Educational Philosophy in The French Enlightenment. From Nature To Second Nature PDF

Educational Philosophy
in the
French Enlightenment
From Nature to Second Nature
Natasha Gill
in the
For my Family:
James, Nadine, Nina, Kitty, Michel Gill,
Jayne Atkinson Gill, Gene Trimboli,
Adina Gill Leone, Jeremy Gill,
and A.S.K.
in the
From Nature to Second Nature
Natasha Gill
© Natasha Gill 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Natasha Gill has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to
be identified as the author of this work.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Gill, Natasha.
Educational philosophy in the French Enlightenment: from nature to second nature.
1. Education – France – Philosophy. 2. Philosophy, French – 18th century. 3. Education
– Aims and objectives – France – History – 18th century. 4. Enlightenment – France.
5. Locke, John, 1632–1704 – Influence.
I. Title
370.9’44’09033–dc22
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gill, Natasha.
Educational philosophy in the French enlightenment: from nature to second nature /
Natasha Gill.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Education—France—History—17th century. 2. Education—France—History—
18th century. 3. Education, Humanistic—France—History—17th century. 4. Education,
Humanistic—France—History—18th century. 5. Education—France—Philosophy. 6.
Enlightenment—France. I. Title.
LA691.5.G55 2010
370.944’09032—dc22
2010031014
ISBN 9780754662891 (hbk)
ISBN 9781409406204 (ebk)
V
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Part 1 The Educational Philosophy of John Locke
Prologue: Locke’s Educational Theory in Relation to his

Philosophical and Political Thought 23
1 The Natural External: Locke’s Some Thoughts
Concerning Education 35
2 Locke: Father of Social Engineering or Champion of
Liberty in Education? 53
Part 2 Early Enlightenment Educational Theory: Claude Fleury,

Charles Rollin, and Jean-Pierre de Crousaz
Prologue: Sources of French Educational Thought and the

Legacy of the Jesuits 65
3 Childhood and Education in the Works of Claude Fleury,
Charles Rollin, and Jean-Pierre de Crousaz 73
4 “The Limits of Reform” and the Concept of Utility
in Fleury, Rollin, Crousaz, and Mme de Lambert 99
Part 3 The Educational Philosophy of Étienne-Gabriel Morelly
Prologue: Educational Theory at Mid-Century 117

5 Morelly and Individual Education: Essai sur l’esprit humain 127
6 Morelly and Social Education: Essai sur le coeur humain 143
7 Morelly and the Politicization of Education 149
Part 4 The Helvétius–Rousseau Controversy
Prologue: The Scandal Over Helvétius’s De l’Esprit and the

Origins of the Helvétius–Rousseau Controversy 163
8 Helvétius’s De l’Esprit: The Argument for
Full Equality 169
vi Educational Philosophy in the French Enlightenment
9 Rousseau’s Emile, Books I−III: Individual Education 181

10 Emile, Books IV−V, and Emile et Sophie,
ou les solitaires: Social and Moral Education 205
Part 5 The Crisis of 1762: “Children Belong to the State”
Prologue: The Expulsion of the Jesuits and the Educational

Reformers of the 1760s 229
11 The Influence of Educational–Philosophical Concepts
on the Reform Plans of the 1760s 235
Conclusion: Disciples and Critics: The Impact of French Enlightenment

Educational Thought 255
Appendix 1 Rousseau’s Appropriation of Morelly 271

Appendix 2 Helvétius’s Critique of Rousseau’s Educational Theory 273
Appendix 3 Education in the Encyclopédie 275
Works Cited 279
Index 297
Acknowledgments
I have incurred two main debts while writing this book. Given its contents, it is
perhaps not surprising that one of these debts is to a teacher, the other to a student.
I would first like to thank Darline Levy, who was my dissertation supervisor
when this book was first conceived many years ago and who has since continued to
offer her support, her fastidious editing skills, and animated intellectual exchanges.
I only gradually came to realize that Darline was not only an advisor on this book
but a part of its contents, embodying and combining many of the human qualities
and educational methods that Enlightenment theorists found so difficult to reconcile:
passionate engagement and respect for space, a sense of play and a commitment to
challenge, firm direction and a willingness to abdicate control, and an intuitive sense of
the “natural order” in which questions arise over time to challenge but not overwhelm
a student. Darline succeeded where so many Enlightenment theorists stumbled,
maintaining a fine line between watchful presence and conspicuous absence.
The second debt is to my former student and assistant and current friend Jennifer
Rumbach, who did research, editing, and formatting for the text. I could not have
finished the book had it not been for her compulsive and varied organizational
skills, wondrous attention to detail, interest in and respect for the project, warmth
and tolerance, and choice to make what could have been a series of technical tasks
into a partnership and shared journey.
Many thanks to Jennifer Gordon for a spirited collaboration on translations
and editing.
My deepest gratitude goes to my mother, for her abiding love and constructive
indifference to history; to my siblings for their unremitting and unmitigated support:
to my father, who was my first intellectual companion and whose presence, and
absence, fills these pages: and to my light – A.S.K.
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Introduction
By the mid-eighteenth century, many French Enlightenment thinkers had come to

see education as an intellectual laboratory in which new ideas about the nature of
the mind, human perfectibility, and social harmony could be put to the test. They
were guided in their pedagogical explorations by the philosophical innovations
of their time, in particular the Lockean concept of the mind as a blank slate, open
to external influence and free of innate ideas. If human beings were malleable,
as Locke implied, if the quality of their minds and morals depended on the
sensory impressions they received in infancy and childhood, then any significant
transformation, whether on the individual or social scale, would have to begin in
the nursery or classroom.
In Western thought, education has always been considered a powerful instrument
of change. Plato, Quintilian, Erasmus, Montaigne, and Bacon all contributed to
the great debate about the influence of early instruction on human nature. In the
early modern period in particular, as childhood became the object of increasing
interest and philosophers debated the question of social virtue, educational texts
gained in popularity. However, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, most
educational works were still either practical manuals addressed to parents and
concerned primarily with the communication of received wisdom and the teaching
of manners, or they were specialized texts that put forth new methods of forming
the mind. The late seventeenth and early eighteenth century witnessed the birth
of a more ambitious project: the educational treatise, in which reformers took
on the task of translating theory into practice, applying new philosophical ideas
directly to techniques of child-rearing. Not only did they reevaluate their approach
to learning, disciplinary methods, and course materials, as their predecessors had.
They also attempted to tease out the links between practical matters—such as
breastfeeding, physical exercise, habit formation, competition, discipline, and
the contents of curriculum—and philosophical debates about freedom, equality,
individual potential, the structure of moral consciousness, the forms of political
life, and the possibility of harmonious social relations.

Jean de Viguerie identifies three kinds of educational works: the “manuel pratique”
dates from the sixteenth and seventeenth century and offers parents general advice about
manners; the “traité des études” appears around 1670 and puts forth a theory of intellectual
learning; and finally, the “traité d’education” deals with the totality of education—ideas,
methods, and ends. Viguerie does not account for works like those of Montaigne and
Erasmus, which are much more sophisticated than educational manuals but do not attempt
to interpret education in light of particular philosophical theories. See Jean de Viguerie,
“Tableau de la théorie pédagogique pendant la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle” in Donald
N. Baker and Patrick Harrigan, eds, The Making of Frenchmen: Current Directions in the
History of Education in France, 1679–1979 (Ontario, 1980), pp. 55–60.
Educational Philosophy in the French Enlightenment
The complexity of this enterprise—recasting child-rearing practices to reflect

and embody philosophical ideas—posed great difficulties for reformers. For unlike
philosophers, who generalize about such concepts as individuality, freedom, or
citizenship, educational theorists must literally construct a method through which
the individual or the citizen is formed, freedom is realized, authority is internalized,
and social ties are nourished. They must find a way to shape an individual life
from early infancy to maturity, taking into account how each action will affect the
desired outcome.
It is one thing, for example, to investigate the relation between instinct and
rationality, or freedom and discipline, and to posit that if properly balanced these
pairs are complementary; it is quite another to describe the process whereby an
instinct-driven creature becomes reasonable while maintaining his or her original
“nature.” It is one thing to pay tribute to the individual as a being with rights and
dignity and to envisage the kind of social pact that will emerge between citizens
who have had their freedom nurtured; it is quite another to develop a method that
will form a “social nature” in children without sacrificing their individuality or
constricting their liberty.
As educational theorists attempted to reconcile these pervasive tensions
in Enlightenment thought, they brought into relief the aspirations and fears of
their contemporaries and exposed the contradictions embedded in the principles
from which they drew. They also raised broader questions about the potential and
limits inherent in liberal education as it has been conceived since the eighteenth
century. In particular, can individual freedom, in any of the multitude of ways
it was defined during the Enlightenment—self-expression, sensual pleasure,
the path of nature, the absence of coercion, moral autonomy—coexist with the
forms of restraint and externally imposed influences necessitated by education?
Conversely, can “socialization” or “social education,” in any of the multitude of
ways in which it was defined during the Enlightenment—engendering in children
a sense of their interdependence with others, forming loyal citizens and competent
professionals, promoting political unity—provide space in which individual
freedom can thrive?
Educational Philosophy in the French Enlightenment: From Nature to Second
Nature is an examination of how educational theorists both laid the ground for and
grappled with these tensions. I do not claim to have discovered the importance
of education in Enlightenment debates, to put forth a radical new view of the
Enlightenment, or to have solved or dissolved the paradoxes of Rousseau. What
I have done is to examine in depth a series of debates about the role of education
in the formation of the modern individual, citizen, and society. In what follows,
I combine a close reading of selected educational–philosophical texts with a
comparative analysis of several authors and assess the influence of philosophical
and political principles, in particular Locke’s “sensationist” psychology, on
eighteenth-century conceptions and reconceptualizations of the goals and
methods of education. I focus on the period between 1693, when John Locke’s
Some Thoughts Concerning Education was published, and 1762, the year in which
Introduction
Rousseau’s Emile was released and dozens of educational reform plans were
submitted to the parlements in the wake of the expulsion of the Jesuits from their
collèges. I trace Locke’s influence through the work of French theorists, including
Charles Rollin, Jean-Pierre de Crousaz, Anne Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles,
marquise de Lambert, Étienne-Gabriel Morelly, Claude Adrien Helvétius,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and a number of lesser-known reformers who participated
in the national debate on education sparked by the Jesuit expulsion.
I have chosen to focus on France and French theorists for several reasons.
First, while many European countries—in particular Britain and Germany—
produced important educational theorists and ideas, it was only in France that the
question of education exploded during the eighteenth century into a society-wide
debate between philosophers, teachers, social critics, salonnières, parlementaires,
and government ministers. This debate ran parallel to wide-ranging political
and philosophical explorations about the nature and future of the French nation,
including questions about how education can provide France with a well-informed
and powerful elite, free and self-governing individuals, competent and skilled
professionals, and loyal citizens. Second, in France the question of instruction was
explicitly linked to urgent practical dilemmas: at mid-century, how to remake an
educational system in the wake of the Jesuit expulsion, and during the Revolution,
how to channel the power of education to “make of the French a new people.”
Because all these factors converged in France, we have a wealth of educational
sources to consider. And although the genres (mémoires, treatises, and philosophical
tracts) and authors (philosophers, educational theorists, and nonspecialists) vary
considerably, the themes and arguments are strikingly consistent across texts
and thinkers. The analysis of this body of work allows us to identify and trace
common concerns and themes relating to education that pervade social, political,
and philosophical discussions in eighteenth-century France and to identify the
ways in which ideas about education drew on and impacted French Enlightenment
thought.
The Central Oppositions
In analyzing educational texts, I focus on the way in which pedagogical debates

illuminate and inform the tensions and oppositions in Enlightenment thought
between the following elements: 1) individuality and socialization; 2) education
based on principles of enlightenment or utility; 3) the idea of human malleability

In France during the eighteenth century, about 180 books and plans of education
were produced in addition to countless articles and reviews. One third were written before
1760, another third in the 1760s, and the rest in the latter half of the century. See James
A. Leith, “Unity and Diversity in Education during the Eighteenth Century” in Leith (ed.),
Facets of Education in the Eighteenth Century, 167 (1977): pp. 13–28.

David A. Bell, The Cult of the Nation in France, Inventing Nationalism, 1680–1800
(Cambridge, 2003), p. 2.
and the dangers of the environment; 4) the power and limits of the educator;
5) nature and habit; 6) the perception of education as an art or science; and
7) freedom and constraint. These oppositions—which I outline briefly below and
discuss throughout the book—will not be new to students of the Enlightenment.
What is extraordinary about them is the way they are manifested in educational
philosophy, as theorists attempt to move beyond the “what” and the “why” (what
is freedom, what is the goal of social life, or why should it be thus?) to the ‘how’
(how are these goals to be achieved?), forcing an encounter between ideas and
their potential for implementation.
Individuality and Socialization: The Purpose of Education
Eighteenth-century French pedagogical theorists focused intensely on the

individual in the educational process. They argued emphatically that each child
has dignity and must be treated with respect, that the needs of children differ
from those of adults—and differ from one child to another—and that in order for
learning potential to be maximized these needs must be addressed.
The respect accorded to the individual in Enlightenment educational
literature derives from several intellectual sources: Renaissance humanists, who
emphasized personal fulfillment and human dignity in education; the legacy of
Protestantism, an underlying premise of which was that each individual was
capable of communicating directly with God, provided he was given the tools to
do so (literacy); the Cartesian belief in humans as rational beings; the views of
Locke and other political theorists, for whom a sense of self-worth was considered
a precondition of citizenship; Locke’s approach in Some Thoughts Concerning
Education, which called on preceptors to base their methods in part on children’s
individual characters; and, finally, Rousseau’s idea that a particular kind of moral
identity could and should be formed through the educational process.
This attention on the individual, however, coexisted with a growing emphasis
throughout the eighteenth century on the social role of education—its contribution
to forming virtuous citizens and competent professionals, creating social harmony
and accomplishing these goals in the setting of a public school. In the latter half of
the century, educationists focused on these objectives almost to the exclusion of
(although still in the name of) the “individual.”
Theorists did not, of course, aim to erect a partition between the individual
and social aspects of education. Rather, they aspired to reconcile a child’s need
for self-expression with the requirements of communal life and thereby to create
a naturally sociable individual, a being who is not coerced into virtue but whose
personal nature includes and thrives on its own social dimension. Nevertheless,
when faced with the task of developing methods to fulfill this goal, they found
themselves compelled to privilege one aspect of being at the expense of the other.
Introduction
Enlightenment or Utility: The Method of Education
An example of this tension can be seen as theorists formulated two notions about
educational methods, notions that both complemented and opposed each other.
On the one hand, they considered education to be a form of enlightenment,
characterized by a personalized journey during the course of which the individual is
led to discover his or her nature and potential. Children were to receive one-on-one
attention and sharpen their critical intellectual faculties in an environment
suitable to the unfurling of their individual propensities. Although this view
included, and in many cases was based on, the hope that ultimately education
would lead individuals to recognize their interdependence with others and bond
with their fellows, it nevertheless promoted a method that was deeply personal.
Socialization was only one outcome, rather than the driving force, of the process.
On the other hand, theorists defined education in utilitarian terms. They focused
on the information and skills that could be imparted to children in the collective
environment of public schools—information and skills that increased their worth
as citizens and professionals and were intimately tied to their vocation, “station”
in life, or role in society. In this case, individual enlightenment was an ancillary
product of socialization and professionalization.
The ideal of a “useful education,” however, was by no means limited to
discussions about vocational training for the lower classes. It was also notably
restrictive when directed toward elites, who continued to study Latin and the
humanities. Even here, the new pedagogy promoted a trimmed notion of how learning
experiences would enrich human life. Increasingly, education was tied narrowly to
the “practical,” and even the most abstract subjects were redefined in a way that
emphasized their role in strengthening state power and ensuring national prosperity.
Notwithstanding these restrictive features of utility-driven pedagogy, we will
see below that the concept of utility was a rich one in the pedagogical literature
of the Enlightenment and carried several progressive connotations. To begin with,
the idea was reformist in the sense that it signaled a critical approach to the role of
the humanities in education. French thinkers rebelled against what they considered
to be the outmoded methods offered in both the Jesuit collèges and the universities
and called for a “useful” education. They insisted that all children should have
direct access to—and learn from—the world itself and should be inspired by
living examples and experiences rather than ancient books and unimaginative
schoolteachers. Such active knowledge, they argued, is necessary for all human

My use of the concepts enlightenment and utilitarian is based on a similar
distinction put forth in Harvey Chisick’s The Limits of Reform: Attitudes Toward the
Education of the Lower Classes in Eighteenth Century France (Princeton, 1981). Chisick
defines enlightenment and education as the two opposing tendencies. In Chapter 4, I discuss
Chisick’s view and my interpretation in greater detail. Another interpretation of this trend is
offered by Jennifer Popiel, who refers to the distinction between education and instruction.
Jennifer J. Popiel, Rousseau’s Daughters: Domesticity, Education and Autonomy in Modern
France (Durham, 2008), p. 12.
beings, regardless of their social status or intended profession. Further, the

notion of ‘use-oriented’ learning had significant psychological and philosophical
implications. In particular, it was influenced by the “sensationist” psychology of
John Locke as put forth in Some Thoughts Concerning Education. In his treatise,
Locke maintained that infants and children are drawn to that which is immediately
useful and pleasurable to them according to their sensual needs, mental capacities,
and developmental stages. Because these urges reflect human nature rather than the
capricious desires of children, they are not to be judged or resisted but embraced
and attended to.
These interpretations of useful education are vividly illustrated in the image
on the cover of this book, “L’éducation des pauvres,” and by its partner work,
“L’éducation des riches.” Both were painted in 1765 by Noël Hallé, an artist who
took interest in the educational–philosophical trends of his time and offered a visual
account of the contrast between passive-useless and active-useful instruction.
In “L’éducation des riches” we witness an uninspired student retreating from his
tutor, while in the dimly lit background passive parents observe and a bored child
languishes. In contrast, in “L’éducation des pauvres” we see:
The interior of a carpenter’s home, built of wood, filled with liveliness and
affection; the characters are enthralled with their activity: the father, behind his
bench, shows a plan to his son, and they discuss it: the mother fondly counsels a
small seamstress at her embroidery; a young woman teaches an attentive girl to
read; a big sister helps a baby to climb the steps of a staircase. The space is airy;
light enters the house through an open window and a door that allows a glimpse
of the landscape.
Malleability and the Perils of the Environment
One of the reasons that theorists focused so intently on identifying the precise
use-value of education is that they were deeply conflicted about the influence of
the external environment on children. Based on the Lockean notions that children
are born malleable and that early sense impressions have a decisive influence on
their minds and morals, pedagogical thinkers developed an almost obsessive focus
on the catastrophic consequences of imprinting impressions on children’s minds
in the improper order. For the same reason, they also revealed a high level of
sensitivity to the psychological and emotional needs of children.
Given their views on the shaping influence of the environment, Enlightenment
educational thinkers placed much less emphasis on original sin than their
predecessors had done. They considered vice a consequence of faulty education
rather than an expression of inherent depravity, and interpreted virtue and
sociability as outgrowths of instincts such as self-preservation, self-love, and
self-interest rather than a reflection of innate moral knowledge. In light of this

Chardin, Fragonard, Watteau: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting, eds Colin
B. Bailey, Philip Conisbee, and Thomas W. Gaehtgens (New Haven, 2003), p. 237.
Introduction
perspective, theorists suggested new methods through which to bring children to

virtue. Teachers were to focus less on preventing innate evil from manifesting
itself and more on training children, through external conditioning and habit, to
link their self-interest and personal satisfaction with the well-being of their peers
and eventually of society.
And yet, although they struggled to create a new moral framework “in the face
of the terrifying absence of God,” few theorists embraced an interest-driven view
of human nature, or accepted its implications, without reserve. Most continued to
appeal to the idea of innate, individual moral responsibility, and they remained
attached to a moral code grounded in transcendent sources. The result was a clash
between two ideals of virtue—one created through habit, the other drawn out of
the nature of the child—and a conflicted view of how to approach the practice
of moral training, intellectual formation, and personal discipline. On the one
hand, theorists wrote as if habit (formation through external conditioning) was
the primary method of instilling morality and virtue into children and appeared
to embrace a form of psychological determinism. On the other hand, these same
thinkers claimed that human beings have an inherent sense of morality, or an
ability to grasp it, that they are capable of free choice, and that they cannot simply
be trained like animals to associate gratification with approval. Consequently,
many educational reformers struggled paradoxically to devise methods through
which the nature of individuals would be at once mechanically and externally
conditioned, and spontaneously and internally released.
The Power and Limits of the Educator
Opposing views about the power of external influence also permeated discussions
concerning the role of parents and teachers in the educational process. For
instance, the notion of children’s malleability and the related concept of “learning
by example” led theorists to emphasize the pedagogical value of role models,
especially parents and teachers. The latter were no longer viewed as guardians
with a significant effect on the lives of young people but were held responsible
for the total formation of children’s characters: their minds, their morals, their
very nature. However, as mentioned above, theorists were apprehensive about the
likelihood of corruption and became hyperaware of the potentially far-reaching
consequences of even the slightest mistake by educators. Thus, even as they
promoted parents and teachers as agents of change, French thinkers designed
schemes to restrict the power of both over the young, defining narrowly who is
qualified to dispense instruction. The optimism that accompanied the recognition
of children’s malleability during the early Enlightenment was soon replaced by
anxious assertions that only a certain group of professionals (often legislators or
philosophers, who are far from the scene of the classroom) should be allowed to
determine the correct methods of education.

David A. Bell, The Cult of the Nation, p. 29.
Nature and Habit, or “Second Nature”
Underlying all these tensions and controversies concerning the role of the
environment in the educational process is the enigmatic and ever-shifting notion
of “nature.” Although the term nature was used by almost every educational writer
in the eighteenth century, it was rarely defined clearly.
It should be noted that when eighteenth-century theorists invoked the concept
of “nature” or “the natural” in a pedagogical context, they did not always refer
to qualities or tendencies presumed to be innate in children or human beings.
In many cases the word natural referred to the idea of “timeliness” or “natural
order,” a method that required introducing impressions or information to children
in a manner appropriate to their age and stage of development. In addition, nature
was often appealed to for political and social reasons, especially in arguments
for and against the education of the lower classes, the indigent poor and women.
For example, the idea that all people are “naturally” pliable, and thus “educable,”
led theorists to conclude that all future citizens must be offered a high degree of
instruction. However, because “natural order” and harmony were said to require
hierarchy and deferential behavior, it was also argued that not all individuals or
groups should be educated in the same way—or with similar goals.
For the most part, however, educational thinkers engaged with the concept
of nature in a more abstract sense. It was perceived as an order that exists in
the universe, in the bodies and minds of human beings, and potentially in social
relations. This order was mirrored in each individual and could be discovered by
studying the behavior of children. Nature was considered something stable and
unalterable, and its fundamental core had to be respected or discovered in the
educational process. As manifested in individual children, nature could include
the will to self-preservation, a sense of self-love, the search for pleasure, an
understanding of God, the ability to reason, sympathy (or pity) for others, and
natural sociability.
In contrast to this view—in which “natural” referred to that which was common
to all children and human beings—a second interpretation conflicted with, and was
often superimposed on, the first. Theorists considered that nature was reflected in
the human tendency to be driven and molded by sensual needs. This tendency is
“natural” because it is inherent in the species. As such, however, it is universal
only in the sense that all individuals are born with the same propensity to be as
pliable as wax, open to a variety of external, sense-based influences and therefore
ultimately differentiated from each other. Nature can therefore be altered easily
and through habit formation and can become “second nature,” a superior (or
inferior) variant of itself.
For the complexities of the uses of the word nature in the eighteenth century,

see Henry Vyverberg, Human Nature, Cultural Diversity and the French Enlightenment
(Oxford, 1989) and Jean Ehrard, L’idée de la nature en France dans la première moitié du
XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1963).
Introduction
Education as Art or as Science
The view of nature as a guide to learning also permeated discussions about the
character of the educational process, in particular the question of whether it is an
art or a science. Education was considered an art in the sense that teachers had to
learn about the best methods of instruction in a nonmechanical and unpredictable
way as they observed and discovered the disposition and needs of their pupils.
This process was not unregulated, as it was guided by and revealed elements of
“natural order.” But it was a journey of continual discovery and required a creative
spirit on the part of the instructor. Paradoxically, however, the idea that teachers
could learn about children and childhood through observation was based on the
assumption that there were laws of human nature and behavior that were revealed
along the way, laws that could form the basis of a possible science of education.
The function of this science would be to decode children’s nature and then create
a set of fixed rules that would comply with their needs and growth processes,
guaranteeing the best developmental outcome. Ultimately this method would
enable teachers to follow a preestablished plan of education. Children would
thus not be exposed to human error, and their moral, intellectual, and productive
potentials could be maximized.
Freedom and Constraint
Finally, underlying and reflecting all these oppositions was the most essential
tension in educational thought, between freedom and constraint. Theorists during
the Enlightenment developed liberal views concerning children’s need for freedom
in the developmental process. Their arguments derived from “sensationist”
principles—that freedom aids the mechanics of the learning process; from
humanist concerns—that freedom is a child’s natural right; and from political
considerations—that freedom is a precondition of a mature social compact and
strong nations must be composed of individual citizens educated to liberty and
responsibility. But although theorists took steps to weaken traditional mechanisms
of authority and in many cases modified their entire view of education based on
the imperatives of freedom, they also feared the consequences of liberty. As a
result, they developed creative methods for restricting children and preventing
them from expressing themselves spontaneously.
Discussions about freedom and constraint during the Enlightenment are of
course ubiquitous. For our purposes, the most important aspects of these discussions
are those that help us better engage with the question I alluded to above: how can
education, which is by definition a process of conditioning, lead to or be delivered
through freedom?
***
I should note that I have not organized my book according to these seven
categories or oppositional pairs. In actuality, they overlap in the works of various
thinkers and are rarely isolated one from another. I outline them here to give my
10 Educational Philosophy in the French Enlightenment
readers a broad overview of the issues and problems that arose in the rich cross-
fertilization between educational and philosophical–political thought during the
Enlightenment. My study brings into relief the numerous ways that educational
thinkers struggled to suppress or reconcile these oppositions and tensions, and
explores what this struggle tells us not only about Enlightenment thought but also
about the dilemmas of liberal education since the Enlightenment.
An Educational Outpouring
Every week, a new educational work is born (Grimm).
There was no more important issue, no question more often debated, than that of
the fabrication of the ideal man and the perfect citizen (Mme d’Epinay).
For fifty years public and private education have been subject to an infinite
number of opposing systems (Mme de Genlis).10
In this century of philosophers, the general outcry has been that mankind must
be educated.11
Through these and countless similar statements we know that the men and
women of the French Enlightenment recognized theirs as a time of unprecedented
educational ferment. Modern historians also have called attention to the crucial
role of educational theory during the eighteenth century, but their interpretations
often have evolved on a track parallel to their increasingly critical stance toward the
Enlightenment. From the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, historians for
the most part took the literature of educational reform at face value and considered
it to reflect the progressive nature of the Enlightenment. They emphasized how
projects of educational reform mirrored the philosophes’ belief in the rationality of
all human beings, their faith in progress and even in the perfectibility of the human
race, their campaign for tolerance, and their struggle against the obscurantism
of the Church. Controversies were limited to disagreements about whether the
Church acted as an impetus to, or brake on, educational progress and whether the
Revolution advanced, held back, or perpetuated preexisting reforms.12

Cited in Pierre Quef, Histoire de l’apprentissage: Aspects de la formation technique
et commerciale (Paris, 1964), p. 92.

Ibid.
10
Cited in Gabriel Compayré, Histoire critique des doctrines de l’éducation en France
depuis le seizième siècle, vol. 2 (2 vols, Paris, 1879), p. 126.
11
Remark made in the Journal de la ville de Troyes, cited in Leith, “Unity and
Diversity in Education During the Eighteenth Century,” p. 14.
12
Gabriel Compayré, Histoire critique des doctrines de l’éducation en France depuis
le seizième siècle (2 vols, Paris, 1879); Ernst Allain, L’instruction primaire en France
avant la Révolution d’après les travaux récents et des documents inédits (Paris, 1881); and
Introduction 11
More recently, historians skeptical of the “Enlightenment project” adopted a

critical stance toward the history of educational reform in the eighteenth century.
Rather than taking theorists at their word, social historians and scholars influenced
by Marxist thought took a closer look at the relationship between the theory of
educational reform and the realities of educational practice. Increasingly, these
scholars focused on contradictions and hypocrisies embedded in the philosophes’
assertions of equality and opportunity through education. They questioned the
integrity of claims, put forth during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
that changes in the contents and methods of education could lead to significant
opportunities for the poor, the lower classes, and women, notwithstanding the fact
that the social structures around them remained static and economic opportunities
limited. Further, historians of education extensively researched the issue of
school attendance, literacy rates, and social mobility from the seventeenth to the
nineteenth century, raising questions about how the people were served by reforms
that were insensitive to the needs of their families and communities.13
Educational historians influenced by Michel Foucault’s work on the evolution
of disciplinary institutions and by the postmodern critique of education pressed this
line of argument further, addressing the more subtle restrictive mechanisms inherent
in even the most apparently reformist aspects of educational theory during this
time.14 They argued that, from the Renaissance forward, competing and conflicting
theoretical and methodological innovations underpinned and fueled the drive to
establish secondary schools and the emancipatory pedagogies supporting these
schools. These innovations conformed to the broad developments in early modern
philosophic and scientific thought and aimed to mold children into rational agents,
C. Hippeau, L’instruction publique en France pendant la Révolution (Paris, 1883). General

histories of educational thought in the early and middle part of the twentieth century also
carried on this tradition; for example, H.G. Good, A History of Western Education (New
York, 1947); William K. Medlin, The History of Educational Ideas in the West (New York,
1964); and Frederick Mayer, A History of Educational Thought (Ohio, 1960).
13
See Chisick, The Limits of Reform; Mary Jo Maynes, Schooling in Western
Europe: A Social History (Albany, 1985); and Mary Jo Maynes, Schooling for the People:
Comparative Local Studies of Schooling History in France and Germany, 1750–1850 (New
York, 1985). Also, see François Furet and Jacques Ozouf, Reading and Writing: Literacy
in France from Calvin to Jules Ferry (Cambridge, 1982); and Francois Jacquet-Francillon,
Naissances de l’école du peuple, 1815–1870 (Paris, 1995); and Anna Davin, Growing Up
Poor: Home, School and Street in London 1870–1914 (London, 1996).
14
See Stephen J. Ball, Foucault and Education: Disciplines and Knowledge (London,
1990); Michel Bouillé, L’école; histoire d’une utopie? XVIIe–début XXe siècle (Paris,
1988); Pierre Bourdieu and J.C. Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture
(London, 1977); Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New
York, 1995); Henry Giroux, Theory and Resistance in Education: A Pedagogy for the
Opposition (New York, 1983); Gertaint Parry, “Education Can Do All” in Norman Geras
and Richard Wokler (eds), The Enlightenment and Modernity (New York, 2000); and
Foucault’s Challenge: Discourse, Knowledge, and Power in Education, eds Thomas S.
Popkewitz and Marie Brennan (New York, 1998).
teaching them to reach for freedom through the habitual suspension of their desires
and internalization of authority. Thus, while in theory rejecting brutal punishment
and calling for freedom, individual attention, and a gentle approach to children,
educational reformers in practice constructed powerful new systems of surveillance
that created in children a disposition of obedience to new forms of authority.
The educational texts I discuss in my study support several of these claims. In
many cases, it is clear that educational opportunities were not intended to reach
beyond elites and that more tolerant attitudes toward children did not inhibit but often
intensified mechanisms of surveillance and control through education. However,
I join a number of scholars who, in the wake of the postmodern offensive against
the Enlightenment, aim to recover a balanced view of the period.15 I look at these
controlling mechanisms in the context of an equally powerful impulse to liberation
and self-realization that drove many educational texts and that was buttressed by
elements present in both humanist thought and seventeenth-century philosophy. I
also show that the model of education as a process that is narrowly defined, tightly
controlled, and driven by utilitarian goals was not applied exclusively to the lower
classes or women in the interests of containing them. Rather, during the course of
eighteenth-century education, which in the early Enlightenment was conceived as
a vehicle for individual human liberation, was increasingly defined as a process
of restriction and deterrence for all human beings, including men, elites, and even
religious or political leaders.
Further, I ask not only what kind of freedoms were constructed or violated in
the eighteenth-century educational agenda; I also try to establish the best way to
evaluate Enlightenment innovations in light of the question, What kind of freedoms
are possible in any educational process, which by its very nature mandates various
degrees of control, repression, indoctrination, and the imposition of numerous
influences to the exclusion of others?16 Although I myself spend much of this book
pointing to tensions, stretched to the point of explosion, between the theorists’ focus
on freedom and constraint, nature and nurture, or individuality and socialization, I
also underscore the point that the problems of opposing or seemingly disingenuous
educational aims cannot be reduced to a hidden or overly repressive agenda
belonging to one thinker or one trend in philosophical–social thought. In actuality, a
much more subtle dynamic is at work as educators explore methods that will allow
them to release a child’s natural passion for liberty and yet harness and direct his
or her innate social impulses. I suggest that when it comes to educational thought,
Postmodernism and Enlightenment: New Perspectives in Eighteenth Century French

15
Intellectual History, ed. Daniel Gordon (New York, 2001); What’s Left of Enlightenment?
A Postmodern Question, eds Keith Michael Baker and Peter Hanns Reill (Stanford, 2001);
After Postmodernism: Education, Politics, and Identity, eds Richard Smith, Philip Wexler
(Bristol, 1995); and For a Radical Higher Education: After Postmodernism, eds Richard
Taylor, Jean Barra, and Tom Steele (Buckingham, 2002).
16
For a discussion of the “indoctrination objection” in education, see Stefaan E.
Cuypers and Istiyaque Haji, “Education for Critical Thinking: Can it be non-indoctrinative?”
Educational Philosophy and Theory 38/6 (2006): pp. 723–43.
Introduction 13
the question of how various emancipatory claims were betrayed or violated should
be balanced with two equally important questions: How and by what measure
can we evaluate the kind of freedom that is attainable in an educational context?
And how have our own definitions (in the past and present) of the goals and methods
of education affected our ability to fulfill these goals?
What Is Philosophy of Education?
Part of the reason that some of these broader issues relating to the nature of
education are overlooked in the literature is that educational philosophy is a hybrid
field, at the intersection of at least six disciplines: history, history of childhood,
education (including history of education and educational methods), intellectual
history, philosophy, and the amorphously defined “philosophy of education.” As
John Wilson has argued, it is difficult for a field of study to define itself when:
Philosophers of education have given us no clear account of how their discipline

is supposed actually to work: of the kinds of argument it uses, the evidence it
takes to be relevant, its tests for truth and falsehood, its criteria for success or
failure, the status of its own propositions and pronouncements, and its internal
logic in general.17
As Wilson also points out, we are not even sure which kinds of thinkers can
be considered philosophers of education. Sometimes we focus on teachers and
innovators in the areas of theory and method, such as Friedrich Froebel, Johann
Pestalozzi, or Maria Montessori. In other cases we study educational ideas as
manifested in the work of philosophers or political theorists, including those of
Plato, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or Immanuel Kant. At times educational
philosophy is linked with the history of educational institutions, questions of literacy,
and evolving notions of childhood. In addition, it can be considered a subject in its
own right, with scholars holding philosophical debates about the nature of learning
and the best ways to form critical thinkers or autonomous beings.18
Scholars from various fields thus naturally impose their questions on the subject.
Some want to know how childhood was understood at a certain period. Others
explore how education was used in the service of philosophical and utopian ideas
related to the “perfectibility of man” or emerging notions of selfhood and identity.
Still others investigate how educational theories influenced the institutionalization
of educational practices, nation building, or citizen formation.
17
John Wilson, “Perspectives on the Philosophy of Education,” Oxford Review of
Education, 29/2 (2003): pp. 281–2. See also Daniel Tröhler, “Philosophical Arguments,
Historical Contexts, and Theory of Education,” Educational Philosophy and Theory, 39/1
(2007): pp. 10–19.
18
See, for example, Cuypers and Haji, “Education for Critical Thinking.”
My own use of the term educational philosophy, in the title of my book and
its content, does not refer to theorists in the tradition of Pestalozzi or Montessori.
Rather, I analyze the cross-fertilization between educational and philosophical
ideas, a cross-fertilization that is manifested in two directions. In the first instance,
philosophers such as Locke, Rousseau, or Helvétius choose to write about
education, using it as an intellectual laboratory in which to test the practicability
of their ideas (or as a less sympathetic observer has put it, “a stamping-ground
for utopian theory or personal prejudice”).19 In the second instance, educational
thinkers (by which I mean teachers, reformers, or social and political thinkers
who write systematically about pedagogy) integrate and apply the philosophical
concepts of their time into their views about the nature and goals of education and
school reform.
In both directions, the educational philosophical enterprise tends to produce
sloppy—although fascinating—results. Educationists appropriate philosophical
ideas without the intellectual rigor of the philosophers from whom they draw,
cutting and pasting ideas to fit narrowly educational objectives. As for philosophers,
an engagement with education drives even the most rigorous among them into
self-inflicted intellectual traps, as they are forced to imagine how hypotheses put
forth in their own philosophical works might be actualized in the evolution of one
human consciousness. This undertaking inevitably leads them to simplify their
own theories or to fall into inconsistencies.
These inconsistencies, however, should not be seen only in a negative light.
They are also the virtue of educational philosophy, as they provide us with a
unique vantage point from which to measure the distance separating theory from
practice and to ponder the means by which that distance might be bridged. It is not
just an accident, or a sign of their lack of respect for the topic, that “what Locke,
or even Kant, says about education falls well below their high philosophical
standards.”20 What they say falls below their philosophical standards because they
are being forced to move from concept to action, an endeavor that, under the best
of circumstances, is perilous.
Education and the History of Ideas
Intellectual historians have not failed to notice the ever-increasing role of educational
ideas in modern thought. Many have remarked on the fact that eighteenth-century
thinkers looked to education as a natural ally in their aim to reconceptualize,
reform, or perfect human beings. Charles Taylor and James Tully in particular
have analyzed the formation of the modern self in ways that are relevant to my
discussion of how the problems of subjectivity and moral identity are worked
Wilson, “Perspectives on the Philosophy of Education,” p. 280

19
Ibid.
20
Introduction 15
out in the educational literature.21 Both Taylor and Tully touch directly on the
educational debate as they investigate Locke’s role in the evolution of the modern
ideal “of an agent who is able to remake himself by methodical and disciplined
action”22 and who is a perfect subject—or victim—of a new mode of “governing
conduct” in the modern period.23
Typically, however, intellectual historians and philosophers treat educational
philosophy as a peripheral issue, showing how it echoes and confirms intellectual
trends rather than exploring the new questions raised by thinkers in this field. The
most elaborate discussions of educational thought are provided by monographs
dedicated to the work of a single thinker. Here the nature and influence of educational
ideas on an individual within the context of his or her life and times are thoroughly
examined.24 These works are extremely useful in assessing how the educational
ideas of individual thinkers relate to larger intellectual and cultural matrices.
However, in monographs a comparative analysis of educational philosophies is
naturally sacrificed to an in-depth study of the ideas of one individual. In contrast,
general works such as Marcel Grandière’s L’idéal pédagogique en France au
dix-huitième siècle avoid a detailed journey into the ways in which philosophical
concepts are worked out in the pedagogical debate.25
In Educational Philosophy in the French Enlightenment, I have tried to
circumvent these limitations by focusing in quite narrowly on the evolution of
21
Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge,
1989); and James Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts (Cambridge,
1993). For further discussions of the relation between childhood and issues of identity and
subjectivity, see Carolyn Steedman, Strange Dislocations: Childhood and the Idea of Human
Interiority, 1780–1930 (Cambridge, 1995); Adriana S. Benzaquèn, “Childhood, Identity and
Human Science in the Enlightenment,” History Workshop Journal, 57 (2004): pp. 35–57;
David Kennedy, “The Child and Postmodern Subjectivity,” Educational Theory, 52/2
(Spring 2002): pp. 155–67; Larry Wolff, “Then I Imagine a Child: The Idea of Childhood
and the Philosophy of Memory in the Enlightenment,” Eighteenth Century Studies, 31/4
(1998): pp. 377–401; and David Kennedy, Well of Being: Childhood, Subjectivity, and
Education (Albany, 2006).
22
Taylor, Sources of the Self, p. 159.
23
Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy, especially Ch. 6, “Governing Conduct.”
24
For example, Nathan Tarcov, Locke’s Education for Liberty (Chicago, 1984); and
Jeffrey Sworowski, “À la chasse des idées … The Educational Ideas of Claude Adrien
Helvétius in Context” (Doctoral Dissertation, Concordia University, 1995).
25
Grandière’s work offers a comprehensive overview of the role of educational ideals
in France as they surface in moral discussions, educational practices, religious debates,
journals, literature, and philosophy. Marcel Grandière, L’idéal pédagogique en France
au dix-huitième siècle (Oxford, 1998). Other general works offer a survey of educational
philosophy. Although these are extremely useful, they do not offer detailed treatment of the
issues because of their limited scope. Examples of recent studies include Nell Noddings,
Philosophy of Education (Boulder, 2006); Clermont Gauthier and Maurice Tardif,
La pédagogie: Théories et pratiques de l’Antiquité à nos jours (Paris, 1996); and Randall
R. Curren, ed., Philosophy of Education: An Anthology (Oxford, 2006).
a few of educational themes, traceable through the work of a broad range of

theorists. I have been influenced by the work of Rebecca Bushnell, A Culture
of Teaching: Early Modern Humanism in Theory and Practice, which explores
the intermingling of educational and political theory, including the contradictory
approaches to individuality and freedom in humanist pedagogy.26 Bushnell shows
how, during the Renaissance, pedagogical theorists both react and contribute to
forming a new kind of political elite. The views of educational thinkers reflect the
new political culture of the early modern period, in which authority is legitimized
but subjects are empowered by the prerogative to question it. In the educational
context, these ideas are reflected in a philosophy in which the individuality of
children is celebrated and yet strictly controlled.27
An area of scholarship where there has been an enormous amount of work
relevant to my topic is of course the history of childhood. Sparked by Philip
Ariès’s 1960 study Centuries of Childhood, scholars scoured medical records,
wills, diaries, biographies, art, and other sources in an attempt to determine when
(or whether) childhood was “discovered,” how and how much (if at all) children
were loved and cared for throughout different historical periods, whether there
were recognized stages of childhood, and if so, in what ways they differed across
cultures and classes. Some focused on ideas about childhood, while others tried to
probe the lived experience of children, drawing on more quantitative data such as
fertility rates, literacy rates, family economies, and schooling practices.28
My work certainly has been informed by these studies and their insights into
ideas about childhood and practices of child-rearing. However, I do not address
many of the debates that have preoccupied historians of childhood. First, rather
than analyzing concepts of childhood as such, I probe pedagogical theorists’
detailed investigations into the learning process and the ways in which the political
and philosophical assumptions of the early modern period color their views about
the nature, value, and purpose of childhood and education. Second, I have chosen
to focus on ideas about childhood rather than the lived experience of children,
and although in the conclusion I discuss the effect of theory on educational
experimentation in the eighteenth century and during the Revolution, I do not
emphasize the interface between theory and practice. My study is thus not a social
history of ideas, which would have required a thicker discussion of the social
26
Rebecca Bushnell, A Culture of Teaching: Early Modern Humanism in Theory and
Practice (Ithaca, 1996). See also Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine, From Humanism to the
Humanities: Education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Europe
(London, 1986).
27
George Huppert’s studies on Renaissance schools and humanist pedagogy offer an
important supplement to Bushnell’s work. Huppert focuses on the social rather than the
political influences on pedagogical thought during the Renaissance and discusses the impact
of the Reformation and the rise of the middle class on new educational theories and methods.
See George Huppert, The Style of Paris: Renaissance Origins of the French Enlightenment
(Bloomington, 1999) and Public Schools in Renaissance France (Urbana, 1984).
28
See note 15 in Ch. 1 for sources on the history of childhood.
Introduction 17
and political context in which theorists were writing. Instead, I have chosen to
concentrate on how a particular set of concepts and problems evolved through the
work of educational theorists who were aware of and responding to each other’s
views. While these debates reveal a great deal about both the realities of life in
eighteenth-century France and the mindsets of the theorists themselves, they also
point to dilemmas in educational philosophy that recur through time: in particular,
dilemmas that emerge when education is construed as a project of human reform
rather than a vehicle for the transmission of knowledge and skills.
On the Structure of the Educational Philosophy in the

