power and domination is born; but since this idea is aroused in them not so much by their needs as by our services, then here moral influences begin to appear, the immediate cause of which no longer lies in nature; now it is already clear why it is possible from this first age to disassemble the secret intention underlying the gesture or cry.

When a child stretches out his hand with effort and in silence, he thinks to get an object, because he does not know how to estimate distances — in this case he is mistaken; but when he complains and shouts, holding out his hand, he is no longer deceived by the distance, but orders either the object to approach, or you to bring the object to him. In the first case, with slow and small steps, bring it to the subject; in the second, do not even show that you hear him; the more he screams, the less you should listen to him. From an early age, a child should be taught not to command either people, because he is not their master, or things, because they do not understand him.

Four rules

Children not only do not have an excess of strength, but they do not even have enough of it for everything that nature requires; it is necessary, therefore, to give them the use of all those forces with which she has endowed them and which they do not know how to abuse. Here is the first rule.

We must help them and make up for their lack of understanding or strength in everything that concerns physical needs. This is the second rule.

In helping them, one must limit oneself only to the real, without making any concessions to either whim or unreasonable desire; for they will not be tormented by whims if they are not given the opportunity to be born, since they do not flow from nature. This is the third rule.

It is necessary to carefully study the language of children and their signs in order to distinguish — since at this age they still do not know how to pretend — what in their desires comes directly from nature and what is generated by whims. This is the fourth rule.

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 let him even imagine that you are claiming any power over him. Let him know only that he is weak and that 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 that restrains 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 will no longer try to overturn it.

Well Directed Freedom Method

All weapons have been tried, except for the one that can lead to success — except 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 him. With the help of one bridle — necessity — he can be bound, moved forward, delayed, without arousing a murmur in him; 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.

Initial education must be purely negative

Do I dare to say here the greatest, most important and most useful rule in all education? You don’t need to win time, you need to waste it. Dozen readers, excuse me for my paradoxes: they necessarily appear when you think; and whatever you say, I prefer to be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices. The most dangerous period of human life is from birth to the age of twelve. This is the time when errors and vices are born, but there is still no tool for their destruction; when the tool appears, the roots are already so deep that it is too late to pull them out. If children jumped in one leap from infant to reasonable age, the education that is given would be suitable for them; but, according to the natural course of things, they need quite the opposite education. It is necessary that they keep their soul inviolable until it has all its abilities: for it is impossible that she, remaining blind, should see the lamp that you carry before her, and that on the boundless plain of ideas she should follow that path, which is so faintly outlined by the mind even for the best eyes.

Thus, the initial upbringing must be purely negative. It does not consist in teaching virtue and truth, but in protecting the heart from vice and the mind from error. If you could do nothing yourself and prevent others from doing this, if you could bring our pupil healthy and strong up to the age of twelve, but in such a way that he could not distinguish his right hand from his left, then from your very first lessons his gaze open to the mind; being without prejudices and without habits, he would have nothing in himself that could counteract your concerns. He would soon become in your hands the wisest of men, and you, starting by doing nothing, would work a miracle in the matter of education.

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 unpleasant for the child means boring him with this reason and destroying it in advance. trust 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. Fear 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.

Harsh Consequences of Necessity

A child should never be allowed to play with adults as inferior or even as equals. If he dares to hit anyone, even his servant, even the executioner, make sure that he gets more than his blows back in order to discourage him from repeating it.

Your restless child spoils everything he touches. You should not be angry: just remove everything that he can spoil out of sight. He breaks his furniture — do not rush to replace it with a new one: let him feel the harm of deprivation. He breaks the windows in his room: let the wind blow on him night and day — do not be afraid that he will get a cold: it is better for him to be with a cold than a madman. Never complain about the inconvenience he causes you, but try to make him feel it first. Finally, you tell him to put in new glasses, still without saying a word to him. He breaks again. Now change the method: tell him dryly, but without anger: “The windows belong to me, they are glazed at my expense; I want them to be whole.» Then lock him up in the dark, in a windowless room. At this extraordinary act of yours, he begins to scream, to rage; nobody listens to him. Soon he gets tired and changes his tone; he complains and sobs. Is a servant; the stubborn man asks to be let out. The servant has nothing to look for an excuse to refuse — he simply answers: “I also have windows; I also want them to be intact, ”and leaves. Finally, when the child has been there for several hours, long enough to be bored and then remember it, someone inspires him with the idea of ​​offering you an agreement that you return his freedom if he undertakes not to break the windows. The best is not needed. He asks you to call to him; you are coming; he makes his offer, you immediately accept it, saying: “That’s a great idea! We will both win, And how did you not think of this beautiful idea before! Then, without demanding any assurance or confirmation of your promise, you joyfully embrace him and immediately take him to his room, considering this agreement as sacred and inviolable, as if it were sealed by an oath. What concept do you think he will get out of this whole incident about the fidelity of mutual obligations and their usefulness? I would be greatly deceived if there were even one child in the world, not yet corrupted, who would not be affected by this course of action and who would

From S.I. Hessen. Fundamentals of Pedagogy.

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains,” says Rousseau. «Nature» for him is not so much an iron necessity as freedom. And to that extent also Rousseau’s «natural» education is first and foremost a «free» education.

references

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau book «Emile, or about education»