Emile (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

Jean-Jacques Rousseaus thesis that children are naturally good at birth violated the traditional Christian doctrine of origin sin. His argument that education should arise from childrens natural instincts and impulses rather than trying to civilize and socialize them challenged traditional schooling. Rousseaus defenders see him as a pioneering thinker whose revolutionary ideas about permissive child rearing generated the movement for child-centered progressive education. His detractors, then as now, dismiss him as an inconsistent, wildly utopian, romantic who introduced anti-intellectualism into modern education. These wildly different interpretations of Rousseaus Emile provoked controversy when it was published in 1762 and give the book a continuing relevance today.