My book is divided into five parts. I begin in Part 1 with a treatment of John
Locke, “the father of the Enlightenment in educational thought as in so much
else.”29 Central to my chapters on Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education
is the question of how, through a convoluted discussion of the relationship between
nature and habit in the educational process, Locke paved the way for the amorphous
notion of “second nature” evoked by many French pedagogical theorists during
the Enlightenment. I devote a great deal of space to Locke’s treatise, unpacking the
ambiguities that pervaded the text and influenced French thought. I hope this level
of detail will clarify some important questions regarding the relationship between
Locke’s educational and philosophical thought and provide the reader with a map
of the issues addressed in the remainder of the text.
In Part 2 I discuss the work of four influential early Enlightenment educational
theorists, the abbé Claude Fleury, the rector of the University of Paris Charles
Rollin, the Swiss educator Jean-Pierre Crousaz, and the salonnière Anne Thérèse
de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert. I show how all four struggled
to reconcile their traditional views on politics and religion with new ideas of
childhood and human nature, based on sensationist principles. Although they did
not go as far as their successors, many of whom expected education to cure all
social and political ills, each showed how a new way of viewing children and
education necessitated, and was influenced by, a new vision of the role of the
individual and the citizen in social and political life.
In Part 3 I discuss the educational works of Étienne-Gabriel Morelly. Usually
studied as a utopian theorist and author of the radical Code de la nature (1755),
Morelly wrote two little-known educational treatises in the early 1740s. Although
his influence on contemporaries is difficult to prove, he can be considered
Rousseau’s most important precursor, anticipating the latter’s concepts of natural
order, negative education, and the “voix intérieure” [inner voice]. Morelly is also a
key transitional figure in pedagogical thought; highly sensitive to the threat posed to
both nature and society by some of the theories from which he drew, he constructed
29
John Locke on Education, ed. Peter Gay (New York, 1964), p. 1.
the most elaborate method with which to dissolve the tension between the education
of the man and that of the citizen. Finally, in his appeals to nature and individual
self-expression and his use of education in the service of equality and social
and economic justice, Morelly laid the ground for both Helvétius and Rousseau,
notwithstanding the fact that these two thinkers adopted opposing positions.
In Part 4 I discuss the educational–philosophical dispute between Helvétius and
Rousseau that took place in the 1760s and was set in motion by the publication of
Helvétius’s De l’Esprit in 1758. I situate the theories of Helvétius and Rousseau in
the context of the educational debate as it stood at mid-century, and examine their
reciprocal influence on one another’s ideas. In particular, I show how their views
brought into relief and forced a confrontation between the major oppositions that had
been building up in the literature concerning the education of the man or the citizen,
nature and habit, and freedom and constraint. In contrast to Morelly, both Helvétius
and Rousseau abandoned the idea that both the man and the citizen could be the subject
of the educational process. Appealing to opposite aspects of Locke’s philosophy and
educational theory, Helvétius chose the citizen, and Rousseau the man.
Rousseau thus enters my story near its end. I read his Emile as the culmination
of an educational dialogue that had been under way for almost a century before
he published his treatise, and I probe the myriad ways in which the ideas of
his predecessors made their way into his work. My point here is not to dispute
Rousseau’s contribution but to correct misperceptions about his originality and
point to the ways in which he was truly a pedagogical innovator. I argue that the
extreme positions Rousseau took in Emile are better illuminated by reviewing them
in the context of the work of his predecessors, and better interpreted alongside a
full analysis of his confrontation with Helvétius.30
Interpreting Rousseau’s educational views in the light of antecedent work has
led me to devote some time to an analysis of Emile et Sophie, ou les solitaires,
the unfinished sequel to Emile. In Emile et Sophie, we find that Rousseau’s
educational scheme has tragically unraveled. But it was not merely crushed, as
might be expected, under the weight of its author’s paradoxes. Rather, in the story
of Emile et Sophie we see the explosion of a set of contradictions that had been
brewing in the French pedagogical literature for a century.
My story ends in 1762, but not because it is the year that Emile was published.
Paradoxically, in the same year that Emile gave the individualist ideal of education
its most powerful incarnation, the social, utilitarian, and state-centered vision
of education prevailed in France. This vision was reflected in the educational
mémoires published by dozens of French educators and parlementaires in the
wake of the expulsion of the Jesuits from their collèges, which I treat in Part 5.
These political and social thinkers did not abandon the great themes of the previous
decades—the role of instinct, nature, and liberty in the learning process—but
gave precedence to their partner concepts—utility, socialization, citizenship,
30
The dispute between these two is recognized by most Helvétius or Rousseau scholars,
but it is not analyzed in the context of its relevance to the broader educational debate.
Introduction 19
and professional training. Their work is a testament both to the power of new
pedagogical ideas, which made their way into conventional wisdom of the time,
and to the difficulty of actualizing these ideas through institutional reform. In
1762 the hope that drove so much of eighteenth-century pedagogical thought—
that education held the key to human regeneration and social harmony—was
challenged in theory by the great debate between Helvétius and Rousseau and
in practice by the necessity of reconstructing an educational system around the
conflicting claims of the individual and the nation.
Part 1
The Educational Philosophy
of John Locke
Prologue:
Locke’s Educational Theory in Relation to
his Philosophical and Political Thought
John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education encapsulates the principal

developments in seventeenth-century pedagogical thought and sets the stage for the
major innovations and tensions in eighteenth-century French educational theory.
The treatise also adds a new dimension to our understanding of Locke as a thinker,
for his educational inquiry compelled him to confront the practical implications of
his philosophical and political views. In Some Thoughts he could not merely theorize
about the origins of liberty, the principles of individual rights, or the nature of the
mind. He had to give a full account of how a child could simultaneously be subjected
to authority and granted freedom, how an individual who was allowed space for
self-expression could become other-oriented, and how an infant born without innate
ideas could acquire reason or attain virtue and moral consciousness.
Some Thoughts was written between 1684 and 1691 at the request of Locke’s
friend Edward Clarke, who asked the philosopher’s advice on how to raise his son.
The book was published in 1693, and the first French edition appeared in 1695. It
went through at least nine French editions in the course of the eighteenth century
as well as several revisions by its translator, Pierre Coste. Notwithstanding Locke’s
modesty concerning the quality of his educational advice (he insists in his dedication
that the primary purpose of Some Thoughts is to help his friend’s son), the treatise
had an enormous influence on educational thought, particularly in France. Almost
all eighteenth-century French educational writers, from prominent philosophers
like Rousseau to obscure teachers, referred to the lessons of Some Thoughts in their
works. This influence was due in part to the stature of the book’s author, whose Two
Treatises of Government and Essay Concerning Human Understanding had been

I worked with two editions of Locke’s educational treatise: John Locke, Some
Thoughts Concerning Education, eds John W. Yolton and Jean S. Yolton (Oxford, 1989),
and John Locke: Some Thoughts Concerning Education and Of the Conduct of the
Understanding, eds Ruth Grant and Nathan Tarcov (Cambridge, 1996). Unless otherwise
noted, quotes and references are drawn from the Grant and Tarcov edition.

Almost every educational thinker in France quoted Locke during the eighteenth
century. Margaret Ezell argues that Locke’s influence on the eighteenth century is comparable
to that of Freud on the twentieth. Readers were “bombarded with Lockean images and ideas”
(148), and even when the English philosopher was not quoted, his educational imprint could
be identified. Margaret J.M. Ezell, “John Locke’s Images of Childhood: Early Eighteenth
Century Responses to Some Thoughts Concerning Education,” Eighteenth Century Studies,
17/2 (Winter 1983–1984): pp. 139–55.
published in 1689 and 1690 respectively, and in part to the fact that it was a well-
organized summary of seventeenth-century educational ideas. Locke assimilated
themes from Plato and Quintilian, the Renaissance humanist pedagogy of Michel
de Montaigne and Johann Amos Comenius, and the religious educational writings
of Jansenists Pierre Nicole and Blaise Pascal. But the most important reason for
the impact of Some Thoughts is that it was far more than a treatise on educational
methods. In the work, Locke transposed key themes from his philosophy into an
educational context, confronting questions of how liberty, individual identity,
moral responsibility, and sociability could be experienced or instilled through the
educational process. In addition, in his treatment of childhood he set the stage for the
eighteenth-century debate over “nature versus nurture,” which in the late seventeenth
century was described as the proper balance between nature and habit.
Although the specific intent of these introductory chapters is to discuss Locke’s
educational views, and in particular those principles of Some Thoughts that had
such a strong impact on French educationists, I first take a moment to examine
the philosophical assumptions that underlie, or appear to shape, the work. Some
Thoughts made no pretensions to being a philosophical tract in support of either the
Essay Concerning Human Understanding or the Second Treatise of Government,
and we should be careful when projecting philosophical concepts onto a text that
was identified by its author as a practical manual of child-rearing. However, it is
impossible to overlook the extent to which, in his educational treatise, Locke drew
upon the central principles informing his earlier works, and it is this ambiguous
mingling that had the greatest effect on his followers.
The Debate about Philosophy and Education in Some Thoughts
Scholars have taken starkly different positions concerning the relationship

between Some Thoughts and Locke’s other major works. While some argue that
“Locke did not consciously make any link between his philosophy and the advice
addressed to his friend,” others believe that in Some Thoughts Locke “applied

Unlike many educational theorists, Locke also had acquired practical experience as
a tutor and instructor. By 1679, he had been a tutor at Oxford, a private governor and doctor
to the children of Lord Ashley, first earl of Shaftsbury, and travel companion and tutor to
the son of Sir John Banks, a friend of Shaftsbury. By all accounts (letters and hearsay),
he was extremely successful and beloved by his students and charges. See James Axtell,
The Educational Writings of John Locke (Cambridge, 1968), Ch. 2.

James Axtell tells us that Locke’s library contained a number of educational works;
he was familiar with John Amos Comenius (although he had not read Comenius’s Great
Didactic) and owned works of French thinkers including Pierre Nicole, Claude Fleury, and
François Fénelon. Axtell, The Educational Writings.

Nina Reicyn, La pédagogie de John Locke (Paris, 1941), p. 207. Reicyn argues that
Montaigne’s educational ideas had a much greater influence on Some Thoughts than did
Locke’s own philosophy.
Locke’s Educational Theory 25
his philosophy specifically to pedagogy” or that his pedagogical theory reveals

the underlying agenda found in his broader philosophy. These disagreements are
significant, as they point to the interpretive problems we encounter when reading
Some Thoughts. It is never clear to what extent Locke intended to link various
aspects of his thought or to imbue his advice on instruction and training with
moral or philosophical import. But many of the issues treated in the educational
work gained force for Locke’s readers precisely because of the ways in which they
recalled—or seemed to endorse—his political philosophy or theory of the mind.
Despite their differences, most Locke scholars agree on at least one point:
Some Thoughts revisited some of the unresolved issues from Locke’s earlier works
and for this reason provides important clues to his thought. In our analysis of Some
Thoughts we attempt to unravel these clues, and in subsequent chapters we follow
the trail of French theorists as they did the same. First, however, I offer some
preliminary remarks about the interface between philosophical and educational
ideas in Locke’s treatise.
Some Thoughts and the Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Two main philosophical problems from Locke’s Essay make their way into Some
Thoughts. First, there is in the work an apparent clash between hedonistic and
rationalist interpretations of human motivation (pedagogically this is linked to

Peter Gay, John Locke on Education (New York, 1964), p. 1. Similarly, Nathan
Tarcov considers that Some Thoughts is “the richest source for Locke’s vision of human
nature and moral virtue.” Nathan Tarcov, Locke’s Education for Liberty (Chicago, 1984),
p. vii. Margaret Ezell makes the case for correspondence even stronger, claiming that “Some
Thoughts Concerning Education is (thus) a guide concerned with preparing the mind for the
intellectual developments analyzed in Human Understanding.” Ezell, “John Locke’s Images
of Childhood,” p. 141. For other opinions on the connection between Locke’s educational
theory and philosophy, see Axtell, The Educational Writings; Nicholas Wolterstorff, John
Locke and the Ethics of Belief (Cambridge, 1996); and Peter Schouls, Reasoned Freedom:
John Locke and the Enlightenment (Ithaca, 1992). For a detailed analysis of the literary
influences on Locke’s treatise, see M.G. Mason, “The Literary Sources of John Locke’s
Educational Thoughts,” Paedagogica Historica, 5/1 (1965): pp. 65–108.

James Tully interprets Some Thoughts as a practical application of the new mode
of “governing conduct” put in place between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, the
aim of which is to create “a new form of subjectivity,” a set of “habits that would replace
the conscience and guide conduct.” Tully finds this new subject brought to life in the pages
of Some Thoughts. James Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts
(Cambridge, 1993), p. 180. Some scholars take a contradictory position on the question. John
Yolton, for example, claims that “the effects of his [Locke’s] general philosophy upon his
Education are slight” but also that “Locke has firmly linked his ethical doctrine with his views
on education in a way that enables us to see the place of the Education in his general view of
man.” See John W. Yolton, John Locke and Education (New York, 1971), pp. 4 and 31.
the question of what virtue is and how it is attained). Second, the treatise raises
the dilemma of “nature versus nurture,” or innate tendencies and individual
characteristics versus the open, malleable nature of human beings. I outline these
briefly below before discussing them in more detail in Chapter 1.
Human Motivation
In pedagogical theory, the position taken on human motivation has a direct effect
on decisions about how much attention is given to children, when and whether
to meet their demands, how they are to be rewarded or punished, and by what
means they are taught to respect the needs of others. Locke holds two positions
in Some Thoughts concerning human motivation and subsequently concerning the
definition of virtue as motive or consequence of action. On the one hand, drawing
from his Essay, he argues that human beings are malleable and driven by their
desire to avoid pain and maximize pleasure. He insists that the senses are primary
in the learning process, and that in order for education to succeed it must provide
children with sensually pleasurable experiences. In this interpretation, habit
formation appears to be the key to a good education. Locke argues that the best
way to lead children to morality is to appeal to their immediate needs and desires,
conditioning them with rewards and punishments to find pleasure in those things
that produce what the educator defines as virtue.
On the other hand, Locke argues that human beings are capable of using their
reason to resist their desires and of acting virtuously as a result of this resistance.
He reaches beyond a simple interpretation of the pain–pleasure impulse and
suggests that higher motivations can be instilled in or brought out of children.
When arguing this case, Locke implies that moral responsibility must be expected
of young people and forcefully condemns parents for allowing pleasure to act as a
motivating force for their actions. He cautions parents to treat children as rational
beings (rather than as conditioned animals) capable of understanding of God’s
law, and he insists they be taught to find pleasure only in virtuous acts chosen by
rational calculation rather than in those accidentally stumbled upon in the course
of pursuing self-interest. Locke thus encourages parents to reason with children
as early as possible, teaching them to distinguish intellectually between good and
bad actions.
Charles Taylor and James Tully have identified these issues of motivation in
Locke’s work as critical in the formation of the modern identity. According to
Taylor, Locke contributes to the creation of the modern individual who possesses
For a further discussion of this tension see I.A. Snook, “John Locke’s Theory of

Moral Education,” Educational Theory, 20/4 (Fall 1970): p. 364.

None of the theorists to whom I refer uses the phrase pain–pleasure impulse;
I will be using it throughout my text to convey the widespread idea, in late seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century pedagogical theory, that human beings are fundamentally motivated by
an attraction to pleasure and a repulsion from pain.
the ability to take a distance from his desires and determine the nature of his
actions by rational and objective analysis—in other words, to reach freedom
through control and self-mastery.10 Although Locke validates pleasure as a motive
of action, as Tully argues, in Some Thoughts it is clear that Locke intends for
individuals to learn to use their wills against their desires—to invoke a greater,
future good at the expense of immediate pleasure. This future good will provide
them with satisfaction, but only because the nature of their satisfaction has been
altered in the process.11 But while it is true that Some Thoughts puts forward an
explicit method for creating the “punctual self,”12 the complicated legacy of Some
Thoughts consists partly in this: that although Locke’s practical discussion of virtue
and motivation leads him to a purely external, habit-based educational method, he
does not abandon the ideal of a virtue linked to transcendent sources or motivated
by innate moral consciousness. In Some Thoughts he does not fully recognize this
as a conflict, but the consequences will be clear in the work of eighteenth-century
theorists influenced by his work.
Nature and Habit
The problem of “nature versus habit” is related to Locke’s position on “innatism”

in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke’s battle with innatism
is directed primarily against the idea that human beings are born with general
truths and principles already formed in their minds. Innatism was problematic
for education because the belief in innate ideas made moral training a somewhat
redundant exercise, intended merely to bring out that which was already present
in children.13 This belief also led teachers to enforce strict disciplinary measures,
since children who disobeyed rules that they were expected to know intuitively
were more deserving of punishment than those who did not understand rules in the
first place. The rejection of innatism opened the door to the possibility that human
beings were malleable and could be reformed externally, and paved the way for a
gentler approach to discipline.
Although Locke’s French disciples, in particular Etienne Condillac and Claude
Adrien Helvétius, carry the idea of the malleable mind to extreme conclusions,
Locke’s own position is modest. As we will see, while Locke’s focus on the
inculcation of habits shows that he assigns great significance to the influence of the
environment, much of Some Thoughts is taken up with an impassioned defense of
the innate, individual temperaments and tendencies in children and the necessity
for educators to mold their methods around these individual differences. Further,
while it is true that for Locke the mind involuntarily receives ideas, it is not
10
See Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
(Cambridge, 1989), Ch. 9.
11
Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy.
12
Taylor, Sources of the Self, Ch. 9.
13
Yolton, John Locke and Education, p. 40.
necessarily passive, lacking entirely in activity. The mind also has innate faculties
that make possible its reception of these impressions and their combination in a
certain order.14 This point becomes essential in Some Thoughts because Locke
tries paradoxically to portray children as active participants in a process that in
reality is being determined by adults, and because he hopes to create a natural
link between internally motivated actions and externally driven habits. It is also
significant because the issue of an active or passive mind, and “positive” versus
“negative” education, becomes central to the struggle between Rousseau and
Helvétius, Locke’s most prominent disciples in educational theory.
Some Thoughts and the Second Treatise of Government
If some of the unanswered questions from the Essay make their way into Locke’s
educational theory, the situation is similar in the case of Locke’s political
philosophy. In particular, the ideas Locke formulates in the Second Treatise—
about individuality, liberty, human nature, and social life—are echoed in his
educational work and act as a balance to the views on human nature that he draws
from the Essay. In Some Thoughts we meet the same individuals to whom we
were introduced in the Second Treatise: free and rational beings, living in a power
structure that is not absolute or arbitrary but rather based on mutual need and
consent. Both works attempt to establish how free and moral individuals can live
together harmoniously in civil society.
The ideas developed in the Second Treatise have consequences for Some
Thoughts in three areas, all of which are particularly relevant to eighteenth-century
discussions about how to form the individual and the citizen through education.
First, the work puts forth various and often incompatible representations of
freedom and of the relationship between freedom and authority. Second, Locke’s
attack on paternalistic politics and paternal power in the Second Treatise shapes
his ideas on parental authority (and children’s freedom) in Some Thoughts. This
becomes important for eighteenth-century French educationists because, like
Renaissance humanists, they apply new visions of political relations to parents and
children, and teachers and students.15 As we will see below, they project Locke’s
view of the contractual association between ruler and subject onto the educational
relationship, redefining it as one of mutual respect and reciprocity and focusing on
the liberty and privileges of both the student–subject and the teacher–ruler. Third,
there are significant—although inconsistent—similarities between the “state of
nature” and childhood. We briefly review these issues before turning to an analysis
of the text itself.
For further discussion of this point see Yolton, John Locke and Education, pp. 49–52.
14
For a discussion of how early modern political theory was projected, both in theory
15
and practice, onto classroom relations, see Rebecca W. Bushnell, A Culture of Teaching:
Early Modern Humanism in Theory and Practice (Ithaca, 1996).
Freedom and Authority
Trying to solve the problem of whether freedom consists of doing what one wants
or what reason commands, Locke endeavors to develop a similar position in Some
Thoughts as he had in the Second Treatise, when he said of freedom that it is
“a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence.”16 Locke’s goal in the Second
Treatise is practical and political. In response to the threat posed by the absolutist
policies of the Stuart King James II during the late 1680s, he argues that legitimate
governments are those based on a contract, entered into by rational individuals with
the intent of protecting their natural rights. He claims that people learn about their
liberty, as well as its limits, through a knowledge and appreciation of God and His
law and a consequent respect for the life and property of other human beings. In
Some Thoughts Locke draws in part on this view of political liberty, and struggles
with how best to develop a sense of independence in children while at the same
time teaching them to restrain their desires and not dominate others. He attempts
to solve this tension by arguing that there is no natural opposition between parental
authority (or children’s submission) and children’s freedom. But as we will see, he
never fully escapes the problem that free, pleasure-driven activity does not always
result in virtuous behavior, while morally conditioned activity is not necessarily
the product of free individual will.
Parental Power and Authority
Locke’s attack on paternalistic politics in the Two Treatises and his theory of
parental power and family relations in Some Thoughts are closely linked. The issue
of paternal power is central to Locke’s educational agenda, and he uses it to add a
new dimension to the idea found in the Second Treatise that authority can be based
on reason and made consistent with freedom (in the case of children, authority
becomes a precondition of freedom). Thus, it is connected to the most fundamental
and problematic issue of Enlightenment and liberal educational theory: the attempt
to fashion an individual who is intellectually and morally free and yet retains deep
ties to his or her community, a model citizen for a political system that demands
from the individual both conscious and reasoned consent and the critical sense to
assess whether political leaders are fulfilling their duties.
It is not easy to analyze the relationship between Locke’s politics and his
educational theory because he did not, like Plato, Rousseau, or Helvétius, combine
his political and educational views in one work. But there is an important reason
for this: Locke shows that, despite the similarities, there are distinct differences
between parental and political power, between education in the family and
leadership in the state, and between kinship ties and civic duties.
16
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, ed. C.B. Macpherson (Indianapolis,
1980), p. 9.
Locke believes that political leaders and parents exercise different forms of
authority and experience different limits to their authority. In the First Treatise he
attacks Robert Filmer’s argument that paternal power is the origin and prototype
of political power. He refutes Filmer’s view of Adam as the archetype and
justification of parental authority and the corresponding idea that, as descendants
of Adam, kings are natural and absolute fathers of their subjects. In the Second
Treatise Locke describes the limits of political power. It is neither arbitrary nor
absolute. It depends on the consent of the governed and the reasonableness of the
leader. Its influence does not extend to the moral arena, and therefore it should not
control education. The purpose of political power is to ensure the individual’s right
to life and property and to defend the nation against aggressors.
Parental and political powers have two things in common. First, they are both
contingent on responsible leadership. Locke does not always make this point clearly,
but in both the Second Treatise and Some Thoughts he implies that the legitimacy
of parental power is not a given but rather depends on the responsible behavior of
parents. Children cannot overthrow their parents as citizens can overthrow their
leader, but the extent to which children owe obedience and honor to their parents
later in life is correlated with the extent to which the latter fulfilled their duty and
deserve respect.17 As we will see, Locke’s belief that the governance of parents
is “the privilege of children, and duty of parents” rather than a “prerogative of
paternal power”18 is directly applied in Some Thoughts.
The second point is that parental and political powers are complementary
and share similar goals. They both aim to form individuals who are independent,
reflective, educated, worthy of political freedom, and possessing a strong sense of
civic duty. Education in the family prepares children for life in political society.
Some Thoughts thus enhances Locke’s political agenda by explaining, in detail
usually not found in political or philosophical works, how free individuals are to
be formed and legitimate authority maintained. He aims to establish the scope and
limits of human malleability, thereby encouraging his readers to work with and
respect nature, recognize the difference between influence and abuse of power,
and form responsible and self-respecting individuals.
Notwithstanding some similar goals, parental and political powers are different
in nature. In sections VI and XV of the Second Treatise, Locke outlines in more
detail the nature and limits of parental power. Unlike society, which is an artificial
entity that evolved gradually as a result of the insurmountable obstacles human
beings encountered in the state of nature, the family is a natural organization. Locke
thus recognizes a hereditary quality to the power of parents over children that he
does not want to grant political leaders. Provided parents are responsible caretakers,
their power is absolute, not based on the reason or consent of children. Unlike
political power, it also extends to the moral and therefore the educational realm.
Locke, Second Treatise of Government, p. 37.

17
Ibid.
18
But if the bonds of familial subjection are natural, they are also destined naturally
to end, and the ultimate goal of parental authority is to create the conditions of its
demise. Unlike political power, which remains as long as civil society functions,
changing only the person or form of leadership, parental power “terminates at a
certain season.”19 As soon as the child reaches maturity, authority is transformed
into honor and friendship. Parental power is thus based solely on the temporary
weakness of children due to their condition at birth. And although Locke admits that
this weakness is a result of children being born without the reason and knowledge
that Adam had—thereby acknowledging the Fall—he focuses not on the spiritual
depravity of human beings but rather on their positive attributes.20 A child is born
without understanding and cannot properly direct his will. But because he has the
potential for reason, he can acquire freedom and live according to its dictates. Parents
therefore act only as surrogates for the will and reason of their children while the latter
are without their use. This is the divinely appointed role of mothers and fathers, one
that they are compelled to assume by God, who instilled in them a natural tenderness
toward their children. The roots of Locke’s explication of family relations in Some
Thoughts lie partly in his formulation of the family bond in the state of nature.21
Locke’s transposition of his views of family relations onto his educational
work reveals how closely new ideas on freedom in childhood and equality
between family members were being linked to—or derived from—new models of
political authority, sociability, and citizenship in the early modern period. As we
will see, the theme of parental duty and responsibility is a recurring one in French
Enlightenment pedagogical thought. However, French thinkers are ambivalent
about the role of parents in the development of children. On the one hand, theorists
attempt to construct a solid bridge between the kind of freedom children learn in
the family and that which they will enjoy in society. It is clear from their writing
that they aim to introduce relations of mutual respect between family members as
early as possible and allow children a greater amount of liberty than previously.
Further, as several scholars have recently noted, despite the fact that women are
increasingly banned from the public sphere, they are not excluded from this circuit
of liberty and agency. In many cases, mothers are considered the purveyors of a
distinct form of moral education, one that is intimately linked to new social ideals.
Thus, they are assigned a vital role as partners in the creation of civic life.22
19
20
This is because, as Peter Schouls points out, the only aspect of the Fall or of original
sin that Locke accepts is human beings’ loss of immortality. He does not believe that they
are burdened with negative attributes or that they are depraved. See Schouls, Reasoned
Freedom, pp. 193–205.
21
See Joseph Carrig for a critique of Locke’s idea of paternal power and family
relations. Joseph Carrig, “Liberal Impediments to Liberal Education: The Assent to Locke,”
The Review of Politics, 63/1 (Winter 2001): pp. 41–76.
22
See Jennifer J. Popiel, Rousseau’s Daughters: Domesticity, Education and
Autonomy in Modern France (Durham, 2008) and Lesley H. Walker, A Mother’s Love:
Crafting Feminine Virtue in Enlightenment France (Lewisburg, 2008).
On the other hand, however, educational thinkers believe they are developing
a new scientific model of pedagogy based on a philosophical and scientific
understanding of the human mind. This new pedagogical science can be learned
only by specialists, in particular educators and lawmakers. It is thus inaccessible
to both fathers and mothers and cannot be transmitted in the home. Further,
theorists question parental priorities, and some claim that home education poses
a threat to citizenship education. Eager to loosen the hold of religious values and
institutions on children, and convinced that the principal goal of schools must be
to impart a secular morality and form children into citizens, many theorists assert
the rights of the state over those of the church or parents to instruct children. As
a result, over the course of the eighteenth century pedagogical thinkers gradually
imagine diminishing the role of parents in their children’s education. Initially, they
criticize parents for their ignorance on educational matters and encourage them to
become better informed. Later, they regard parents with suspicion and consider
them a noxious influence on their own children. Finally, many educators argue
that parents are not to be trusted with the education of future citizens, and children
must be removed from the home at an early age.
The State of Nature and the State of Childhood
The condition of childhood in Some Thoughts both recalls the state of nature in the
Second Treatise and differs from it. The moral and existential condition of children
in Some Thoughts is clearly related to that of the human species in the state of
nature. Children are ultimately free and responsible beings, put on the earth by a
God who endowed them with the ability to understand and to act according to the
law of nature, leading them to exercise their freedom, respect property, and live
in harmony with others.23 However, children differ from individuals in the state
of nature because the latter are born with reason (Locke will argue that children
only grow into reason) and come to an understanding of their Maker and the law
of nature on their own.
But how do the individuals in the state of nature come to know the law of nature?
Locke has frequently been criticized for the lack of clarity in the Second Treatise
concerning both the content of the law of nature and human beings’ ability to
discern it. Although in Some Thoughts Locke also fails to account for how parents
come to know the law of nature,24 he makes it clear that they act as interpreters and
23
There is little on God in Some Thoughts, but Locke seems to assume that his readers
recognize the difference between the external manifestations of virtue and the “true Principle
and Measure of Vertue,” which is “the Knowledge of a Man’s Duty, and the Satisfaction it is
to obey his Maker, in following the Dictates of that Light God has given him, with the Hopes
of Acceptation and Reward.” See Locke, Some Thoughts, eds Yolton and Yolton, p. 119.
24
Presumably, part of the answer is “from their parents.” But Locke is faced here
with the eternal problem of educational utopias: where and how was that first, perfect
educator formed?
representatives of this law for their children. In the Second Treatise, he argues that
parents must find a way simultaneously to subject their children to authority and to
develop in them a sense of their own freedom and responsibility:25
Thus we are born free, as we are born rational; not that we have actually the
exercise of either: age, that brings one, brings with it the other too. And thus we
see how natural freedom and subjection to parents may consist together, and are
both founded on the same principle.26
As we will see, Locke never finds a satisfactory way to untangle the paradox
of claiming that human beings are free while being subject to authority. But his
excursion through educational theory represents his most thorough attempt to
formulate the process whereby free and independent individuals can be formed
by submitting to the authority of others. He tries in part to solve the paradox by
claiming that, although parents lead, ultimately they are guided in their leadership
by the nature of their children (and, implicitly, by “nature” in general). He
claims that education cannot succeed unless parents show respect for children’s
natural dignity, freedom, and individual characteristics and base their educational
methods on these characteristics. This appeal to nature as a model, however, is in
constant conflict with the idea of the malleability of nature implied in the Essay
and reproduced in Some Thoughts. For this reason, Locke’s critics are still divided
as to whether in Some Thoughts he proves to be a champion of individuality or the
founder of social engineering. I turn next to a discussion of how these problems
are raised in Locke’s educational treatise.
25
Although there is nothing particularly original about this problem for educators or
parents, educational theorists always present it as a new dilemma, and their philosophies
become attempts to justify a particular way of minimizing the effects of authority.
26
Chapter 1
The Natural External:
Locke’s Some Thoughts
Concerning Education
The Clay Cottage: Locke’s Body Discipline
The tension between freedom and authority, so central to the early modern
educational debate, is absent from the opening section of Some Thoughts. In
this fairly straightforward account of how children are to be taught physical
independence and strength, we are introduced to some general principles
concerning discipline and self-control that Locke later applies to the mind. Most
of these views will be adopted by Enlightenment educational theorists as they
attempt to demonstrate how education can respect, satisfy, and strengthen the body
without risking moral or intellectual perversion.
Notwithstanding his emphasis on the development of the mind, as a doctor
Locke also believed that “the clay cottage is not to be neglected”: the strength and
vitality of the mind ultimately depend on the proper functioning of the body. His
body discipline is strict and aimed at hardening the child. But by “harden” Locke
does not intend what some less trusting or more religious educational theorists had
in mind. He does not propose to mortify the body in order to expel evil or to make
children insensitive to the pain of the present life. Rather, he recommends bringing
out the body’s natural potential for endurance to make it capable of obeying the
mind and tolerating a reasonable amount of privation. The development of physical
self-mastery is foundation work: having established it, the child can relate to his
body as a vehicle through which freedom is attained.
The rules are few and straightforward. The child is to be exposed and accustomed
to cold weather. He is not to be bundled up with too much clothing. His feet are
to be kept in thin shoes that allow water to seep in. He is to sleep on a hard bed.
His diet is to be simple, and he is not to be indulged with sweet or spicy food.

For a discussion of the intellectual sources of Locke’s views on physical education
see M.G. Mason, “The Literary Sources of John Locke’s Educational Thoughts,”
Paedagogica Historica, 5/1 (1965): pp. 83–4.

John Locke, John Locke: Some Thoughts Concerning Education and Of the Conduct
of the Understanding, eds Ruth Grant and Nathan Tarcov (Cambridge, 1996), p. 10.
Henceforth, this title will be cited directly following quotes or references as ST.

I am using the pronoun “he” because Locke’s treatise is intended for boys. Below,
I discuss the issue of girls’ education in Some Thoughts.
The only real physical excess allowed children is sleep, since it is a natural and
unconquerable need.
Locke’s tone is not aggressive, however, because he does not want to alienate
worried parents, especially mothers, whom he hopes to influence. And if he
occasionally has been accused of an overly Spartan approach to education, a close
reading shows that Locke is extremely sensitive to children’s needs. Although he
aims to prevent unnecessary weaknesses from developing, he does not hesitate
to cater to children’s fears and fragility (such as their dread of darkness or ghosts
and goblins) as long as these are a natural consequence of childhood rather than
imposed neuroses inculcated by adults.
Although Locke believes strongly in the interdependence of mind and body,
he outlines a clear separation of powers between the two and is never ambiguous
about the primary goal of education: to mold the mind. The child is taught the
few principles of health “to keep the body in strength and vigor in order that it
be able to obey and execute the orders of the mind” (ST 25). Physical habits
can exacerbate weakness or accentuate strength, but the image of the body–mind
relation is that of unequal partners (the mind being the dominant partner), not that
of one entity.
There is little need for conflict between parents and children when it comes to
the education of the body. Parents make decisions before children are old enough
to assert or even recognize their freedom, and these decisions are presumably
based on the parents’ experience and reason and on their knowledge of the body’s
natural disposition. But when it comes to the dominant partner, the mind, how can
parental authority avoid stifling a child’s nature?
Parental Authority and Self-Mastery
Locke is never apologetic about parental authority in Some Thoughts, although

his position has caused great unease amongst his critics. He considers authority
to be the bridge that leads children to freedom and to an understanding of the
proper balance between their needs and the rights of others. He does not
anticipate Rousseau’s more complex approach to autonomy and self-sufficiency
Locke’s health recommendations begin the assault on custom and prejudice that is

so important to Some Thoughts. He immediately contrasts two different notions of habit:

custom, prejudice, and tradition versus the proper inculcation of habits aimed at producing
the desired results at the correct moment in a child’s life.

Locke’s treatise is replete with italicized words that do not always correspond with
phrases I am emphasizing. I have kept these italics as they were in the edition of Some
Thoughts I used. I indicate when I have added my own emphasis.

See Joseph Carrig, “Liberal Impediments to Liberal Education: The Assent to
Locke,” The Review of Politics, 63/1 (Winter 2001): pp. 41–76; and Uday Singh Mehta, The
Anxiety of Freedom: Imagination and Individuality in Locke’s Political Thought (Ithaca,
1992), p. 11.
The Natural External 37
and announces straight out that authority should be established “as soon as
[the child] is capable of submission and can understand in whose power he is”
(ST 30). Children should be aware that they are dependent beings and should
know on whom they depend. Authority should be based both on a child’s sense
of awe and fear of his parents’ power as well as his need for parental love and
approval. Family members are equal as human beings, but democracy is not the
condition of family life. Mutuality develops only over time.
Locke’s recommendations on authority and discipline are based on forcing
children to “go without their longings even from their very cradles” (ST 29). The
cries of an infant are not to be answered unless they correspond to a physical
need, children should never be allowed to dominate their parents or nannies, and
their natural love of possessions is not to be indulged. They should learn how to
control their desires and determine which of them are reasonable through a slow
inculcation of proper habits.
But it is difficult to disentangle the meaning and goal of the endless refrain
of self-control and self-denial in Some Thoughts. It is not always clear whether
Locke’s strict rules about child discipline are aimed at a religious form of
self-abstention, a Platonic type of self-mastery, or imparting to the child an
awareness that he must constantly compromise his desires so as not to transgress
on the freedom of others. Our analysis of Locke’s view of self-mastery depends
largely on the extent to which we draw on the message of his other works.
If we limit ourselves to the repeated calls for self-restraint as they appear in Some
Thoughts, we might conclude that it is intended to prevent the few vices that Locke
actually names: lying, gluttony, materialism, and overindulgence in “wine and
women.” But throughout the text of Some Thoughts, Locke implies that there are
deeper reasons for self-denial and self-mastery, and both in his language and tone
he alludes to the conclusions reached in his philosophical and political works.
The Lockean concept of self-mastery and its role in the formation of modern
identity has preoccupied modern critics. One can argue (as does Charles Taylor) that
Locke’s use of the concept of liberty, as invoked frequently in Some Thoughts, often
recalls that of the Essay, where he identifies “the source of all liberty” as lying in the
mind’s “power to suspend the execution and satisfaction of any of its desires”:
For during this suspension of any desire, before the will be determined to action,
and the action (which follows that determination) done, we have the opportunity
to examine, view, and judge of the good or evil of what we are going to do; and
when, upon due examination, we have judged, we have done our duty, all that

See in particular Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern
Identity (Cambridge, 1989), and James Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke
in Contexts (Cambridge, 1993). For a critique of Taylor’s interpretation of Locke, see
Nicholas Wolterstorff, John Locke and the Ethics of Belief (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 239–45.
For a critique of Tully’s view of Locke, see Peter Schouls, Reasoned Freedom: John Locke
and the Enlightenment (Ithaca, 1992), p. 182. See also Carrig, “Liberal Impediments to
Liberal Education”; and Mehta, The Anxiety of Freedom.
we can, or ought to do, in pursuit of our happiness; and it is not a fault, but a
perfection of our nature, to desire, will, and act according to the last result of a
fair examination.
One finds this definition of liberty as self-mastery in Some Thoughts in Locke’s

insistence that children’s desires be curbed and that they be taught to reason about
their needs and to use pain, pleasure, and happiness as tools of self-restraint.
However, the liberty alluded to in Some Thoughts also recalls the Second Treatise,
where Locke defines the law as “the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his
proper interests” intended to “preserve and enlarge” freedom; and where he defines
liberty as being “free from restraint and violence from others” but firmly grounded
in respect for the liberty of others. In this case, it appears that the primary reason
for controlling children is to prepare them for life as free and sociable creatures.
As we see below, because children have an innate tendency to pursue pleasure
and experience joy in freedom, it is also the case that liberty of action must play a
central role in their education.
An even more essential problem in Some Thoughts lies in the “how” of
self-mastery, since Locke does not clarify by what means children come to develop
habits of self-restraint or concern for others. The persistence of this problem poses
challenges to Locke’s assumption that “freedom and subjection to parents may
consist together,” and it leaves us with fundamental questions concerning his view
of the essence of human nature. Locke clearly wants to say something significant
about the connection between liberty and (innate) human nature; yet his goal
is to describe how the liberty to make moral choices is developed in children
who are essentially malleable and driven by the pain–pleasure instinct. He thus
is continually forced to turn to the role of external restraint and conditioning. In
order to understand the problems created by these tensions in his thought, we must
look closely at Locke’s concept of human nature as developed in Some Thoughts,
in particular at his view of malleability and individuality.
Human Nature and Children’s Temperaments: “As Easily Turned as Water

Itself” or “Stamped with a Certain Character”
Many of Locke’s readers considered the educational implication of his Essay—

in particular his attack on the theory of innate ideas—to be that an almost total
molding of children is possible. Locke reinforces this position in several key
statements early in Some Thoughts, where he says that in the case of most people,
“nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education.
’Tis that which makes the great difference in mankind” (ST 10). In claiming that

John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Kenneth P. Wrinkler
(Indianapolis, 1996), p. 175.

