Rousseau on Education

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 October 2019

⏱️ 52 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) on the education of children, as set out in his novel or treatise Emile, published in 1762. He held that children are born with natural goodness, which he sought to protect as they developed, allowing each to form their own conclusions from experience, avoiding the domineering influence of others. In particular, he was keen to stop infants forming the view that human relations were based on domination and subordination. Rousseau viewed Emile as his most imporant work, and it became very influential. It was also banned and burned, and Rousseau was attacked for not following these principles with his own children, who he abandoned, and for proposing a subordinate role for women in this scheme. The image above is of Emile playing with a mask on his mother's lap, from a Milanese edition published in 1805. With Richard Whatmore Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews and Co-Director of the St Andrews Institute of Intellectual History Caroline Warman Professor of French Literature and Thought at Jesus College, Oxford and Denis McManus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts
0:04.8	Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.
0:07.2	There's a reading list to go with it on our website and you can get news about our programs
0:11.3	if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time.
0:14.7	I hope you enjoyed the programs.
0:16.9	Hello, in 1762 Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote Emil or on education, which he considered his greatest work.
0:24.1	Emil is partly a novel, partly a treatise on how to make children immune from the corruption of
0:29.3	his sword of civilisation, mainly by letting them work things out for themselves,
0:34.0	rather than telling them what to do.
0:35.6	Only then would they learn self-respect and free themselves from the self-consciousness
0:40.9	which he found throughout society and which lady inevitably he thought to unhappiness.
0:45.6	Quote, man is born free but everywhere he is in change, he wrote his most famous sentence.
0:50.4	We need to discuss Rousseau on education R.
0:53.0	Then he spent Manus, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton,
0:56.8	Caroline Warman, Professor of French Literature and Thought at Jesus College Oxford,
1:00.8	and Richard Watmore, Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews,
1:04.8	and co-director of St Andrews Institute of Intellectual History.
1:08.6	Richard Watmore, can you tell us about his childhood?
1:12.8	Yes, Rousseau is born in 1712.
1:16.9	His mother was rich, his father was a relatively poor artisan,
1:22.7	a disaster occurs because Rousseau's mother dies after a couple of days, after his birth,
1:30.5	and he subsequently has a turbulent education himself.
	...

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