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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 Excerpt: ...which thus subjected to the magic influence of the same potent mind both the old Aristocracy and the new Democracy which sent that old Aristocracy to the scaffold! And that influence of Emile has continued down to our own times. A hundred and fifty years have not exhausted its fecundity. Wherever there has been an educational revival in the nineteenth century, we can trace it directly or indirectly to a study of Rousseau. Some years ago, in a remote village of the Russian plain, Tolstoy confessed to the writer of these lines that it was Rousseau who first started him on his career as a social reformer. II The first quality which strikes us in Fjmile is its lofty idealism. No teacher who reads the book--and it ought to be in the hands of every instructor of youth--will enter on his calling with a light heart. Few thinkers have done more to make us realize the formidable responsibilities which are attached to the noblest of professions, for that profession demands not merely intellectual ability, but the sacrifice and dedication and surrender of the whole man. What Rousseau expects of a teacher is not a knowledge of books, but a knowledge of the child. Rousseau is no doctrinaire; he would laugh at our endless pedantic arguments on the exact methods and subjects which are best suited for children. All subjects are bad in the hands of incompetent teachers, and the value of even the best methods almost entirely depends on the value of the teacher. Whatever subjects or methods may be adopted, the condition of success is that a teacher shall study and respect the individuality of his pupil, that he shall draw out the powers latent and dormant in the juvenile soul. Ill The lofty idealism of Rousseau is combined with the most minute realism...

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9781152250253

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