1980), p. 32.
“the minds of children (are) as easily turned this or that way as water itself” (ST 10)
and that human beings are “a sort of chameleons that still take a tincture from
things near us” (ST 44–5), Locke inspires later thinkers such as Helvétius, who
will argue that the environment completely determines individual character.
John Passmore argues that this stress on malleability is the key message of
Locke’s educational treatise.10 Once the idea of human beings as pliable and free
becomes commonplace in European thought, education is seen as the natural locus
of salvation, the vehicle through which destinies could be determined, “the secular
equivalent of supervenient grace, in that it creates in us the will to be good.”11
In subsequent chapters, we see how some of Locke’s French disciples adopt this
view of the powers of education.
But the story of malleability is not so straightforward. Notwithstanding
Locke’s outspoken campaign on behalf of environmental influence in children’s
development, one of the primary goals of Some Thoughts is to show that each child
has a unique and individual temperament that cannot be fully changed. If educational
methods are to succeed, they must accommodate these individual temperaments.
In seeming contrast to his introductory statements supporting malleability, once he
begins to discuss the details of education, Locke is full of warnings to parents and
tutors about the dangers of believing in their own powers as sculptors. They must
remember that “God has stamped certain characters upon men’s minds, which,
like their shapes, may perhaps be a little mended but can hardly be totally altered
and transformed into the contrary.” Parents must “study their [children’s] natures
and aptitudes” and make sure that their demands are “suited to the child’s natural
genius and constitution.” They must observe “their native stock” in order to see
what children are “fit for” and whether they are “capable of having it wrought
into them by industry and incorporated there by practice.” In many cases, the
most parents can do is “make the best of what nature has given” (ST 41). Locke
is unrelenting in his determination to prove that education must be based not only
on the general nature of children as special (nonadult) beings, but on the particular
temper of children, the “unalterable frame of their constitution” and “predominant
passion” (ST 76). These comments, and their underlying respect for individuality
in the educational process, carried as much weight with Locke’s French readers as
did his argument for malleability.12
Although much of this argument seems to fly in the face of the pervasive stress
on external influence in Some Thoughts, Locke maintains his position that children
are not born with innate knowledge or innate moral sense but only with certain
10
John Passmore, “The Malleability of Man in Eighteenth-Century Thought” in Earl
R. Wasserman (ed.), Aspects of the Eighteenth Century (Baltimore, 1965).
11
Ibid., p. 26.
12
Locke also goes further than a general appeal to respect children’s individuality.
He develops a psychological approach to children based on different personality types
and offers specific advice on how to work with natural predispositions. See Locke, Some
Thoughts, p. 87.
tendencies and temperaments based ultimately on their natural desire to attain

pleasure and avoid pain.13 And so, despite his reputation as the architect of the
tabula rasa theory, in fact the theorist who will have the most pervasive influence
on eighteenth century French pedagogical thought puts forth deeply conflicting
views on human nature, the nature of virtue, and the method through which natures
is preserved and virtue attained through the educational process.
What is Virtue? Redefining Virtue According to the Nature of Childhood
In order to gain greater insight into Locke’s position on these questions, we

must ask how exactly does he define virtue in Some Thoughts, and how does he
reconcile it with his seemingly incompatible views of human nature? The variety
of meanings educational theorists attribute to virtue reflect the transitional nature
of the concept at the time Locke was writing, in particular the “tension between
a set of inherited Christian values (such as chastity, humility and poverty) and a
newly fashionable range of pagan and secular values (pleasure, reputation and
prosperity).”14
Locke’s Definitions of Virtue
At times, Locke defines virtue in rather simple terms as politeness, good manners,
and a good disposition. At other times virtue carries a heavy weight, consisting
of “the knowledge of man’s duty and the satisfaction it is to obey his maker in
following the dictates of that light God has given him with the hopes of acceptation
and reward” (ST 38). But by far Locke’s favored definition of virtue is “that a man
is able to deny himself his own desires, cross his own inclinations, and purely follow
what reason directs as best though the appetite lean the other way” (ST 25).
But how and when do children learn to act in this way? Do they tend to virtue
naturally, or does the teaching of virtue require subjection of their nature to the will
of others? Locke argues in both the Second Treatise and Some Thoughts that there
is no conflict between subjection of children to the authority of parents and their
freedom. But when challenged with the practice of early training and instruction,
he encounters the classic difficulty faced by philosophers experimenting with
education: how disciplinary measures and learning techniques can be balanced in
various stages of childhood without violating “nature.”
13
This aspect of Locke’s analysis leads Nathan Tarcov to take a position in stark
contrast to that of Passmore. Tarcov considers Some Thoughts to be “emphatically a work
of dissent,” not only because of its attack on the traditional rituals of education, but also
because of Locke’s appeal to the “limits of the malleability of individual temperaments, and
his stress on managing children by appealing to their own inclinations.” See Nathan Tarcov,
Locke’s Education for Liberty (Chicago, 1984), pp. 80–81.
14
David Wootton, “Helvétius: From Radical Enlightenment to Revolution,” Political
Theory, 28/3 (June 2000): pp. 307–36, 310.
In some cases, Locke presents the lack of virtue in children as the fault of lazy
parents who “by humoring and cockering them when little, corrupt the principles of
nature in their children, and wonder afterwards to taste the bitter waters, when they
themselves have poisoned the fountain” (ST 26). But he does not claim, as Rousseau
will, that, left to their own devices and shielded from evil, children naturally tend
toward virtue. Parents must take an active part in developing virtue in their children
and preparing them for freedom, since “he that is not used to submit his will to the
reason of others when he is young, will scarce hearken or submit to his own reason
when he is of an age to make use of it” (ST 27). A child’s tendency to seek pleasure
and fulfill his whims can at any time lead him in a negative direction. Locke thus
advises parents against indulgence of children and their desires.
The Corrupting Effect of Corporal Punishment
In spite of this severity, Locke’s position on human nature is neutral rather than
negative, and thus he argues passionately against corporal punishment. His views
conform to the changing practices of seventeenth-century education, analyzed
in great detail by historians of childhood.15 These changes reflect an increased
attention to the individuality and dignity of children, based on the idea that they
are reasonable by nature and have inherent rights. In addition, higher child survival
rates and more intimate family relations, primarily among the growing middle
classes, led many parents to exhibit a greater degree of attention and care toward
their children’s emotional needs and responses. A renewal of religious asceticism
15
For a sampling of the debate about childhood, see Philip Ariès, Centuries of
Childhood: A Social History of Family Life (New York, 1962); David Hunt, Parents and
Children in History: The Psychology of Family Life in Early Modern France (New York,
1970); David Herlihy, “Medieval Children,” in Bede Kan Lackner and Kenneth Roy Philips
(eds.), Essays on Medieval Civilization (Austin, 1978), pp. 109–41; Linda A. Pollock,
Forgotten Children: Parent-Child Relations from 1500–1900 (Cambridge, 1983); The
History of Childhood, ed. Lloyd deMause (London, 1975); Adrian P.L. Kempton, “Education
and the Child in Eighteenth-Century French Fiction,” in Theodore Bestermann (ed.), Studies
on Voltaire in the Eighteenth Century, 124 (1974): pp. 299–362; Philip Stewart, “The Child
Comes of Age,” Yale French Studies, 40 (1968): pp. 134–41; Egle Becchi and Dominique
Julia, Histoire de l’enfance en Occident, vol. 2, Du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours (2 vols, Paris,
2004); Anja Muller, Fashioning Childhood in the Eighteenth Century: Age and Identity
(Burlington, 2006). David Kennedy, Well of Being: Childhood, Subjectivity, and Education
(Albany, 2006); Andrew O’Malley, The Making of the Modern Child: Children’s Literature
and Childhood in the Late Eighteenth Century (New York, 2003); Ala Alryyes, Original
Subjects: The Child, The Novel and the Nation (Cambridge, 2001); Hugh Cunningham,
Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500 (London, 2005); James A. Schultz,
The Knowledge of Childhood in the German Middle Ages 1100–1350 (Philadelphia, 1995);
Shulamit Shahar, Childhood in the Middle Ages (London, 1992); Nicolas Orme, Medieval
Children (New Haven, 2001); Anna Davin, Growing Up Poor: Home, School and Street in
London 1870–1914 (London, 1996); Roger Cooter, In the Name of the Child: Health and
Welfare, 1880–1940 (London, 1992).
during the mid-seventeenth century, exemplified by the widespread influence of

Jansenism, also had an important effect on educational theorists’ views of corporal
punishment. The Jansenists aimed to replace the external motivations of shame
and fear with internal and self-generating drives such as guilt. Although they held
austere views on the inherent depravity of all human beings, the Jansenists had
sympathy for children’s inherent weakness and were known to behave gently with
them. Further, even before Locke educational thinkers increasingly pointed to the
importance of pleasurable sense experiences in the correct formation of the mind,
and discouraged corporal punishment on the grounds that it hindered intellectual
and moral development.16
Locke presents several arguments against beating children, most of which
will shape French Enlightenment opinions on the subject. Although his views on
corporal punishment are not original, what makes his contribution significant is
that he makes a crucial link between the abolition of corporal punishment and a
new notion of individuality and liberty developed in childhood.
First, he argues that beating can break the spirit of a child, creating an insecure,
sad, unmotivated, and useless member of society. Second, beating creates the very
thing it is meant to avoid, since ultimately it forces the child to focus on sensuality
(pain and pleasure) even more than otherwise he would have done. In other words,
he will make decisions based not on an appreciation of the virtuous behavior
required of him, but on the best way to avoid the pain accompanying the vicious
behavior. Finally, harsh physical discipline can make a hypocrite of the child, who
will become meek and slavish in public but in private will revert to the forbidden
acts and give full reign to his desires.17
Locke goes even further than the already popular call to end to corporal
punishment. He encourages parents to reconsider which actions deserve
punishment in the first place, thereby changing the meaning of virtue for a child
and questioning the extent to which he is capable of it. For example, children
are not to be punished for their behavior during playtime or for their desire to
play. They are not to be blamed for “the faults of their age” (ST 39) like being
silly, forgetful, or overly curious. When approaching their children, parents must
“consider them as children” (ST 60), recognizing that they come to maturity
16
Foucauldian scholars argue that this campaign to eliminate violence from the
classroom was linked to the growth of a new political, social, and bureaucratic apparatus
that sought, in the interests of efficiency and control, to govern citizens by internalizing
mechanisms of authority in them. Rather than break the wills of children or create in them
a slavelike mentality, educators sought to form docile and self-regulating citizens. There
is a wisdom in these arguments, but they tend to limit our investigations into the elaborate
ways that eighteenth-century theorists themselves tried to confront and overcome the
problem they had set up between freedom and authority. They of course did not articulate
the dilemma in the language of our contemporary discourse but were anxious about the
inconsistencies at the heart of their own theories.
17
Locke allows beating only in cases of obstinacy or extreme willfulness but reminds
his readers that with a proper education, these qualities need never develop in the first place.
slowly and have perceptions and needs different from those of adults. Locke even
expresses doubt that children are capable of vice before the age of seven, insisting
that if parents corrected faults early on, real vice would never have the opportunity
to develop (ST 60).
Reasoning with Children
In all these passages, we see that Locke considers childhood as a separate time
of life and emphasizes the importance of stage-specific learning. In fact, it is his
nuanced analysis of childhood that leads him to reinterpret virtue according to the
nature of children rather than imposing adult concepts back into youth. And yet,
even as they consider these views, many later commentators (including Rousseau)
accuse Locke of not understanding the special nature of childhood. One cause of
this accusation is his famous (and often misunderstood) suggestion that parents
should reason with their children. But what does he really mean by this? First,
parents must themselves behave reasonably with their children. Locke firmly
believes that example is the great educator and that children learn everything from
their parents’ demeanor. If parents give in to passion while punishing them, it is
this giving into passion that children will learn rather than the intended moral
lesson.18 Second, Locke never claims that children understand adult reason; rather,
he argues that as soon as they develop powers of language, they are capable of
some, albeit simple, reasoning. When warning their children about a certain vice,
therefore, parents should appeal to “such reasons as their age and understanding are
capable of” (ST 58). Children are not capable of abstract reasoning from “remote
principles” (ST 58), and any attempt to bring them to knowledge must begin from
objects and ideas that are accessible to their senses and their understanding: “the
reasons that move them must be obvious and level to their thoughts, and such as
may be felt and touched” (ST 58).
The Urge to Freedom
Finally, by insisting that children “love being treated as rational creatures” (ST 58),
Locke points to a crucial issue that played a large role in his analysis of both
freedom and equality. He makes the point that children (and people in general)
have a natural desire to be considered free and equal, and that treating them as
18
The Jesuits argued this point as well and, in the interest of preventing teachers from
taking out their anger on children, did not allow the punishing teacher to implement the
actual punishment. Instead, they appointed a designated disciplinarian. The difference is
that for Locke, and French theorists during the Enlightenment, the point is not only to teach
a lesson in the best possible way, but to create a new type of individual with a sense of his
own freedom and dignity.
such fulfills them even more than their conquest of a particular object of desire.19
It is for this reason that, in seeming opposition to his own sensationist psychology,
Locke argues that sensual desires need not dominate children or adults, even if
some desires are satisfied in childhood. In general, he considers that individuals
are less likely to be driven by the specific desire for objects than by a general
desire to make free choices, even if those choices lead to refusing themselves
the object they covet. Locke suggests that a similar principle applies to reason.
Because children love to be thought of and treated as reasonable, virtue can be
encouraged by appealing to this higher desire while the actual “objects of their
desires are made assisting to virtue” (ST 37). This is a fundamental element of
Locke’s analysis of human nature in Some Thoughts and a part of his attempt to
reconcile discipline and freedom. He identifies fixed qualities in human nature (the
need to be considered free or reasonable) but allows flexibility in the method by
which these qualities are developed (for example, by restraining liberty and using
habit and conditioning to bring children to reason).
Creating Virtue by Rewarding Virtue
Locke uses similar logic when speaking of his preferred method of bringing
children to virtue. Since the ultimate goal is to compel children to behave virtuously
by their own choice, he insists that parents find a positive method of discipline and
education. They should focus attention on rewards and punishments that form in
the mind the long-term habit of behaving well while at the same time correcting
an immediate problem.
The rewards and punishments Locke has in mind are never material. Rather,
he refers to esteem and disgrace, the withholding of parental approval, love, and
respect given to a child, both in private and public. If any material benefits result
from children’s actions they should be only the indirect consequence of esteem,
and if they suffer privation it is only because privation naturally accompanies the
state of disgrace. Because children naturally love to be thought well of, they will
quickly realize the high value of a good reputation. Although to a certain extent
they are having their desires satisfied, it is here that “objects of their desires are
made assisting to virtue” (ST 37) rather than being made the actual incentive to
good behavior. Ultimately Locke believes that by this method children will come
to love the virtue that made their reputation rather than the objects they receive as
a consequence of that reputation.
19
In a strange way, Locke’s analysis here foreshadows Rousseau’s method in Emile.
Rousseau has been widely criticized for claiming that freedom is everything and yet never
allowing Emile any actual freedom. But in a sense, in his method Rousseau’s position
evolved from Locke’s premise that individuals gain as much from believing they are free
as from possessing the freedom itself. For a critique of this aspect of Locke’s thought, see
Carrig, “Liberal Impediments to Liberal Education.”
Locke is not averse to using reputation as an incentive to virtue. Although he

reminds readers that reputation is not an actual virtue (which in this instance he
defines as a knowledge of and duty toward God), he claims that:
It is that which comes nearest to it; and being the testimony and applause that
other people’s reason, as it were by common consent, gives to virtuous and well
ordered actions, it is the proper guide and encouragement of children, till they
grow able to judge for themselves and to find what is right by their own reason.
(ST 38)
Locke’s faith in God underlies his corresponding faith that human beings
are capable of understanding the true meaning of virtue and of acting on that
understanding. But he nevertheless obstructs the difference between reputation
and virtue, or between “internal” and “external” motivation, and in so doing he
paves the way for the validation of a purely secular and utilitarian interpretation of
virtuous behavior. For Locke’s French disciples, it becomes acceptable to discuss
virtue in terms of the individual’s sensation of pain and pleasure, to define virtue as
the proper alignment between self-interest and the interest of others. In principle,
divine sanctions are retained by many of Locke’s followers, who still feel the
need to fall back on them to justify preference for certain actions. But in practice,
worldly sanctions, which had at one time been allowed into the discussion only as
secondary, earthly mirrors of divine sanctions, replace the latter and are embraced
as acceptable incentives to “virtuous” behavior.
How is Virtue?
Locke thus presents his readers with what seems like an unproblematic interpretation
of character building: children can attain true, internal virtue through external
reward and reputation. But the vexing problem, and the unanswered question of
Some Thoughts, is how and at what point do children become “able to judge for
themselves and to find what is right by their own reason?” When do they become
truly virtuous beings, acting in the service of what they consciously understand
to be “good” rather than conditioned animals responding to rewards and positive
reinforcement? In their youth, children do not have the use of their reason, and
therefore they rely on the reason of their parents. Parental reasoning gives them
the opportunity to learn about and follow the law of nature, thereby approaching
the freedom and independence they will need when parents and tutors are out
of their lives. But when is the moment of transition, and what guarantees that
freedom or virtue is its outcome? Are we in any way given a clear sense of how
parents teach children to reason, except by reasoning in their place? What steps are
taken to prepare for the transfer from the parent’s to the child’s reason, except the
power of reinforcement and example, which imbues children with habits but does
not guarantee any internal motivation? How does habit become true virtue, rather
than “affectation,” the acting out of virtue that Locke himself derides? Is there an
age of reason, and, if so, is it the same in all children?
These questions are of great consequence not only because Locke’s followers
struggle with them, but also because Locke himself is clearly uncomfortable with
the idea that children are human animals who can be conditioned to virtue. Early
on in the Treatise he writes:
He that has found a way how to keep up a child’s spirit easy, active, and free and
yet at the same time to restrain him from many things he has a mind to and to
draw him to things that are uneasy to him, he, I say, that knows how to reconcile
these seeming contradictions has in my opinion got the true secret of education.
(ST 33)
Locke hopes to reconcile the contradictions by appealing to “nature.” Throughout

Some Thoughts, he entwines the terms nature and habit together when describing
the process by which children come to virtue, implying that there is more to moral
formation than the proper inculcation of habit. He does not define nature, however,
nor does he acknowledge that, depending on whether one focuses on the role of
nature or that of habit in the formation of virtue, radically different educational
methods might be indicated. If virtue is habit, we might conclude that it is simply
a result of following orders, listening to the reason of others, and then suddenly
finding oneself with the habit of submission that one can conveniently turn
against oneself. Several of Locke’s statements indicate that when children become
accustomed to behaving in a virtuous manner they have already become truly
virtuous. But if habit is the key to virtue, why is Locke so concerned with respecting
the nature of children or with linking the concepts of nature and virtue?
This subtle tension, between freely induced and externally imposed behavior,
lies at the heart of the Enlightenment pedagogical debate. The decisions of educators
on how to ensure children’s moral conduct will determine whether their method is
one of imprinting something onto children or drawing something out of them. And
these decisions will reflect their views on the meaning of individual identity and
its relation to moral conduct. During the Enlightenment most educational thinkers
abandon religious morality as the central motivating factor in human behavior.
But they also are uncomfortable with the notion of a purely external, mechanical,
reactive virtue that requires no self-discipline and that encourages individuals to
help others almost accidentally while pursuing their own self-interest. In the end,
those thinkers who struggle to define a meaningful secular morality demand a
more conscientious sense of virtue from human beings. In order for individuals to
follow their sensual needs, yet still be good citizens, they require a high degree of
self-knowledge, both as individuals and as members of the human race. They must
develop the subtle art of recognizing when to indulge themselves, when to rise
above their own needs, and when to turn their attention to the social good. Those
who, like Helvétius, disregard the idea of a “higher” virtue, focus instead on the
habit-driven method that can also be deduced from Some Thoughts.
The Natural External
I do not believe that Locke intended to create a purely habit-driven educational

method, but his occasional appeals to moral responsibility in children do not
obviate the fact that his theory set the stage for such a habit-driven method.20
In Some Thoughts, it appears that a seamless transition takes place between
childhood and adulthood—between an earth-bound, sensually conditioned virtue
and a higher form of virtue, motivated by moral sensibility and based on reason.
Locke merges the language of nature and habit in such a way that the reader does
not know whether each exists as a separate entity in the author’s own mind or
whether nature is significant as a concept at all. One of the most often quoted
passages from Some Thoughts illustrates this point:
Every man must sometime or other be trusted to himself and his own conduct;
and he that is a good, a virtuous and able man must be made so within. And
therefore, what he is to receive from education, what is to sway and influence
his life, must be something put into him betimes: habits woven into the very
principles of his nature, and not a counterfeit carriage and dissembled outside
put on by fear only to avoid the present anger of a father who perhaps may
disinherit him. (ST 32; emphasis added)
It is worth taking the time to disentangle this statement, especially since its ambiguity
is echoed in so many of the eighteenth-century educational texts we examine. First,
it is important to note that Locke takes for granted that independence—a child being
entrusted to himself—is the ultimate light at the end of the tunnel of childhood
dependence. As we will see, this is not always the case for subsequent educational
thinkers, such as the reformers of 1762 or Rousseau. In the case of former, students will
emerge from childhood dependence to find themselves betrothed to the state. In the case
of Rousseau, Emile will be led down a path that is much less linear than that of Locke’s
child, a sequence of dependence and self-sufficiency that, one could argue, has no clear
finale. In contrast, Locke’s faith in children’s natural trustworthiness is a cornerstone of
his educational theory and the reason why parental power is justified in his eyes.
Second, the virtue of this free man should be an inner virtue. Here we must
be wary of imposing future notions of “inner” on Locke. While the very use of
the words “made so within” recall his worry about the possibility of an external,
“counterfeit carriage,” his language is paradoxical. The child is to be “made so
(virtuous) within” and education is “something put into him” by “habits woven
into the principles of his nature.” How does Locke reconcile the idea of internal
20
Peter Schouls offers a similar analysis in Reasoned Freedom, Ch. 7. His argument
is based on the idea that Locke succeeded, in Some Thoughts, in elaborating a method of
bringing children to autonomy (Schouls uses the word autonomy and intends to imply an
anticipation of Kant) and that, ultimately, the responsibility of individuals for their own
actions and selves prevented any teacher or group of people from creating a system of social
control. In contrast, I argue that Locke turned to the idea of “nature” to solve the problem
of how conditioning and responsibility can coexist.
virtue with the act of something being inserted from the outside and learned
through obedience, imitation, and conditioning (the three examples Locke gives
throughout the book of how to “put things” into children)?
Locke’s image of weaving is revealing. The phrase “habits woven into the very
principles of his nature” implies that a new material, or a new element, is created
from an equal combination of the artificial and the natural, the external and internal.
Each thread of nature is tightly woven into the corresponding thread of habit, and
by joining together the dangling, incomplete strands of natural dispositions and
externally induced actions, a unified pattern of behaviour is produced.21
Thus a second nature is created. Habit closely supervises the process of growth
but nature retains her power, for habit must not produce anything that does not
correspond with it. Crucially, habits in this scenario are not artificial impositions
of custom or tradition but behaviors we learned from what our parents’ reason has
understood of the law of nature. For Locke, what is external does not necessarily
correspond to what is artificial. He acknowledges that there are ways of behaving
that are false, but not everything externally motivated falls into such a category.
What is external can also be natural.
Because of Locke’s underlying belief that habit can correspond to or harmonize
with nature, he is free to follow through with the imagery of true virtue being
created through external conditioning:
He that has not a mastery over his inclinations, he that knows not how to resist
the importunity of present pleasure or pain for the sake of what reason tells him
is fit to be done, wants the true principle of virtue and industry and is in danger
never to be good for anything. This temper, therefore, so contrary to unguided
nature, is to be got betimes; and this habit, as the true foundation of future ability
and happiness, is to be wrought into the mind as early as may be, even from
the first dawnings of any knowledge or apprehension in children, and so to be
confirmed in them by all the care and ways imaginable by those who have the
oversight of their education. (ST 32–3)
After repeating his favorite definition of virtue—resisting the immediate demands

of pleasure on the advice of reason—Locke then goes on to define it mostly in
terms of habit, the “true foundation of future ability and happiness.” The habit of
self-mastery is to be “wrought” into the mind as soon as possible, before children
come to understanding, and “confirmed in them” as often as possible.
This passage implies that the habit of virtue is created before reason exists,
thus negating the possibility of one of Locke’s major claims: that reason can act
21
Interestingly, this reasoning resonates with the ways in which scientists are
currently revising our understanding of the human mind, and re-interpreting our view of
the nature–nurture relationship as one of interdependence. See Frans de Waal, “The End of
Nature Versus Nurture,” Scientific American, 281/6 (1999): pp. 94–9; Matt Ridley, Nature
Via Nurture (New York, 2004); and Robert M. Sapolsky, “A Natural History of Peace,”
Foreign Affairs, 85/1 (January/February 2006): pp. 104–20.
as an incentive to virtue. The passage also appears to make a mockery of the

role of nature, which is totally submerged by habit and external conditioning. The
assumption is that eventually children will cherish the act of being virtuous more
than the reward. The stronger their reason becomes, the more they will understand
the true nature of goodness and will make decisions based on this understanding
rather than merely on the hope of reward.
Locke thus leaves his readers feeling that nature is somehow crucial to the
process of education but at the same time can be overlooked in the method of
education. His reliance on conditioning rather than reasoning or nature to produce
virtue makes freedom appear not as the driving force of education but rather a
convenient afterthought. At best, freedom is the result of education, but only when
defined as self-mastery. Locke’s Some Thoughts thus embodies the paradox of
liberal education, that free and independent individuals somehow must be the
products of a long process of conditioning.
The Tapestry of Virtue
In the preceding analysis, we have taken a detailed and critical look at the tensions
in Some Thoughts. Locke’s educational theory was not the first to exhibit these
tensions, but his influence on Enlightenment thought is so pervasive that his
formulation of the issues (including his lack of clarity concerning nature and habit)
is crucial to our understanding of subsequent debates. However, to avoid reading
future dilemmas back into his work we should recognize that the problems he posed
for educational theory did not necessarily undermine the thesis presented in Some
Thoughts. Locke’s view of human motivation is more straightforward than that
of later educational thinkers (in particular Rousseau), and in his view nature and
habit do not present themselves as irreconcilable oppositions. In great part this is
a result of the fact that in Some Thoughts, as in the Second Treatise, he works on
the assumption that God’s existence guarantees our nature, moral universe, and
ability to know the law of nature. There is a clear and unquestionable reason why
we should and can evolve in a certain, not predetermined, but nevertheless natural
direction. Locke does not give words like virtue and reason superficial meanings
by attaching them to external conditioning because external conditioning is part
and parcel of the way human beings learn what is internal. It is the combination
of external and internal that leads to a rediscovery of wholeness.22 Consequently,
although Locke rejects innate ideas, he believes in a set of qualities or behavior
patterns that are innate in the sense that they lie dormant and, over time, one may
grow into them naturally. The distinction between innate, in the sense of something
present at birth, and innate in the sense of something individuals grow into naturally,
is a crucial one in French pedagogical thought. Although theorists do not seem to
22
Even though Locke does not use the language of wholeness and fragmentation in
the way religious thinkers would, the reality of the Fall is clearly a part of his mental
universe, even if only in a “naturalized variant.” Taylor, Sources of the Self, p. 240.
recognize the distinction, they appeal to the latter concept to justify their seemingly
irreconcilable arguments that human beings are pliable instruments in the hands of
educators and yet possess a particular nature that must be respected.23
Perhaps we can grasp Locke’s view of the balance between that which is innate
and that which is cultivated by turning to an image he uses to describe growth, an
image that stands in contrast to that of “weaving” or “inserting” something into a
child. Referring in the Second Treatise to the temporary rule that parents have over
children, he writes that “the bonds of this subjection are like the swaddling clothes
they are wrapt up in, and supported by, in the weakness of their infancy: age and
reason as they grow up, loosen them, till at length they drop quite off, and leave a
man at his own free disposal.”24
Locke envisions an uncomplicated connection between physical and mental
developmental processes and in Some Thoughts compares the movement of the mind
from subjection to freedom with that of the body as described in the passage above.
The central assumption of the above statement is that bodies have a natural destiny,
which is to function independently of parental assistance and upon the commands
of the mind. For this natural end to be achieved, the body needs the long-term
assistance of adults, who train it in stages toward independence, giving freedom
as the body reaches coordination and maturity. A single moment of transition from
a body constricted by swaddling clothes and guided by adults into a body that
functions “at his own free disposal” is not clearly identifiable because it takes place
in stages. And yet we assume that the physical movements of an adult result from a
combination of the individual’s will and the body’s natural tendencies. Without the
innate ability to walk, no amount of example, reinforcement, or punishment will
create a biped. Without guidance, the predisposition to walk will be retarded.
In Some Thoughts, Locke treats the mind as he does the body in the sense
that it has a natural destiny of growth. This natural destiny is not violated but
is assisted by external conditioning, as long as the habits inculcated truly do
correspond to inborn capacities (such as the ability to know the law of nature or
God’s wishes). The individual can make the transition from following orders to
using his own reason without giving up his claim to be acting from his own free
will because an understanding of his reason and nature are included (by parents) in
the orders he follows. Freedom in this context is neither doing what you want nor
a sort of Emilian self-creation; rather, it is a way of behaving based on a correct
interpretation (by parents and educators) of human abilities and the successful
realization of human potential (through the development of a child).
Part of the reason that Locke can define freedom and virtue in this way is that
he is not burdened by a view of social corruption that will haunt future educators.
Locke still assumes that while unguided nature can lead to disaster, and falsely
23
See Charles Taylor on the difference between these two version of innate, Sources
of the Self, p. 260.
24
1980), p. 31.
guided nature can lead to corruption, individuals (naturally) possess the ability to
know what is reasonable and what is right. Properly guided nature is therefore a
possible outcome of education. Locke believes in the need for internal motivation,
but for him internal motivation is not the complicated concept that it becomes for
Rousseau or Kant. Reason develops parallel to and alongside the correct inculcation
of habits, and as it becomes progressively more sophisticated it takes over the
decision-making process from mere habit. Further, in Some Thoughts Locke does
not feel the need to take such a clear position on the goodness or badness of nature
as Rousseau did but leaves us instead with the idea that the true nature of a person
is his or her second nature—that combination of universal human disposition,
individual temperament, and habits developed through education by reasonable
people who have an understanding of God’s purpose and human potential.25
Locke certainly did not adequately deal with the ambiguities in his notion of
liberty in Some Thoughts. At the end of the following chapter, I deal in more
detail with some contemporary critiques of Locke’s theory, and in subsequent
chapters I show how much confusion was generated by some of the unanswered
questions in his treatise. But in this chapter I hope to have shown that Locke
was himself grappling with the delicate dance between self-mastery and freedom
in an educational setting. Unlike his successors, he was not tormented by the
inescapable fact that even in the best of circumstances education is a form of
human programming, and therefore accepted without anxiety the idea that
freedom in childhood is severely limited. This might appear to be a banal point,
but restraint in all its forms will pose deep intellectual and moral anxieties for later
educational philosophers as they struggle to refine their definition of individual
freedom, excise any element of coercion from it, and reconcile it with authority
and sociability. In the search for a moment of pure freedom in the life of the human
mind, and unable to identify it amid the irreversible corruption of adulthood, many
thinkers are driven back to childhood. Rummaging through early experience, they
search for the kind of evidence that will allow them to proclaim nature free, good,
sociable, and deserving of political liberty and social equality. Although these
thinkers use the evidence gathered to delineate the degree and essence of freedom
that nature demands, it becomes increasingly more difficult for them to accept the
state of youth as a state of subjection. Locke did not confront this difficulty.
25
The term second nature is found in several educational texts during the late
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The earliest I encountered it is from a 1678 treatise
entitled The Compleat Gentleman, by Jean Gailhard. Gailhard calls education “second
nature,” claiming that it “reforms what is amiss in nature, and perfects what good we have” (3).
It appears from the way he writes that his use of the phrase to refer to education is not
uncommon. See Jean Gailhard, The Compleat Genleman: or Directions for the Education
of Youth as to their Breeding at Home and Traveling Abroad (London, 1678). John W.
Yolton claims Locke was familiar with this and other contemporary educational works,
many of which contain Locke-like attacks on the harsh treatment of children, insistence on
attention to individual temperament, education according to social station, and references to
the malleability of children. See Yolton, John Locke and Education (New York, 1971).
Chapter 2
Locke:
Father of Social Engineering or
Champion of Liberty in Education?
In the previous chapter we looked at the relationship between Locke’s

philosophical, political, and educational thought and at the complicated notion of
education as a second nature that he develops in Some Thoughts. A final question
concerning Locke’s legacy to eighteenth-century French thought is why, in spite of
what seems like the subjection of children to continual external conditioning in his
treatise, was he hailed as a champion of liberty and individual rights in education?
Some of Locke’s contemporary critics have accused him of creating a disciplinary
empire in which real freedom is sacrificed to indoctrination or social control.
At the end of this chapter, I deal more specifically with these accusations. But first,
I outline some of the main reasons Locke was recognized by his followers—and
still by many today—for promoting liberty in education.
One reason Locke’s theory is considered liberal is that he is a child-centered
educator. He embraces children’s nature and validates it as a legitimate part of
the moral equation. Another reason is simply to be found in the tone of Some
Thoughts. Locke never sounds as manipulative or as oppressive as either the
Jesuits or Rousseau, whose big-brother-like control over youth has sent chills
down many spines. Locke appears genuinely to believe that both children and
parents are trustworthy, education is not a coercive enterprise, and its ultimate goal
is to prepare men to live freely in a free society. His faith, revealed in the Second
Treatise—that men will have the courage to rebel against an oppressive leader but
also possess the reasoning power to recognize when to refrain from rebellion—is
reflected in Some Thoughts in a belief that good parenting can produce children
who have the dignity to stand up for themselves but also a clear understanding of
when to obey.
Yet another aspect of liberty in Locke’s theory is that, when it comes to
self-mastery and the denial of desires, as Nathan Tarcov has put it, “the moral
point is not ascetic or puritan but civil”; in other words, the central goal of
self-denial in Some Thoughts is not to create the ideal of a pure Christian or to
ensure salvation, but to prepare the ground for harmonious social relations.
As mentioned earlier, Locke often emphasizes that ultimately the reason not to
give in to children’s whims or material desires is not to suppress their passions or
desires out of a belief that these are evil, but to prevent individuals from developing

Nathan Tarcov, Locke’s Education for Liberty (Chicago, 1984), p. 93.
the habit of taking something that belongs to someone else, dominating another
person, or imposing on another’s freedom. The goal of education is not merely a
well-balanced individual, but a society-wide sense of civic duty. The importance
of this point is often obscured in Locke’s treatise by his continual emphasis
on individual-centered education. In fact, a good argument can be made that
in the text of Some Thoughts most references to disciplining children are not
directly related to engendering habits of citizenship, but rather—in the spirit of
old educational manuals—intend simply to convey that self-mastery is “good.”
I emphasize the broader interpretation of Locke’s treatise here because this is how
his French disciples understood the relationship between self-mastery and civic
responsibility in Some Thoughts; creating a new secular disposition in individuals
with the goal not of subjecting the passions and desire, but having them act as a
bridge to individual freedom and social harmony.
The most compelling reason why Locke gains a reputation as the champion of
freedom and the individual in education is that he infuses liberty into his educational
method. Instruction is not to be guided by the needs of adults or outdated educational
programs. Rather, children must be allowed to fulfill what their present nature
demands according to the “seasons of aptitude and inclination” and individual
dispositions. They must be given “the full liberty due to [their] age” (ST 75).
Further, Locke campaigns for freedom in education not only for the utilitarian
reason that a feeling of liberty promotes more efficient learning, but because it is the
nature of human beings to love and truly enjoy this feeling: “’tis that liberty alone
which gives the true relish and delight to their ordinary play-games” (ST 53).
Locke insists that children must never be forced to learn anything. He was one
in a long line of educators who stressed the point that learning must never be a
burden and believed that if instruction is introduced in the form of play, children
will work as a result of free choice. Locke makes the idea of a pleasurable
education a solid foundation around which teachers and parents must build if
they are to succeed in teaching young people. To arouse the desire for learning in
children, he goes so far as to suggest that parents make their children beg for it. In
this way, a child “may be brought to desire to be taught anything you have a mind
he should learn” (ST 52).
It is irrelevant to Locke that the child is manipulated to love work or experience
liberty because he defines freedom not as the absence of other wills acting
upon a child, but a child’s liberty to do that which corresponds to his natural
needs and ability. It is true that he makes a great leap in assuming these needs
and abilities can be identified and understood by parents and teachers. And this
distinction—between what a child is allowed to do and what he believes he is

of the Understanding, eds Ruth Grant and Nathan Tarcov (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 51–2.
Henceforth, this title will be cited directly following quotes or references as ST.

The method of learning through play had been put forth by Johann Amos Comenius,
Pierre Nicole, Michel de Montaigne, and many others.
Locke 55
allowed to do—continues to haunt our debates on freedom in the educational

process. But for Locke, the central goal is for the child to feel that he is free. This
feeling of being free is presented in Some Thoughts as a genuine moment in the
development of human responsibility and dignity rather than a disguised form of
control, as is argued by Locke’s critics.
Locke is also considered one of the fathers of liberal education as a result of his
calls for individual attention to children in the process of education. He insists that
there is no such thing as a universal educational method and that all learning must
adapt to the natural temperament of individual children. Locke is not, of course,
the first to suggest individual attention in education. Aside from educational
theorists like Pierre Nicole, Michel de Montaigne, and Johann Amos Comenius,
the Jesuits, as well as other religious orders, made individual attention to children
an important part of their educational program. However, the methods and goals
of this individual attention differ, in particular because of Locke’s position on the
moral neutrality of children. The Jesuits’ method of surveillance (which I discuss
in the next chapter) was based on a lack of trust in the nature of the child. It was
intended to keep children from immoral actions, unclean thoughts and ultimately
from developing a private world of independent reflection.
To be fair to the Jesuits, they also used individual attention as a teaching
method. They insisted that each child be appreciated and that teachers offer extra
time after class to those students who had difficulties understanding lessons.
In addition, their method of one-on-one surveillance (each student was assigned
to a particular teacher) was meant not only to provide order and control but to
offer consistent guidance to children in times of trouble from an adult whom they
learned to see as their friend. In this, the Jesuits were adapting to the demands
of the middle-class family that expected respect and attention for each of their
children, watched closely over them at home, and demanded access to information
about their progress in school.
Locke is not above surveillance as an integral part of education, and he says
at one point that tutors should watch their pupils “constantly” (ST 65). He also
suggests observing children at play to decode their personalities. Although Locke
abandons the language of sin, he is clearly still influenced by an approach to
children based on their tendency to perversity. But because Locke does not address
the issue of sin but rather that of vice, and since his treatise is intended to bring
children to good without violating their nature, his theory is infused with a mood
of trust vis-à-vis children, in stark contrast to the language and tone of the Jesuits
and other religious educators.
In his views on academic learning, which reflect many seventeenth-century
trends, Locke also focuses on how to work liberty into education. He opposes
learning by rote and emphasizes example and repetition rather than memorizing

See Joseph Carrig, “Liberal Impediments to Liberal Education: The Assent to
Locke,” pp. 41–76.

See George Huppert, Public Schools in Renaissance France (Urbana, 1984).
and rules. Children should learn languages through conversation rather than by
memorizing grammatical rules, and compositions should refer to children’s own
experiences rather than the remote heroic deeds of long-dead Romans. Students
are to be exposed to modern subjects that correspond to their natural curiosity, such
as history, geography, and natural philosophy. Perhaps most importantly, Locke
proves himself one of the fathers of Enlightenment educational theory (which, as
we will see, develops a strong utilitarian orientation) in his insistence that the goal
of education is not to make people fit for the university, but for the world:
Children’s time should be spent in acquiring what might be useful to them when
they come to be men rather than to have their heads stuffed with a deal of trash,
a great part whereof they usually never do (’tis certain they never need to) think
on again as long as they live. (ST 71)
Private Versus Public Education
Notwithstanding this appeal to the world, Locke is an advocate of domestic rather

than public education. And despite his apparent faith in human nature, Locke is not
without sensitivity to the dangers of corruption. He is particularly aware of how
words and concepts can be twisted in public educational environments, how easily
children’s reason can be misguided, and how exposed they are to the “contageon”
(ST 49) of the “herd.” Locke favors private education, which few of his followers
will embrace. He concedes that there are advantages to public education; in
schools, young boys learn emulation and competition, which leads to industry and
provides them with an early introduction to social virtues. But he thinks that for
the most part schools sacrifice real social virtues to the false ideals of roughness,
manliness, and competition. In addition, teachers have no time to watch individual
students or to learn about their temperaments and therefore can never provide the
kind of guidance needed for a successful educational experience.
As we have seen, Locke’s view of social corruption is temperate, and he stops
short of advising parents to isolate their children from the world. In principle,
he argues that “the only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it”
(ST 68). Unlike many later theorists, Locke does not want to prevent children from
being exposed to vice, but prefers to introduce reality slowly, as they “can bear it”
(ST 68). In addition, Locke is not preparing his pupil for an ideal world, something
that (as we will see below) often appears to be the case in the work of Morelly,
James Tully interprets this change in method from memorization to repetition as

representative of the new form of “governing conduct” that aims at inculcating virtue through
repetition of virtuous actions that eventually become pleasurable and natural. James Tully,
An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts (Cambridge, 1993), Ch. 6.

We hear echoes here of Book III of the Essay concerning the dangers of language,
although the connection is never explicit.
Locke 57
Rousseau, and Helvétius. He advocates an educational method fit for a gentleman

who needs to function well in society as it is.
But a close reading reveals that Locke does not follow through with the
trust he claims to have in human nature. There is ambivalence in his choice of
words to describe when and how children are actually exposed to the world, an
ambivalence that anticipates the virtual paranoia that develops among eighteenth-
century French theorists about how to protect children from the dangers of
external influence. The child is to be “informed” about vices and “precautioned,”
“made to see,” “prepared,” “warned,” and “instructed” about the world (ST 68).
None of these expressions gives us precise information about whether children are
told in abstract terms about vice or actually exposed to it, and no real example is
given in Some Thoughts of a child encountering evil influences. The only concrete
information Locke’s children receive about the world is through exposure at home
to their parents’ friends or through travel abroad. The contradiction found in Some
Thoughts—Locke’s insistence that teachers put the “real world” at the center of
children’s learning experience and his admonition to instill fear and mistrust of the
world—becomes one of the most important tensions in the writings of eighteenth-
century educationists. These theorists wish to build an educational system premised
on children’s deep engagement with society, while at the same time preventing
children from encountering its dangers.
Education for Whom?
This tension is most apparent in the attitude of eighteenth-century writers toward

the education of women, the poor, and the lower classes. Here again, Locke lays
the groundwork in his philosophical and educational thought. On the one hand, his
theory of the tabula rasa opens the door to the possibility that all human beings are
capable of being educated to reason and virtue. On the other hand, Some Thoughts
is narrowly defined as a treatise for the education of boys and gentlemen, and
in this work Locke does not advocate universal education. It is true that Locke
criticizes traditional male attitudes and external displays of masculinity, and he
tries to redefine manly behavior simply as virtuous behavior, thereby making it as
applicable to women as to men. Also, both in Some Thoughts and in the Second
Treatise, he insists that mothers have equal rights over children with fathers and
never diminishes the role of mothers in the education of their children. In practice,
however, Some Thoughts totally omits the education of girls.
In his educational treatise, Locke also neglects the issue of the education of
the lower classes. He announces candidly that his ideal of education is specifically
aimed at upper- or middle-class gentlemen, and in the section on learning he makes
it clear that a classical education is necessary only for the elite. In Some Thoughts,
he does not even mention the education of the poor. The only direct statements we
have from Locke on the question come in 1697, when he acted as Commissioner
of Trade and Plantations and worked on a plan to reform the Elizabethan poor law.
The views put forth in his statement only reiterate his claim made at the beginning
of Some Thoughts, that if the upper classes are properly educated, everything—
and everyone—else will fall into order.
In his report, Locke responds to the alarm at the increase in the ranks of the
poor, the desire to keep them in order, and the lack of funds to pay for their upkeep.
He recommends that each parish have a school for the poor and that poor children
be sent to this school, fed, taught some skills, and put to work. He suggests
closing taverns to prevent debauchery and putting poor people to work rather than
letting them remain idle. James Tully considers these recommendations to be a
perfect example of the application of Locke’s philosophy to the practical realm.
Rather than look to increasing funds to help the poor, Locke turns to the various
disciplinary apparatuses, enlisting the law, the penal system, the navy, schools,
correctional houses, and the church “to fabricate an individual who is habituated
to obedience and useful labour.”
Defenders of Locke argue that his support of workhouses was not primarily
meant as a way to conveniently cordon off and make use of the productive power
of the lower classes. Rather, the goal was in line with his general philosophy of
individual dignity and freedom for all, to allow parents to feed themselves and
their children, providing time and space in which children could not only learn
a trade but become literate and even acquire a general education.10 Others point
out that the greater part of Some Thoughts is not made up of lessons specifically
formulated for one class, but rather it consists of universally applicable precepts
for training people in the skill of being human. Aside from the few subjects that
Locke insists are appropriate only to the gentleman, James Axtell argues:
Locke’s knowledge of the understanding is a universal knowledge: it applies to all

men in all places. And to that extent so the theory of education implicit within his
philosophy is universal in application. Therefore, if the Education is the explicit
application of the philosophy of knowledge latent within the Essay, we would
expect the Education to be universally applicable in its main principles also.11
My intention is neither to condemn Locke for elitism nor to defend him from
the charge, but to point out that one of the most important legacies of his thought
comes from the fact that his philosophical work opened the door to the idea of

See Peter Gay, “Locke on the Education of Paupers,” in Amélie Oksenberg Rorty
(ed.), Philosophers on Education: New Historical Perspectives (London, 1998).

Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy, p. 237.
10
See Peter Schouls, Reasoned Freedom: John Locke and the Enlightenment (Ithaca,
1992).
11
James Axtell, The Educational Writings of John Locke (Cambridge, 1968), p. 51.
Axtell also argues that Of the Conduct of the Understanding is “the bridge between Locke’s
principles of education and philosophy.” In this work, Locke elaborates on his view that
education is necessary for the proper working of the human mind on a universal scale,
irrespective of class.
Locke 59
universal education, while his educational treatise denied the application of this
idea. As we will see, this gap between theory and practice is a central dilemma
faced by pedagogical thinkers in century after Locke’s death.
In Search of Pure Freedom: Locke’s Critics and Some Thoughts
I have analyzed in detail the content and themes of Some Thoughts because the work
foreshadows and reveals the philosophical origins of the most progressive elements
in eighteenth-century educational texts as well as the limits and ambiguities that
run through them. First, Locke raises the question of whether attention to nature
or nurture should dominate the educational practice, problematizing the issue of
how virtue is to be defined and how it should be inculcated. Second, he poses the
problem of the development of individuality in the educational process: how can
one fashion a free and dignified “individual” through education, but also mold
a citizen with a sense of duty? Third, Locke does not confront but nevertheless
raises the issue of whether education should be restricted or universal. Fourth, he
expresses both an intense fear of the world and an anxious desire to throw children
into it. Finally, Locke opens the door for the secularization of education. Although
the existence of God is vital to the proper functioning of the moral universe in both
the Second Treatise and Some Thoughts, he offers his followers a tempting way to
eliminate religion from the educational equation.
However, not all of Locke’s critics have found his idea of educational liberty
convincing. Focusing on the regimen of discipline and self-restraint in Some
Thoughts, some scholars have argued that by advocating an internalization of
discipline and authority through habit, his theory restricts the freedom and growth of
the individual, “compromises his or her full potential and thus betrays an underlying
conservatism.”12 One of the most relevant critiques for our purposes is offered by
Joseph Carrig, who reduces the methods of Some Thoughts to indoctrination and
the liberal politics emerging from Locke’s broader work as a “chimera.”13 Carrig’s
analysis is worth pausing to consider because it is symptomatic of the problem that
we struggle with when reading any work of educational philosophy: how to judge
educational theories and evaluate their claims to engender freedom, when in their
methods they often appeal to techniques of indoctrination.
Carrig is most vexed by the deception inherent throughout Some Thoughts
that children have or acquire liberty or free will. On the contrary, he sees only
indoctrination and a paternal tyranny through which education produces in the
child an “instinctive expression of the father’s will.”14 Carrig argues that in Some
Thoughts children are lulled into believing they are free and given a false sense of
12
Uday Singh Mehta, The Anxiety of Freedom: Imagination and Individuality in
Locke’s Political Thought (Ithaca, 1992), p. 11. See also Tully, An Approach to Political
Philosophy.
13
Carrig, “Liberal Impediments to Liberal Education,” p. 43.
14
Ibid., p. 50.
liberty that in adulthood acts as “a more effective opiate for the masses than the
old belief in God.”15 In fact, the method of Some Thoughts proves that children—
and later adults—are not offered the fruits of liberty (consent, rule of law, and
rights). Rather, they are habituated to virtue through the arbitrary, humiliating,
obedience-centered will of the all-powerful father. This process is then mirrored
in their subjection to the community, which embodies the nature and manner of
the father’s power.
Carrig’s frustration with the mixed messages of Some Thoughts is
understandable, but his reading is selective; he seems to have collected all the
references he can find to subjugation, humiliation, and paternal power and reduced
the treatise to these references. His fixation with the tyrannical father prevents him
from analyzing the book as a whole, seeing the many counter positions Locke
takes in the treatise or addressing some fundamental questions about the nature of
education: when and under what circumstances can education be free or entirely
differentiated from indoctrination or “brainwashing”?16
The pattern of critique offered by Carrig is mirrored in the analysis of many
scholars who have in recent decades attacked the “Enlightenment project.” While
pointing to significant inadequacies and contradictions in the history of ideas, the
critical approach too often takes the form of a search-and-discover mission to
uncover the deception and hypocrisy, the enchainment masquerading as freedom.
From this position, we are not always able to avoid projecting our views back in
time or properly balancing the intentions of various authors with our identification
of their weaknesses. In the case of Locke, at least two important points should
not be overlooked. First, the goal of Some Thoughts is not merely to discover the
form of freedom children can achieve. And it is certainly not to imagine a form of
pure or self-generated liberty. Rather, Locke’s theory has two primary purposes,
both of which were discussed in Chapter 1. His initial goal is to establish that the
yearning for liberty is inherent in children. He takes this as an indication not that
they can be easily deceived into liberty, as Carrig would have it, but that they
have the capacity to be free. If the education offered by parents corresponds to
some of the characteristics of children and human nature, then it aligns itself with
Ibid., p. 76.
15
Much of Carrig’s essay is also based on a misreading of the most famous line in
16
Locke’s treatise, that “Nine parts of Ten are what they are, Good or Evil, useful or not, by
their Education.” Carrig interprets this statement to mean that nine out of ten people are
what they are due to the indoctrination and habituation they are trained to (because they
do not have the capacity to be really free) and that only one of ten is special enough to
become what he is as a result of his own character. In fact, what Locke meant was that in
each individual there are nine parts of ten that are the result of habituation and one part of
nine that is innate. Locke’s analysis of education in Some Thoughts shows that clearly he
did not take this math literally; he gave far too much attention to individual temperament to
consider it as only one part out of ten. The statement was more likely a way of emphasizing
the power of education for his reader. Carrig, however, interprets it as an indication that
Locke had no intention of putting education in the service of liberty.
Locke 61
this capacity. For Locke, inculcation or habituation cannot therefore be defined as

indoctrination; these are qualitatively different from the forms of influence that
work against the grain of nature, childhood, or individual temperament, including
those that take original sin as their starting point. Where there cannot be total
freedom, there is training that corresponds to that which is innate (the “natural
external,” as described in Chapter 1). Whether or not Some Thoughts convincingly
describes a method whereby what is “innate” (or natural) can be determined
and a corresponding training achieved is a legitimate subject of debate. But the
discussion must at least begin with a proper assessment of Locke’s intentions,
conceptual universe, and the limits of his aspirations.
In this context it is also important to note that for Locke, liberty, like reason,
is a stage-specific phenomenon. The quest for liberty is innate and ever present in
human beings of all ages, but in practice it must be manifested in different forms at
different stages of life. Children must be given the liberty that corresponds to their
years and that enables them to grow into a different form of liberty in adulthood.
At times their freedom might be balanced with heavy doses of discipline, but
the assumption is that this dosing is not based on prejudice, custom, or a set of
outdated principles as it was in the past. Rather, it is based on a new factor: the
enlightened reason of parents and teachers.
This smooth progress from—or successful balance between—liberty and
self-mastery is thus premised not only on the education of children. It depends
fundamentally on the reeducation of parents, a reeducation that leads them to
understand “nature.” Locke does not address this issue directly in Some Thoughts,
but an underlying assumption of his work is that if parents are educated into Lockean
principles, they will naturally base their child-rearing techniques on nature (human
nature, the nature of childhood, and the nature of individual children) rather than
suppressing it. They will not abuse their powers but will have special insight into
the various kinds of liberty children can be offered at particular stages.
The second and crucial point is that in Some Thoughts Locke linked individual
freedom intimately with social goals. It is not only important for Locke that
children achieve liberty. As we saw in previous chapters, Locke intends children
to develop an other-oriented disposition that creates conditions in which social
life can be conducive to further forms of liberty, such as security, political
participation, reasoned dialogue, and mutual respect. Locke might have erred in
assuming that there is a way to determine whether this state has been achieved,
the elements that should comprise such a state, or the nature and scope of
political participation. But he did not try to mask his belief that some individual
liberties need to be repressed for others to flourish. Rather, he considered that the
repressions he advocates are conducive to a different level of individual freedom:
experiencing higher-order pleasures and participation in the social compact. He
believed that these pleasures were both satisfying and necessary for individuals
and that anything that is necessary to a being cannot stifle, but only enhance, his
or her freedom.
Given the above points, I would argue that we must balance an interrogation
of Locke’s educational liberty with a recognition of how difficult it is to achieve,
or even describe, “liberty” in any educational process. I would also argue that the
principal trouble with Some Thoughts is not that Locke did not account for the
tension between indoctrination and liberty. In many ways, the entire treatise is
an attempt to find a way around that tension. The real dilemma Locke set up in
his educational work is that he tried to imagine how education could reconcile an
expanded notion of individual liberty with a deeper notion of social engagement,
both drawn from his other philosophical works. While he might have woven
together the threads of individuality and social life to his own satisfaction, he
also redefined each in such a way that they in fact become very difficult to
reconcile. His disciples thus found themselves both enamored and entrapped
by ideals of individual freedom and social harmony that were difficult, if not
impossible, simultaneously to instill through education. Most educational theorists
today continue to confront the dilemma that it is not easy to envisage (let alone
implement) a system in which education can promote or reflect a form of “true”
freedom—or fairly choose whose definition of freedom to endorse—while at the
same time preparing children for the world in which they will have to survive and
nourishing in them a “social sense.”
As we see in the following pages, the attempt at synthesis became only more
difficult for Enlightenment educational philosophers as they tried to determine
how children could be offered the best form of education, given who they were as
individuals and members of a community. In some cases, theorists fell into the trap
of malleability or the belief that all human beings could be trained in exactly the
same way; in others, they worked with and around the flaws they felt were central
to human nature. Because these problems are so clearly exposed in Some Thoughts,
the treatise illuminates the challenges of educational philosophy more than any
other work that preceded it. Locke produced a text in which the relationship between
philosophical concepts and their practical application was compelling and yet
extremely opaque. Although he took the liberty of crossing the boundary between
his philosophy and educational advice, using images and concepts that recalled the
issues raised in his former works, the style and tone of Some Thoughts made the
book appear at times to be simply a practical manual of education. Whether or not
his educational treatise was intended to reflect or complement his philosophical
or political views, French Enlightenment theorists drew parallels between Some
Thoughts and the Essay as well as the Two Treatises, both implicitly and explicitly.
Convinced that philosophy had come down to earth and become a practical science,
and that applying new principles concerning human nature to child rearing was a
straightforward task, many writers took Locke’s treatise as a model to imitate. As
we discuss the pedagogical views of eighteenth-century French thinkers, we will
recognize the obstacles they encounter as part of the legacy of the most influential
work of educational philosophy in the seventeenth century.
Part 2
Early Enlightenment
Educational Theory:
Claude Fleury, Charles Rollin,
and Jean-Pierre de Crousaz
Prologue:
Sources of French Educational
Thought and the Legacy of the Jesuits
There is little doubt that Locke’s philosophical and pedagogical views shaped
the French debate on education. However, Enlightenment theorists were also
influenced by Renaissance humanists and by seventeenth-century scientific,
political, and philosophical innovations. Before turning to the work of French
thinkers, I situate their discussion with a brief overview of the principal issues
raised in early modern educational theory.
Renaissance humanists believed strongly in the power of education, and they
raised and deliberated almost every issue that became relevant to eighteenth-
century theorists. Michel de Montaigne and Desiderius Erasmus argue for changes
in the curriculum, for a new individualized approach to educating children,
and for less violent methods of discipline. François Rabelais and Pierre Ramus
emphasize the relationship between action and knowledge and the necessity of
forming children’s minds rather than overloading them with information. Almost
all humanist educational theorists stressed the importance of “useful knowledge,”
a theme persistently echoed in the works of eighteenth-century French thinkers.
Further, education during the Renaissance increasingly played an important role in
training elites for government service. Thus, pedagogical discussions concerning
the nature of childhood, the effects of corporal punishment, and the relationship
between teacher and student began directly to reflect new and conflicting views
about individuality, citizenship, freedom, and authority. Throughout the eighteenth
century French theorists continued to debate these issues and to view the educational
arena—which they defined alternatively as the home, the school, or life itself—in a
similar way as Renaissance pedagogues had viewed the classroom: “a highly charged
site for defining and acting out different poses of authority and resistance.”
Enlightenment educational thinkers frequently referred to Bacon, embracing
his emphasis on science and on the use of the senses in the educational process.
Bacon’s approach to method, outlined in his Advancement of Learning (1605),
anticipated the major issues raised by eighteenth-century theorists; one must know
the “season” of learning (when to teach and when to refrain from teaching), begin

As we will see, the concept of “use” in a pedagogical context held different meanings
for the humanists of the Renaissance and the educational theorists of the Enlightenment.

Rebecca W. Bushnell, A Culture of Teaching: Early Modern Humanism in Theory
and Practice (Ithaca, 1996), p. 34.

Hobbes was also an important precursor to Locke’s sensationism, but it is more
difficult to determine his influence, as he is rarely cited by educational theorists.
with simple propositions and proceed to the complex (as Descartes will emphasize),
teach children according to their innate dispositions, and pace instruction so that
it does not overwhelm the student. One of most prominent educational thinkers
to be influenced by Bacon was the Moravian-born Johann Amos Comenius
(1592–1671), considered by many to be the “Galileo of education.” Although it
is difficult to demonstrate the impact of Comenius on French theorists, it is likely
that he at least indirectly influenced them since his work prefigured almost all of
the major issues raised in Enlightenment educational theory. Unlike Bacon or
Montaigne, Comenius devoted his life to the theory and practice of education.
He was a devout Protestant and a member and leader of a small sect, the Unity
of Bretheren. Devastated by the events of the Thirty Years War, he focused on
the potential for education to end ignorance and promote understanding between
people. Although Comenius was a religious man and emphasized the role of
education in helping children to know God, his method was Baconian. He believed
that sciences were the secular bible through which God’s works could be known
and emphasized the senses as the first and fundamental path to knowledge. He
also had a strong utilitarian orientation, stressing the importance of learning about
things rather than words, things that are directly related to helping human beings
live in, and know about, both the natural and supernatural world.
Notwithstanding their continual references to the concrete suggestions put
forth by Montaigne and Bacon, and—although indirectly—Comenius, French
Enlightenment educational theorists were driven by a new, scientifically oriented
view of education, which in many ways stood in opposition to the Renaissance
ideal. By the mid-eighteenth century, theorists were preoccupied with formulating
a science of pedagogy that would enable teachers to discover rules of human
nature by observing children and then to establish the goals of education based on
their discoveries. Eventually, some writers argued, scientist–pedagogues could fix
the methods of instruction, thereby eliminating or reducing the role of parents and
teachers in the educational process.
In their attempt to apply scientific methods to education, Enlightenment theorists
drew primarily on Descartes, Locke, and Newton. And while many claimed to
have moved beyond the methods of Descartes, rejecting him in favor of Locke or
Newton, his influence on French educational thinkers was ubiquitous. By putting
traditional authority and custom into question, Descartes indirectly challenged
See “Advancement of Learning,” in Brian Vickers (ed.), Francis Bacon: A Critical

Edition of the Major Works (Oxford, 1996), p. 242.

See especially Comenius’s The Great Didactic.

Although many collèges and universities prohibited the teaching of Descartes, he
was widely read by educational theorists. His works were diffused through the Jansenists
of Port-Royal, several of whom, like Pierre Nicole, Claude Lancelot, and Antoine
Arnault, were prominent educational thinkers in their own right. In addition to teaching
Descartes, the schools of Port-Royal were famous for providing instruction in French and
introducing courses in the sciences. Several Jansenists wrote influential educational texts
or works that influenced Enlightenment educational thought. See especially Pierre Nicole,
Sources of French Educational Thought 67
educators to teach children to use their own minds in reaching conclusions. His
belief that all individuals could use their reason implied not only that the goal of
education was to develop this reasoning process but also that in theory all human
beings were worthy, and capable, of being educated. His appeal to clarity and
distinctness as criteria of truth, and his method of proceeding from the simple to
the complex, were invoked repeatedly in almost all educational works.
Although the role of Newton is more difficult to characterize than that of
Descartes or Locke, his presence was unmistakable in the languages and images
of Enlightenment educational theorists. The latter saw Newton as the unrivaled
genius of their age, the great thinker who overcame the errors of all other great
thinkers. Not only did theorists invoke his method (focusing especially on the use
of experimentation and mathematics), but many attempted to apply the idea of
gravity to human nature. We will see below how Morelly interpreted the irresistible
urge to sociability as a gravitational force and how Helvétius applied the same
principles to the individual’s desire for pleasure.
In addition to reformulating the goals and methods of education based on
philosophical and scientific innovations, French educational thinkers developed
social and political ideals of education. They were increasingly resentful of the
Church’s control over educational institutions and dissatisfied with the goals of
religious education as set forth by the Jesuits. Theorists insisted that education
must prepare children for this-worldly affairs, forming citizens and professionals
rather than Christians or gentlemen. A growing refrain heard in Enlightenment
educational texts, from the traditionally minded Jansenist Charles Rollin to the
materialist philosophe Helvétius, was that only subjects living under a despotic
government could afford to neglect the quality of their education since what
these subjects think or understand would be of little consequence to their ruler.
In contrast, citizens who identified themselves as members of a social pact that
required their support and participation, or who lived under an enlightened
monarch that recognized their right to free thought and speech, had to receive an
education to liberty and responsibility. Although most French educational theorists
avoided commenting directly on the monarchy, in their definition of citizenship
education they made it clear that they opposed absolutism and supported a form
of government led by the rule of law, secured by the participation of intermediary
bodies, and supported by an informed and free citizenry.
In identifying the educational methods needed to produce this free and
informed citizenry, French theorists drew primarily on the political theories of
Hugo Grotius, Samuel Pufendorf, and John Locke. Some put forth their own
interpretation of life in the state of nature or of the origins of the social pact. Most
argued that human beings are naturally reasonable and sociable animals, and this
Traité de l’éducation d’un Prince, Blaise Pascal, Pensées, and Antoine Arnauld and Claude
Lancelot, Grammaire générale et raisonnée, ou La grammaire de Port-Royal.

Most educational theorists referred to Hobbes only to refute his view of the natural
hostility between individuals in the state of nature.
sociability must be cultivated by teachers and parents. They urged teachers to help
children recognize their natural dependence on other human beings and to instill
in students a love and respect for their peers.
The French Collèges and the Jesuits
In the early modern period the intellectual influences described above were
accompanied by an increasing demand for instruction on the part of the urban
middle classes, for whom education represented an opportunity for social mobility
and professional gain. The early sixteenth century witnessed an outpouring of
support from towns and small cities, subsidized by the rising bourgeoisie, for a new
kind of “useful” education. The middle classes rejected the cloistered mentality of
Cathedral schools, the outdated methods of the scholastics, and the dominance in
universities of the higher faculties of theology, law, and medicine at the expense of
the arts faculty. According to George Huppert’s studies of Renaissance education,
the bourgeois-dominated city councils were responsible for the blossoming of the
French collèges during the sixteenth century. In addition to being administered
by secular authorities (parents, teachers, and town leaders), these institutions
embraced a new philosophy of learning based on individual attention to children
and useful knowledge. For the middle classes, a “useful education” provided
practical information necessary to professionals in business or law, training in
foreign languages, and an introduction to the history, customs, laws, and morals
of different countries. In addition, through this kind of education, the sons of
middle-class families were acquainted with the international language of culture—
the humanities—that during the Renaissance became a necessary prerequisite for
those entering government services.

See George Huppert, The Style of Paris; the Renaissance Origins of the French
Enlightenment (Bloomington, 1999) and Public Schools in Renaissance France (Urbana,
1984).

While Huppert accepts the ideals of the humanists and the relevance of the humanist
curriculum, Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine (From Humanism to the Humanities) put
into question the whole concept developed during the Renaissance that the humanities,
or the classical curriculum, were useful for professional life. Grafton and Jardine claim
that, on the contrary, humanist education was (and still is) a self-perpetuating mechanism
whereby elites reproduced themselves through education. In their view, the classics became
a prerequisite for high governmental positions because those in high positions had an
education in the humanities rather than because there was any concrete link between that
which was taught through the humanist curriculum and the skills or knowledge required
of individuals in their work. As we see below, the criticism of the classical curriculum
in terms of its relevance and utility was made at the end of the seventeenth century, and
Enlightenment educational theorists struggled precisely with the problem of how to make
the humanities applicable to life. Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine, From Humanism to
the Humanities: Education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Europe
(London, 1986).
Huppert argues that it was only in the latter half of the sixteenth century, when
most collèges were overtaken by the Jesuits, that they lost their dynamism and
fell into lethargy. As tensions between Catholics and Protestants escalated and
rumors circulated that the new schools spread heresy and atheism, a huge pressure
was exerted on secular leaders to share their power with religious authorities. The
Jesuits, who gradually took over many of the collèges, knew their clientele and
accommodated their needs by appropriating the new humanist curriculum. Over
the course of the century, however, they withdrew from the collèges’ practically
oriented pedagogical goals and isolated themselves and their students from the “real
world.” For example, by snipping out the dangerous elements in pagan literature
and focusing on passages that appeared to prophesy the coming of Christianity,
they modified the curriculum to fit their particular needs.
For the next two hundred years the Jesuits would be targets of innumerable
attacks by French pedagogical thinkers who, even when offering broad critiques of
the role of parents and society in the instruction of the young, pointed to the Jesuit
system as representative of the greatest flaws in education. Before discussing
eighteenth-century educational theory we will therefore take a brief look at those
aspects of the Jesuit program that drew the most criticism.10
The Jesuits cultivated a radical separation between their students and the
outside world, fortified by a system of physical, intellectual, psychological, and
moral surveillance. Children were to be watched at every turn, not only by their
teachers but also by their peers, who were enlisted as informers. Because the Jesuits
believed that what was natural to a child was vice, they attempted to structure
intellectual training in such a way that children’s spontaneity was suppressed.
Through both the methods and contents of education, students were detached from
their natural tendencies and desires: written exercises were in Latin, a language that
did not come naturally to them, compositions related the lives of distant heroes with
whom they could never become familiar, and the focus of rhetoric was writing style
rather than human experience. Even as they read the classics they were not to relate
directly to the authors, whose personalities were hidden by the instructors’ practice
of snipping bits of texts to bring into relief the intention of the teacher rather than
that of the author. The classics were exploited with the objective of creating a sterile
bridge to morality, a way for children to learn about evil without experiencing or
testing it. Through simplified characters that embodied vice and virtue and stories
about long-dead heroes and extinct cultures, children were taught about people,
places, and values untainted by the contemporary world.11
10
For a sympathetic account of the Jesuits as educators, see F. de Dainville, L’éducation
des Jésuites (Paris, 1978).
11
As Emile Durkheim pointed out in his history of education in France, there was
an inherent contradiction in Christian education long before the Jesuits, exemplified in the
strange intermingling between the sacred and the profane. The goal of education, from
the time of the Middle Ages, was to spread Christianity and save souls. But the subject
matter was plucked from the profane texts of antiquity because educators considered that
The morals presented to children were primarily those of the Romans: devotion
to the patrie, love of public over private good, self-renunciation, and detachment
from personal need. Intellectual initiative was not encouraged, either in students or
teachers. Students were never to speak about their own lives or emotions because
the goal of their studies was to strive toward truth and God rather than engage with
their own era or with down-to-earth contemporary matters. Further, students were
required to speak to their peers in Latin to avoid an excess of familiarity.12 Finally,
the Jesuit curriculum was considered backward in comparison with that of other
religious orders, like the Jansenists or Oratorians; both groups introduced French
language, Cartesian philosophy, and sciences into their course of studies.
Notwithstanding the mountain of criticism heaped upon the Jesuits, they were
not insensitive to the needs of children.13 In fact, they developed a sophisticated
child psychology and focused on the emotional and intellectual needs of individual
children. Teachers were encouraged to know their students, not only to control them
better but also to help them learn and to offer them individual support. The Jesuits
recognized that children had a need for joy, tenderness, and passion. Although
they often aimed to suppress these instincts, in some cases they tried to direct
them to positive ends. For example, rather than stifle passion or allow it to develop
freely, teachers attempted to create a “passion scolaire”14 into which it could be
channeled. This included a highly organized system of classroom competition
based on the division of each class into two camps and constant competition on
individual and group levels. The Jesuits were also were aware of the argument
that corporal punishment was ineffective and had a negative impact on children.
only the nobility and beauty found in the works of the ancients were worthy of study or
capable of conveying profound moral messages. The content of the material was therefore
in contradiction to the spirit of the lessons. Despite the fact that in the sixteenth century the
Jesuits appropriated both the methods and contents of humanist pedagogy, this contradiction
remained. See Emile Durkheim, The Evolution of Educational Thought: Lectures on the
Formation and Development of Secondary Education in France (London, 1977).
12
According to Georges Snyders, this use of Latin in daily life served as a form of
self-surveillance, preventing any natural spontaneity arising from the use of one’s native
language. Georges Snyders, La pédagogie en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris,
1965), p. 69. Foucauldian scholars have not failed to point out the sinister characteristics
of the Jesuit system. As Michel Bouillé notes, in order for this system to function, time had
to be completely controlled, filled, and used for specific purposes. Children were never
to be left idle, and the activity and discipline of time were intended to accustom them
to being useful. Complex systems of informants and prefects ensured that “as a general
rule, the supervisor supervises the supervised, who cannot supervise him. The Blind
spot of surveillance: its irreversibility.” Michel Bouillé, L’École, histoire d’une utopie?
XVIIe-debut XXe siècle (Paris, 1988), p. 136. As we see below, many of these aspects of
the Jesuit educational system were modified and appropriated by the same Enlightenment
theorists who so strongly rejected it.
13
See Joseph de Jouvency, De la manière d’apprendre et d’enseigner (Paris, 1892)
for an example of Jesuit views of children and the educational process.
14
Snyders, La pédagogie en France, p. 52.
Although one would never guess so from reading critiques by French educational
theorists, in many cases the Jesuits encouraged emulation rather than fear as an
incentive to work and discipline, cultivated kindness rather than pressure, and
tried to build trust in, rather than fear of, teachers.
In our study of Enlightenment educational thought we will see how profoundly
most French theorists were influenced by the Jesuits, both in their rebellion against
them and in their tendency surreptitiously to appropriate some of the Order’s most
successful methods.
Chapter 3
Childhood and Education in the Works
of Claude Fleury, Charles Rollin, and
Jean-Pierre de Crousaz
The fact that no path-breaking educational treatises (aside from Locke’s) were
written in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century is perhaps the reason why
this period is overlooked by historians of education. The most influential works
were written by thinkers who challenged scholastic practices and incorporated
new philosophical ideas into their concept of childhood but who accepted, and
were deeply embedded in, the political and social structure of their time. None
used education like Rousseau, to put into question an entire social or moral system,
and none was a philosopher in his or her own right. In some cases, however,
it is precisely the traditionalism of the thinker that helps us contextualize the
pedagogical revolution that took place at mid-century in France; pre-Rousseauean
theorists reveal how deeply new ideas concerning the structure of the mind, the
origin of society, or the nature of liberty and political responsibility had influenced
concepts of childhood, even in the early 1800s.
In this chapter we look at the work of three writers: the abbé Claude
Fleury (1640–1723), Charles Rollin (1661–1741), and Jean-Pierre de Crousaz
(1663–1750). These men produced three of the most influential pedagogical
treatises of the early French Enlightenment, all widely read and quoted by
educational theorists in France during the eighteenth century. In addition to

As Cleremont Gauthier and Maurice Tardif have pointed out, despite all the
changes recognized by historians of childhood, the seventeenth century is still the
“forgotten century” in educational theory, and most historians of education still point to
the Renaissance or the Enlightenment as great pedagogical moments. Gauthier and Tardif
argue that the seventeenth century was not only a time of innovation but that it marks the
origin of educational philosophy. Gauthier and Tardif, La Pédagogie: Théories et pratiques
de l’Antiquité à nos jours (Paris, 1998), p. 106.

In discussing “early Enlightenment educational thought,” I take Claude Fleury and
John Locke, both of whose works are representative of what will become the Enlightenment’s
educational ideals, as my starting point. I end this period in the 1730s because although
many later treatises follow the style of early Enlightenment pedagogy, it is in the 1740s that
Morelly writes his education essays, which for reasons discussed below I consider the first
modern works of educational theory. After Morelly (although not because of him), theorists
make more explicit links between education and social/political change. In the works of
early Enlightenment theorists, these links are only beginning to be articulated. Their main
innovation is to have set the stage for these links by rethinking the nature of childhood,
learning, and social virtue.
providing a compendium of educational ideas current during their time, they

point to the growing tensions in early Enlightenment educational theory, many
of which emerge from the challenges posed by seventeenth-century thought.
In particular, their texts are infused with new views of human nature and the
human mind based on sensationist psychology and emerging ideals of liberty and
political responsibility.
Most historians of educational theory consider that the central themes of the
educational debate (the idea of utility, the influence of sensationism on notions of
childhood, and the aspect of social control) were elaborated in the mid-eighteenth
century as a result of the “dual revolution” (the publication of Emile and the expulsion
of the Jesuits). Although they recognize the existence of early educational texts and
agree that notions of childhood changed significantly in the early modern period,
when providing evidence of the influence of sensationism on modern educational
theory they turn to the classic works of parliamentary magistrate de Caradeuc de
La Chalotais or the philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In the same way, scholars
acknowledge Locke as the principal influence on Enlightenment pedagogy but
tend to jump to the mid-eighteenth century to demonstrate this influence. Thus,
they neglect the evolution of a number of Lockean ideas in educational texts
during the earlier part of the century, texts that might have been as important in
the dissemination of Locke’s ideas among educational theorists as Locke’s work
itself. Further, Rousseau’s Emile is still frequently credited for having “announced
the advent of philosophical thinking in the art of educating mankind,” for having
discovered or “rediscovered” childhood, and for having inaugurated a new respect
for children by conceiving childhood as a separate and special stage in life.
In fact, however, Rousseau’s work represents the culmination, rather than the
origins, of this process. It is clear from the ideas put forth in early Enlightenment
texts that childhood had been discovered and embraced by important pedagogical
theorists in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Fleury, Rollin, and

For example, in his study on eighteenth-century educational thought, L’Ideal
pédagogique en France au dix-huitième siècle, Marcel Grandière argues that after the
1746 publication of Condillac’s Essai sur l’origine des connaissances humaines, Locke’s
sensationist psychology permeated French educational theory. However, as we will see,
sensationism influenced French educational theorists long before mid-century. In contrast,
Harvey Chisick treats a portion of early educational works, but only concerning one particular
issue, the education of lower classes. Exceptions to this approach are the general reference
works of the late nineteenth century, such as those of Gabriel Compayré or Ferdinand
Buisson, which broadly treat the evolution of educational thought over hundreds of years;
and monographs that reflect closely on the influence of politics, culture, and philosophy
on educational theory in works devoted to one thinker. See Compayré, Histoire critique
des doctrines de l’éducation en France depuis le seizième siècle (2 vols, Paris, 1879), and
Buisson, Dictionnaire de pédagogie et d’instruction primaire (Paris, 1887–1888).

Jean Lombard, Introduction to the Discours Préliminaire du Traité des Études
(Paris, 1998), pp. 13–14.

Philip Stewart, “The Child Comes of Age,” Yale French Studies, 40 (1968): p. 139.
Childhood and Education 75
Crousaz all recognized the nature of children, rather than the needs of teachers
or traditions, as the central determinant in the educational process. Each regarded
childhood as a distinct stage of life, with particular emotional, mental, and physical
needs. Each devoted his work to determining the best means of adapting both
educational methods and contents to these needs. Further, during this period
pedagogical theorists broadened their aspirations and redefined the scope of their
task; where they previously questioned how new educational methods could
transform the learning process, they now asked how such methods could mold
human nature and improve social relations. Finally, three important progressive
notions were clearly and creatively elaborated in the works of Fleury, Rollin, and
Crousaz: that the senses are the path to knowledge, that individuals are influenced
primarily by the desire for pleasure and avoidance of pain, and that education
must be agreeable if it is to have an impact on childhood sensibility. In the case of
Fleury, whose treatise was written in 1675 and published in 1686 (four years before
Locke’s Essay and six years before Some Thoughts), the presence of these ideas is
even more striking.
It is true that in this early period childhood was not yet fully appreciated in
and of itself, as it is today, or as it will be in Rousseau’s work where the onset of
adulthood appears to be the tragic but inevitable conclusion to youth—the real life.
Each of our three thinkers was clearly focused on the formation of a responsible
adult. However, while attempting to make early experiences conducive to a
traditionally virtuous life, educational theorists elaborated theories and methods
that ensure that childhood will be a happy and contented time for the child. Most
importantly, they began to link the psychological experiences of individuals in
early life to the success or failure of social relations and national prosperity, and
they assigned a significant role to education in the “improvement of humanity.”

Fleury’s work shows how many of Locke’s liberal ideas about education were
already current across the Channel before his work increased their popularity. Among
the most important influences for Fleury are Aristotle, Plato, Bacon, the Jansenists,
Hobbes, Descartes, and Fénelon. See Raymond Wanner, Claude Fleury (1640–1723) as
an Educational Historiographer and Thinker (The Hague, 1975). Locke knew of Fleury’s
work, and during his years in France (1675–1679) bought a copy of Fleury’s Traité.

This emphasis can be contrasted with that of religious writers of the same period,
like the Jesuit Joseph de Jouvency. De Jouvency also suggested being gentle and kind with
children, but the purpose of education in his mind remained the creation of good and pious
Christians; the method was adapted to this goal. See Joseph de Jouvency, De la manière
d’apprendre et d’enseigner (Paris, 1892).

In his work on education and the French Revolution, R.R. Palmer argues that the
link between education and social virtue was made during the Revolution, before which
education was geared more to the needs of the individual. Although it is true that in practice
social change was incorporated only as a goal during that time, in the work of theorists the
idea that education could improve social life was recognized and cultivated long before
the Revolution. R.R. Palmer, The Improvement of Humanity: Education and the French
Revolution (Princeton, 1985).
Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz
Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz were all directly involved in education: Fleury as
a tutor to children of royalty, and Rollin and Crousaz as professors, tutors, and
leaders in educational institutions. Claude Fleury was born in Paris in 1640 to a
modest family, but he received an education in the Jesuit Collège de Clermont,
where he attended school with the sons of the elites of France. One of his teachers,
Gabriel Cossart, took a particular interest in him and, after Fleury finished his law
degree in 1658, introduced him to highly placed families. In 1667, he was invited
to live with Olivier Lefèvre d’Ormesson, whose family had experience in law
and a tradition of service to the King. Throughout his years with the Ormessons,
Fleury was exposed to French political and literary culture, and later in life he
applied what he had learned about the needs of French society during this time to
his educational theory.
Fleury remained with the Ormesson family until 1672, at which time he
embarked on his career as tutor to children from the royal family.10 He wrote his
Traité du choix et de la Méthode des études in 1675 (published in 1686), in the
midst of his career as a tutor.11 Although he does not refer to his own students,
his work is clearly the product of a man who had direct experience with children
and reflected deeply on their needs and their nature. His pedagogical perspective
is broad and reformative, and in many respects his work is not superseded by his
eighteenth-century successors. But Fleury was not a radical thinker. Although he
was known to criticize the King for indulging in personal glory at the expense of
public responsibilities, and voiced his disapproval of the mercantilist policies of
Colbert, he generally supported the political and social structure of his time. And
while he argues quite strongly that the education of the lower classes and women
should be improved, he places strict limits on what both groups should learn.
By and large, his educational ideas are intended to promote a smooth transition
between school and society, childhood and adulthood.

Fleury acted as attorney to the Paris parlement between 1658 and 1667, took his
Holy Orders sometime between 1667 and 1670, and established himself as a legal scholar,
writing Histoire du droit français (1674) and l’Institution du droit ecclésiastique (1677).
10
He was appointed by the King as tutor to the orphaned sons of Armand de Bourbon,
Prince de Conti: Louis-Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, and François-Louis de
Bourbon, Prince de la Roche-sur-Yon. In 1680, he was appointed tutor to the third child
of Louis XIV and Louis de la Vallière, the 13-year-old Monseigneur de Vermandois, Louis
de Bourbon, who was killed in battle at age 15. Finally, in 1689, he was, with his friend
Fénelon, appointed as sous-precept of the Fils de France, the Ducs de Bourgogne, d’Anjou,
and de Berry, grandsons of Louis XIV. In 1716, he was made confessor to the young king,
a largely honorary role that he kept until his death in 1723.
11
Citations from Fleury’s work are taken from Traité du choix et de la méthode des
études: Oeuvres de l’abbé Claude Fleury (Paris, 1844) or Traité du choix et de la méthode
des études, ed. Bernard Jolibert (Paris, 1998). I indicate the particular reference.
Charles Rollin also had extensive educational experience. Born in Paris in 1661
to a modest family, he obtained a scholarship to the Collège de Plessis. He studied
theology at university, and at the age of 23 became a professor of humanities at
the Collège de Plessis and teacher of eloquence at the Collège Royal. In 1694,
he became rector of the University of Paris as well as principal of the Collège
de Beauvais. He also had experience as a preceptor12 and, although he does not
discuss these experiences in his educational work, they perhaps explain his high
degree of sensitivity to children.
Rollin was deeply influenced by Jansenism. This influence can be detected
primarily in his focus on original sin, forming judgment rather than acquiring
knowledge, the moral aspects of education, and in his emphasis on giving individual
attention to each child. Throughout his life, Rollin suffered a series of persecutions
because of his attachments to Jansenism, and it was during his first forced retirement
in 1712 that he wrote his Traité des études, subtitled De la manière d’enseigner et
d’étudier les belles-lettres.13 The work, published in seven editions by the end of
the century, became a classic for eighteenth-century educators.
When Rollin wrote his four-volume work the university was an institution
in crisis. Despite many attempts at tightening discipline and restructuring the
program of studies, the traditional curriculum and formal training methods held
the university back. Rollin’s Traité, however, is not intended as a critique of
the university; rather, its aim is to present and improve on the best aspects of
its educational system. Rollin’s is one of the last great educational works in the
style of the seventeenth-century treatise, before education was burdened with the
responsibility of transforming individuals and improving social relations.14
Many commentators have judged Rollin to be insensitive to individuality
in his educational method, even going so far as to claim that, “for his pupils as
individuals he had no thought.”15 But while it is true that Rollin did not promote
individual or creative thought in academic disciplines, he was extremely sensitive
to the idea of developing individual self-respect through the educational process.
We see this aspect of his work not in his discussion of content but in the chapters
concerning method, in which he insisted that discipline and learning techniques be
paced to the nature and psychology of children. In addition, as a teacher and rector
he encouraged teachers to show respect for children and to take an interest in the
most average of them.
12
He was tutor to Louis and Philippe de Noailles, Count and Duke of d’Ayen
and Noailles.
13
Citations taken from Charles Rollin, The Method of Teaching and Studying the
Belles-Lettres (4 vols, London, 1804), vols 1 and 2, and The Method of Teaching and
Studying the Belles-Lettres (4 vols, London, 1770), vol. 4.
14
Lombard, Introduction to the Discours Préliminaire, p. 14.
15
Paul Hazard, European Thought in the Eighteenth Century: from Montesquieu to
Lessing (Cleveland, 1963), p. 191.
Rollin’s Traité has also been criticized for its traditionalism, especially in
matters of curriculum. Unlike many educational theorists of his time, he did not
promote the use of the French language or the study of contemporary history,
and like many Jansenists his focus was on moral education above all.16 However,
in spite of (or perhaps because of) Rollin’s traditional bent, his chapters on
pedagogical method reveal how strongly new ideas about children and their
learning process defined theorists’ vision of the role of education, and in turn, how
a proper education was increasingly considered indispensable to the formation
of a new kind of person. His views of childhood were so deeply influenced by
sensationist principles that his advice on method often contradicted the philosophy
of human nature underlying his work.17
Jean-Pierre de Crousaz was born in 1663 in Lausanne, Switzerland, to an
old and aristocratic Swiss family. By the age of 13 he had already entered the
Académie de Lausanne. He achieved rapid and widespread success early in life,
both as a teacher and an author; by 1700, he was appointed professor of philosophy,
Greek, math, theology, and physics at the Académie de Lausanne. In 1706, he was
appointed rector.
Crousaz’s experience as a teacher was not limited to his work as a professor.
Even though he held a high position at the Académie, he devoted several hours a
day to private tutoring.18 He kept several foreign students at his home, acting as
personal preceptor to a few. As a professor, he was the first to present his lessons
in French, and as rector he replaced Latin with French as the official teaching
language. Later in his career he introduced courses in mathematics and physics,
based on an extensive study of Isaac Newton that he undertook from 1724–1732.
Crousaz achieved immediate recognition upon the publication of his first
important work, Logique, in 1712. Like many educators of his time, he struck out
against the excessive obscurity and uselessness of logic as it was taught in schools.
He argued that logic was a science, the basis of which was morality. Through logic
students would learn sound reasoning, to recognize their duties toward others, and
to become pious.19
16
“Rollin is responsible for the moralism that permeated all of eighteenth-century
pedagogy. For him, learning does not mean anything. It must be subordinated to morality.” Jean
de Viguerie, Histoire et dictionnaire du temps des Lumières, 1714–1789 (Paris, 1995), p. 1342.
17
The extensive details concerning the teaching of language and literature in Rollin’s
four-volume work are only peripherally relevant to this study. I focus instead on the
“Preliminary Discourse” as well as on several important chapters near the end of the work
in which he treats in detail issues of childhood and childrearing. These sections challenge
Compayré’s criticism that his work was merely an expression of traditional, outdated,
seventeenth-century views.
18
Jacqueline E. de la Harpe, Jean-Pierre de Crousaz et le conflit des idées au siècle
des Lumières (Geneva, 1955).
19
Crousaz’s work was successful all over Europe, went through many editions, and
was translated into English in 1724. In 1714, he wrote a work entitled Traité du Beau,
which also gained him praise and respect.
In 1723 Crousaz published his major treatise on education, Traité de l’éducation

des enfans.20 While not an original work it is an extremely representative one,
laying out the most important aspects of the debate concerning education in the
early part of the century. Crousaz was a typical transitional figure, “one of those
that helps us best understand European culture at the moment of this turning
point—the end of the seventeenth and first third of the eighteenth century.”21 His
educational treatise was read widely during the eighteenth century and was cited
in many French educational works, including Rousseau’s Emile. Crousaz offers
us the perspective of a university professor, frustrated by the attacks leveled at
educational establishments by both parents and educational theorists but also
aware of the greatest deficiencies of higher education. He formulated his critique
in terms of the failure of parents, teachers, and society to appreciate and act upon
the critical effects of early experiences on children. Part of the reason he dwelled
on the misconduct of parents and preceptors is that his treatise was addressed
exclusively to the education of upper-class boys, many of whom would be educated
by tutors at home. However, he also pointed to the connection between domestic
life and social mores and incorporated his views on childhood into his ideal of
social harmony.
“Pleasurable Education”: The Meaning and Significance of the Theory of

