10 - Émile: Nature and the Education of Sophie

Summary

Woman has more wit [esprit], man more genius [genie]; woman observes, and man reasons. From this conjunction results the clearest insight and the most complete science regarding itself that the human mind [esprit] can acquire - in a word, the surest knowledge of oneself and others available to our species.

Émile is the canvas on which Rousseau tried to paint all of the soul's acquired passions and learning in such a way as to cohere with man's natural wholeness. It's a Phenomenology of the Mind posing as Dr. Spock.

Almost from Émile's first appearance, Rousseau's treatment of the ideal education of women has provoked charges that it is both unjust and inconsistent with his own underlying principles. Mary Wollstonecraft dismissed his views on female education as “the reveries of fancy” and a “refined licentiousness” by which woman is falsely made “the slave of love.” “According to the tenour of [Rousseau's] reasoning, by which women are to be kept from the tree of knowledge, the important years of youth, the usefulness of old age, and the rational hopes of futurity, are,” she claims, “all to be sacrificed, to render women an object of desire for a short time. ”