Emile - Treatise on Education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Translated by Barbara Foxley. Emile, or On Education or Émile, or Treatise on Education (French: Émile, ou De l'éducation) is a treatise on the nature of education and on the nature of man written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who considered it to be the "best and most important of all my writings". Due to a section of the book entitled "Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar", Emile was banned in Paris and Geneva and was publicly burned in 1762, the year of its first publication. During the French Revolution, Emile served as the inspiration for what became a new national system of education. The work tackles fundamental political and philosophical questions about the relationship between the individual and society - how, in particular, the individual might retain what Rousseau saw as innate human goodness while remaining part of a corrupting collectivity. Its opening sentence: "Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man". Rousseau seeks to describe a system of education that would enable the natural man he identifies in The Social Contract (1762) to survive corrupt society. He employs the novelistic device of Emile and his tutor to illustrate how such an ideal citizen might be educated. Emile is scarcely a detailed parenting guide but it does contain some specific advice on raising children. It is regarded by some as the first philosophy of education in Western culture to have a serious claim to completeness, as well as being one of the first Bildungsroman novels, having preceded Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by more than thirty years.

Emile, or On Education, examines the nature of education and of man, instructing the reader on how to raise a child to live a harmonious, philosophically rich life. Written in an order of the child's upbringing, the text discusses how best to teach a young person values which they can take to their ultimate benefit. The titular 'Emile' is the name of child who undergoes such tutoring. In praising the ideas of earlier thinkers, Rousseau compliments physical education and the honing of intellect, emphasizing that the child must not learn simply from books, but also from venturing out and experiencing the tangible world and reality before them. One portion of the text is notable for what were then considered stark criticisms of religion and philosophy. As a result, Emile was banned in France and elsewhere at the time of publication. The famously derisive Voltaire condemned most of the book, but praised the portion which resulted in its banning - Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar.

Sub-divided into five books, it describes the education and training of a young boy Emile during various stages of his life. Rousseau as his tutor teaches him the way to good living through education. the final book deals with the issues of female education. Even today it is one of the most widely read books on the subject of education. Enlightening!

The acclaimed series The Collected Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau concludes with a volume centering on Emile (1762), which Rousseau called his “greatest and best book.” Here Rousseau enters into critical engagement with thinkers such as Locke and Plato, giving his most comprehensive account of the relation between happiness and citizenship, teachers and students, and men and women. In this volume Christopher Kelly presents Allan Bloom’s translation, newly edited and cross-referenced to match the series. The volume also contains the first-ever translation of the first draft of Emile, the “Favre Manuscript,” and a new translation of Emile and Sophie, or the Solitaries. The Collected Writings of Rousseau Roger D. Masters and Christopher Kelly, series editors 1. Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues 2. Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (First Discourse) and Polemics 3. Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (Second Discourse) Polemics, and Political Economy 4. Social Contract, Discourse on the Virtue Most Necessary for a Hero, Political Fragments, and Geneva Manuscript 5. The Confessions and Correspondence, Including the Letters to Malesherbes 6. Julie, or the New Heloise: Letters of Two Lovers Who Live in a Small Town at the Foot of the Alps 7. Essay on the Origin of Languages and Writings Related to Music 8. The Reveries of the Solitary Walker, Botanical Writings, and Letter to Franquières 9. Letter to Beaumont, Letters Written from the Mountain 10. Letter to D’Alembert and Writings for the Theater 11. The Plan for Perpetual Peace, On the Government of Poland, and Other Writings on History and Politics 12. Autobiographical, Scientific, Religious, Moral, and Literary Writings 13. Emile or On Education (Includes Emile and Sophie; or The Solitaries)

Provocative assessment of how new ideas about motherhood and domesticity in pre-Revolutionary France helped women demand social and political equality later on