Effortlessness in Early Enlightenment Pedagogical Thought
As mentioned above, a close reading of works of Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz

shows that in their analysis of the learning process they challenge more than the
methods of instruction. They use discussions about education to engage with
questions about the nature of childhood, human nature, and the creation of virtue
outside a religious framework. These reevaluations are most clearly visible in
what we might call the “theory of effortlessness.” All three thinkers explore how
children can learn through pleasure, in the absence of physical or mental pain, and
based on their sensual nature and needs.
The terms and concepts used by Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz to describe
pleasurable education might sound banal to contemporary ears. After all, we
20
Citations taken from J.P. de Crousaz, Traité de l’éducation des enfans (La Haye,
1722). In 1713, Crousaz had published a work called Nouvelles maximes sur l’éducation des
enfans, which was a satire against educational practices and against Hobbes. Unfortunately,
many interpreted Crousaz to have been advocating the very principles he was in fact
mocking, and later he faced difficulties as a result of this work. Crousaz left Lausanne in
1718, when an official inquest was opened that questioned his orthodoxy. It is not clear
exactly what happened. According to J.-E. de la Harpe, a combination of factors influenced
public opinion against Crousaz, primarily driven by rivals who were jealous of his early
success and high position.
21
Daniel Mornet, “Preface to Jacqueline E. de la Harpe,” Jean-Pierre de Crousaz et
le conflit des idées au siècle des Lumières, p. 7.
are accustomed (in theory at least) to considering the needs of children as we

devise educational concepts and methods. We must therefore keep in mind how
psychologically progressive it was for early Enlightenment thinkers to approach
the question of discipline from the perspective of the needs and nature of children
rather than the requirements of the teacher, the precedents of custom, or the
concept of original sin. None of our three thinkers is ready to enlist education in
the service of social change. However, they are prepared to consider the role of
early instruction in forming the kind of healthy mind and spirit, one that might find
its way to intellectual maturity and moral–social consciousness without oppressive
teaching methods and outside a traditional religious framework.
Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz all insist that education must be “agreeable”
or “pleasurable,” free of effort and tension. They base this conviction on the
sensationist principle that children are driven by the pain–pleasure impulse, learn
primarily through pleasant sensual experiences and thus that education must
stimulate pleasure in order to captivate their imagination. Effort will translate into
pain for children at the moment of learning, and even worse, it can permanently
scar them emotionally, forcing them to associate learning with distress.22
Fleury, for example, suggests that teachers “must lead children by pleasure,”23
Crousaz that teachers should “render everything easy for them.”24 Even though
much of Crousaz’s work is devoted to attacking the tendency of parents to
overindulge their children, he insists that “the path along which we lead a child to
the sciences must be sown with roses, we must pull out all the thorns.”25 Following
Descartes’ reasoning, and perhaps influenced by the work of Claude César
Dumarsais,26 Crousaz points out that instruction must always follow a logical order;
if children are presented with familiar and easily identifiable objects, learning will
appear natural to them, their minds gradually will be attuned to reason, and their
judgment formed without effort.
In their discussions of pleasure in education, Rollin and Crousaz draw heavily

22
from Locke, often quoting him verbatim or paraphrasing him. Locke presented the idea
of learning as play as new, but the idea had been around since the Renaissance. See
especially Montaigne, “On Educating Children,” The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
(London, 1991). Fleury, who wrote his treatise before Locke published Some Thoughts,
was probably influenced by a host of thinkers, including Aristotle on the importance of
the senses, Mongaigne and other Renaissance thinkers on play, and Hobbes’s early theory
of sensationism. In a plan he drew up for Catherine II of Russia, Diderot was one of the
few educational thinkers in the eighteenth century who openly questioned this philosophy,
insisting on the primacy of discipline and effort. See Diderot, “Plan d’une université pour le
gouvernement de Russie” in J. Assézat (ed.), Oeuvres complètes de Diderot (20 vols, Paris,
1875–1877), vol. 3.
23
Fleury, Traité du choix et de la méthode des études, 1998, p. 140.
24
Crousaz, Traité de l’éducation des enfans, p. 204.
25
Ibid., p. 221.
26
I discuss Claude César Chesneau Dumarsais and his theories of “natural order” in
the Prologue to Part 3.
All three thinkers apply these sensationist principles to the practical methods of
education, anticipating Rousseau, and in the case of Crousaz and Rollin, directly
echoing Locke. Fleury recommends using moments between play to instruct, so
that children will not even realize they are being educated and will not resist.
Crousaz warns that a child should never be caught sobbing through a book and
that it is always better to present several short lessons than one long one. In one
strikingly Rousseauean passage, Crousaz advises his readers on how to instruct
children in astronomy.27 Take your student out at night, he suggests. Show him
the stars, but not for too long, so as not to tire him. Repeat this exercise for the
next few nights, showing the child the gradual changes in the sky. At home, make
a model of what you have seen so that the consciousness of the sphere becomes a
living science and a reality for the child, rather than a question of memory. In this
way, you will work toward the great secret of education, “to give birth to the desire
[to learn].”28 Not only the method but also the philosophy behind this passage
foreshadows the most penetrating message of Emile, that children must learn
directly through their experience of life and that their desire to learn should be the
only motivating factor in their lessons. Rousseau will focus on the moral debacle
that can occur when educational theorists ignore these principles. But as we will
see below, his predecessors pave the way for him by pointing to the psychological
effects of incorrect learning methods.
The criticism of tortuous educational methods was not new. Quintilian warned
that “one thing above all is to be guarded against, viz. that one who cannot yet love
studies should come to hate all learning.”29 Erasmus, Comenius, and Montaigne
argued against the severity, boredom, and oppression associated with learning.
Montaigne suggested intermingling study with pleasurable activities in order
that the two become associated in the mind of the child.30 Locke, of course,
based his idea of pleasurable education on his theory of the mind. The idea of
educational effortlessness in the early modern period was also in part derived
from the Cartesian principle that learning in the correct order, and always from
the simple to the complex, is imperative to forming the mind properly, avoiding
intellectual error and developing the habit of rational thinking. The difference
between ancient, Renaissance, and early Enlightenment theories of effortlessness
lies in the justifications used for using pleasure in the educational process. During
the Renaissance, the emphasis of humanists on the individual was transferred to
children. Humanist pedagogues argued that children deserve to be respected and
to enjoy life, rather than being oppressed by a philosophy based on their alleged
evil or sinful nature. Theorists recognized that children required pleasure and
fun because they responded to such things as children. During the early modern
27
Rousseau called Crousaz a pedant (possibly the worst insult, because Crousaz
presents his text as an assault on pedantry), but this passage might have influenced him.
28
29
Quintilian on Education, ed. William M. Smail (Oxford, 1938), p. xxiii.
30
Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, pp. 184–5.
period, doctors and educators began to question the long-term effects of unpleasant
experiences like swaddling on the health and temperament of children.31 Smaller
and more intimate family structures encouraged parents to devote more attention
to individual children and their needs.
But although humanists argued that children should be allowed to act and to be
treated as children, they did not base this idea on a new philosophy of the human
mind. During the early Enlightenment, the idea of effortlessness was expanded as
it was founded on a new view of how individuals learn: children’s minds absorb
information through, and ultimately are formed by, sense impressions, and they
respond to impressions according to the pain–pleasure impulse. Thus, theorists
argued that the relationship between children’s minds and their morals depended
on whether impressions struck their senses in the correct order and according to
their natural capacity to perceive the relations between objects. In other words,
children do not have to be treated gently only because they are sensitive beings,
because as individuals they are worthy of dignity, or even because one day they
might be leaders who require self-confidence to fulfill their duties. They must
be treated gently, and they must enjoy their work, because otherwise they will
simply be incapable of absorbing information and ultimately of developing into
healthy adults.
Human Nature and Child Psychology
Influenced by and furthering the theory of pleasurable education, Fleury, Rollin, and
Crousaz thus do more than seek to eliminate tension altogether from the learning
process. Their emphasis on the importance of early sense impressions and on correct
learning leads them to evaluate not only how mental error is produced, but also how
mental error can lead to psychological instability. Further, as we see below they
begin to link early educational experiences and children’s happiness directly to the
development of sociability, morality, and political responsibility in individuals.
Although all three theorists embrace some of the traditional language of
inherent depravity, they adopt a neutral attitude vis-à-vis human nature rather than
focusing on the sinful potential of sensual experience. They become less concerned
with stifling and controlling inherent vice than with bringing out children’s natural
learning capacity, ensuring that they receive impressions in the correct order and
be protected from pain. Fleury, for example, writes that since children perceive
anything as good that pleases their senses, they are equally open to error or to
proper guidance. More importantly, he abandons moral standards for children
and shifts the burden of “bad children” from nature to teachers and parents,
See Elizabeth Wirth Marvick, “Nature versus Nurture: Patterns and Trends in
31
Seventeenth-Century French Child-Rearing” in Lloyd deMause (ed.), The History of

Childhood (Northvale, 1995), and Adriana S. Benzaquèn, “The Doctor and the Child: Medical
Preservation and Management of Children in the Eighteenth Century” in Anja Muller (ed.),
Fashioning Childhood in the Eighteenth Century: Age and Identity (Burlington, 2006).
who are to blame if they develop negative dispositions. Rather than expecting
children to recognize truth, he argues that error can be prevented by “joining truth
to pleasure.”32 Even Rollin, who as a Jansenist continually calls attention to the
sinful nature of children, focuses less on the eternal and internal evil in human
nature and more on the controllable dangers from outside as well as on the positive
traits that can be brought out in children. Crousaz repeatedly speaks bitterly about
the stupidity of humankind but links these errors to ignorance and to a slavish
acceptance of custom.
In addition to modifying their views of human nature, Fleury, Rollin, and
Crousaz interpret the particular traits of childhood—traits such as curiosity or
credulity, which heretofore had drawn criticism or dismissal—as either neutral or
positive.33 For example, Fleury remarks (as many before him had) that childhood
is a time of docility and curiosity. But rather than point to these qualities to justify
instilling discipline or controlling information at an early age, he argues that
they should be respected, explored, and interpreted as signs of children’s natural,
God-given disposition to education. As a result, instructional methods can be
made consistent with the nature of children and will have a greater chance of
success. Crousaz counsels teachers and parents not to fear children’s love of
the marvelous (a quality often considered to be a sign of stupidity), for it is the
path through which they can eventually be led to the love of truth. Children are
unable to distinguish reality from fantasy, and there is no point in forcing them to
perceive the difference before they are able to cope with it. They are attracted to
the grand story, the impressive tale, and (as long as its message is morally correct)
there is nothing wrong with indulging their need. In short, not only are the natural
dispositions of children not to be held in contempt, but they are to be respected as
fundamental to our understanding of human need. They are no longer enemies to
be subdued but legitimate forces with which adults must contend.
Crousaz also embraces children’s love of fantasy and fable, based on their
nature. Many educators praised fables during the eighteenth century as useful
tools in the inculcation of morality. Fables were seen as valuable because they
“provided a middle ground, a transitional area in which children could be taught
to discern right from wrong, but within a very limited context.”34 Other theorists,
however, denied the value of these as educational devices, also based on an
analysis of children’s nature. Jean de Viguerie has pointed out that Cartesian
rationalism influenced many seventeenth-century educational theorists to reject
32
33
Julia Douthwaite states that Enlightenment pedagogy showed “intolerance to
human weakness.” This is a common misperception. As we will see in subsequent chapters,
early Enlightenment theorists based their theories on an appreciation of human foibles as
manifested in children and redefined certain childhood weaknesses as strengths. Douthwaite,
The Wild Girl, Natural Man and the Monster (Chicago, 2002), p. 145.
34
Jennifer J. Popiel, Rousseau’s Daughters: Domesticity, Education and Autonomy in
Modern France (Durham, 2008), p. 123.
the use of fairytales in particular and to condemn the appeal to the fantastic and
irrational in the instruction of children.35 Perhaps Fleury, Crousaz, and Rousseau
are all influenced by this trend. But it is clear that in their interpretations of
fables, each is also guided by the principles of sensationist psychology and by a
new appreciation of the difference between childhood and adulthood. In an ironic
passage, Fleury mirrors the strange behavior of adults in order to point out how
their educational practices betray a misunderstanding of the nature of childhood.
We devote much time to deciding what is best for us as adults, he writes,
and yet:
We don’t usually think that this choice is of any importance in the case of small
children. As soon as the first glimmers of light appear in them, we allow them to
acquire a number of erroneous impressions that we subsequently must destroy.
Rather than helping them, we fortify their faults; they are credulous, we tell
them the story of Donkeyskin and a hundred other impertinent fables that take
possessions of their memory in its first freshness. They are timid, we speak to
them of werewolves and horned beasts; we threaten them with [these images] at
every moment; we flatter all of their little passions – gluttony, rage, vanity. And
when we have caused them to fall into traps, when they utter some foolishness,
correctly drawing a consequence from an irrelevant principle that we gave them,
we bust out laughing, we glory in having fooled them, we kiss and caress them
as though they had told a good story.36
This commonsense criticism of children’s literature strongly foreshadows—

and perhaps influences—Rousseau’s famous attack against the practice of reading
La Fontaine’s tales to children. Rousseau will argue that because the metaphors
and images are incomprehensible to young minds, and because the characters’
behavior and language fly in the face of everything children know about reality,
the fable’s moral will be lost on them. Even worse, usually children misinterpret
the moral and follow the behavior of the vicious rather than the virtuous character.
Almost a century before Emile, however, Fleury makes the point that a reevaluation
of the most basic childrearing methods is necessary to ensure that children are no
longer fed information that conflicts with what their natures demand. There must
at all times be a proper correspondence between the material educators present to
their students and the latter’s inherent psychological makeup.
In addition to reassessing educational methods according to children’s mental
predispositions, our three theorists adopt a psychological approach to human
nature and connect early, noneducational experiences with adult behavior. Crousaz
insists that early experiences create habits and that bad habits, rather than moral
weaknesses, are responsible for depravity in childhood and adulthood. Drawing on
an example given by Locke in Some Thoughts, he displays a nascent understanding
35
Jean de Viguerie, L’Institution des enfants: l’éducation en France XVIe–XVIIIe
siècle (Paris, 1978), pp. 309–10.
36
of “trauma” and paints a picture of the lasting effects of experience on children

based on their physical (sensory) sensitivity rather than their inherent intellectual
or moral disposition.37
Religious educators had always recognized the importance of habit in education;
many of them referred to the warnings in scriptural passages that habits acquired
in childhood cannot be erased. Of course, none of our three thinkers invented
the notion that habit or the environment has a major impact on children, and the
fear of the environment is clearly reflected in the Jesuits’ philosophy of “eternal
vigilance”.38 In fact, the French collège was born of the attempt, beginning in
the late twelfth century, to gather poor young scholars together in one place with
the intention of severing them from the morally corrupting influences of society.
The distrust of children and the environment was part of the very fabric of early
modern French society, institutionalized in laws that allowed fathers control over
their children’s marriage, work, and living arrangements. Panic about the effects
of the outside world on morality and character was only exacerbated during the
late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, with increasing fears about the
noxious effects of city life on morals and the growing concerns about the effect
of new philosophies on religious faith. Both antireligious and anticlerical feelings
had grown significantly during the early Enlightenment under the influence of
skeptics like Pierre Bayle, who ridiculed Christian dogma and superstition; English
freethinkers like John Toland, who rejected any tenets of religion that contradicted
reason; and Descartes, who challenged individuals to question authority and to use
on their own reason when investigating the world and the nature of reality.39
The difference between traditional and Enlightenment ideas concerning habit
and the social environment is that during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries habits shift from being experiences that can negatively or positively
affect an already determined nature, enhancing or suppressing vice or virtue,
to being the essence of nature itself, the fundamental channel through which
character and identity are formed. And as thinkers increasingly come to believe
that through an investigation into the nature of identity they can gain knowledge
of moral consciousness, the formation of individuality becomes central not only
to the educational process but to the whole project of socialization. In addition,
early Enlightenment theorists reach beyond the traditional idea that they must
defend children against the outside evils that prey on their inherent weaknesses or
37
Crousaz quotes a passage from Some Thoughts in which Locke tells a story of
a child who makes fun of a handicapped man. The man becomes enraged and furiously
pursues the boy all the way to his home. The child is filled with such terror as he runs up to
his house and flings himself toward the door that, for the rest of his life, on approaching this
door, he re-experiences the feeling of fear he had on that day.
38
Georges Snyders, La pédagogie en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris,
1965), p. 39.
39
See Pierre Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697); John Toland,
Christianity Not Mysterious (1696); René Descartes, Discours de la méthode (1637).
sinful nature. Under the influence of sensationist psychology, this view is slowly
replaced with the idea that childhood is an unknown entity that must be carefully
examined before it is judged. Its characteristics must be gradually discovered in
order that children’s needs might be met and their development accelerated. The
theme of moral danger from the outside world still looms large, but the difference
is that since the danger not only comes from but has its source in the “outside”
(rather than being a reflection of the inherent vice of human beings), it is not
insurmountable. The faults of children are increasingly blamed on parents, schools,
cities, or the vices of the times. The idea of children as weak is slowly translated
into the positive idea of the inherent strength of youth, a strength based on its
potential. For many theorists, education becomes an art, the purpose of which is to
bring out this potential by focusing on the positive attributes of children.
It does not follow from the gentler approach to children’s nature that the
“eternal vigilance” over them is any less prevalent than previously. In the words
of Rollin, “youth have need of a faithful and constant monitor.”40 On the contrary,
many historians have argued that during the early modern period the repressive
and coercive side of education is not eliminated but rather couched in the language
of the rights and freedom of the child. The vocabulary of sin and subjugation
is submerged, but the attitude of distrust and vigilance is enhanced. Authority
becomes more benign, but teachers are expected to take on the role of scientists,
always alert, observing, gathering information, and eternally on the lookout for
error. Rather than being beaten or punished into self-mastery, students are to learn
about their own nature and thus understand (and agree with) the reasons why they
must achieve self-mastery. Consequently they will become docile as a result of
this understanding rather than because of external coercion and will grow into the
perfect subjects for participation in an enlightened society. Rebecca Bushnell has
shown a similar dichotomy in Renaissance educational thought, where:
The early modern humanists’ desire to replace the flogging master with the
loving father was riddled with contradictions. Certainly, they wanted to make
their charges free … rather than servile, fearful, and blind. At the same time,
it can be argued, the last thing they wanted was for their children to be free.
Rather, education would bring children into willing bondage, teaching them
self-control and loving obedience to parents, monarchs, the law, and the norms
of civil society.41
This subtle dance between freedom and coercion is most clearly highlighted in the
debate around corporal punishment, to which we now turn.
Rollin, The Method of Teaching and Studying the Belles-Lettres, 1804, vol. 1, p. 4.
40
See Rebecca Bushnell, A Culture of Teaching: Early Modern Humanism in Theory

41
and Practice (Cornell, 1996), p. 73.

The Attack on Corporal Punishment
Corporal punishment had come under fire during the Renaissance and continued
to be attacked during the seventeenth century by many educational theorists,
including the Jesuits and other religious orders.42 It is true that several theorists—
including Crousaz and Locke—contend that theirs was a time of indulgence
with children and warn parents of the possible negative effect of “coddling” and
leniency. However, it is difficult to find an educational thinker in the eighteenth
century who does not agree that “a mind conducted by fear is always the weaker
for it,”43 that beating creates a slavelike disposition, and that ultimately it fails in
its goal because it makes children hate the very thing adults are trying to bring
them to love (learning). What makes Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz’s approach to
punishment so progressive is, first, that a new attitude to human nature based
on sensationist principles is reflected in each aspect of their discussion. Second,
teachers and parents (rather than children) become the focus of attention, and the
nature of their authority over young people (and thus authority in general) is put
into question. Third, what underlies their discussion, Rollin’s in particular, is the
belief that the slavelike disposition created by beating not only is not conducive to
learning, but it fails to foster the qualities required of responsible citizens.
Thus, these debates are beginning to reflect broader questions in French
society about what forms of authority are legitimate and what kind of training
contributes to the formation of a healthy collective—a French nation with a sense
of unity and uniformity, but in which each member has a sense of his or her own
nature and exercises his or her reason and freedom. They also reflect the shifting
notions of patrie and nationhood so adeptly analyzed by David Bell, in particular
the tension between a view of the nation as a natural entity that exists and has
always existed, an entity that has yet to come into being, and one that is already
in the process of degeneration.44 In one sense educators write as though there is,
“out there,” a maturely formed nation waiting to receive well-bred children, a
nation characterized by an ideal rendering of the social contract.45 At the same time
42
The Jesuit educator de Jouvency insists that, in their approach to punishment,
teachers exercise moderation, self-mastery, never exhibit rage, and even show “gentleness.”
In addition, Jouvency suggests that teachers allow room for children to repair their faults
before punishing them severely. The Jesuits appointed a special individual to administer
corporal punishments so that the teacher did not express anger directly. Also, see Montaigne:
“Get rid of violence and force: as I see it, nothing so fundamentally stultifies and bastardizes
a well-born nature.” Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, p. 185.
43
44
David A. Bell, The Cult of the Nation in France, Inventing Nationalism, 1680–1800
(Cambridge, 2003).
45
French educational thinkers continually refer to the concept of the social contract but
do not always distinguish between versions of the concept or different theorists. Most often
when they cite a thinker it is Locke, but they also refer to the ideas of Grotius, Pufendorf,
Hobbes, and (later in the century) Rousseau.
thinkers place a heavy burden on teachers, expecting them to deliver to France

perfect children, children who will embody the qualities required by an ideal
polity and thus heal all that is corrupt and fragmented, paving the way for the
construction of a (still formless) nation.
Notwithstanding his beliefs in the natural depravity of children, Rollin offers
a fierce and elaborate attack on corporal punishment.46 He goes even further than
Locke, for while the latter accepts the need for corporal punishment in some cases,
Rollin searches for any possible way out, almost to the point of absurdity. He
insists that teachers must engage children not as dangerous beasts but as rational
humans, free individuals, and potential citizens who are being trained to act as
responsible members of society. The process of punishment is lengthened in
Rollin’s discussion, but so is its goal; a new kind of self-mastery is required of
children, which takes much longer to instill than the brief moment between the
crack of the whip and the shriek of the victim.
First, Rollin urges teachers to distinguish between what they can correct as
friends and what they must punish as masters. Second, he insists not only that
punishment must never be executed in anger or passion. Rather, a teacher should
wait until the child fully comprehends his fault, agrees that he deserves to be
disciplined, and understands why the chosen punishment is just. In fact, even
before engaging in a discussion about punishment, the teacher should wait until he
feels that the child is well disposed to listening and understanding. After further
dissecting the types of sins that can even qualify for corporal punishment, Rollin
compares the use of physical abuse to a dramatic cure used for a deadly disease,
which, while purging the body of a particular ill, does so at the heavy price of
exhausting organs and changing the natural constitution. The entire discussion
focuses on the talents of teachers or parents rather than the vice of children and is
fixated on the importance of cultivating the subtle art of correction in the mind of
the observer–teacher; evaluating, analyzing, refraining, reevaluating, and finally
acting with a refined and delicate hand, as if deactivating a bomb.
Rollin introduces one more important concept concerning punishment that
we might identify as proto-Rousseauist, as it foreshadows Rousseau’s distinction
between the human will versus the immovable will of nature or law. Punishments,
Rollin says, should be like laws. They should never mirror the temperament of
an individual teacher, but instead they should reflect universal, rational rules. The
Jesuits had also made the point that the anger of a teacher should not be taken out on
children, and they did not allow teachers to inflict physical punishments themselves.
They appointed an impartial individual to do the job. However, Rollin’s aim is
different from that of the Jesuits. It is not only psychological, intended to prevent
children from developing misplaced rage; it is also sociopolitical. He intends for
students to develop particular dispositions as citizens. If they perceive school rules
46
See Rollin, The Method of Teaching and Studying the Belles-Lettres, 1770, vol. 4,
pp. 262–80. Fleury also offers a strong criticism of corporal punishment; see Traité du choix
et de la méthode des études, 1998, pp. 74–5, 84.
to be as immovable as adults perceive laws to be, they will understand both the
integrity of the laws and the necessity of punishment for those who transgress
them. In this way, their wills will not be engaged or broken (they will not develop
a slavelike disposition), and yet their attitudes will be molded to fit the needs of the
school and eventually of society.
In their discussions of education as a process that must adapt to the goal
of raising honorable citizens and young men capable of service to the state,
Enlightenment theorists draw on ancient, Renaissance, and early modern political
thought. But the idea of a broad educational agenda receives a significant élan,
and a new twist, from sensationist psychology. This shift can be seen in Rollin’s
discussion of corporal punishment. Because children’s natures are no longer
considered to be fixed, and since they are affected by every word and action around
them, the pressure of directing their development falls in a much deeper sense than
previously on parents and teachers and, later on in the eighteenth century, on the
state and society.47 Although it would be another half-century before Helvétius
declared that “l’éducation peut tout” [education can do all], the seeds had already
been planted. When a man like Rollin—who claimed that man is “the most
intractable”48 of animals—can say that the cure for corporal punishment is not a
better child but a better educational system, it is clear that sensationism and the
concept of malleability had made deep inroads into French thought long before
mid-century or the Revolution.
The Scope and Limits of Malleability
The foregoing discussion raises the question, exactly how malleable do early
educational theorists believe children to be? Most adopt the view that children’s
characters are determined by their sensual responses, without drawing the
conclusion that they are fully tractable and without confronting the radical
implications of this position.49 In general, malleability appears to be either a
natural, unforeseen, or feared consequence of a general concept of human potential
47
There were several concurrent—and sometimes conflicting—discourses during this
time on the relative virtues of public and domestic education. However, in much of my
discussion I do not always distinguish between the role assigned to teachers and parents.
The reason for this is that most of the educational literature that I deal with is aimed at
constructing a new educational–philosophical framework, one that will broadly address
questions of learning, discipline, virtue, intellectual, spiritual and moral development.
While in some cases theorists distinguish between public and domestic education, in their
attempt to rethink the underlying nature of human growth and development—the issue
with which I am most concerned—they deal quite abstractly with the learning process and
develop educational ideals that they believe should apply in all educational settings.
48
49
See John Passmore, “The Malleability of Man in Eighteenth-Century Thought,” in
Earl R. Wasserman (ed.), Aspects of the Eighteenth Century (Baltimore, 1965), pp. 21–46.
espoused by pedagogical thinkers influenced by sensationism. In fact, many go

to great lengths to modify their positions on malleability, either by arguing that
social circumstances limit the extent to which certain groups or individuals can
be transformed or, like Locke, by emphasizing the importance of individual
temperament in children. Fleury’s comment that, “you must lead each one according
to his character”50 is echoed in almost all educational texts, even when the explicit
aim of the author is to point to the waxlike nature of children’s minds.
The focus of educators on malleability is in stark contrast to the view expressed
by traditional religious educational philosophies, which held that inherent
depravity placed limits on the extent to which children could be transformed.
Religious thinkers did not expect individuals to be cured of their inherent tendency
toward evil, but rather to learn to control their urges in a systematic way and for
the rest of their lives. In retrospect we can see that, ironically, this belief that
children cannot be fundamentally transformed led to a certain respect for their
essence, which resulted in a less oppressive attention to their inner life than we
find in theorists who believe in total malleability. If you cannot be changed, you
have to be accepted (even if not respected) as you are. As we saw above, for
example, notwithstanding the Jansenists’ severe views on inherent depravity, they
sympathized with children’s inability to control their own weakness. In contrast,
when, during the Enlightenment, the pedagogical mission becomes that of forming
nature entirely, educational theorists sometimes fall prey to a form of “totalitarian
pedagogy.”51 Although none of our three pedagogues believes that children can be
fully shaped from the outside, the educational theories of all three demonstrate how
the belief in the open or neutral nature of childhood often clashed with the agenda
of promoting individual freedom. In a very telling statement by Rollin we can
see how freedom and coercion, habit and nature are entwined in the educational
process in ways both reformist and repressive. Law, Rollin writes, is a hard and
imperious teacher, threatening men’s liberty, deaf to their desires, never letting go,
always adopting a menacing tone. Not surprisingly, men do not listen to the law
and constantly give in to natural penchants. But education, he says, is different:
It is a soft and insinuating teacher, enemy of violence and constraint, who

prefers to act only by means of persuasion, who offers the fruits of instruction
in the voice of reason and truth, and who aims to render virtue easier by making
it more agreeable. Her lessons, which begin almost at the moment of the child’s
birth, develop and strengthen with him, grow profound roots with time, soon
pass from memory and consciousness into the heart, imprint themselves from
day to day in his manners through practice and habit. They become in him a
second nature almost incapable of further change, and throughout the rest of his
Fleury, Traité du choix et de la méthode des études, p. 92.

50
Marcel Grandière, L’Idéal pédagogique en France aux dix-huitième siècle (Oxford,

51
1998), p. 239. Grandière defines this as the effort at the mid-eighteenth century to use
education to form children from birth in accordance with the needs of the state.
life, act as an ever present legislator, showing him his duty on each occasion and
compelling him to practice it.52
We can see in this passage the seeds of a new educational philosophy. Education
is nonviolent but self-regulating. It is a subtle and intricate process of character
building, through which a series of habits somehow transforms and yet never violates
nature. Through education a second nature is created, which faithfully reflects the
wishes of society and yet remains fully in accordance with human disposition. In
his description of second nature, Rollin clearly draws on a Lockean notion of self-
mastery. However, Rollin makes explicit the increasingly intimate relationship
between law and education; the specific purpose of education is to internalize law
by nonviolent means, to insert a permanent “legislator” inside children.
Education as Art, Education as Science
This question of human malleability, and the potential for education to create a
second nature, has an important effect on the evolution of pedagogical methods. In
particular, it is related to the question raised during the Enlightenment: is education
an art or a science? This question is not explicitly articulated, and few theorists
recognize that creative and scientific approaches to learning usually require
conflicting rather than complementary pedagogical methods. However, there is a
clear tension between the freedom espoused by many thinkers and the controlling
attitudes that they develop vis-à-vis children, a tension we see prefigured above in
Rollin’s subtle discussion of internalized authority.
Notwithstanding this tension, it is important to recognize that although the
new attentiveness to children can be interpreted as oppressive, or linked with a
political or social agenda (as we will see, in the case of the education of the lower
classes or women, it is directed at limiting the physical and intellectual space in
which individuals can act), early Enlightenment pedagogical reevaluations are
driven by a multiplicity of motives. Theorists struggle to understand the nature
of human beings, their growth processes, their individuality, and their potential
for freedom and moral responsibility. They base their investigation on what they
believe can be understood about the nature of childhood or individual children’s
psychological responses, and ultimately they aim to adapt the pedagogical process
to fit natural needs. Theorists argue that children should be convinced rather than
coerced because they begin to perceive them as reasonable beings, which deserve
respect and attention. More practically—and this is the crucial point—they
recognize that since children are led by their senses and by an irresistible tendency
toward pleasure, they must be convinced rather than coerced simply in order for
education to succeed at all or for the mind to absorb information. Thus, while some
postmodern scholars are correct to point out that in many cases Enlightenment
52
Charles Rollin, Oeuvres complètes de Rollin (4 vols, Paris, 1805), vol. 4, pp. 433–4
(emphasis added).
educational innovations led to coercion by other means, to focus on this aspect

alone is to overlook a fundamental element of the drive underpinning these
innovations. The methods proposed by eighteenth-century theorists underscore
their belief that gentleness and self-governance are required by the brain and body
if the latter are to be satisfied and functional. “Self-governance” indicates not only
that the authority of the teacher or social norms are internalized, but that “natural
order,” as manifested in a child’s own rhythm, guides the educational process.
Teachers therefore become overly attentive to their students in part because
embedded in sensationist psychology is the promise that, through observation
and experimentation, children’s nature eventually can be decoded and a science
of education created. Consequently, teachers will be able to understand exactly
how, when, and with which intellectual tools children’s learning potential can be
maximized. Clearly, this philosophical dream carries coercive overtones. We will
see how, in the work of Helvétius, the possible existence of a science of education
extinguishes the very idea of an art of education and banishes spontaneity, chance,
uncertainty, and ultimately individuality from the pedagogical process.53 However,
in the work of early Enlightenment educational thinkers, the respect for a child’s
right to self-expression, and the desire to control or suppress that right, are
intimately linked. The concept of a science of education is based on the idea that,
by observing children’s unstructured behavior and respecting their idiosyncrasies
and natural dispositions, educators can better understand their needs and eventually
build the educational process around them. This method requires openness and
humility on the part of the teacher, not to mention his or her deference to a group
of young persons who are of a distinctly lower rank. Thus, paradoxically, in these
early texts the scientific aspect of the process is defined by its art. In other words,
education is an art in which teachers act in imaginative and spontaneous ways
but draw on what they consider to be scientific methods, such as observation
and experimentation. Only later in the century do theorists begin to draw the
conclusion that information about children can be gathered and fixed in such a
way that observation and spontaneity are no longer necessary. Teachers are not to
be given space for creativity; rather, they are to be technicians, implementing rules
devised far away from the classroom by lawmakers and government officials.
Utility and Utilitarianism
Following the emphasis on children’s need for pleasurable education and their
potential malleability, the strongest focus in pedagogical theory in France during
the eighteenth century is on utility as a criterion for evaluating educational
These two ideals of education, both originating during the early modern period,
53
correspond to some extent with Stephen Toulmin’s view put forth in Cosmopolis: The
Hidden Agenda of Modernity (Chicago, 1990), that two rival modernities emerged during
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first is characterized by experience, uncertainty,
and spontaneity or art; the second by observation, certainty, and science.
methods and contents. It is important that we define carefully the way in which
Enlightenment thinkers understood and reformulated this concept in a pedagogical
context, for the idea of a “useful education” was certainly not new. Some date the
origin of pedagogical utilitarianism to Martin Luther’s call for literacy, which for
the first time provided a concrete justification for teaching all individuals to read.
Others consider Comenius to be the father of utilitarianism because of his focus
on linking education to practical life. But after all, every educational philosophy
must have a clear purpose; even the Jesuits appealed to the usefulness of education
in leading children to salvation. The question then is, in contrast to what did
Enlightenment educational thinkers define their ideal of utility?
As mentioned above, during the Renaissance there was a widespread call for
utility by humanist pedagogues as well as by the leaders of the new collèges. For
educational theorists, the call for the practical was a rebellion against what was
considered to be the purely professionalized studies offered by the universities’
higher faculties of law, medicine, and theology. Renaissance scholars demanded
an education that prepared young men for life in a broader sense than initiating
them into the professions. Through instruction, they were to acquire knowledge
of languages and other cultures so they could engage in government service or
international business. Other Renaissance thinkers defined a useful education more
abstractly as that which broadened the mind, offered perspective to individuals,
and turned on their personal “inner light of logic.”54 They considered pedagogical
materials useful if these offered individuals the means by which to evaluate, engage
with, and understand themselves and their experience in the context of their world.
But there is an important difference between Renaissance views on utility
and those evoked during the French Enlightenment. When defining what a young
student should learn, for example, Montaigne includes “a spirit of inquiry”55 as
well as a spirit of self-knowledge, which consists of knowing how to live and how
to die.56 He insists that these qualities not be acquired “for external advantages, but
rather for those which are truly his own, those which inwardly enrich and adorn
him.”57 Even Montaigne’s practical advice—that the purpose of the liberal arts is
to help us “in the regulation and practice of our lives”58—is vague in terms of its
application and refers back to inner fulfillment and spiritual adornment. As Charles
Taylor points out, although in one sense Descartes inaugurates the modern concept
of individuality, Montaigne elaborates an alternative view of individuality linked
to a form of self-knowledge, the aim of which is to “identify the individual in his
54
From Ramus’ Dialectique, cited in George Huppert, The Style of Paris: Renaissance
Origins of The French Enlightenment (Bloomington, 1999), p. 44.
55
Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, p. 175.
56
Ibid., p. 178.
57
Ibid., p. 168.
58
Ibid., p. 178.
or her unrepeatable difference.”59 Thus, even when Montaigne speaks of that which
is useful, it is with a view to how instruction provides students with the ability to
experience themselves, to understand their individuality, their place in the world.
These are decidedly not the ideals of “use” put forth by early Enlightenment
educational theorists. Initially, the call for a useful education, revived in the
seventeenth century, is similar to that of the Renaissance. It focuses on the
importance of this-worldly instruction in opposition to the Jesuits’ emphasis on
salvation and abstract scholastic disputes. Further, theorists argue that children
should engage directly with the world rather than being isolated from it. But
there are two further dimensions to the call for “utility” in the late seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. First, the concept is linked to sensationist psychology.
In a Lockean sense, that which is useful is that which offers children what their
bodies need and their minds can perceive: in other words, what is pleasurable
and developmentally appropriate for them. This form of utilitarianism works
to the advantage of children, for even if the goal of education is socialization,
theorists maintain that nothing can be achieved without first fulfilling a child’s
basic (“useful”) needs. However, as we will see, over the course of the eighteenth
century a second interpretation of utility takes over—the idea that education should
be useful in fulfilling the immediate needs of society and the state rather than those
of the individual. The call for a useful education is increasingly reduced to the
demand that education impart skills that help people become good professionals
or good citizens. Although this idea is still based on the belief that the success of
society will have a positive effect on each of its citizens, in practice the notion of
individual growth is lost from the equation.
Utility and the Classical Curriculum
Before turning to a close analysis of this trend in the following chapters, here
we look briefly at the most revealing anticipation of the eighteenth-century drive
toward utility: Claude Fleury’s critique of the classical curriculum, presented in
Part One of his Traité. Long before Fleury’s work, the traditional curriculum
had come under pressure. Since the early Renaissance, educational reformers
had been arguing against the excessive focus on Latin and grammar studies, the
reading and explicating of texts, the memorization of dry and irrelevant passages,
and the regurgitation of useless information. But of all the writers who for the
next 100 years began their educational treatises by cataloging the vices of the
traditional curriculum, Fleury was the only one who wrote a detailed analysis
of the historical origins of the traditional course of studies, not only to assert its
irrelevance, but also to demonstrate why it is irrelevant. His discussion offers
59
1989), p. 182. For another discussion of the differences between Descartes’s and Montaigne’s
views of individuality and modernity, see Toulmin, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda
of Modernity.
us a very specific illustration of how the concept of utility was evolving in early
Enlightenment pedagogical thought.
Fleury argues that erudition and virtue are not assimilated through a study
of ancient texts and languages. Rather, texts and languages can impart erudition
and virtue only if their form and content have meaning relative to the educational
needs of a particular time. This simple idea contains the essence of the utilitarian
spirit of French pedagogical thought in the eighteenth century. Fleury argues
that Greek and Latin classics were so highly valued because of their utility, even
more than their beauty or truth. The Greeks, and later the Romans, read Greek
writers and poets because it was from these works that these very public men drew
examples for their behavior, speech, and leadership as well as for their moral and
religious values. The heroes and models presented in books spoke to their readers’
experience, and courses like philosophy and rhetoric were exercises in training
men for public life.
Fleury describes the degeneration of rhetoric and philosophy after the fall
of Rome. Philosophy became irrelevant to life and was reduced to a series of
word games and useless disputes. Rhetoric became a dry profession rather than
a living study. He also touches on the educational disarray during and after the
barbarian invasions, the salvaging of ancient disciplines by the Arabs, and the slow
rediscovery of the love of learning in Europe before and during the Renaissance.
But even with the efforts of Renaissance educators to read the ancients and
perfect the study of their languages, the curriculum could not emerge from useless
formality and students were still forced into endless memorization, recitation,
and dry exercises in grammar. Finally, under the French monarchy, with citizen
participation unrecognizably reduced from what it had been in the ancient world,
neither the old style rhetoric and philosophy nor the models of heroes in literature
could serve a useful function as they once did. In fact, with the rise of Christianity
and its concomitant values, pagan models became a threat to society, potentially
influencing students to idolatry, passion, and pride.
Fleury’s point is that if scholars really want to imitate the Greeks, they should
not be reading them exclusively but imitating what they did. In other words, they
should read contemporary works, written in living languages, that have relevance
to present lifestyles and can convey appropriate morals to young people through
recognizable models and heroes.
This long digression in Fleury’s Traité offers a powerful illustration of what will
become the Enlightenment utilitarian drive: the rebellion against scholasticism and
against the excessive focus on the ancients and Renaissance humanist pedagogy. It
is a symbol of a new approach to the fundamental goals and purpose of education
that will be connected to the practical needs of contemporary life. Fleury has no
intention of dispensing with the classics. But he aims to alter the content of the
traditional curriculum to fit the needs of students and of society.60 Addressing
young people, he proclaims:
60
See Fleury, Traité du choix et de la méthode des études, 1998, pp. 382–4.
Your education should be an apprenticeship for your life; the time when you
learn to become honest men, skillful men, according to the profession you
embrace; apply yourselves only to what can render you such.61
Fleury’s critique contains some of the best elements of Enlightenment pedagogy,

as he decisively connects education to this-worldly life, to the needs of potentially
all individuals, and to the nature of the human mind. But we see in the following
chapter how ambiguous the concept of utility is, even in the works of early
Enlightenment theorists. Fleury does not merely define education according to
what is relevant to life. Later in his work, he sets strict limits on information to
which individuals should have access. These limits will be based not only on
profession, gender, and social rank: they also aim to ensure that all individuals
receive a strictly defined form of education, one that prevents “aimless” learning
and narrows the parameters of education significantly.
History: A Secular Bible
The subject of history offers an illuminating example of how the concept of

“use” affects discussions of curriculum content during this period. Although
most educators continue to see religion as the basis of all learning, there is a
clear transition between the traditional idea that “to educate is to Christianize”62
and a more secular view emerging in early Enlightenment pedagogical texts. In
the seventeenth century, a Christian education had been defined by the goal of
salvation. In the works of Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz—all pious Christians—this
is not the case. Each writer insists that religion is of great importance. But in many
cases statements about moral vice appear almost to be lip service to a religious
point of view, and little space is devoted to a discussion of religious studies. The
emphasis is on the need for children to learn how to function in their own world
and according to the ways of men rather than God.
For all three thinkers the demands of God occupy a minor role in the
development of educational methods. Knowledge of God is replaced by the
kind of knowledge that can contribute to the health of the individual and society.
The aim of disciplines such as history, literature, and science becomes an analysis
of human virtue and vice and their consequences in this world rather than a search
for clues about God and His intentions.63
61
Fleury, Traité du choix et de la méthode des études, 1844, p. 66. Fleury’s work is
a challenge to Jean de Viguerie’s assertion that it was d’Alembert’s 1753 article “Collège”
in the Encyclopédie that inaugurated the attack against Latin and the failure of the collèges
to prepare children for life. Viguerie claims that these attacks began in earnest in the 1750s
and 1760s; Histoire et dictionnaire du temps des Lumières (Paris, 1995), p. 850.
62
Marcel Grandière, L’Idéal pédagogique, p. 38.
63
As I mentioned earlier, Rollin has been continually criticized for excluding modern
and French history from his curriculum and holding fast to the belief that the most important
History was underrepresented in traditional and Jesuit education because it

was considered suspect. It risked bringing children in too-close contact with their
world; it could taint their imagination because it represented the flux of time rather
than divine, eternal values; and it was seductive and incited curiosity. The only
acceptable form of history was that presented as a psycho-moral drama of good
and evil. In contrast, Enlightenment educational theorists devote a great deal of
attention to history.
History is an ideal field of study for the new educational philosophy. It is
easily accessible to children, it can satisfy their love of pleasure and order,
and it speaks to their special imagination. Fleury criticizes the current method
of teaching history, which alienates children by symbolically dropping them
into an unfamiliar land and expecting them to understand and analyze their
surroundings. Instead, history should appeal to a child’s intellectual universe,
using pictures that strike the imagination, referring to heroes with whom children
can identify, and always appealing to sensual responses. Fleury anticipates
Rousseauean logic by suggesting that children first learn the history of their
village or town. Crousaz points out that history’s chronological structure gives
children an appreciation for order, and its story-like quality fits children’s need
for larger-than-life events.
History is also considered to have use–value. It is useful because it informs
children about their environment, their origins, and life on earth and the possibilities
it offers. It makes them worldly by introducing them to the customs of different
nations and the varieties of human experience. It teaches them to be open-minded
and tolerant by revealing the extent to which differences depend on accidental
circumstances. And it does all this without the dangers posed by actual encounters
with living human beings. With history, writes Crousaz, “we travel without cost,
without fatigue, and without danger, and we acquire prudence without any risk.”64
Finally, and most importantly, history is considered morally useful. As such, it takes
over many of the functions of religious instruction. It offers children examples of
correct behavior, shows them the difference between truth and error and between
vice and virtue, and provides positive examples of heroism to imitate. Children
learn that only genuinely virtuous acts, rather than power and success, stand the
test of time. For the educational thinkers of the eighteenth century, history takes on
the role of a secular bible, whose hidden mysteries, if properly interpreted, reveal
the truth about our past, our nature, and even our future.
moral examples are to be found in the literature and history of ancient Greece and Rome.
It is true that he considers the traditional curriculum to be the best way to form children to
good taste, perfect their judgment, and help them understand their duties. However, Rollin
also believes history is a “school of morality for mankind” and praises it as the bridge to
maturity, without which human beings would remain in infancy. Rollin, The Method of
Teaching and Studying the Belles-Lettres, 1804, vol. 2, p. 228.
64
As we have seen in this chapter, through examining the representative works

of Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz, educational theorists writing during the late
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries broaden and transform the goals of
education in response to both sensationist premises and social and political changes.
In particular, their emphasis on sensual experience makes them respectful of, and
attentive to, childhood. Their appeal to utility drives them to elaborate a pedagogy
that is applicable to life and, in many cases, is modeled after a new ideal of civic
responsibility. However, there is also a contrary force at work in their writing,
influenced by the very same principles and also defined by the concept of “utility”:
an urge to limit and restrict education, its content, its purpose and its clientele.
We see this tendency most clearly elaborated by theorists at mid-century. Before
looking at these, however, we analyze how this trend is expressed in the works of
Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz.
Chapter 4
“The Limits of Reform” and the Concept
of Utility in Fleury, Rollin, Crousaz, and
Mme de Lambert
We saw in the previous chapter how the idea that education can create a second
nature leads theorists to hail its transformative powers. Based on a new concept
of malleability, reformers adopt a more tolerant attitude to what was formerly
considered the inherent weakness of the poor and women and increasingly blame
the environment for their ignorance or vice. However, sensitivity to the dangers
posed by human malleability also compels educational theorists to limit the goals
of education, especially in the case of the poor and women, and many panic as
they realize that opening the doors of opportunity to all individuals could threaten
traditional hierarchies. Harvey Chisick has shown, through a detailed examination
of educational works throughout the eighteenth century, how faith in universal
reason and calls for universal instruction were qualified in the case of the lower
classes. The reformers’ desire for change was eclipsed, subordinated to their
fear of the social and economic turmoil that could result from an overeducated
peasantry abandoning the fields in search of a better life, and workers turning in
disdain from their parents’ trade but unable to adapt to middle-class standards.
Chisick shows that despite the tendency toward reform in the eighteenth
century, “the great majority of educated Frenchmen assumed the necessity of a
‘people-condition,’ the chief characteristics of which were unrelenting toil and
unending poverty.”
Like the drive toward utility that we examined in the preceding chapter, fears of
overeducation were of course not born during the Enlightenment. In his Testament
Politique (1635–1640), Richelieu warned that, “Just as a body with eyes on all
its parts would be monstrous, so would a State be monstrous if all of its subjects

The most comprehensive view of the subject is Harvey Chisick, The Limits of Reform
in the Enlightenment: Attitudes toward the Education of the Lower Classes in Eighteenth-
Century France (Princeton, 1981). Also see Mary Jo Maynes, Schooling in Western
Europe: A Social History (Albany, 1985) and Schooling for the People: Comparative Local
Studies of Schooling History in France and Germany, 1750–1850 (New York, 1985); Harry
C. Payne, The Philosophes and the People (New Haven, 1976); Roland Mortier, “The
Philosophes and Public Education,” Yale French Studies, 40 (1968): pp. 62–76; François
Furet and Jacques Ozouf, Reading and Writing: Literacy in France from Calvin to Jules
Ferry (Cambridge, 1982).

