Emile | Page 2

which is nothing
more than the course of nature, it is here that the reader will probably go wrong, and no
doubt I shall be attacked on this side, and perhaps my critics may be right. You will tell
me, "This is not so much a treatise on education as the visions of a dreamer with regard to
education." What can I do? I have not written about other people's ideas of education, but
about my own. My thoughts are not those of others; this reproach has been brought
against me again and again. But is it within my power to furnish myself with other eyes,
or to adopt other ideas? It is within my power to refuse to be wedded to my own opinions
and to refuse to think myself wiser than others. I cannot change my mind; I can distrust
myself. This is all I can do, and this I have done. If I sometimes adopt a confident tone, it
is not to impress the reader, it is to make my meaning plain to him. Why should I profess
to suggest as doubtful that which is not a matter of doubt to myself? I say just what I
think.
When I freely express my opinion, I have so little idea of claiming authority that I always
give my reasons, so that you may weigh and judge them for yourselves; but though I
would not obstinately defend my ideas, I think it my duty to put them forward; for the
principles with regard to which I differ from other writers are not matters of indifference;
we must know whether they are true or false, for on them depends the happiness or the
misery of mankind. People are always telling me to make PRACTICABLE suggestions.
You might as well tell me to suggest what people are doing already, or at least to suggest
improvements which may be incorporated with the wrong methods at present in use.
There are matters with regard to which such a suggestion is far more chimerical than my
own, for in such a connection the good is corrupted and the bad is none the better for it. I
would rather follow exactly the established method than adopt a better method by halves.
There would be fewer contradictions in the man; he cannot aim at one and the same time
at two different objects. Fathers and mothers, what you desire that you can do. May I
count on your goodwill?
There are two things to be considered with regard to any scheme. In the first place, "Is it
good in itself" In the second, "Can it be easily put into practice?"
With regard to the first of these it is enough that the scheme should be intelligible and
feasible in itself, that what is good in it should be adapted to the nature of things, in this
case, for example, that the proposed method of education should be suitable to man and
adapted to the human heart.
The second consideration depends upon certain given conditions in particular cases; these
conditions are accidental and therefore variable; they may vary indefinitely. Thus one
kind of education would be possible in Switzerland and not in France; another would be
adapted to the middle classes but not to the nobility. The scheme can be carried out, with
more or less success, according to a multitude of circumstances, and its results can only
be determined by its special application to one country or another, to this class or that.
Now all these particular applications are not essential to my subject, and they form no
part of my scheme. It is enough for me that, wherever men are born into the world, my
suggestions with regard to them may be carried out, and when you have made them what
I would have them be, you have done what is best for them and best for other people. If I

fail to fulfil this promise, no doubt I am to blame; but if I fulfil my promise, it is your
own fault if you ask anything more of me, for I have promised you nothing more.

BOOK I
God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil. He forces one
soil to yield the products of another, one tree to bear another's fruit. He confuses and
confounds time, place, and natural conditions. He mutilates his dog, his horse, and his
slave. He destroys and defaces all things; he loves all that is deformed and monstrous; he
will have nothing as nature made it, not even man himself, who must learn his paces like
a saddle-horse, and be shaped to his master's taste like the trees in his garden. Yet things
would be worse without this education, and mankind cannot be