Red Terror
08-25-2016, 12:50 PM
Jean-Jacques Rousseau regarded it as "the one book that teaches all that books can teach."
In his didactic work Emile Rousseau said:
"The surest way of raising oneself above prejudices and
ordering one's judgments about the true relationship between things is
to put oneself in the place of the isolated man and to judge
everything as this man would judge them ---- according to their actual usefulness."
He also said:
"Since we must have books, there is one book which, to my thinking, supplies the best treatise on
an education according to nature. This is the first book Emile will
read; for a long time it will form his whole library, and it will
always retain an honoured place. It will be the text to which all
our talks about natural science are but the commentary. It will
serve to test our progress towards a right judgment, and it will
always be read with delight, so long as our taste is un-spoilt. What
is this wonderful book? Is it Aristotle? Pliny? Buffon? No; it is
Robinson Crusoe."
Those of you who have read Crusoe will remember the scene where our solitary hero is taking an inventory of all the items that he has salvaged from the wrecked ship. One by one, he judges the items as being either useful to him or worthless (remember he is all alone on his island; later he meets Friday). Hatchets, food, grain, wood --- all these things he needs. Then he looks at the money he has found and casts it aside as being of no value whatsoever. This is what Rousseau means this novel can teach children.
In his didactic work Emile Rousseau said:
"The surest way of raising oneself above prejudices and
ordering one's judgments about the true relationship between things is
to put oneself in the place of the isolated man and to judge
everything as this man would judge them ---- according to their actual usefulness."
He also said:
"Since we must have books, there is one book which, to my thinking, supplies the best treatise on
an education according to nature. This is the first book Emile will
read; for a long time it will form his whole library, and it will
always retain an honoured place. It will be the text to which all
our talks about natural science are but the commentary. It will
serve to test our progress towards a right judgment, and it will
always be read with delight, so long as our taste is un-spoilt. What
is this wonderful book? Is it Aristotle? Pliny? Buffon? No; it is
Robinson Crusoe."
Those of you who have read Crusoe will remember the scene where our solitary hero is taking an inventory of all the items that he has salvaged from the wrecked ship. One by one, he judges the items as being either useful to him or worthless (remember he is all alone on his island; later he meets Friday). Hatchets, food, grain, wood --- all these things he needs. Then he looks at the money he has found and casts it aside as being of no value whatsoever. This is what Rousseau means this novel can teach children.