Chisick, The Limits of Reform in the Enlightenment, p. 270.
were scholars.” In contrast to this earlier view, however, most Enlightenment

educationists recognized that for the sake of social peace and national prosperity
all individuals needed some instruction to provide them with an awareness of
the nature of society and their duties toward it. Even peasants required basic
literacy skills that would allow them to participate in commercial negotiations
and apply more efficient farming techniques. Thus theorists extended their view
beyond the idea, current during the Renaissance, that education should produce an
elite of officers, professionals, and bureaucrats. Although few had any intention
of deploying education in the service of social mobility, they considered that it
should mold all citizens to their place in society, and offer dignity and happiness
to all individuals, regardless of gender or social rank.
Chisick argues that by mid-century educational reformers reconciled their fear
of, and desire for, change by formulating a “middle path,” an alternative that would
protect the social and political status quo without depriving the lower classes of
instruction. This entailed a limited education for the people, “an education for
one’s station.” He concludes that the eighteenth century presents us with two
separate pedagogical concepts, education and enlightenment:
To ‘enlighten’ implies developing a critical, secular and analytic habit of mind,

allowing the mind to encounter all known facts and letting the argument lead
where it may. Ultimately, perhaps, enlightenment implies liberation. Education,
on the other hand, may be regarded as the teaching of skills or beliefs, whether
true, false or merely expedient. It is in this rather narrow sense that most
members of the enlightened community understood education, at least for the
lower classes … . The education that members of the enlightened community
proposed for the lower classes was intended to improve their health, teach skills
suited to their état, and to enlist their minds and hearts for religion and for the
patrie. Such an education was intended not to liberate the people, but to increase
their efficiency and to control them.
Chisick does not condemn the philosophes’ or reformers’ program in toto. He

recognizes that while their educational proposals were not progressive in terms of
our contemporary expectations, there were significant developments in the views
of the enlightened community toward education. In particular, many philosophes
and educational reformers held the sincere belief that the “people” had a right
to happiness and contentment in their life and work. Although their station was
limited by birth, they possessed a God-given reason, were equal to their social
superiors by nature, and deserved opportunities that would allow them to make
the best of their individual talent and social station. Some reformers truly believed

Gabriel Compayré, Histoire critique des doctrines de l’éducation en France depuis
le seizième siècle (2 vols, Paris, 1897), vol. 1, p. 401.

Chisick, The Limits of Reform in the Enlightenment, p. 274.

Ibid.

Ibid.
“The Limits of Reform” 101
that they were acting as champions of all human beings when they insisted that it
was possible to give dignity to workers and appreciate their economic contribution
without altering the structure of society.
In contrast, Mary Jo Maynes argues that both the theory and practice of
education in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe were repressive. She
draws on the work of Marxist and Foucaldian scholars to argue that eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century plans for school reform did not reflect a sincere effort
to apply Enlightenment ideals of equality or liberty to all classes, but “aimed at
disciplining and containing the classes on whose behalf they were put forward.”
Any attempt to extend education beyond the elites was cushioned by restrictions
on lower class education and “securing social barriers.”

The educational reformers’ ambivalence regarding the possibilities of educating
the poor mirrors the attitude of the philosophes toward the lower classes; they showed
a combination of sympathy, based on the view of the poor as victims of both their social
station and their ignorance; respect for their position as workers providing essential services
to society; doubt about their ability to absorb knowledge properly; and fear about whether,
hardened by misery and pain, they could learn to behave morally without coercion. See
Harry Payne, The Philosophes and the People (New Haven, 1976).

Maynes, Schooling in Western Europe, p. 4.

Ibid., p. 35. Maynes adopts an extremely critical stance toward Enlightenment
educational theorists. Aside from a few concessions to their sincere intentions, she condemns
as repressive the entire reform movement that began in the 1760s. She justifies her harsh
evaluation of the work of reformers by pointing out that, since some extreme ideals of
education had been put forth, “radical interpretations of enlightenment insights thus were
not ‘unthinkable’” (47) and should have been pursued (her examples of radical thinkers are
Rousseau, the German Johann Bernard Basedow, and the Swiss Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi).
Maynes offers Rousseau as an example of an educational radical because he focused on
children as individuals, fought against routinized school rituals, insisted on learning from
real life, and “emphasized sensationist assumptions that curiosity and eagerness to learn
were innate in the child” (45). She does not deal with the complexities of Rousseau’s
educational treatise or mention that Rousseau made his Emile a member of the elite; nor
does she engage with his controversial statement that the poor do not need education. And
although it is true that Rousseau counters the utilitarian epidemic overtaking educational
reformers of the time, the other ideas for which Maynes gives Rousseau credit are not
hallmarks of a radical thinker but can be found in the works of Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz,
among others. Further, she does not mention that most “radical” educational thinkers
in France during the Enlightenment were “utopians” (we discuss these in the following
chapter) such as Jean Meslier, Morelly, and Dom Deschamps, whose progressive notions
of educational equality were fused with visions of authoritarian-style societies, regulated
at every turn by strict and invasive laws that limited or destroyed individual initiative and
independent thought. Although Maynes discusses a wide range of educational views during
the eighteenth century, she makes no attempt to distinguish among different theorists or to
show how many of the (admittedly) limited educational goals of reformers were conceived
as genuine alternatives to traditional notions or mixed with progressive notions.
Drawing on Furet and Ozouf’s work on literacy,10 Maynes further argues that
literacy and schooling were neither simultaneous nor complementary movements.
Rather than schools being responsible for swelling literacy rates, massive increases
in literacy were achieved before the end of the nineteenth century, before the
compulsory schooling laws of the French statesman Jules Ferry.11 Although the
middle and lower classes increasingly bought into the “literacy myth”—the idea
that literacy was both a means of social mobility and moral legitimacy—most
lower class families resisted the encroachment of schools into their lives. The new
schools were not only insensitive to the economic needs of families, imposing
longer hours, more days, and compulsory attendance, but they slowly eliminated
and delegitimized other less formal means of education that had been available to
poor families.
The conclusions drawn by Chisick and Maynes are confirmed by a reading
of eighteenth-century educational texts. Discussions concerning the education of
the poor and girls’ and women’s education vary little from the seventeenth to the
eighteenth century. My intention is not to repudiate this point, and in fact below
I show how theorists such as Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz discussed the education
of the poor and of women in the manner described by Chisick and Maynes.
However, I wish to explore a further dimension of the “limits of reform” and
question Chisick’s assertion that the concepts of “enlightenment” and “education”
as formulated in France during the Enlightenment describe the kinds of education
intended for the elites and lower classes, respectively. Rather than being neatly
separated according to class or gender, the concepts of “enlightenment” and
“education” (or as I have defined them, enlightenment and utility-based learning)
struggle for dominance in an emerging ideal of education, one that ambitiously
attempts to incorporate and reconcile new discoveries about the workings of the
human mind with new concepts of individuality, liberty, autonomy, sociability,
professionalization, and civic responsibility. In theory, the attempt to combine all
these goals leads to a powerful and even holistic vision of pedagogical reform:
if individuals have their innate desire for pleasure and “useful” knowledge
satisfied, while simultaneously being brought to understand the interdependence
of all human beings, their natural sociability will be drawn out of them without
coercion. In practice, however, very different methods of instruction are required
to fulfill goals as distinctive as, say, the creation of personal autonomy or social
uniformity. “Enlightenment” and “education” are thus not ideals elaborated only
to establish different educational agendas for separate groups of individuals;
rather, they coexist in great tension within the general debate on education and
human nature during the eighteenth century.
François Furet and Jacques Ozouf, Reading and Writing: Literacy in France from
10
Calvin to Jules Ferry (Cambridge, 1982).

11
In the early part of the century, families educated their children through traditional
channels rather than the new schools; for example, before the formalization of schooling,
parents often sent their children for a short period to a village curé or a charity school.
In the latter part of this chapter I discuss these points further. In the following
section I show that we can see the deep ambivalence about the extension of
education in the works of Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz. All three develop what
I will call a “preventative” view of education for the lower classes and women,
based on the idea that the dangers of withholding education from these groups
outweighs those of extending it. They argue that a basic instruction can offer
the poor and women skills and knowledge that will prevent them from harming
themselves or others and will allow them to obtain some personal fulfillment while
simultaneously serving the interests of society.
“The Limits of Reform”
The Lower Classes
The view of education as deterrent was not a new one. The educational agenda of
the Catholic Counter-Reformation was strongly preventative, as its goal was not
only to save souls but also to prevent Catholics from being drawn to Protestantism.
In addition, many of the seventeenth-century charity schools, work houses, and
hospitals, all of which offered some education to the lower classes, aimed essentially
at preventing the latter from doing harm either to themselves or others.12 But as we
saw in the previous chapter, the supposition that instruction could control, appease,
discipline, and direct was intensified by the belief that potentially it had the power
to mould human beings fully. Consequently, during the early Enlightenment
theorists mingle traditional fears with new hopes concerning the instruction of
the lower classes and women. While they consider that overeducation poses a
grave threat, they also believe that a proper level of instruction can transform
individuals, place their talents in the service of the greater social good, and even
offer them personal happiness and fulfillment.
None of the three writers discussed in this section puts forth a specific agenda
for the establishment of educational institutions for girls, the poor, or the lower
classes. However, Fleury and Crousaz directly confront the problem of their
education. Fleury argues that education must be extended and that all classes
should receive instruction in religion, morality, civility, physical health, logic,
reading, writing, and some arithmetic. In his section on the subjects of logic and
12
One of the most well-organized attempts at extending education to the lower classes
during the early Enlightenment was instituted by Jean-Baptiste de la Salle. In the early part
of the eighteenth century, La Salle created a network of schools intended to impose strict
discipline and morality on poor children while offering them literacy and vocational skills.
La Salle’s work was humanitarian in intention, providing care for and offering dignity to
poor children. But it was also driven by the concept of social immobility; the schools aimed
at disciplining and rendering useful potentially “dangerous” groups of people and teaching
children how to survive, rather than to move out of, their station. See Jean-Baptiste de la
Salle, Conduite des écoles chrétiennes (Avignon, 1724).
philosophy, he makes the point that, while few individuals from any social rank
have the patience or discipline to become philosophical thinkers, all human being
have the ability to reason and develop sound judgment. But eventually Fleury
makes it clear that all studies are not for all people. Most men, he writes, learn
what they need from their “profession” and have no need for higher education.
In addition, although all human beings are capable of right reasoning, most will
choose to follow their passions. He warns that further education for the masses
will only give poor people vain hopes of advancement, which is destructive both to
them and to society. Although Fleury insists that any individual with good motives
and a good mind should have access to education, in practice he believes the lower
classes should not be encouraged to study beyond what is necessary to socialize
and acquire skills related to their work. The fundamental principles of truth “are
necessary primarily for those who must lead others,”13 in particular clergymen,
magistrates, and politicians.
Crousaz places stricter limits on access to education. Like Locke’s Some
Thoughts, Crousaz’s work is addressed almost exclusively to the male child of
a wealthy family, and he acknowledges that his advice will not be for “common
people.”14 Only the upper classes can actualize the reign of God on earth and make
the truth shine,15 and therefore “the education of people of high rank is altogether
more important than the education of commoners; it has an altogether different
influence in Society, and the former usually serve as an example and model to
the latter.”16 Although many educational theorists and philosophes will coat their
views in more enlightened language than Crousaz, essentially Fleury and Crousaz
put forth a characteristic Enlightenment statement on the scope and limits of
education. While all human beings have the capacity to reason, are equal in the
eyes of God—and perhaps even in the eyes of the law—and deserve to have their
basic needs met, the happiness and order of society will be achieved if the upper
classes educate themselves and exercise their understanding for the good of all.
Girls and Women
A similar attitude of exclusion is taken toward the education of girls. As in the

case of the lower classes, the doors are opened in consideration of what they are
capable of but swiftly shut when discussing what they should actually undertake.
Although Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz recognize the need for increased attention to
the instruction of girls, the purpose of their education is defined strictly according
to the same criteria used for the lower classes: social utility and safety.
13
Claude Fleury, Traité du choix et de la méthode des études, ed. Barnard Jolibert
(Paris, 1998), p. 91.
14
Crousaz, Traité de l’éducation des enfans (2 vols, La Haye, 1722), p. 362.
15
Ibid., p. 393.
16
Ibid., p. 362.
The education of girls was given a great deal of attention in the seventeenth
century, before which girls were educated in convents or at home, receiving
instruction primarily in religion, music, and domestic economy. Fénelon, in his
famous work De l’Éducation des filles (1687), applied new pedagogical ideas to
girls, insisting that they be respected and that their attention be captivated in the
educational process.17 During the Renaissance and the early modern period, several
independent women and religious orders took on the education of girls, and some
of their schools were influenced by new theories of childhood and education.18 For
example, in her school for poor girls Anne de Xaictonge emphasized cheerfulness
and gentleness and insisted that corporal punishment was unnecessary. But other
educators, such as the Jansenist-influenced Jacqueline Pascal (sister of the famous
Blaise), who was in charge of the girls schools at Port-Royal, applied the physical
and mental restrictions placed on boys more rigorously to girls. The rationale
was based on the contradictory view that education was a threat to women both
because of their inherent moral weakness and their natural purity. A monastic
philosophy pervades in Jacqueline Pascal’s strict rules of discipline, many of
which run counter to new ideas of pleasurable education that were being applied
to the education of boys.19
Throughout the eighteenth century the view that girls should be offered
some education, but that it should be strictly controlled, becomes conventional
wisdom even among women writers.20 In addition, the educational literature of
the Enlightenment for the most part deals with the education of upper-class girls.
Fleury’s treatment of this subject is most helpful in illuminating some of the
contradictions found in the general literature. First, he lays out current assumptions
about the education of girls in a critical tone, complaining that it consists of sewing
17
Fénelon (Francois de Salignac de la Mothe, 1651–1715) was a writer, man of the
Church, and author of the famous work Télémaque on the education of a prince.
18
In 1574, the Ursulines established a school for girls; Mme de Maintenon founded
Saint-Cyr in 1686, the first large secular institution for the daughters of poor nobles; and
Anne de Xaictonge formed an entire society in 1606 based on the model of the Jesuits,
intended to reach out to poor girls and to offer them education for life in the family rather
than the convent.
19
See Jacqueline Pascal, Règlement pour les enfants, in Gilberte Périer, Lettres,
opuscules et mémoires de madame Périer et de Jacqueline, sœurs de Pascal, et de
Marguerite Périer, sa nièce (Paris, 1845). Pascal argues that work should not be agreeable
because pleasures should not be indulged. In fact, she insists that girls always work first on
what they enjoy the least, so as to please God rather than themselves. Friendships between
girls are to be closely monitored, so as to prevent intimacy; they are not allowed to hold
hands and have to keep silent as they dress, eat, and walk. They are encouraged to cast their
eyes down whenever possible. The emphasis is on acquiring virtue rather than knowledge;
teachers are to show some tenderness to the girls but in strict moderation.
20
For an analysis of the women writers and their views on domestic education and
the role of women, see Lesley H. Walker, A Mother’s Love: Crafting Feminine Virtue in
Enlightenment France (Lewisburg, 2008).
and dance, the art of civility, and speaking well. We justify depriving girls of
further education, he contends, on the grounds that they will become vain. But
although it is true that women have less patience, attention, and courage than men,
and their bodies determine much of their destinies, they also have some qualities
that are well suited to education: women are more vivacious, penetrating, gentle,
and modest than men. Depriving girls of education, Fleury writes, reveals an
assumption that women are incapable of study:
As though their souls were of a different kind than those of men, as though they
didn’t have, as we do, a reason which must be governed, a will to regulate, passions
to combat, health to conserve, goods to manage, or as though it was easier for
them than it is for us to satisfy all these obligations without any knowledge.21
Fleury does not, however, follow this speech with a gallant defense of women’s
education. Instead, he offers two reasons why women have a right to receive
instruction, both preventative. First, without it their natural negative tendencies
would be accentuated. Second, since women are not “destined” to great positions
of power in the world, they have much of that dangerous leisure time “that
degenerates into a grand corruption of manners if it is not seasoned with some
study.”22 In other words, he assumes that a bad education will ruin women more
than men and that, like the lower classes, without the proper indoctrination they
can become a threat to the fabric of society.23
Crousaz (whose ideas on women’s education are heavily influenced by Fleury,
whom he quotes extensively) brings the view of education as a deterrent further.
In particular, he emphasizes those qualities that he considers natural to women
and that make education a dangerous enterprise for them. The overeducation of
women, he argues, would not simply pose a danger to men but would deeply
hurt women. A woman with too much knowledge is not accepted into society
and invites ridicule from all sides. He concludes that a general education for girls
is necessary for the good of others rather than because women have a right to
self-fulfillment or growth. In the absence of education, women develop fears and
superstitions that they pass on to their children.
Fleury’s idea of what women should learn is limited. They should be taught
religion, but without depth—common dogma, but not theology. If women are
given too much information, it will degenerate into superstition or they will
become opinionated and dogmatic. The focus of women’s studies should be
21
22
Ibid.
23
Rollin puts forward the same view; he laments the lack of attention and care given
to the education of girls based on the misconception that they are not fit to learn, “as if
ignorance were their natural inheritance.” See Charles Rollin, New Thoughts Concerning
Education (Dublin, 1738), p. 28. Rollin calls this neglect an error and a prejudice. But his
plea for women’s education is based on a fear of the consequences of a lack of education
rather than a belief in a woman’s right to cultivate her abilities.
“morale” because this suits their naturally modest, submissive, humane, solitary,
and retreating nature. Women also need a basic education to get by in life and
to successfully manage their households. Ultimately, women are to be educated
primarily to counter their inherent faults, but their knowledge should be limited to
prevent them from aspiring to things beyond their natural and social reach. Rollin
presents a similar view, arguing that each individual has specific duties to fulfill
and their education must prepare them for this. Women will govern only their
households; they never will lead nations. Rollin approves of the study of some
history for girls since it improves their morals. But fundamentally, girls’ studies
aim to cultivate those talents that will help in the governance of the household:
needlework, furniture, and clothes, the education of children, and the management
of servants’ wages.24
These opinions on the education of women are shared by Anne Thérèse de
Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert, who wrote one of the best-known
educational treatises of the early eighteenth century. Mme de Lambert was born
in Paris in 1648. In later years she ran one of the most prominent salons of the
early eighteenth century, frequented by such figures as Fontenelle and Marivaux.
In 1686, she was widowed with two young children and left in a difficult financial
predicament. Fearing for her children, who would be surrounded and tempted by the
wealth and lifestyles of their peers but excluded from participation in their activities
by financial limitations, she wrote down some practical advice in Avis d’une mère à
son fils and Avis d’une mère à sa fille, published in 1726 and 1728.25
Mme de Lambert’s own education had been carefully cultivated and watched
over by her stepfather, who took a special interest in her and imparted to her a
deep love of letters. It appears from her continued contact with philosophes, as
well as from her own remarks, that Mme de Lambert treasured the opportunity
to expand her mind and continued to find solace and strength in her relationships
to books and ideas. But Avis d’une mère does not convey this strong bond with
education that she felt and experienced in life. Instead, she offers her son and
daughter advice on the best way to survive the rigid social structures they will
encounter. Like Rollin and Crousaz, she insists on the importance of virtue over
knowledge and takes a defensive stance against what she sees as an increasingly
egoistic and interest-centered view of virtue in society. She defines virtue in terms
of honor, the fulfilling of one’s duties, charity toward others, and an acceptance of
one’s station in life. She is concerned with what she perceives to be a moral crisis
resulting from laxity of behavior and places a strict Christian morality at the center
of her work.
Like the abbé de Saint Pierre,26 Mme de Lambert’s work is characteristic of
a transitional educational treatise during the early part of the eighteenth century
Fleury, Traité du choix et de la méthode des études, 1998, pp. 141–4.

24
Anne Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert, Avis d’une mère

25
à son fils et à sa fille (Paris, 1734).

26
I discuss the educational work of Saint Pierre in the Prologue to Part 3.
in that she tries to reconcile traditional views concerning piety and morality with
new ideas concerning self-love and individual happiness. She couches the stoic
elements of her work in the philosophical spirit of the time, embracing the concept
that by nature people are occupied with self-interest, their passions, and their
personal needs and that this is not necessarily a bad thing. Mme de Lambert’s
aim is not to eliminate self-love, but to restrict its negative effects. She believes
that with the correct training self-love can be converted into justice and selfish
tendencies can be used in the service of the general good. She claims that one of
the goals of education is happiness but cautiously defines happiness as pleasing
others, fulfilling one’s duties, and achieving peace of the soul.
Mme de Lambert laments the neglect of women’s education, complaining that
they are abandoned to themselves, stuffed with fashion, and fed false illusions
of happiness. When these hopes are disappointed, girls go in search of substitute
happiness in riches, beauty, and frivolities. This callous attitude toward the
education of women, Mme de Lambert writes, shows that people have forgotten
that women make up one-half of the world’s population and are responsible for the
happiness and moral integrity of men, children, and families.
Notwithstanding this bitter attack on the neglect of girls’ education, Mme de
Lambert takes a traditional view of women’s social role and inherent character
traits. She warns that glory and public recognition are not intended for her sex.
Working behind the scenes and acting virtuously without acknowledgment are
a woman’s greatest achievement, as they are linked with her greatest virtue,
modesty. Mme de Lambert believes that women are destined to please men, and
as a result they should have close control over their own desires. Women’s talents
should be cultivated primarily because this makes them more interesting to men,
who get bored easily and need constant stimulation. Schoolgirls should study
some Greek and Roman history, where they will encounter great men and great
deeds that will raise their thoughts above the mundane. Mme de Lambert suggests
some acquaintance with the history of France and a little philosophy. The latter
contributes to right thinking by helping turn both men and women toward the
love of virtue. She allows her daughter to study some Latin and literature but
warns of the dangers of novels, Italian literature, and poetry. Instead of teaching
the imagination to submit to reason, these tend to open it up to fantasy.
Mme de Lambert sees no contradiction in the growing respect she demands
for her sex and the limits she places on girls’ education and destinies. She returns
continually to the theme that real happiness is internal and is to be found in the
fulfillment of one’s duties. Lesley Walker has argued that Mme de Lambert’s work
is characteristic of a body of women’s literature that, while accepting (and even
embracing) the idea that a woman’s place lay outside the public realm, claims for
women a central role in the evolution of a new form of civic virtue.27 When Mme
de Lambert and others refer to “social utility,” it is not to relegate women to their
use-value as wives or mothers. Rather, the concept is “an especially important
Walker, A Mother’s Love.

27
bridge category because it possesses both the long Christian roots and expresses
an optimistic view of human agency.”28 In this light Mme Lambert’s advice to
her daughter is partly a call to realism (accepting the limits of social life as it is)
and partly a call to fulfill her female nature. The latter requires that she get in
touch with “obscure, feminine virtues.”29 These are nurtured in the privacy of the
home and the intimacy of the soul, are untainted by dependence on the opinion of
others, and ultimately have an important influence on the educative process and
the construction of social virtues.
The Further “Limits of Reform”
Taking into consideration the preceding discussion, it is clear that the works of
Mme de Lambert, Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz reveal what writers like Chisick and
Maynes have shown to be a conservative and fearful attitude toward the education
of the lower classes and women. In the case of Mme de Lambert, while the nature
and purpose of women’s life and work are held up as models, the content and
method of their education are nevertheless significantly limited. However, in
trying to understand the evolution of educational ideals during the Enlightenment,
it is problematic to view the limits of reform as applied only to the lower classes
or women. In actuality, the new concept of education born in France during the
eighteenth century is both broadened and restricted in several directions and for
many different reasons. It is broadened as theorists, influenced by sensationist
philosophy, argue that education is an indefinable and intangible phenomenon.
If children are influenced by all sensations that reach them, education does not
take place in the home or the classroom but at each moment and in every location.
On the other hand, theorists hope to narrow and define the scope of what human
beings study in order to control this vast and ever-increasing territory of learning.
These limits placed on education are not confined—although certainly applied in
extreme form—to certain segments of society. Rather, they reflect contradicting
tendencies to perceive education as both a savior and a threat and define its uses in
boldly utopian as well as anxiously pragmatic ways for all individuals and groups.
For example, after having placed limits on the education of women and the lower
classes according to what is useful for them in their “stations,” Fleury devotes the
final section of his work to mapping out the particular kind of education that other
groups in society, including the clergy and the nobility of the sword and robe,
are to receive. In each section there is a condescending tone similar to that found
in the section on women and the poor, a corresponding expression of fear about
unbounded education, a parallel concept of each group having an unalterable
“destiny,” and the same strict utilitarianism in terms of what each type of person
needs to learn according to his particular profession.
28
Ibid., p. 68.
29
Ibid., p. 43.
Fleury rejects the idea of knowledge for knowledge’s sake and shows disdain
for the “crowd of scholars”30 of the Renaissance, devouring literature merely for
pleasure, for beauty of language, or “to astonish the ignorant.”31 He insists that
education should be offered to individuals to help them fulfill their social and
economic roles in the best possible way and, as a preventative for all groups in
society against external and internal dangers. Crousaz shares this view, arguing
that without education people can be beastlike, but with a bad education they can
be worse. Of two people, he insists, one with and the other without education,
the former can do greater evil. For this reason, society must be careful to keep
a strict hold on who learns what. The dangers posed do not only come from the
lower classes, but from ill-tempered and idling nobles whose purpose in society
is unclear.32
According to Fleury, clergymen should not study too much outside their
“destined” field.33 They need a strong grounding in morality, faith, the Gospels,
and sacred literature, and they should develop a talent for proving religion to
infidels, performing ceremonies, and administering sacraments. In order to
persuade, instruct, and help people in need, they should acquire strong voices,
patience, and generosity. But useless curiosity is dangerous for men of the cloth,
and “those who have leisure time and find themselves surrounded by books and
opportunities for studying should guard against curiosity.”34 A clergyman should
not be a savant, but a man of action, and “thus should not waste time on profane
studies or useless interests.”35 Even when it comes to his own field, he is to avoid
entering into a detailed exploration of scholastic debates and useless arguments.
Education belongs to youth, Fleury writes, and for adults its only purpose is “to
usefully fill intervals between acts.”36
Fleury adopts a similar view of education in the case of the sword and robe
nobility. Education is important because of the dangers that can arise in its absence
rather than because of what it can contribute to an individual’s development. The
30
31
Claude Fleury, Traité du choix et de la méthode des études, 1844, p. 67.
32
In her paper on the education of the nobility, “La Noblesse Humaniste: The Influence
of Italian Humanist Educational Ideals on Early Modern French Noble Education” (presented
at the annual conference of the Western Society for French History, Los Angeles, November
2000), Treva Tucker discusses the problems faced by the French nobility during the early
modern period, threatened by the loss of their traditional military role and by the new humanist-
educated elite serving in positions of power and gaining social status. By the sixteenth century,
the nobility recognized that a classical education could be of use to them but adapted the
humanist curriculum to fit their needs. Crousaz and Fleury seem to be participating here in the
discussion of how to offer the traditional nobility an education that can at once tame them, suit
their particular needs, and offer them an alternative to their lost status.
33
34
Fleury, Traité du choix et de la méthode d’études, 1998, p. 146.
35
Ibid., p. 147.
36
Ibid., p. 148.
reason the sword nobility need education is that they have by nature a dangerous
disposition and are prone to violence. Without education, they resemble “an
unchained lion,” “an armed madman.”37 The sword nobility need to develop the
habit of reasoning and acquire power over themselves so that their courage is
turned toward public utility and against enemies of the state. This is a viewpoint
shared by Crousaz, who suggests that the potentially dangerous leisure time
afforded by a life of war can be mitigated by books and that all education should
train people to focus on their use in society.38
Specifically, Fleury suggests that the sword nobility need Latin for their travel,
math to help with military strategy, and modern and ancient history to provide
them with good examples of war and an understanding of the state and sovereigns.
They also need to study politics and the legitimate causes of war. By and large,
however, the greatest part of their training will be acquired on the job. Although
the robe nobility require more education, it must be kept in mind that:
They are destined to handle legal matters and must study only in order to become
capable of doing that. Therefore, they must avoid this penchant for study which
is opposed to the mindset required for handling their affairs, and which seeks
only the pleasure of learning or the glory of having a learned reputation.39
Their education, consisting essentially of logic, arithmetic, economy, history,

eloquence, and law is strictly aimed at imparting information that will enable them
to engage in their work.
There are, of course, important differences between Fleury’s approach to the
poor and women and his suggestions concerning the education of the middle classes
and nobility. While in theory limiting the content of what the latter should learn, he
does not insult their intelligence (although he does insult their moral capabilities)
or limit their intellectual journey, as he does in the case of women and the lower
classes. More importantly, whatever limits he intends to place on these groups,
presumably they will at least have an opportunity to attend the higher classes of
the collège, and therefore will be exposed to the “dangerous” curiosities that they
are warned to avoid. The limits placed on the education of women and the poor are
such that they would not have access to higher education. In addition, what Fleury
proposes for the elite in lieu of “useless subjects” is not merely vocational training,
but a series of modern subjects that will enable professionals to function with as
much agility as possible.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that Fleury’s entire educational philosophy
is representative of what will become—at mid-century—a new ideal of education,
both as preventative and as an apprenticeship for life and work. The goals of
instruction are clear, practical, and set in opposition to an ideal of education as
personal enlightenment, represented either by humanist thinkers such as Montaigne
37
Ibid.
38
39
or later by Morelly or Rousseau. During the course of the eighteenth century,

utility becomes the guiding principle of an educational model based on its role in
offering information or skills to individuals strictly in relation to their function in
society and according to the needs of the state. This view at first coexists with, but
later battles for ascendancy over, an image of education as a process that offers
individuals experiences and knowledge according to their nature and potential as
human beings.
Conclusion
Our analysis of the works of Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz has shown that Chisick’s
ideal of “enlightenment” or liberal education is indeed applied in only very limited
form—if at all—to the lower classes. However, it is also true that increasingly
the new ideal of elite education corresponds less to Chisick’s definition of
“enlightenment” (developing ‘a critical secular and analytic habit of mind,
allowing the mind to encounter all known facts, and letting the argument lead
where it may’) than it does to his definition of “education” (instruction offered to
individuals to “improve their health, teach skills suited to their état, and to enlist
their minds and hearts for religion and for the patrie”). Initially, this utilitarian
view is not divorced from an ideal of education as “enlightenment” and in fact
includes many aspects of the latter. Firstly, it is inspired by a Lockean sense of
utility, which requires that parents or teachers cater to a child’s natural mental and
physical needs; these are not based on a child’s social or professional function
but are linked to his or her evolution as a sensing, feeling, and thinking being.
Second, many French theorists suggest that a certain amount of enlightenment
is necessary and “useful” for all individuals in order for them to participate
in the social pact. Hence, all children should learn about the nature of human
interdependence and are capable of understanding—rather than being coerced
into—their social responsibilities. Third, the concept of “utility” is a nuanced
one, often intimately linked with notions of compassion, social conscience,
and bienfaissance.40
However, during the course of the eighteenth century the concept of a useful
education develops increasingly in opposition to an individualistic ideal based
on self-expression and personal enlightenment. Fleury only initiates a utilitarian
model of education in his work. Much of his vision is positive and reformist
pedagogically in the sense that he appeals to an “education for life,” incorporates
the concept of apprenticeship, sets his model in opposition to pedantic scholarliness,
and bases it in many cases on a new vision of human nature and childhood. Also,
he makes it clear in his discussion of logic that all individuals have the capacity to
develop a “critical secular and analytic habit of mind” and suggests that education
should strive to develop this talent in students, irrespective of their social origins.
40
See Walker, A Mother’s Love: Crafting Feminine Virtue in Enlightenment France,
pp. 31–3, 68.
Nevertheless, we can perceive in his work the early development of a new

definition of the purpose of education based on an opposition between individual
enlightenment and social functionality. We will see this ideal fully worked out
in Chapter 8 on Helvétius and in Chapter 11 on the educational reformers of the
1760s. In the next section, however, we turn to the educational philosophy of
Étienne-Gabriel Morelly. In the work of this little-known theorist, we witness one
of the most spirited attempts to reconcile utilitarian and enlightenment-oriented
ideals of learning, individual and social education, nature, and habit.
Part 3
The Educational Philosophy of
Étienne-Gabriel Morelly
Prologue:
Educational Theory at Mid-Century
The themes developed by Locke, Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz were further
elaborated in the next quarter century by numerous thinkers, including the
abbé de Saint-Pierre, the abbé Pluche, Claude César Chesnau Dumarsais, and
Étienne-Gabriel Morelly. These theorists shared four fundamental goals. The first
was to refine their understanding of the relationship between nature and habit in
the educational process. The second was to elucidate new and improved methods
of making education pleasurable for children. The third was to reconcile views of
human beings as free of innate malice, driven by self-love and reasonable, with
traditional notions of Christian virtue, modesty, sacrifice for others, and respect for
rank. And the fourth was to link education to political and social transformation.
These last two were indirectly related to the conclusions reached by Locke and
his French disciples, but they also reflected a new and more ambitious agenda
for education. We examine these issues in Chapters 5–7, which are devoted to the
educational theory of Étienne-Gabriel Morelly. Here I give a general overview of
the pedagogical assumptions which, by mid-century, had become prevalent among
both educational theorists and practical reformers seeking to apply new ideas to
schools and collège.
A good example of the transitional nature of educational thought during this time
can be found in the abbé de Saint-Pierre’s “Projet pour perfectionner l’éducation”
(1730). In this work Saint-Pierre put forth traditional views concerning the role
of religion and authority in the life of a child. However, in the same spirit as
Mme de Lambert he also embraced a new concept of human nature that posed
a fundamental challenge to his own traditionalism. He attempted to link self-
interest to the interests of others, purge self-love of any negative connotations, and
unite the concepts of utility and happiness with Christian prudence and salvation.
His work combined sensationist principles with traditional wisdom and represents
a characteristic effort by educational theorists at mid-century to place education in
the service of both religious and secular goals. While his objective was not unique,
few writers blended religious and secular concepts and images as explicitly as
did Saint-Pierre.

Charles Irenée Castel, abbé de Saint-Pierre, was born in 1658 to an old noble
family. He was educated with Jesuits at the Collège de Rouen and then studied theology at
the Collège de Mont à Caen. He was ordained as a priest, came to Paris in 1680, and became
part of the intellectual community of the philosophes and a deist. He is most known for his
“Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe” (1712). Citations from Saint-Pierre come
from “Un projet pour perfectionner l’éducation” in Oeuvres diverses de Monsieur l’abbé de
Saint-Pierre (2 vols, Paris, 1730).
Written in 1730, “Un Projet pour perfectionner l’éducation” appears to be

heavily influenced by Lockean principles, in particular when it comes to the
treatment of habit. Saint-Pierre claimed that “almost everything in us is habit”
and that bad habits are responsible for the worst of vices. He embraced happiness
as the goal of education and offered unlimited hope for the perfection of human
beings through the early inculcation of proper habits. He suggested that his readers
accept the great “invisible penchant”—the human drive to search for pleasure and
to avoid pain; rather than trying to change this drive, individuals should elaborate
methods of directing it toward the good of all.
Saint-Pierre’s language and tone reflected a faith in men’s ability to reform
themselves and their world. Not only did he accept human limitations as natural,
he also reinterpreted passions and needs as acceptable and even conducive to
moral life and social relations. Notwithstanding a tone of optimism, however,
Saint-Pierre devoted much of his treatise to qualifying his terms so that they could
fit within a Christian framework. For example, although he confidently asserted that
the goal of education was happiness, he defined happiness as Christian prudence,
moderation, deliberation, justice, and bienfaisance. Unlike many other educators,
who began to argue that earthly rewards could successfully persuade children to
behave better, Saint-Pierre claimed that the aim of education was quite literally to
assure both rewards in this life and eternal salvation in the next at the same time.
This goal would be achieved by instilling simultaneously in children a desire to
please their God and their companions and teachers, and filling them with an equal
sense of fear and shame at the idea of displeasing God or being humiliated by
friends. Thus, good habits help ensure beatitude for children in the next life.
Saint-Pierre also aimed to redefine modesty and humility—Christian qualities
that were losing their relevance in a world that increasingly celebrated social and
civic virtues—as fairness and justice toward others. In particular, he suggested that
children be given practical lessons in bienfaisance from their youth: they should
be exposed to the poor and unfortunate and taught how to help them; they should
be shown the terrible fate of people who live a selfish life and overlook their duties
to others; and they should be made to understand that their happiness is directly
linked to that of others.

Saint-Pierre, “Un projet pour perfectionner l’éducation,” p. 11.

Ibid., p. 2.

Saint Pierre is famous for introducing the word bienfaisance to French intellectual
culture. Based on a combination of utilitarianism and humanitarianism, a person who is
bienfaisant is one who is fair and just and does things useful for society, ameliorating the
material condition of other individuals. Saint-Pierre’s other writings were reformist in this
spirit, for example, “Projet pour perfectionner le gouvernement” (1717) and “Mémoire sur
les pauvres mendiants et sur les moyens de les faire subsister” (1724).

Saint-Pierre, “Un projet pour perfectionner l’éducation,” p. 4.
Educational Theory at Mid-Century 119
Pleasurable Education and Natural Order
Influenced by the pedagogical works of the previous period, educational theorists

during the 1730s and early 1740s focused on how to implement what Locke
and his followers called a “pleasurable education.” A model of this trend can be
seen in the extremely popular work of the abbé Pluche, Spectacle de la Nature
(1732). While the Spectacle was not strictly an educational manual, it was truly an
“encyclopédie educative” [educational encyclopedia]. Pluche based his treatise
of natural science on the idea that nature—including plants, trees, insects, and
planets—is a ready-made and easily accessible educational tool. Learning through
nature is effortless for children since they experience natural phenomena directly
through their sight, smell, and touch. In addition, communicating with nature is a
profound spiritual experience that instills in children a sense of humility, love, and
gratitude toward God.
We need only look to the title of another well-known work during this time to
get a sense of how predominant the theme of effortlessness was in pedagogical
thought. A 1719 treatise by Pierre Py-Poulain De Launay, originally entitled
L’art d’apprendre à lire le français et le latin [The Art of Learning to Read French
and Latin] was republished by his son under the title Méthode pour apprendre
à lire le français et le latin par un système si aisé et si naturel qu’on y fait plus
de progrès en trois mois qu’en trois ans par la méthode ancienne et ordinaire
[Method for Learning to Read French and Latin Through Such an Easy and Natural
System That You Make More Progress in Three Months than in Three Years by
the Common and Ancient Method]! Py-Poulain De Launay extended the idea of
an agreeable education further than others had, suggesting the total elimination of
grammatical rules that posed any burden to children.
A practical and extremely influential example of the drive toward effortlessness
was the work of Louis Dumas. Dumas’s Bureau Typographique (1732) was based
on the premise that children begin their education too late, when their minds are
already infused with errors and false ideas, and that the tedious methods then
imposed on them create permanent disgust for learning. The Bureau was said to be
perfectly adapted to the child’s nature; through an elaborate system of card games,
it taught all subjects in a way that required no intellectual effort from children.
Dumas had an important influence on Claude César Chesneau Dumarsais,
whose famous books on grammar elaborated methods of teaching languages in
pleasurable ways. Dumarsais was a noteworthy figure because he applied Lockean
principles directly to specific topics like grammar. Like Dumas, Dumarsais

Jean Viguerie, Histoire et dictionnaire du temps des Lumières, 1715–1789 (Paris,
1995), p. 1290. Pluche himself had experience as a teacher, first at the Collège de Reims,
then directing the Collège de Laon, and finally as preceptor to the children of the intendant
of Rouen and Lord Stafford.

In particular, Exposition d’une méthode raisonnée pour apprendre la langue latine
(Paris, 1722) and Traité des Tropes (Paris, 1730). Dumarsais (1676–1756) was a lawyer, educator
(private tutor), grammarian, and editor of all Encyclopédie articles concerning grammar.
insisted that all children could absorb knowledge if it was properly communicated,
provided that teachers understood the “natural order” in which children learned.
During this time of transition in educational theory, the concept of “natural
order” was one of the most persistent and important themes. But it was also
an elusive notion, a hybrid of Cartesian and Lockean principles. The idea that
education must proceed by moving from the simple to the complex was inherited
from both Descartes and Locke. But, while for Cartesians “a ‘simple’ idea was
an abstract conception that possessed (in the exact sense of the term) clarity
and distinctness, for Locke, a ‘simple’ idea was the product of an immediate
sensation.”10 Educational theorists vacillated between these two interpretations,
using the idea of natural order to indicate children’s innate ability to reason from
clear principles, and pointing to their skill at absorbing knowledge through their
senses. While the Cartesian influence persisted, sometimes unacknowledged, most
French educational theorists were disciples of Locke and believed that virtue and
knowledge could be learned through effortless habits.11
It was in Rousseau’s work that the idea of natural order would receive its
most compelling incarnation. However, the combination of sensationism and
antirationalism that paved the way for this idea was nurtured “by the host of
obscure theorists who together form a great current of educational opinion dating
back to the middle of the seventeenth century”12 and whose work helps explain
why the educational ideas of Rousseau and Locke were so strongly embraced in
France during the eighteenth century.
One of these “obscure theorists” was Étienne-Gabriel Morelly,13 a “minor”
of the Enlightenment. Morelly is remembered mostly for his Code de la Nature
(attributed to Diderot for at least 50 years following its publication), a radical
utopian work that had a great influence on François Babeuf and later socialists.
But as we will see in the following chapters, in the 1740s Morelly wrote two
remarkable educational works in which Lockean and Cartesian principles battle
for supremacy and the tensions between various pedagogical concepts elaborated
in French literature are beautifully reconciled.
Although Dumarsais did not define what he meant by “all,” this phrase follows

long discourses in favor of the benefits of reason and a tirade against those who believe in
hiding the truth from people and depriving them of education. It is therefore possible that
Dumarsais meant to extend education beyond class borders more broadly than had many of
his colleagues.

Richard Coe, “The Idea of ‘Natural Order’ in French Education, 1600–1760,”
British Journal of Educational Studies, 5 (November 1956–May 1957): pp. 144–58.
10
Coe, “The Idea of ‘Natural Order,’” p. 148.
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid., p. 157. Coe is one of the few writers who fully acknowledges and discusses
the “revolution” in educational thought by the “forgotten generation immediately preceding
the publication of Emile” (156).
13
Guy Antonetti’s articles are the first to give Morelly his full name, Étienne-Gabriel.
He is still most often simply referred to by his last name.
Morelly’s Synthesis
Morelly was perhaps the first modern educational theorist. I define his theory as
modern because his Essais were the first to be self-consciously focused on creating
an educational framework through which the social, political, and philosophical
dilemmas posed by early Enlightenment theory could be reconciled. Moving beyond
the tentative steps taken by Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz, Morelly viewed education
as the vehicle through which individual liberation and social unity (and in his later
works political harmony) could be fully achieved. He offers us a unique view of
the ways in which educational theorists appropriated Enlightenment philosophy,
worked through its pedagogical implications, and drew conclusions about how
methods of learning in childhood could induce political and social change. It is
for these reasons that although scholars do not consider him to be a truly original
thinker, many recognize that “beginning in 1743, Morelly stated very precisely the
theories that would be taken up again by the Encyclopédistes.”14
In the early 1740s, before political and economic preoccupations began to
dominate his thoughts, Morelly wrote two educational treatises, Essai sur l’esprit
humain, ou principes naturels de l’éducation (1743) and Essai sur le coeur humain,
ou principes naturels de l’éducation (1745).15 In these works he intertwined
Cartesian and Lockean principles and built upon many of the elements elaborated
by his predecessors. In particular, he gave increasing attention to child psychology,
tried to reconcile the struggle between nature and habit, expanded on the concept
of natural order, and formulated a pedagogy that attempted to liberate individuals
in a radical way. More than any other educational theorist, Morelly appears to
foreshadow, or prepare the ground for, Rousseau, in both the tone and content of
his educational works.16 Drawing on the moral sense theorists, in particular the
14
Code de la nature, ou véritable esprit de ses loix, ed. Gilbert Chinard (Paris,
1950), p. 14.
15
All citations taken from Morelly, Essai sur l’esprit humain ou principes naturels
de l’éducation (Paris, 1743) and Essai sur le coeur humain ou principes naturels de
l’éducation (Paris, 1745). As far as I know, Morelly’s educational works have not been
examined separately or in detail, although both Richard Coe and Miriam Conant devote
substantial sections to analyzing their importance in the body of his work. See R.N.C. Coe,
“Le Philosophe Morelly: An Examination of the Political Principles of his Work, Seen in
Relation to the General Philosophical Background of the Eighteenth Century” (University
of Leeds Doctoral Thesis, 1954); Miriam B. Conant, “The Political and Social Ideas of
Morelly, with Emphasis on Early Imitators and Recent Critics” (Columbia University
Doctoral Thesis, 1962).
16
No one has been able to prove the influence of Morelly on Rousseau, although
many writers assume there was one, and a similarity of tone and aim is indisputable.
Charles Rihs asks, “Who today would dream of denying Morelly’s role in the pedagogical
works of Rousseau?” Rihs, “Les utopistes contre les Lumières,” Studies on Voltaire and
the Eighteenth Century, 57 (1967): p. 1322. In an article in Revue d’histoire littéraire de
la France, 14 (1912): pp. 414–15, Pierre Maurice Masson refutes a claim made by Daniel
earl of Shaftsbury, Francis Hutcheson, and Alexander Pope, Morelly constructed

an elaborate theory of innate sociability, and in the center of this theory he placed
a concept he called “sentiment intérieur” [inner feeling]—a concept with affinities
to Rousseau’s “lumière intérieure” or “voix intérieure” [inner light or inner voice].
In addition, as did the Genevan philosophe, Morelly focused his discussions on
the vital connection between nature and education and embraced the potential for
education to act as an impetus both for individual liberation and social harmony.
Finally, Morelly’s work is indicative of the growing tendency for thinkers to apply
concepts from political theory (natural law or social contract theory) to education.
In this, he foreshadowed Helvétius17 and many lesser-known educational thinkers
of the 1760s whose work we discuss later.
The Utopian Morelly
To call Morelly an “obscure” writer is an understatement. Until the middle of the

twentieth century almost nothing was known about him except that, according
to the journal France littéraire which reviewed his books on several occasions
between 1755 and 1758, he was a regent at the Collège de Vitry-le-François.18
Nicolas Wagner claims that we have no testimony of anyone ever physically
meeting Morelly,19 and Charles Rihs notes that except for some ambiguous remarks
there is no mention of him among his contemporaries.20 Morelly’s intellectual
Mornet that Rousseau never read Morelly’s work of 1753, Naufrage des îles flottantes, ou
Basiliade du célèbre Pilpai. Masson cites two passages, one from the Basiliade and the
other from Emile, which contain almost identical language (see Appendix 1). In addition,
Masson cites a letter from Rousseau to Mme d’Houdetot, written in March 1758, in which
Rousseau says that he had not yet read the “Îles Flottantes” that she lent him but asks her if
she would not mind if he kept the book for a while.
17
Gilbert Chinard makes a good case for Morelly’s influence on Helvétius. See Code
de la nature, ou le véritable esprit de ses loix, pp. 110–12.
18
However, although his educational works point to extensive experience with young
children, there is no record of him at the archives of Vitry-le-François and no information
regarding his pedagogical activities in any other capacity. He could have been a private tutor
or teacher in a small pension, but again there is no evidence. For a detailed investigation into
Morelly’s biography, see Antonetti, Guy, “Étienne-Gabriel Morelly: l’homme et sa famille”
and “Étienne-Gabriel Morelly: l’écrivain et ses protecteurs,” Revue d’histoire littéraire de
la France, 3 (May–June 1983): pp. 390–402, and 1 (January–February, 1984): pp. 19–52.
19
Nicolas Wagner, Morelly, le méconnu des Lumières (Paris, 1978).
20
Charles Rihs, Les philosophes utopistes: Le mythe de la cité communautaire en
France au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1970). There are, however, two letters from Diderot, one in
May 1770 and the other in September 1772, in which he acknowledges that people think he
wrote the Code. He denies authorship and in fact insists that he had not even read the work.
He does not mention the name of Morelly. The Code continued to be attributed to Diderot
for 50 years, and some have conjectured that Diderot’s failure to refute his authorship
signifies his desire to protect Morelly.
influences have also proved difficult to trace.21 Guy Antonetti argues (not always
convincingly) that Morelly had contact with Dumarsais and Helvétius and that
both acted as his patrons but later abandoned him.22 Antonetti also posits that
Morelly became deeply disillusioned with the regime of Louis XV in 1748 after
the treaty of Aix-La-Chapelle, which ended the war of Austrian Succession but at
the cost of delivering all French conquests back to England and Austria. Morelly’s
anger and disenchantment can be seen in the tone of his later works, especially
the Code de la nature, where it becomes clear that he no longer believed changes
could be realized through educational reform. Rather, a radical break with the
entire economic and political system would be required.23
Although we can say little about Morelly’s personal reasons for turning from a
reformist to a radical utopian thinker, it is certain that in the time between his early
Essais of the mid-1740s and his Code of 1755 the intellectual and political climate
in France had changed significantly. Although in the early part of his reign Louis
XV was fondly known as Louis le bien-aimé, in the late 1740s and the 1750s he
made a series of errors after which he never regained his popularity. In particular,
the uneasy peace with the Jansenists, achieved under Louis’ minister Cardinal
Fleury, was broken. In 1749, the new archbishop of Paris Christophe de Beaumont
began to enforce the bull Unigenitus of 1713, depriving Jansenists and anyone
who did not submit to the bull from receiving the sacraments.24 The fact that the
French public was scandalized at the sight of Jansenists being refused their last
21
The situation is further complicated by the fact that in 1758 and 1769, France
littéraire posited the theory of the two Morellys, father and son. The early, nonpolitical
works (the educational essays and a book on aesthetics from 1748, entitled Physique de la
beauté) were attributed to the father and the later, more political works (Le Prince, 1751,
and Basiliade, 1753) to the son. This debate has for the most part been resolved, and it is
assumed that there is only one Morelly, whose thought evolved over time. In 1804, Antoine
Alexandre Barbier established that Morelly had written the Code. See Antoine Alexandre
Barbier, Dictionnaire des Ouvrages anonymes (4 vols, Paris, 1964).
22
Antonetti, Étienne-Gabriel, “Morelly l’homme et sa famille” and “Étienne-Gabriel
Morelly: l’écrivain et ses protecteurs.” Like most commentators, Antonetti mentions
Morelly’s educational works only in passing. His argument concerning Morelly’s life and
thought is based on an analysis of his political ideas and their influence.
23
For other discussions of Morelly, see André Lichtenberg, Le socialisme au XVIIIe
siècle: Études sur les idées socialistes dans les écrivains français au XVIIIe siècle avant la
Revolution (Paris, 1895); Morelly: Code de la nature, ed. Edouard Dolléans (Paris, 1910);
Nicolas Wagner, Morelly, le Méconnu des Lumières (Paris, 1978).
24
The Jansenists were initially considered dangerous because their religious beliefs
threatened to provoke a schism in the Catholic Church. Many of their views appeared to be
more Calvinist than Catholic, and in addition they weakened the role of priests with their
emphasis on individual faith. In 1713, the Pope issued the bull Unigenitus, which condemned
the work of the Jansenist Quesnel, Réflexions Morales. The ensuing struggle to force clergy
to accept the bull led to intense controversy within the Church and between the Church and
parlement. By the early eighteenth century, the struggle with Jansenism had become tied
up with political and intellectual issues that were only indirectly related to the Jansenist
rights was significant, but the reason that the mid-century conflict turned into a
crisis was that it became entangled with an even more pressing problem—the role
of the parlements in French political life.
Although only a few parlement members were Jansenists many more were
sympathizers, if only because they shared with the Jansenists a common enemy,
the Jesuits. In the early 1750s, the Jansenists turned to the parlement of Paris
for help. The parlement’s decision to challenge the findings of the ecclesiastical
courts by hearing appeals on the issue of the refusal of sacraments led to their exile
in 1753. This was only one of many conflicts between the King and parlement,
culminating in Maupeou’s coup of 1771.25 Although the Jansenist crisis eventually
subsided, the King’s inconsistent attitude toward the parlement not only weakened
his personal power but also put the legitimacy of the monarchy into question.
By the time Morelly wrote his Code in 1755 he must have been preoccupied,
like so many political and social thinkers, with the question of what kind of
government French men and women should live under. In his 1748 Esprit des
lois, Montesquieu warned against the dangers of despotism and characterized
the parlements as France’s legitimate intermediary powers, guaranteeing the
fundamental laws of the country. The Morelly known to history is from this period
at mid-century—one of the radical, disenchanted voices moving beyond the
cautious admonitions of aristocrats like Montesquieu and calling for an end to all
economic, social, and political inequalities.
Most of the utopian writers, including Morelly, the curé Meslier, and Dom
Deschamps, were “minors” of the Enlightenment, whose important influence on
the philosophes has been underestimated.26 The utopians challenged the idea of
moderate reforms and theoretical freedoms, pushing Enlightenment theories toward
their logical conclusions and challenging the social conservatism of the philosophes.
They had both a more pessimistic view of their society than the latter (insisting that
the causes of corruption had deeper roots than the philosophes assumed) and held
greater hopes for the possibility of radical reform (believing that human beings
could create a new world in which they could live together harmoniously).
ideology itself, and many French philosophes and parlementary magistrates used their
support of Jansenism as an indirect way to attack the Jesuits or to criticize the monarchy.
25
In 1771, Louis XV’s minister Maupeou exiled the parlements. They remained in
exile until the death of Louis XV in 1774.
26
For example, Meslier’s Testament influenced Voltaire and Dom Deschamps’s Le Vrai
Système influenced Diderot. See Rihs, Les philosophes utopistes, p. 8. In my discussion of
utopian thought during the Enlightenment, I have also drawn on the following works: Leslie
Tihany, “Utopia in Modern Western Thought: the Metamorphosis of an Idea,” in Richard
Herr and Harold Parker (eds.), Ideas in History; Essays Presented to Louis Gottschalk
(Durham, 1965), pp. 20–38; Annette Bridgman, “Aspects of Education in Eighteenth-
Century Utopias,” Studies on Voltaire in the Eighteenth Century, 167 (Oxford, 1977):
pp. 569–85; Howard Ozmon, Utopias and Education (Minneapolis, 1969); J.J. Talmon,
The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (New York, 1960), Ch. 4 on Morelly.
The central attack of the utopians reached beyond the philosophes’ criticisms
of the Church and the divine right Monarchy. They claimed that the state as an
institution was irredeemably corrupted by its history and its links to the Church, and
an entirely new ethical and political system had to be adopted. More importantly,
the philosophes considered private property to be a problematic but inevitable fact
of human society, created by history and impossible to eradicate without fatally
undermining the foundations of society and state. In contrast, the utopian theorists
identified private property as one of the most important causes of misery and
inequality, and insisted that its eradication was the necessary condition of societal
reform. Morelly in particular earned the title of “the only consistent Communist
among eighteenth-century thinkers”27 because he is considered to be one of the first
to have created an ethical system based fully on economic considerations, in which
good and evil were indefinable apart from a secular, social, and economic justice.
The “minors” were distinguished from the philosophes by their social and
economic status, the content of their work, which reflected this status, and the ways
in which their works were and still are received. Generally, they came from the
lower middle or lower classes, and their writings reflected a direct experience of
“le peuple.”28 The research done by Wagner and Antonetti confirms this idea by
suggesting that Morelly was a simple teacher from an unimportant family, drawn away
from his work by rich patrons who offered him the promise of joining high society
and becoming famous. For unknown reasons, he seems to have been abandoned by
his patrons and returned to an anonymous life, embittered and radicalized.29
The utopians were also inspired by a long tradition of writing that included
the classical utopian works of Plato, Thomas More, and Tomasso Campanella; the
legacy of the early Christian societies; and the travel literature of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries that documented the lives and political systems of
native peoples in newly discovered lands. The images related in this literature
confronted Europeans with difficult questions about their society, religion, and
culture. Stories of the New World presented them with a picture of themselves as
hardened individuals, out of touch with their nature, and in a constant state of war
with their brothers. These tales also offered them the possibilities of rediscovering
their innocence and formulating a new ideal of collective existence. The utopian
thinkers took the message of travel literature to heart and experimented in their
writing with ways to combine the benefits of their civilization with the values of
newly discovered societies. Before writing the Basiliade and Code, Morelly read
and was influenced by the descriptions of Inca life portrayed in the writing of
Garcilasso de la Vega.30
27
Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, p. 52.
28
Rihs, Les philosophes utopistes, pp. 8–10.
29
There is little direct evidence for this view, except for a bitter passage in Basiliade
that seems to be autobiographical.
30
Chinard’s edition of the Code shows that the work was influenced by both Thomas
More and Garcillasso de la Vega.
The transition from the reformist Morelly of the Essais to the radical utopian
Morelly of the Code is instructive not only in what it tells us about one particular
thinker. Like many works of the early Enlightenment, Morelly’s Essais reveal
a confident belief in the potential for education to improve social relations by
transforming individuals. In contrast, his later work is representative of a growing
trend in the latter half of the eighteenth century in which education, rather than
being an instrument of individual liberation, acts as a reflection of economic,
social, and political transformation.
Chapter 5
Morelly and Individual Education:
Essai sur l’esprit humain
Morelly’s educational works are the product of his youth. Written before his
encounter with Parisian society, they reveal a young man trying to reconcile new
ideas with his experience as a teacher. Taken together, they represent a unique
attempt to resolve the developing tensions in educational thought between nature
and habit, individual and social education, freedom and constraint, utilitarian and
enlightenment-driven education, science and art.
Morelly’s Essais are influenced by a wide range of thinkers. He is inspired
by French educational theorists, including Montaigne, Rollin, Fleury, Dumarsais,
and Pluche. He draws on Newton haphazardly, mostly in his occasional use and
transposition of the concept of gravitation. He also employs mathematical and
mechanistic language to describe the workings of the human body as well as the
social organism. He invokes Descartes’ dualism, appeal to the use of clear and
distinct ideas, and admonition to “conduct my thoughts in such order that, by
commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by
little and little to the knowledge of the more complex.” Morelly is also a disciple
of Locke, influenced by his discussion of the role of habit and nature in the
educational process and the theory of the mind developed in the Essay Concerning
Human Understanding.
What is particular to Morelly is that he balances sensationist principles with
theories of moral sentiment and natural sociability in a more explicit fashion
than other educational theorists. Although he draws most heavily from the vision
outlined in Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man, in his discussion of the moral sense
he is inspired by a broad spectrum of theorists, including J.-B. Rousseau, Jacques
Abbadie, Samuel Pufendorf, Richard Cumberland, Ashley Cooper, third earl of
Shaftsbury, Francis Hutcheson, and Louis-Jean Lévesque de Pouilly. In the first
Essai, where Morelly is only beginning to formulate his ideas, he sounds more

René Descartes, Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher
la vérité dans les sciences (Paris, 1999), p. 27.

Richard N.C. Coe tells us that before and during the time he wrote his educational
treatises, Morelly’s reading list consisted of the educational works of Montaigne, Lancelot,
Locke, Rollin, Pluche, Crousaz, Dumarsais, Buffier, Dumas, and de Jouvency as well as the
political and social works of Locke, Hobbes, Pope, and Mandeville. Coe, “Le Philosophe
Morelly: An Examination of the Political Principles of his Work, Seen in Relation to
the General Philosophical Background of the Eighteenth Century” (University of Leeds
Doctoral Thesis, 1954). Morelly is also influenced by the contract theory of Hugo Grotius,
Samuel Pufendorff, and Thomas Hobbes. Coe, “Le Philosophe Morelly”; Miriam B. Conant
like an educational theorist in the tradition of Rollin or Crousaz, albeit one who is
exploring the philosophical aspects of education much more fully. However, in the
second Essai he appears to draw on Shaftsbury and Hutcheson as he investigates
the individual’s aesthetic and moral appreciation of order and harmony in the
universe and the idea of natural sociability. At first he only implies that human
beings have an innate moral sense, but eventually he puts forth a view that he will
only fully elaborate in the Code de la nature: men’s moral sense can be linked
to their appreciation of order in nature and in the universe, and this appreciation
for order is linked to their natural need for physical satisfaction—a satisfaction
produced by the perception of order. If this is so, then there is a sense in which
satisfactions of the mind and heart—produced through the individual’s connection
to and appreciation of other human beings—can be considered to have physical
sources. In his second Essai, as well as in his discussion of education in the Code,
Morelly will draw on this idea to make one of his most original contributions to
the pedagogical literature of the Enlightenment.
Epistemology/Sensationism
Morelly’s first work, Essai sur l’esprit humain, ou, principes naturels de
l’éducation, is devoted almost entirely to an analysis of the physical and
psychological constitution of individuals and to the search for the correct method
of instilling ideas into the minds of children. It is difficult to imagine that the
author of this work is the same man who will write the Basiliade and the Code,
both of which are preoccupied with problems of social and economic life. Aside
from the last few pages of the first Essai, there is no social commentary, no
radical criticism of society, and no attempt to draw political conclusions from
educational premises (he draws broad philosophical conclusions from educational
“The Political and Social Ideas of Morelly, with Emphasis on Early Imitators and Recent
Critics” (Columbia University Doctoral Thesis, 1962).

Richard Coe considers these ideas to be influenced by Lévesque de Pouilly. See
Coe, Sources of the “Théories des Besoins” in Morelly Philosophe, Ch. 4. Coe considers
the principal influences to be: J.-B. Rousseau, Ode a M. le Marquis de la Fare (1753);
Jacques Abbadie, L’Art de se Connoître soi-même (1692); Samuel Pufendorf, De jure
naturae et gentium libri octo (1672); Richard Cumberland, De Legibus naturae Disquisitio
philosophica (1672); earl of Shaftsbury, Inquiry Concerning Virtue, or Merit (1699); Francis
Hutcheson, Inquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725); Louis-Jean
Lévesque de Pouilly, Théorie des Sentimens Agréables (1747). There are many affinities
between Shaftsbury and Hutcheson and Stoic philosophy. The stoics also considered natural
love of order to be a moral good as well as a personal joy. However, what distinguishes
moral sense theory and, what is so clear in Morelly’s later work, is the appeal to the idea of
“natural affection” as the reason why order is perceived or enjoyed. We do not merely grasp
the external order because it reflects reason and we are rational beings, but because we have
particular qualities (affections) that allow us to grasp it, qualities that reveal the connection
between our own happiness and love, pity and beneficence.
Morelly and Individual Education 129
premises but does not yet link these to problems of social life). Only in the second
Essai will Morelly attempt to draw on his educational principles to interpret the
social aspect of human character. In his first work, he presents his readers with a
detailed elaboration of several epistemological and educational theories, based on
an assimilation of seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century views. The
influences are apparent in his opening paragraph:
I write for man, and I consider him from infancy onwards; I observe the
movements of his spirit and the progress of his knowledge; and as he is sentient
before being rational it is by watching his sensations that I search to discover the
first steps that reason leads him to take, in order to regulate them for the benefit
of the mind, which often influences the heart.
In this statement, and what follows in the text, Morelly identifies himself as a
student of early Enlightenment educational thought. He regards man as a worthy
object of study and considers individuals as neutral beings whose essence is
unknown and must be uncovered gradually. By observing children, he intends
to discover clues to human nature rather than imposing pre-established concepts
of nature on children. Morelly confidently assumes that a child’s life begins with
his sensations, but he is equally sure that eventually these lead him to reason
and that, through an analysis of this developmental process, one can come to an
understanding of the mind and human motivation. Finally, he seeks to discover the
nature of the human soul (its moral capacity) in children’s external behaviour and
reasoning processes, rather than assuming qualities of the soul (its sinful nature)
in order to regulate the behavior and the minds of children. Like most educational
theorists of his time, Morelly elevates the status of the child, who, rather than
having an age-old educational system imposed on him will have his own nature
examined for clues as how to make the educational process work.
Morelly goes further than Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz in his interpretation of
sensationism, offering his readers a detailed analysis of the human mind and soul
based on a combination of Cartesian and Lockean principles. Although he embraces
Locke’s sensationist psychology and rejects innate ideas, he is reluctant to give up
Cartesian dualism. Even in his later political work he assumes the existence of a
soul separate from the body, imbued with an abstract (although never adequately
defined) consciousness of its own existence. His works are permeated with the
mechanistic and mathematical languages of Descartes, Newton, and even Julien
Offray de La Mettrie, and the avowed aim of his project is to discover laws of
human nature that will ultimately lead to the regulation of the collective “machine.”

Étienne-Gabriel Morelly, Essai sur l’esprit humain ou principes naturels de
l’éducation (Paris, 1743), p. a. Henceforth, this title will be cited directly following quotations
as “EE.”

Morelly seems to have been influenced by La Mettrie’s emphasis on the machine-
like nature of man and the importance of education in regulating these machines. La Mettrie
himself gives much credit to education, claiming that only education “tears us from the
However, he clearly does not want to find himself in the materialist universe of La
Mettrie’s L’Homme-Machine and protectively wraps human beings in an abstract,
almost mystical garment of “nature” that cannot be reduced to sensations or physical
phenomena. This dichotomy is apparent in Morelly’s use of the term esprit, which
at times he uses when referring strictly to the mind, but which often (primarily in
the second Essai) includes the mind and heart together, or the soul.
In both the first and second Essais, Morelly presents his readers with a detailed,
often repetitive, and at times inconsistent theory of human nature, which informs all
his later work. The principal elements of this theory are the following: the organs
with which man is born are directly linked to the soul, which comprises the spirit
and the heart. Through these organs, the soul is affected by external objects. The
soul has no ideas; it is an “empty field” (EE 3) or a mirror pulled from behind a
curtain and exposed to the millions of objects that it reflects. The impressions and
ideas received through the organs can be affected by several factors, such as the
natural disposition of the organs or the movement of objects and the environment
in which objects are situated. Objects make their way into the mind by exciting
our senses, which create impressions, which in turn stimulate our imagination and
memory, prompting the mind to reflect and eventually to develop judgment. To
perfect education, one needs a clear understanding of this mécanique [mechanism]
(EE 3) of the organs and of the relationship of the organs to the spirit and the heart.
Morelly’s analysis of the organs and of their functioning, which is more detailed
than we have seen so far in an educational treatise, serves to make several points.
First, like his predecessors he insists that education must follow the intellectual
capability and the sensual nature of children, for if they are made to reason about
things beyond their understanding their natural receptive mechanism can be
ruined. Second, because of the way the brain and heart are structured, there is a
level [of animals] and elevates us above them.” Julien Offray de La Mettrie, ‘L’Homme
Machine’ in Man A Machine (Peru, 1993), p. 42.

In his use of the word esprit, Morelly anticipates something of Rousseau’s vision of
the soul. In the first Essai, he is primarily interested in the formation of the mind and usually
uses esprit to mean mind. However, in the second Essai he discusses the effect of the senses
on the heart, by which he means the way in which individuals interpret sensual experiences
as pleasurable or painful. Here he begins to argue that individuals feel pleasure not only
because of physical sensations, but also because they link things like love or gratitude to
pleasure. In both Essais and his Code de la nature, he also speaks of something he calls
“sentiment intérieur” (which I discuss below), man’s personal instrument for perceiving
order and justice in the world. Thus, at times when Morelly speaks of esprit he includes
both the idea of the mind as an organ that receives impressions and the whole human soul,
mind, heart, and sentiment intérieur. At times he uses the word âme with similar meanings
as those used for esprit.

Coe correctly points out that one of the reasons Morelly’s later work is not fully
understood or is considered inconsistent is that most of his readers never read his early
Essais on education and fail to realize that the philosophical basis for the Code can be found
only in these works.
“natural” (timely) way in which the spirit and heart acquire ideas (from simple to
complex, specific to general), and consequently there is a definite order in which
information should be introduced into children’s minds. Finally, he implies that
in their essential physical structure, and their reactions to external stimuli, human
beings are all the same.
Morelly’s Theory of Nature and “Natural Order”: A Precursor to

Rousseau’s “Negative Education”?
Morelly will base his educational principles on the interpretation of human nature
outlined above. But what does he mean by “nature” or “natural”? Notwithstanding
the frequent references to nature and Morelly’s assertion that his work is based on
Alexander Pope’s maxim “the precepts of Art are those of Nature” (EE ai), his use
of the concept of nature in his Essais is extremely convoluted and never clearly
defined. It is important that we try and grasp his meaning, however, because his
notion of education is intimately linked to the idea of what is natural, either in
the external world or the human body. Morelly, of course, is not unique in his
conceptualization; the twin agendas of eighteenth-century pedagogical theorists—
to mold education to that which is natural or to adapt nature to political, social,
and educational exigencies—are the driving force behind all the works discussed
here. But Morelly develops the idea of natural order and natural education more
thoroughly than any other theorist, with the exception of Rousseau.
The most important source for Morelly’s concept of “natural order” is
Dumarsais, who was perhaps the first to use the phrase in an educational context.
Dumarsais attributed children’s disgust with work and their hatred of books not
only to the tedious methods of the collège or the unsuitable contents of literary
works, but to the fact that information is not presented to them an order that
corresponds to the nature of their minds. He argued:
The natural order of things dictates that we only reflect on concrete particular
ideas already imprinted on the mind; otherwise the reflections are unable to link
themselves in the imagination of the child, and therein lies the source of this
hatred and this scorn.10
In contrast to the old method, Dumarsais suggested teaching children the meaning of
simple words in Latin using translations and a dictionary. Only once the significance

Morelly shares this lack of precision concerning the concept of nature with most
educational theorists. Rousseau defines nature in at least five different ways in Emile
(see Ch. 10).

See César Chesnau Dumarsais, “Lettre a M***” in Oeuvres complètes de Du
Marsais (Paris, 1782), p. 149.
10
Ibid., p. 150.
of a word is “engraved in the spirit”11 should the fundamentals of declension and

rules of syntax be discussed. In the same way, a child cannot begin geometry, or
understand the abstract principle of a whole that is greater than its parts, unless he
already has experienced this difference in a simple and concrete way.
The crucial point for Dumarsais was that the amount of time needed for such
work should not be fixed but that learning should continue as long as children require
for understanding. Thus he followed in the tradition of Locke through Fleury, Rollin,
and Crousaz, reinterpreting the methods of education in light of the physical and
psychological needs and rhythms of a child’s body and mind. But he went beyond
these earlier thinkers in the sense that he described in great detail the essence of this
natural order and developed specific educational methods based on his findings.
Morelly’s idea of natural order is consistently informed by Dumarsais’s.
Morelly insists from the beginning of his work that one must “conform education
to nature” (EE aiii) and “arrange the sciences in the natural order in which we must
present them to the mind” (EE aiv):
Our mind [âme] is created for order, and always carries out mental operations
freely, rejecting with distaste everything that is obscure and confused … .
Objects must be presented [to our minds] in an orderly way, with any given thing
following from the preceding thing naturally and deliberately. It is necessary
that our mind [âme] be able to recognize each thing before accepting it, that it
knows where to place that particular thing without confusion, in order to retain
it without difficulty. (EE 116)
For both Dumarsais and Morelly, this concept of natural order is closely linked to
the idea of timeliness—introducing impressions and ideas to children only when
they are capable of absorbing them. This interpretation pushes Morelly to discuss
the element of time in education in a way that foreshadows Rousseau, although
with significant differences. Anticipating Rousseau, Morelly insists that education
should never force or retard intellectual movement, but rather it should act as an
aid. In contrast to Rousseau, however, who encourages teachers to “lose” time in
education (primarily with the goal of delaying the onset of sexuality), Morelly
claims that one of the benefits of understanding natural order is that it allows
teachers to accelerate the learning process by understanding exactly what and how
much information can be presented to children at each stage of their development.
In both language and tone, Morelly’s method of applying this theory of natural
order to the learning process anticipates Rousseau’s theory of “negative education.”
Because Morelly believes that information (including knowledge about the
nature of virtue) is absorbed through the senses “without any effort of the mind”
(EE 40), he considers that reason plays almost no part in early childhood education.
Simple objects such as animals, furniture, or the moon require no mental effort or
reasoning power to grasp. The best way for parents to become attuned to the laws
of “natural” learning, Morelly suggests, is to speak to their children’s eyes rather
Ibid., p. 151.
11
than their minds. Rather than calling children’s attention to particular objects,
parents should allow their soul to wander from object to object, never interrupting
the “purely machine-like movement” (EE 37) of their beings. Both here and in the
second Essai, Morelly emphasizes the nonverbal element in this early training,
recognizing that children’s perceptions are prelingual and spontaneous. He defines
education as a hybrid process, lying somewhere between an art and a science,
which “takes man from his most tender childhood and guides him, step by step,
from one object to another, with almost no words” (EE 30). Morelly agrees with
his predecessors that education can and should be presented as a game in order to
suit the natural tendencies of children. But he moves beyond Fleury or Crousaz
and more in the direction of Dumas and Dumarsais, inventing a detailed method
whereby children can learn the alphabet.12
The Education of Girls: A Model for Boys
Morelly further applies his ideas on natural education to an analysis of the education
of girls. His conclusions are unique in French eighteenth-century educational
literature, although in their logic they again foreshadow Rousseau. Rather than
deplore the lack of instruction offered to girls, Morelly suggests that in reality girls
receive a better education than boys, and their education should serve as a model
for that of boys.
Morelly argues that the education of girls conforms to nature and to the
spontaneous development of the mind and heart. Girls learn at a natural pace, by
conversation, observation, and through interaction with their mothers. They are
offered information only as their minds are able to absorb it, and most of the time
they do not even realize that they are being educated. They are never asked to
memorize or to recite texts or facts, and even when it comes to academic subjects
such as history or geography, girls learn by reading and practice rather than
memorization or recitation. In other words, they are never forced to reason about
anything except that which they already understand perfectly. Morelly claims that
as a result of this education, and not because their organs are superior, girls’ reason
is better formed than that of the latter. In the case of boys, he complains, education
reverses the order of nature. Boys are expected to know too much too soon; they
are stuffed with information that is linked to neither their lives nor their stage-
specific intellectual abilities, and hence they make poor use of their reason.
Although Morelly does not offer girls new educational opportunities, he
appears to believe that interactions among girls and women can be used as a model
of education. He never argues that women are inferior to men, either by nature or
culture, nor does he identify the overeducation of women as a source or reflection
of corrupt modern life (as does Crousaz and later Rousseau). In this respect, he
foreshadows his own Code de la nature and Helvétius’s De l’Esprit, works that
12
The similarity with Rousseau is striking not only in theory, but also in the language, in
the methods of practical application, and in intention. See Morelly, Essai sur l’esprit, pp. 41–2.
argue for full equality between the sexes. And although Morelly claims that for
society to function well each individual should receive an education that fits his
or her place in that society, in practice he is much less insistent on this point than
Fleury or some of his contemporaries. The ultimate goal of his treatise is more like
that of Rousseau’s Emile: to educate the “human being” rather than the citizen.13
The Dance of Habit and Nature
Morelly’s theory of the body’s natural physical mechanism and the importance of
order provide him with a solid argument for the crucial role of habit in education.
Given the physical mechanism shared by all individuals, he believes that correct
habits can make human beings fundamentally alike. Consequently, in his first Essai
he assigns a strong role to habit, “that which rigidifies and forms the organs so that
they always function in the same way when presented with the same objects”
(EE 27). He also points to the power of education, which “constrains the humours
and often disposes them to function otherwise than they would naturally” (EE 18).
However, there is another quite contrary way in which Morelly uses the concept
of nature and natural order, which directly contradicts these claims in support of the
notion that habit and education can mold individuals. Immediately following his
description of the mécanique of the body, he introduces a complex and exhausting
theory of personality types in a section entitled “the differential refinement of the
sense organs is the cause of variations we see in character types” (EE 13).14 This
theory, also based on an interpretation of what is “natural” (meaning in this case
innate rather than timely), dramatically redresses the delicate balance between
nature and habit and foreshadows Rousseau’s attempt to rescue individuality
from the increasingly dominant concept of education through habit that was being
developed by French educational thinkers. Morelly argues that despite the similarity
in the physical mechanism of all human beings and the role of habit in forming
nature, the innate differences in the organs of individuals are so significant that they
13
In theory, Morelly concurs with the generally accepted wisdom that education should
be “useful” and criticizes the useless learning acquired in schools. However, Morelly is not
a revolutionary in terms of educational content, and in fact his suggestions for curriculum
reform are more modest than Fleury’s. While he contends that the method of learning Latin
should be modified, he does not object to its large place in the curriculum. Nor does he
eliminate religious education from the life of children. Instead, he combines a simplified
version of religious training with some mystical elements that foreshadow Rousseau’s
natural religion. The reformist elements of his work are found in his interpretation of human
nature and social life rather than in the proposals for curriculum reform.
14
It is difficult to establish the possible influences on Morelly’s understanding of
personality types. Locke is certainly a candidate since in his Some Thoughts he discussed
various ways to identify various personalities. Morelly also could have been drawing from
works by Montesquieu or La Mettrie, which discussed the influence of climate or culture on
personality. Morelly’s view seems to be based only in part on a traditional notion of les humeurs,
which identified personalities as melancholic, phlegmatic, and other similar categories.
generate an immeasurable variety of reactions to sense impressions. Individuals are

naturally predisposed to different reactions by the delicacy, strength, size, or shape
of their internal organs as well as differences in their external physique. Thus nature,
initially represented as universal and determined by a collective mécanique, is also
particular, represented by differences in the individual mécanique of each body.15
The content of Morelly’s exhaustive theory of personality types is less important
than the intention, which reveals that even though he bases much of his educational
philosophy on the tabula rasa theory, he is apprehensive about its implications.
While sensationist principles potentially empowered the educational process and
opened the door to equality among all people, as we saw in the previous chapters
they also presented significant dangers. Educators, overly enthusiastic about the
malleability of their students and encouraged to indulge in their powers as sculptors,
could end by disregarding individuality or spontaneity in the educational process.
Morelly seems to offer his system of personality types as an obstacle to his own
theory of universal nature, insisting that notwithstanding their similarities human
beings have deep-seated genetic traits that cannot be overlooked. To educated
individuals properly, these differences must be understood on a case-by-case
basis. Morelly thereby joins the struggle of educational theorists to balance nature
and habit and to reconcile the principles of sensationist psychology with notions
of human freedom and individuality.
The basic premise behind Morelly’s theory of personality types is that given
the infinite variety of sense organs, there must be an infinite number of ways in
which individuals receive impressions from objects, and because of the intimate
connection between the body and soul, an unlimited variety of human experiences
and personalities. The structure of Morelly’s personality types is too intricate to
reconstruct in detail, but the essential premises underlying the theory are important
to recognize; in both Essais Morelly describes with exhaustive specificity the
possible differences in personality types based on everything from the size of the
internal organs to the shape of eyes. He breaks down personality types into general
categories such as “heavy–slow,” “moderate,” and “lively” based on the delicacy
and shape of organs. He then describes the many ways in which these differences
affect the reception and processing of impressions. At the end of the first Essai,
Morelly argues that while it is difficult to attribute personality traits to external
physical attributes, there is no reason to think that external attributes are arbitrary
or unrelated to character. The shape of the eyes, forehead, mouth, and body are
all marks of personality and should be incorporated in the study of individuals.
If an individual’s eyes are too small, for example, less light and fewer impressions
15
Morelly does not offer his readers an explanation for why he develops an elaborate
theory of personality types. In the second Essai he claims that the reason for the analysis
is to discover why men often act in ways that are not in line with their character. See
Morelly, Essai sur le coeur humain, ou principes naturels de l’éducation (Paris, 1745),
p. xxvi. This account is in line with the tenor of Morelly’s second Essai that aims to
determine the reasons and solutions for social discord.
will penetrate his mind, and he might be fooled into reasoning incorrectly about
the external environment. To complicate things further, Morelly describes how all
these different reactions will develop over the course of childhood into full-scale
habits and personality traits, affecting the way an individual learns, listens to others,
or cares for friends. In essence, Morelly analyzes various familiar character traits
backward into childhood and suggests that there can be very physical reasons for
seemingly random behavior.
But just when we think Morelly has put forth an argument for individual
difference, he makes it clear that he does not aim to tip the balance in favor of habit
or nature, but rather to offer as many opinions on the nature–habit issue as possible!
He thus increases further the variety of personalities by revisiting the role of habit
and restating the role education can play in countering physical predisposition. He
offers a detailed discussion of external circumstances that shape people’s lives,
which include the unpredictable vicissitudes of life, the kind of food people eat,
the air they breathe, their age, their religion, their profession, and whether they
live in the city or country or are poor or rich. The environment has such an effect,
writes Morelly, that it can alter a person to the extent that he no longer resembles
his natural self and is left only with a “dominant habit” (EE 18).
External differences affect not only the way people feel, but also how they
perceive objects.16 Morelly joins the large group of Enlightenment writers who
attempt to secularize morality and locate vice in intellectual error, which is a result
of incorrect habits of perceiving and faulty reasoning, rather than in moral error,
which can be considered innate. Although vice and virtue are as closely linked to
education as they were in the past, the difference lies in the interpretation of the
origins of virtue and vice. The new emphasis on man’s sensual nature and moral
neutrality leads educational theorists to locate vice in ideas rather than in qualities
or the soul’s disposition. Thus errors do not take place on the moral but on the
physical plane (the body must receive sensory impressions in the correct order
otherwise it will be led astray), and in the process of proper development morality
is only the outcome.
In these arguments Morelly seems to anticipate his later work, pointing out that
the prejudices acquired in youth not only lead to intellectual error, but also can
provide faulty justifications for depraved cultural norms that perpetuate glaring
inequalities. Without drawing the conclusion directly that man is naturally good
but corrupted by society, he takes a strong position against those who blame the
human condition on the nature of man rather than on his defective education.
16
Morelly’s analysis here anticipates a great deal of later thinking on the influence
of culture and class on thought and being. For example, he claims that a rich and a poor
man will have entirely different interpretations of the same idea, like wealth. Our ways of
thinking are so deeply affected by our habits that we cannot even define vice and virtue
without reference to our positions in life. For example rank, Morelly argues, is not simply an
accident of birth that determines our position in life; it creates an entire way of being, seeing,
perceiving, and understanding language that is almost impossible to eradicate in later years.
Morelly’s discussion of habit and nature in the educational process reveals the
apprehension at the heart of the pedagogical debate during mid-century about the
role of education in the development of individuality—defined alternatively as the
will to self-expression, the possession of a particular temperament, or a capacity
for developing a social–moral sense independent from religious indoctrination.
We saw this apprehension in the works of Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz, although
they did not recognize or confront it directly. Morelly is one of the first educational
theorists who appears to have perceived that the new interpretations of human
nature could lead to conflicts between the pedagogical methods I referred to in the
Introduction as “external conditioning” and those of “internal drawing-out.” In the
first Essai, he attempts to find a possible resolution by joining the notion of the
malleable self to a theory of personality types. In his later work, he will supplement
this effort by drawing on a broad range of philosophical principles through which
he hopes to reconcile the individual and social strains of his educational project.
Education in the World: Une Expérience Anticipée
Morelly adopts another important educational principle developed by his

predecessors and that is linked to the problem of nature and habit: the idea
that children should be educated in the world rather than cloistered from it and
taught about society rather than tossed into it unprepared. Morelly invokes both
nature and habit to justify arguments for education through experience. Nature is
crucial because children naturally learn to judge and reflect from direct (sensual)
experiences of the world. Habit is also necessary because proper habituation
requires children to have early encounters with society and morality, which
condition them to proper behavior. As we have seen, however, notwithstanding
the universality of appeals to useful education and to an education in and for
this-worldly life, educational theorists do not appear to have found a means of
offering children an “apprenticeship for life” that did not threaten their other
major educational goal: protecting children from harmful external impressions or
influences, carefully controlling their experience, and regulating the amount of
education offered to the lower classes.
Surprisingly, one of the ways Morelly hopes to apply his hybrid plan—practical
education for life that the student acquires while remaining at a safe distance from
life—is by deploying his theory of personality types. He suggests that teachers
use psychological analysis as a method of educating children. The child’s tutor
is told to bring his pupil into the world and teach him systematically the laws
of hereditary predisposition and environmental influence; in this way, children
can learn about the world and about human nature by observation. In the second
Essai Morelly further emphasizes the practical value of personality-types analysis,
launching into a detailed description of how tutors can use the information they
have gathered from their typology to teach children how to avoid being duped, how
to behave in their professions, and how to deal with jealousy and competition.
Morelly then further broadens his understanding of the educational process,

suggesting that learning is not something that takes place only in a classroom or
a workshop. Each step taken in a city, each moment spent observing a palace or
a public space can be considered material for education. The close observation
of great monuments teaches us not only about architecture but also about people,
their aspirations, their desires, and their follies. In this, Morelly also foreshadows
Helvétius (and many nineteenth- and twentieth-century educational thinkers), who
made a great point of the fact that education is everything that ever takes place in
every moment in the life of every human being.
In theory, this trend to broaden the definition of education is pedagogically
progressive and psychologically astute. Reformers reformulate their concept
of learning to include experience outside the classroom and beyond books,
incorporating not only the world but also the elements of everyday life into their
understanding of education. They recognize that if sense impressions determine
being, then all of life is an educational event and the millions of experiences
that children have outside the classroom determine their nature. However, like
Fleury, Rollin and Crousaz, later eighteenth-century reformers face a dilemma.
As theorists redefine education to include these secondary experiences, they feel
compelled simultaneously to extend their control over everything that children
do and think outside of school. The impulse to draw all of life into the physical
space of the classroom, or into the intellectual space of the educational process,
is present in almost all French educational works during the eighteenth century,
and the drive toward practical, life-oriented learning is betrayed by a lingering
distrust of the “real world.” Educators claim that they want children to act as little
scientists who directly observe society and nature, and yet they never really want
to let children “out.” Instead, they ruminate on the best ways to offer young people
defenses against reality from within the walls of the school or the home.
For example, notwithstanding his views on practical, life-based education,
Morelly relies heavily on the notion that children can learn to avoid pitfalls and
recognize dangers through books and through the experience of others. He is partial
to history because it offers naturally arranged ideas to children, enabling them to
see how one fact occasions another without using their reason. Further, history is
a useful guide to teaching children about their environment and their fellow men,
and it inspires acts of virtue and heroism. But the deeper utility of history for
Morelly as an educator is that it has the power to offer “une expérience anticipée”
[an anticipatory experience] (EE 353). Morelly dedicates large portions of both
Essais to describing this process of learning by “expérience anticipée” through
novels, poems, history, and philosophy. In these discussions he seems inspired
by a nervous energy not dissimilar to that of Emile’s tutor, as he tries to convince
himself that an exhaustive number of experiences, accumulated away from sites of
corruption, will fortify his pupil and provide him with the immunities required for
his encounter with reality. Morelly justifies the need to learn through others and
through books by arguing that because life is short and our personal experiences
are limited by time and locale, we need the experience of others to broaden our
own. But one cannot help feeling that there is a contradiction between his principal
point—that information and learning are absorbed by children only when they can
directly grasp what they perceive—and his insistence on the need to fill children
with a form of defensive knowledge that precedes their experience. This is a
sticking point in all of the theories we examine; caught between the traditional
view of the world as the site of corruption and the dual principles of Locke’s
philosophy (the need for direct experience, but due to children’s malleability the
dangers of experience becoming uncontrolled), educators struggle to reconcile the
impulse to expand and to contract children’s encounters with the world.
It is important to note, however, two crucial distinctions between the work of
Morelly and that of other Enlightenment theorists who promulgate a theory of
practical—worldly or utilitarian—education. First, Morelly does not follow the
utilitarian trend put forth by Fleury, who held that all educational information must
have a direct and obvious use for individuals in their profession or social station.
In the Essais, Morelly remains a theorist of “enlightenment through education”
because he links his view of the utilitarian and social aspects of education to the
development and satisfaction of the individual, achieved through a process of
personal growth, by means of the learning process. Thus, the utilitarian aspects
of education serve the objective of individual development rather than vice versa.
Second, there is a crucial difference between Morelly’s fears of corruption and
those that we will encounter in Rousseau. There is a tone of optimism in Morelly’s
educational works that (as we will see below) is absent from Emile and is based on
the fact that, like Locke, Morelly does not assume a fundamental discord between
individuals and their environment. Although he believes that society’s prejudices
can pose a threat to children’s proper development, he does not consider social life
in its current form to be in opposition to the child’s nature. “Natural education”
challenges many hollow traditions of social and cultural life, but it does not imply
a rejection of society and culture themselves.
In fact, in the first Essai there is very little sign of society at all, except for
passing remarks in which Morelly ridicules badly educated persons and their
mores. The treatise is concerned with the individual and his physical nature, the
interconnection of all elements inside the body, and an analysis of the mécanique
of the human spirit. It is only at the end of the first Essai that Morelly abruptly
inserts ideas into his text that will lead him to a more socially oriented position in
the Essai sur le coeur humain. Given the fact, he argues, that “the irregularities
of the mind often pass to the heart” (EE 367), the mind and the heart must work
together. This harmonious interaction of both parts of the soul (physical and
spiritual) not only ensures the health of the individual, but it also renders him
capable of “fulfilling his duties to humanity and meriting participation in the
public good” (EE 367). Thus begins Morelly’s lifelong quest to bind the natural,
physical need for order inside each individual and the moral imperative to create
harmonious relations in society.
A Note on Sentiment Intérieur
Before examining this quest in detail, I wish to discuss one concept raised in the
first Essai. It is a concept that will act as a bridge between Morelly’s analysis
of the individual and social aspects of education, and it is fundamental to his
uniquely successful attempt to describe the means by which a “naturally sociable
individual” can be produced through the educational process. In the first Essai,
Morelly makes use of the concept of sentiment intérieur [inner feeling], which in
many ways anticipates what Rousseau alternatively refers to (in Emile) as lumière
intérieure, voix intérieure [inner light, inner voice] and “conscience.” I discuss the
significance of sentiment intérieur more fully in the following two chapters. For
now, I want to point out that in the first Essai, although Morelly does not offer a
clear definition of this term (at times it appears simply to mean sensibility), it is
already an important element in his philosophy.
First, Morelly defines sentiment intérieur as “a consistent attention of the
soul to its existence and to the ways in which it is moved” (EE 10). It makes us
aware that we have faculties through which we compare and arrange ideas, that
we have a will that determines which objects to notice, which sensual experiences
to validate. Although the sentiment intérieur “comes to know itself by dint of its
own reasoning power” (EE 49–50), Morelly, like Rousseau, does not make reason
central to our initial recognition of sentiment. More than Locke’s faculties, but less
than an innate idea, the sentiment intérieur is a form of self-knowledge.
As Richard Coe points out, the sentiment intérieur in Morelly is related to the
idea put forth in the work of Cumberland, Shaftsbury, and Hutcheson that there
is a natural order in the universe and in individuals. The inner feeling, or sense,
allows us to grasp the natural order as it is reflected in ourselves. Notwithstanding
Morelly’s insistence that the first objects that impact on the senses excite in the
children “a purely mechanical movement” (EE 37) and are simply a reflection
of our God-given sense of self-preservation, he implies that the sentiment
intérieur brings a moral and spiritual force to these physical reactions: the latter
are connected to order and beauty, both of which reflect all that is right, good,
and made by God.17 This point is developed in Morelly’s second Essai and in
the Code and forms the basis of his original attempt to create a holistic theory
of education. It is because of this holistic view that Morelly’s formulation of
“second nature” (although he does not use that term) comes closest to sealing
the gap between that which is purely natural (innate) and that which is sculpted
through education and social life. He will argue that education creates a
naturally sociable individual by eliciting children’s innate sense of sociability,
Morelly’s idea of the sentiment intérieur also informs his discussion of religion in
17
a way that resembles Rousseau’s. He advocates a religious education stripped of dogma

and suggests a minimal amount of teaching in youth, when the passions are undeveloped.
Furthermore, he believes that religion naturally emerges from human nature, from our
appreciation and knowledge of ourselves.
a sense that is simultaneously physical and spiritual.18 In his definition of the

spiritual Morelly appears to be influenced by a form of Cartesian dualism. However,
as we see in the next chapter, he combines Locke’s sensationist psychology with
ideas drawn from the moral sense theorists to formulate a unique view of the
relationship between the body and the soul.
18
Nicolas Wagner, in Morelly, le méconnu des Lumières, argues that there is
an irreconcilable difference between the idea of a natural order (that is so important in
Morelly’s writing) and sensationism and that therefore Morelly is not a sensationist thinker.
His argument is that for Locke habit is the key to learning, whereas Morelly’s idea of
“natural order” implies something innate in the child. However, most educational thinkers
during the Enlightenment embraced both sensationist psychology and theories of “natural
order”: they tried to determine what kind of information to introduce through habit but
relied on the idea that there is a natural order to the learning process, an order that would
guide their choices.
Chapter 6
Morelly and Social Education:
Essai sur le coeur humain
“Je sens donc je suis.”
In his second educational treatise, Essai sur le coeur humain, Morelly discusses
the “other half” of the soul, the heart. Rather than analyzing the ways in which
objects and impressions affect our mind and intelligence, he examines how they
are translated by the heart into pleasure and pain. Like Saint-Pierre, Morelly calls
human beings’ tendency to be led by pain and pleasure a God-given quality, a
natural drive that makes us love our existence. People’s penchant to search for
their bien-être [well-being] owes its existence to both their senses and their reason;
their senses offer them the experiences of pain and pleasure to guide them in their
needs, and their reason helps them to evaluate these needs. Self-love, “that driving
force that pushes us toward the good” (EC e), is not only a valid emotion but also
the architect of “the unique passion” (EC 9), love.
In asserting an individual’s right to enjoy his or her desires, Morelly appears
to be defending a position similar to that of Saint-Pierre or Mme de Lambert.
He does not claim that individual selfishness should be sanctioned, but that there
is a bridge linking individual desire to the qualities needed for social harmony.
However, in arguing that happiness is linked to sociability Morelly moves
beyond the reasoning of Mme de Lambert or Saint-Pierre. Rather than try to
redefine self-love as bienfaisance he allows it to be, simply, self-love. Combining
sensationist principles with the idea of a natural order that is perceived by
human beings independent of their sense experience, Morelly argues that there
is a physical link in each individual soul between personal well-being and social
harmony. Although in the second Essai Morelly does not focus on social relations
as much as he will in his later works, he lays the philosophical underpinnings of
his social theory, which are never fundamentally altered.
His determination to bring a social element to his interpretation of human nature
is evident from the opening line in the second Essai. While he begins with an
analysis of the relationship between the senses and reason that is similar to the first
Essai, he quickly turns to the idea that God “established a perfect equality among
all individuals of the human species” (EC xviii). He insists that he does not want
to get into details concerning the origins of the break in the natural equilibrium but

Étienne-Gabriel Morelly, Essai sur le coeur humain, ou principes naturels
de l’éducation (Paris, 1745), p. 2. Henceforth, this title will be cited directly following
quotations and in footnotes as “EC.” Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, marquis d’Argens, also used
this phrase in his La Philosophie du Bon Sens, vol. 1 (2 vols, La Haye, 1746), p. 178.
asserts merely that “all inequality among men is only apparent not real” (EC 197)
and “there is always among men, if not an equality of condition, a natural equality”
(EC xviii). Everything that interferes with equality is to be interpreted as vice.
Even Morelly’s analysis of childhood immediately turns his reader’s attention
toward children’s qualities as social beings rather than toward their inner
constitution. He announces that “the character of children is not to have any
character” (EC 33), thereby emphasizing that virtue is created through habit and
the social environment. Because infants and small children have no habits, there
is no “dominant passion” (EC 34) in childhood. The primary and only vice of
childhood is that children tend to relate everything back to themselves (EC 37).
Because they have no concept of society, anything that goes against their immediate
desires is considered a declaration of war.
Morelly does not attribute this tendency to inherent evil or to the weakness of
children’s minds, but to the fragility of their bodies that feel physical deprivations
strongly and react immoderately. In stark contrast to Rousseau, Morelly finds a
way to interpret the weakness and subsequent dependence, felt by children as the
foundation rather than the scourge of society. One of Rousseau’s most celebrated
propositions will be that in society the consciousness of dependence is the greatest
threat to the liberty of human beings. Individuals resent the power of other wills
upon theirs, and in order to develop true freedom they must be educated in
ignorance of these wills. In contrast, for Morelly “it is only once children begin to
know that the object of their desires depends on the will of another that their [own
will] becomes flexible” (EC 38). Thus sociability is born, not threatened, in the
pivotal moment when children learn that their desires depend on others, and their
social sense is directly linked to their childhood experience. Like Locke, Morelly
interprets this consciousness of dependence, which he understands to be natural,
inevitable, and God-given, as a gift that kindles people’s natural sociability.
This idea of sociability as natural and based on the experience of a child’s
encounter with others is at the core of Morelly’s theory of human nature, and
remains so even through his later works, where he expresses bitterness at the
depravity of social life. Far from being an imposition from the outside, society
emerges from and corresponds to human nature. Although Morelly’s explanation
of why people initially came together in society is clearly influenced by natural
law and contract theory, he separates himself from thinkers such as Hobbes and
Locke in his interpretation of the origins of society. Morelly rejects any analysis
that is based on the natural antagonism of individuals or the idea that people came
together in order to avoid a state of war, ensure freedom, or secure property. In
contrast, he considers the drive to society to be a fully positive, physical drive;
it springs from the pleasure that human beings receive from each other and the

Rousseau makes a similar argument in Book 1 of Emile when he says that the
communication that takes place between children’s tears and a mother’s response to them is the
first sign of sociability. But when the will enters the relationship, the initial harmony is broken.
Morelly and Social Education 145
gratitude they feel toward God and each other when their needs have been satisfied.
This gratitude Morelly identifies as the source of all equality.
Morelly does not deny that the initial harmony of nature was ruptured, and that
societies and individuals developed pride and a false sense of superiority toward
each other. But he claims that God put up obstacles to our pride by making us
dependent on each other for the fulfillment of our desires. The order established
by the creator therefore subsists, notwithstanding the imbalances in its temporal
embodiment. Sociability is inherent in the structure of our beings; precontractual
society is natural.
These arguments are extremely significant pedagogically. What they imply
is that by mimicking the process by which God created society, education can
do two things at once: 1) become the means through which individual needs,
both physical and spiritual, are satisfied; and 2) draw out children’s latent social
sense. In theory, this is the goal of most French educational theorists during
the eighteenth century. Only Morelly, however, builds such an intricate bridge
between an infant’s physical sensuality and social harmony and makes the
movement from one to another appear so free of tension. Like Rousseau, he is
extremely aware of the sacrifices to both individuality and sociability that are
made when one of these goals is accentuated to the detriment of the other in the
educational process.
Morelly is not a rigorous thinker, and he regularly glosses over philosophical
inconsistencies. However, it is important that we follow his logic here. As I
argue below, the step he takes toward harmonizing nature and habit (and thus
self-interest and virtue) reveals a great deal about the nature–habit tension in
eighteenth-century educational texts and foreshadows Rousseau’s struggle
with the issue. Of the theorists we have looked at, only Morelly argues that the
pain–pleasure impulse needs no alteration to develop into the social sense. In
order to partake of true virtue, nature (desires, passion, self-love) does not need to
change fundamentally, does not require the assistance of reason, does not have to
encounter revelation, and does not need to be subjected through habit. Although
Morelly often sounds like Locke, who argued that habit turns into virtue with the
aid of reason, religion, or habit, Morelly believes with the moral sense theorists
that the essence of virtue is present in infancy. Our sensual needs, which we are
unable to satisfy by ourselves, lead us to recognize our dependence on others and
to develop a sense of gratitude toward those who come to our assistance; and the
sentiment intérieur gives us a sense of our own existence and of the natural order
in the universe. Thus nature does not have to be subjected or changed, but merely
developed, in order to become virtue. Without betraying the logic of sensationist
psychology, and without restoring innate ideas, Morelly attempts to construct
an argument that literally justifies Pope’s maxim, “self love and the social are
the same.” In his Essais he leaps over the impasse we encountered in Locke and

Morelly does not believe that we evolved from the state of (presocial) nature to
contract society but from natural society to artificial (contract) society.
argues that children can be guided by self-interest and also possess a nascent sense
of morality. As children develop, both of these instincts are strengthened and
balanced, but neither is subjected to the other.
Morelly on Human Nature: Pessimist or Optimist?
Does the preceding analysis indicate that Morelly believes human beings are
naturally good, corrupted only by accidents of history? This is a crucial point
because the value an author assigns to education is directly related not only to the
extent to which he or she believes change is possible but, more importantly, to
whether he or she considers the locus of this change to be the individual or society.
Both Richard Coe and Miriam Conant have argued that Morelly’s stance toward
human beings in his Essais is pessimistic and negative. They emphasize that he
considers individuals to be mediocre and focuses on their limited capacity for
change. They contrast his position in the Essais with the dramatically different tone
of his later works, optimistic, energized by the possibility of radical transformation
and openly affirming the natural goodness of men and women. I question this
line of argument and consider that the early Morelly is the more hopeful. His
faith in education is a reflection of his conviction that, notwithstanding people’s
limitations, society can be improved and individuals can attain happiness.
Unlike Rousseau, and more like his predecessors, Morelly never takes a firm
stance concerning the issue of whether human nature is inherently good, evil,
or neutral. In both his Essais he offers contradictory statements on the subject.
At times he concedes that reason rarely leads man and warns that “the natural
corruption of the heart renders it more susceptible to evil than good” (EC 48).
Morelly also repeatedly raises the issue of human limitations. He often ridicules
educated men, the weakness of their intellectual and moral powers, and their “rank
stupidity” (EE 284). He pursues the theme, developed by our previous thinkers, of
the dangers of education, pointing to the “epidemic madnes” (EE 283) that results
from prejudice and the “sickness of the ‘semi-scholar’” (EE 291), the product of
education in most collège.
But Morelly also makes statements that can be read as implying that human
beings tend toward goodness. For example, he claims that history is “a vast drama,
in which the unity of action is the tendency of all men toward the good” (EC 102).
Also, although Morelly mocks the follies of grown men (unlike Crousaz and
Rousseau, he does not mock educated women), he portrays children and their
desires as morally neutral. He calls animal passion the first active principle of
children and sentiment a “primitive power” (EC 163). He is optimistic about the
possibility that desire and passion can harmonize with the needs of social order
and that children can easily conform their actions to the public good.
More importantly, in both Essais Morelly adopts a benevolent and tolerant
attitude toward human frailty, and his attitude toward human mediocrity reveals
his optimism about the possibility of individual satisfaction and social harmony.
Morelly and Social Education 147
Morelly claims several times that he does not intend to change human nature
fundamentally, and that in order for education to succeed individuals need not be
changed fundamentally. His view of humanity is based on the assumption that the
basic drives of men and women can never be eliminated, but the most harmful
effects of these drives can be modified. He even goes so far as to say that the
Supreme Being allowed men to be imperfect and therefore embraced their limits.
Morelly’s acceptance of limitation does not detract from the ultimate goal of
reforming human behavior, but it allows for transformation to be partial and yet
still profound. Education can promote reform because it accustoms us to linking
our interests with those of society. In addition, foreshadowing Rousseau Morelly
insists that because human beings will never be influenced by reason alone, morality
must be intimately tied to sentiment in order to succeed. He envisions a “practical
morality” (EC 164) that teaches children, through habit, to act in conformity with
reason. Later in life, they learn about the nature of their souls and their passions
and the reasons for good behaviour.
Our interpretation of Morelly’s optimism or pessimism concerning human
nature clearly will be influenced by how we define these two terms. If optimism is
defined as a belief in total change, both of society and human nature, then in fact
it is Morelly’s later works that are optimistic. But as I argue in the next chapter, in
fact these later works reveal a pessimism, pedagogically speaking, as they reflect
Morelly’s loss of faith in the compatibility between human beings and their social
surroundings. In contrast, the Essais aim to reform society while embracing human
beings as they are, their limits, their passions, even their conflicts, because none of
these qualities represents an absolute obstacle to social harmony.
This position seems to me to represent a positive stance in regard to individual
nature and social life, in particular the role of education. The loss of this optimism
in the work of later Enlightenment theorists in many cases signals the abandonment
of education as a tool of reform in favor of education as a reflection of reform.
Morelly believes that men and women are motivated by an internal drive for order
that merely needs to be recognized and activated by parents and educators, and
that this force provides the necessary prerequisites for individual and collective
happiness. In the Essais Morelly not only embraces human limitations, and even
puts a divine stamp on them; he also defines the idea of virtue in such a way as to
make it conform to these limits. He blames some human faults on an overblown
idea of virtue rather than on individual weaknesses, arguing that virtue is not, as
the ancients thought, “a continual effort to raise ourselves above nature and all
human sentiments; it [virtue] is nature itself” (EC 123).
Morelly’s optimism is thus tied to his view of individuals as both inherently
neutral and malleable. Like Locke, he does not consider that there is deep conflict
between nature and culture, and like Locke his version of “second nature”
is one produced through time by the delicate interlacing of the innate and the
environmental. The transition from individual or social corruption to individual
or social harmony requires only a series of adjustments that must be implemented
early in life, when the natural order and harmony of the soul is yet unbroken.
Education is consequently a dynamic and commanding force in the Essais, strong

enough in itself to act as a bridge between the dissatisfied, misguided individual
and the happy, contented one, and even between the divided society and the
properly balanced one.
Morelly abandons this view in his later work when he concludes that individuals
cannot be reformed through education and that they need organized and continual
external coercion in order to become virtuous. In his later works he turns from
education to radical economic and political restructuring, a sign that he has lost
his belief in the power of education and in the ability of human beings to get in
touch with their own human nature without strict manipulation of their conduct
and thought.
It is true that Morelly’s vision of radical change in the later works appears
optimistic; these works are based on notions of justice and equality that are ahead
of their time and deeply moving. But for Morelly as author of these systems, the
new utopian construction represents a loss of faith in his early position concerning
the reconcilability of nature and culture/society. As we see in the following chapter,
the system of the Code depends on a series of controls intended to counter the
limits of human nature. Presumably, Morelly has concluded that because these
constraints conform to the dictates of human nature they will not violate individual
freedom. However, in the Code he never posits a time when constraints become
unnecessary or when institutional power “withers away.” The innocence of the
Essais lies in their assumption that there is no essential chasm between human
beings and that reform can take place through the social nature of individuals rather
than outside them. His portrayal of men and women as “mediocre” reflects his
belief that individuals do not need to be exceptional in order to be happy or just.
Chapter 7
Morelly and the
Politicization of Education
The most important elements of Morelly’s educational philosophy are located in his
two early Essais. In these works, as he attempts to apply sensationism to education
and define the role of nature in social life, he secures an important place in the
history of French educational philosophy. But one cannot overlook the dramatic
change that took place in Morelly’s writing style, intellectual preoccupations, and
interpretation of education over the course of the late 1740s and 1750s.
The shift in Morelly’s approach is emblematic of the conflicting role that
education played in the reform schemes of the Enlightenment. In the early part of
the eighteenth century, most theorists offered a program of individual intellectual
and psychological transformation through education. Although they believed that
educational change could have a positive effect on social relations and even increase
national prosperity, their educational agenda was separate from any particular
program of social or political change. Later in the century, reformers considered
education to be an agent of citizen formation and national regeneration, and they
subordinated its role as a catalyst of individual growth. (It is worth repeating that
in theory there was of course no clear line of demarcation between individual
growth and citizen formation, as each was intended to support and encourage the
other. In practice, however, educational schemes that developed a methodology
centered on one aspect tended to limit the space in which the other could thrive.)
Between these two tendencies lie the educational theories of Morelly. In his early
works he imputed to education exceptional powers of transformation requiring
individual participation. Later he recast education into an instrument for promoting
socialization and uniformity, a method for organizing group activity. Education,
which was a dynamic and reformist force in the Essais, became a conservationist
one in the Code de la nature (1755). It no longer had independent status or
oppositional leverage but was subjected to a political and economic system that it
was intended to mirror and reinforce.
Why did Morelly turn from an emphasis on the reforming power of education
to a focus on the promotion of a social and economic system that left little more
than a secondary role for education? Because of the relative dearth of biographical
information about Morelly it is difficult to interpret this change in terms of his
life or the vicissitudes of his career. Guy Antonetti and others have conjectured
that somewhere between the early and later works, in the late 1740s or early
1750s, Morelly became disillusioned both with the reign of Louis XV and with
his own career as a writer. Having been lured to Paris by rich or influential patrons
(Helvétius, d’Holbach, the Prince de Conti, or Fontenelle), Morelly was abandoned
by or became disillusioned with these patrons, who seem to have lost interest in
him. He also must have been deeply disappointed with the failure of his work
to elicit a positive response. After the Essai sur l’esprit humain, which received
favorable reviews, none of Morelly’s works gained acceptance from reviewers,
the public, or his fellow writers. Finally, it appears from the tone and references
in his later works that Morelly was inspired by Montesquieu’s influential assertion
that politics and education are intimately linked, Rousseau’s scathing critique of
society in his Discours sur l’inégalité, Thomas More’s Utopia, and Garcillasso de
la Vega’s descriptions of Inca life and society.
Morelly’s intellectual development seems to have been gradually but
consistently moving in a radical direction. In 1751 he wrote Le Prince, a reformist
work in which he searched for a balance between private property and free
enterprise. His program included a taxation system that would prevent great
differences in wealth, a welfare state that would care for the old and sick, and a
program of universal education. He also called for an end to political abuses and
placed strict limits on the financial and political power of the Church. A work
entitled Naufrages des isles flottantes, ou Basiliade du célèbre Pilpai (generally
referred to as the Basiliade) was written in 1753. It was a prelude to the Code, a
utopian poem in which Morelly imagined an island on which the entire population
basked in fraternity and love, free of the corruptions of civilization, and with no
need for law, property, Church, or money. In this work, inspired by his readings
about the Incas and their society, Morelly praised the simple virtues of primitive
peoples, defended the natural passions of man, and offered a new ethic based on
brotherhood and love.
The Code de la nature, published in 1755, was a systematic elaboration of the
principles established in the Basiliade. It is for this work, praised as “an early
communist manifesto” and “the great socialist work of the eighteenth century,”
that Morelly is remembered. Morelly intended the Code de la nature, which he

There are mixed messages about the reception of the Code. The philosophe Friedrich
Melchior Grimm claimed that it made no impact whatsoever in Paris. Others derided the
work. The philosophe René-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, marquis d’Argenson, had some
favorable words for it. In any case, no one seems to have recognized Morelly as the author.

See Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, livres I–IV, ed. Paul Janet (Paris, 1887), Book 4,
on the relationship between politics and education.

In 1748, Morelly wrote a work on aesthetics entitled Physique de la beauté. In this work
he further elaborated the connection between our physical beings and the order of nature.

All citations from Code taken from Morelly: Code de la nature, ou véritable esprit
de ses lois, ed. Gilbert Chinard (Paris: R. Clavreuil, 1950). Henceforth, this title will be
cited directly following quotations and in footnotes as “Code.”

Leslie C. Tihany, “Utopia in Modern Western Thought: the Metamorphosis of an
Idea,” in Richard Herr and Harold Parker (eds), Ideas in History: Essays Presented to Louis
Gottschalk (Durham, 1965), p. 29.

Andre Lichtenberg, Le socialisme au XVIIIe siècle: Études sur les idées socialistes
dans les écrivains français au XVIIIe siècle avant la Révolution (Paris, 1895), p. 114.
Morelly and the Politicization of Education 151
subtitled “Le véritable esprit de ses lois” [the true spirit of its laws], to be an
attack on the ideas of the philosophes, in particular Montesquieu to whose work
he alluded in the subtitle. He aimed to move beyond philosophical systems based
on views of humankind as evil, uncover the real sources of corruption in the world,
and disclose ways in which society might be restructured on a foundation of its
true interests as well as the nature of human beings. Morelly argued that the aim
of philosophy is not to legitimize inequalities but to “find a situation in which
it would be almost impossible for man to be depraved, or mean, or at the very
least, minima de malis” (Code 160). To achieve this knowledge, philosophers must
abandon the false premise that informs their systems: that individuals are evil by
nature. Unfortunately for Morelly, his guiding principles were very similar to those
offered by Rousseau in his more eloquent and popular Discours sur l’inégalité,
published only a few months after the Code.
The Code de la Nature
I do not intend to discuss the Code in detail, but rather to comment on its
implications for educational theory. Although the Code differs from the Essais
in tone and content, there are important similarities between Morelly’s early and
late works, in particular between the second Essai and the Code. Morelly begins
the Code as he had the second Essai, arguing that amour de soi (self-love) is a
natural instinct, corrupted only by institutions that place obstacles in the path of
self-fulfillment. Second, he claims, as he had in his educational works, that man
as he emerges from nature’s hand is without innate ideas, without malice, and
indifferent to everything around him. Third, he reiterates his determination not to
discuss in detail the reasons for man having left his original state.
Although indifferent to others and free of innate ideas, man is born with a
natural tendency to sociability. Morelly recalls his earlier thesis about man’s
dependence, which continues to offer a fascinating contrast with Rousseau. Nature,
Morelly claims, created man in such a way that his needs always exceed his ability
to fulfill them (for Rousseau it is only in corrupt society that man’s needs exceed
his ability to fulfill them). In this way, nature raised him out of his indifference,
forced him to resist laziness, and implanted in him the need for assistance and
therefore the seeds of sociability. As in the Essais Morelly describes dependence
as a thoroughly positive phenomenon, deeply tied to personal fulfillment. Although
the Code is a political treatise, Morelly draws on his early work to describe an
infant who encounters the reality of dependence in the very moment that he sees
himself helped by others and experiences their continual care. This realization does

Coe claims that the Code was actually available in the fall of 1754 and therefore
could have influenced Rousseau, whose Discourse was published in June of 1755. Richard
N.C. Coe, “Le Philosophe Morelly: An Examination of the Political Principles of his Work,
Seen in Relation to the General Philosophical Background of the Eighteenth Century”
(University of Leeds Doctoral Thesis, 1954), p. 761.
not thwart his desires but offers him lessons in love (Code 246). He is moved by the
“voix intérieure de la Nature” [inner voice of nature] (Code 255) to bienfaisance, a
quality freely developed in individuals, independent of all fear and associated with
a feeling of gratitude toward others and God.
Morelly is of course not the first writer to link sociability to a new concept
of human nature. What makes him unique is his attempt to attach a vision of
sociability—based specifically on human beings’ weakness and dependence in
childhood—to a radical political program. The fact that men and women have
inherent weakness, Morelly argues, does not indicate that they will encounter
nature as a hostile force. Rather, their frustration at their own weakness and
inability to satisfy their needs alone should “incite” them to unite and increase
their “moral attraction” (Code 166).
This moral expression of the law of gravitation leads men to a feeling of
bienfaisance toward those who can help them and to the development of reason,
which nature gave to man to counter his weakness (Code 166).10 Morelly is not
content simply to assert that dependence is a positive force; he aims to define
liberty through dependence. Because liberty is the ability to enjoy all that can
satisfy natural appetites (Code 219), and this enjoyment cannot take place without
the help of others, Morelly goes as far as to say that dependence is liberty.
Dependence between human beings is no more a weakness than the dependence
of all organs on each other in one body; on the contrary, it is an association:
This association … augments and seconds the power of civil liberty. It raises
obstacles that our impotence, our natural weakness always encounters if unaided.
In short, [the association] contributes to all that favours our conservation, our
well–being, and our liberty. (Code 219)
Morelly’s solution to the problem of liberty is therefore intricately linked to the

fulfillment of basic needs rather than to the attainment of rights. His originality lies
in the fact that, unlike most eighteenth-century utopians who structure the problem
of society in terms of abstract ethical issues, he asserts that economic problems are
paramount and that man was raised out of nature into corrupt society only because
of the appearance of private property.11 Since virtue cannot be expected of men
In this discussion of the “voix intéreure,” one can detect similarities between

Morelly’s view and Rousseau’s notion of natural pity and concept of natural religion.

This whole section of the Code is influenced both by a Newtonian vision of a society
that functions through mathematically perfect laws (later in the Code Morelly actually uses the
phrase “this sort of gravitation” (Code 245) to describe men’s need for each other) and, more
importantly, by Pope’s Essay on Man, the argument of which Morelly follows almost verbatim.
10
Morelly assumes that reason plays an important role in the human psyche but never
explains how it develops or why it does not clash with passions and senses.
11
Morelly never offers a full explanation for the origins of private property. He
blames legislators for missing the opportunity to prevent the unequal distribution of wealth
and property.
who live in societies that do not satisfy their basic needs, the most basic reforms
have to be economic rather than moral or political.
Given this position, the hero of the Code must be the legislator rather than the
teacher, the king, or the moral leader. Since the primary evil of laws was to divide
the resources of the world rather than regulating their use and distribution, only
the legislator can ameliorate the situation. His responsibility is to enact laws that
recall individuals to their true interests and create circumstances in which they
work together to satisfy them.
Education in the City
Morelly’s ideal city is an agrarian community in which all property is public

and all citizens work, contributing according to their ability and receiving goods
according to their need. Goods are distributed daily according to the immediate
requirements of individuals and groups, and there is no such thing as personal
possession. All members of the city are citizens, and all participate in government
on a rotating basis, with only two lifetime appointments (presumably in the interest
of stability and continuity).
The lives of men and women in the city are strictly regulated. At 10 years of
age all individuals, men and women, enter a profession. At age 15 they marry.
They live in identical houses and wear clothes that identify them by profession.
Between 20 and 25 they work in agriculture. At 26 they can become “Maître” in
their particular profession. At 40 they are free to choose another profession and
even to fix their own hours of work. They are at liberty also to divorce after 10
years of marriage, although the laws on remarriage are laden with restrictions.
Despite philosophical similarities between the early Essais and the Code, the
practical discussion of education is based on entirely different premises. In the
section of the Code that treats education, entitled “Laws of education, which would
ward off the consequences of the blind indulgence of fathers toward their children”
(Code 314), we see some of the negative views of parents that were absent from
the Essais but that are prevalent in many educational texts of the time.12 The Code
advocates a system of collective child-rearing that resembles those found in many
earlier (and later) utopias. Although mothers must breastfeed their children, they
have little influence on their development. First, the Chefs de Tribus (each “Tribu”
is made up of several families) watch closely over the parents and control the care
of their offspring. Second, children leave their parents at the age of five, at which
point they are taken to a special house and treated without distinction (Code 315).
In this house they are cared for by specially trained adults who act as surrogate
parents and who will raise them with gentleness and “perfect equality” (Code 315).
These parents are also watched over and regulated by the Chefs de Tribus.
12
In the Essais, Morelly supported parental influence on children, claiming that “the
paternal empire is a soft one.” Morelly, Essai sur le coeur humain ou principes naturels de
l’éducation (Paris, 1745), p. 71.
In the world of the Code, there is no need to elaborate detailed educational

theories concerning the correct methods of instilling knowledge, developing
discipline, understanding the nature of child psychology, or devising a curriculum.
Presumably, these elements of Morelly’s educational work were needed only to
counter a denatured educational system and a corrupt society. Morelly mentions
only that as children develop their capacity to reason they are taught to respect and
obey their parents and other elders, be good to their equals, cultivate friendship,
and never to lie. Education helps them learn to adapt to the laws of society by
indoctrinating them into the “Laws of the Patrie.” When young, they play games
that build their bodies and prepare them for work. At age ten they are sent to
public workshops where, in addition to receiving training in their craft, they are
instructed by their masters both in general morals and in the ethical code of their
chosen profession. As children’s reasoning power develops further they are given
some ideas about God, but only those necessary for understanding the meaning
of their lives. They are told that the author of the universe is known by his
works, which demonstrate his wisdom and goodness, and also by the sentiment
of sociability. They are taught that the laws of society are consistent with their
nature and with the intentions of God. The purpose of these laws is “to perfect the
sentiments” (Code 317) and to guarantee that all individuals act for the good of
society. This whole process is watched over by the Chefs du Sénat, who ensure
“that any deficiencies of childhood, which could engender the spirit of property,
are wisely corrected and prevented; [the Chefs] will also prevent [the child’s]
mind from becoming imbued in its earliest years with any fable, tale or ridiculous
fictions” (Code 318).
Education in the Code is not founded on individual self-fulfillment or intellectual
growth. Few individuals are given the opportunity to follow a career in the arts and
sciences, and even if an individual is chosen for this path, he or she cannot embark
on it until the age of 30. In addition, intellectual training never encourages children
to think critically or to challenge the basic laws of society, which are engraved in
public places. There are to be no alternatives to the moral philosophy learned in
childhood. The study of metaphysics is reduced to an examination of principles
already established, and the object of philosophy is to perfect those arts that are
useful to society.
Morelly is not alone in creating an ideal system that both exploits the power of
education and dramatically limits its scope. Almost all utopian writers13 embraced
education but placed it in the service of systems that undermined its influence.14
Education in utopias “is a lifelong process” that is fundamentally linked to the
pre-established structures of society and to state control.15 Academic subjects are
13
For example, Louis Sébastien Mercier, Guillaume Grivel, Nicolas-Edme Restif de
la Bretonne, and Jonathan Swift.
14
See Annette Bridgman, “Aspects of Education in Eighteenth-Century Utopias,”
Studies on Voltaire in the Eighteenth Century, 167 (1977): pp. 569–85.
15
Ibid., p. 570.
subordinated at all times to moral indoctrination, disciplines such as history are

considered dangerous because they impart information to innocent children about
evil and misguided human beings, and literature and poetry are used to reinforce
the values of the community rather than to refine aesthetic sensitivities or provoke
emotional responses.
Notwithstanding the exploitation of education in utopian works, there is an
important family resemblance between utopian and non-utopian educational
visions in France during the early and mid-eighteenth century. The limitations
placed on education in utopias—which make it all encompassing but strip it
of all independent initiative—betray the intense anxiety felt by all educational
theorists regarding the fragility of the new goddess, “habit.” Most thinkers hold
a lingering belief that human beings have innate tendencies toward evil that
cannot be conquered without the continual application of restrictions. In their
attempt to control individuals and societies, utopian systems bring into relief
the difficulty most theorists encounter when trying to imagine an educational
system that can transform people to such an extent that they no longer need
indoctrination or regulation. This lack of faith in individual self-mastery is not
invented but only magnified in the extremely controlling systems of collectivist
utopias or in the individualist Emile, in which the tutor expounds the virtues
of a free childhood while going to great lengths to prevent his pupil from
experiencing freedom.
Evaluating Morelly: An Educational Thinker at the Crossroads Between

Locke, Helvetius, and Rousseau
How can we evaluate Morelly’s contribution when he presents us with two

fundamentally different educational visions? Did his turn toward radical social
and economic transformation indicate an abandonment of his early educational
views or merely an attempt to place them in a broader context? Was this turn a
result of his personal failures and frustrations, or was it characteristic of a trend in
French educational thought at mid-century?
Morelly is clearly an important but overlooked transitional figure, situated at
the crossroad between several political and intellectual traditions. He does not
possess the eloquence of Rousseau, nor does he take a comprehensive approach
to issues of curriculum and method, as does Rollin. In his Essais he stands
between the practical educator railing against the abuses of the Jesuits, and an
educational philosopher using education as a basis from which to implement
major transformations in individuals and in society. He draws much more directly
on philosophical concepts than thinkers such as Fleury, Rollin, or Crousaz but
is not rigorous in the application of these concepts, leaving his readers with the
impression that he has hastily stitched together pieces of various theories for his
own convenience. Further, because he abandons his early educational project to
embrace more radical visions of social and economic change, and few readers are
aware of the influence of the Essais on his later work, the Essais appear to be the
immature musings of a thinker who has not yet found his intellectual path.
Morelly’s educational work did not exert a direct or lasting influence.
Nonetheless, it is significant because it reflects a characteristic Enlightenment
approach to education, full of enthusiasm and fear. Morelly believes in habit
as a formative influence on the young, but he is not willing to abandon innate
dispositions. He is enthusiastic about nature but not sure that it can triumph
over social corruption. As were many of his contemporaries, he is preoccupied
with the problem that Montesquieu raised and Helvétius would develop: how to
align educational values with those of society. In particular, he questions how an
educational system can instill moral values and create high intellectual standards
for students if these values and standards are not embraced or rewarded in the
larger society that the child must enter after school. Also, like many social thinkers
he begins with the question, what kind of educational system can we create that
will produce a healthy society? and ends with the question, what kind of society
can we create that will produce healthy educational values? More importantly,
what makes Morelly such a fascinating thinker is the way in which his work
reveals so clearly the fault lines that were becoming evident by mid-century in
French educational theory. His vision of human nature and sociability places him
precisely in between the educational–philosophical positions elaborated by Locke,
Helvétius, and Rousseau.
Like Locke, Morelly believes that the pain–pleasure impulse can lead to
sociability. In the tradition of Some Thoughts Concerning Education, he argues
that habit can create virtue. But his position differs from that of Locke since in the
end Locke argues that physical pleasure is only the initial motive of action; with
time (and through habit), education can incline desire toward long-term spiritual or
moral goods. In this process desire is transformed, liberated from dependence on
physical pleasure. In contrast, Morelly believes that even in adulthood it is physical
satisfaction that is directly responsible for virtue or love of others. He reasons
thus: Gratitude is intimately and inextricably bound up with pleasure in infancy.
It is a reflection of our perception of and responsiveness to the natural order (in the
universe and in ourselves) and of our interdependence. In adulthood, the memory
of our gratitude toward our parents, combined with further experiences of our
links with other human beings, is expressed as love for, and moral responsibility
toward, all individuals. Through gratitude, physical satisfaction and love of others
coexist during all stages of life.16
16
Morelly puts forth several arguments regarding sociability. At times he argues
that through habit children slowly acquire ideas of vice and virtue that help them to
understand how society functions and their place in the universe. Occasionally, he
mentions religion as the determinant of social sentiment. It is difficult to establish which
version of sociability was the principal one for Morelly. My point is that his most original
line of argument, and the one he relies on for his theory to work, is tied to the concept
of gratitude.
With this argument Morelly anticipates Helvétius, the only theorist of the
Enlightenment who argued that in both children and adults physical pleasure is
the one and only motive of action, regardless of others that appear to be at work.
However, unlike Helvétius Morelly believes that physical pleasure, because it is
bound up with gratitude, carries a moral and spiritual force within it. In contrast,
as we will see, for Helvétius all pleasures are physical, pure and simple. Further,
anticipating Rousseau Morelly argues that the gratitude accompanying pleasure
speaks through the “voix intérieure de la nature” (Code 255) and thus promotes
knowledge of human nature and social relations within the individual. Like
Rousseau’s “voix intérieure,” this voice is self-generated and discovered through
an individual educational journey. Further, although this journey is spiritual in
nature, it is not fundamentally tied to religious education.
Morelly differs from Rousseau, however, in the sense that his solution to
Locke’s unanswered question (how does self-interest become virtue without
compromising itself?) is to eliminate the need for a bridge between the two.
A chief characteristic of Enlightenment educational thought is that theorists deal
with this problem by assuming that self-interest naturally develops into virtue,
without elaborating an explanation of how this transformation takes place in the
educational process. Rousseau, disturbed by the association of self-interest with
virtue, will thoroughly separate the two, both in the soul of the individual and
in the sequencing of the educational process. Morelly is the only theorist who
validates the connection between self-interest and love of others by establishing
a physical link between them in the soul of the individual. He also argues that
this physical link includes a spiritual dimension (for Rousseau the physical gives
birth to a spiritual dimension, which manifests itself only later in life, and which
necessitates a sublimation of the physical).
Notwithstanding differences between Morelly and Rousseau, Morelly can be
seen as a precursor to the new “subjectivism” that Charles Taylor described in his
analysis of Rousseau.17 According to Taylor, Rousseau’s importance lies in the fact
that he pushes the “subjectivism of modern moral understanding a stage further.”18
Not only does he recognize the soul as a reflection of the cosmic order and locate
the good within the individual, as many theorists of moral sentiment had:
He begins to disassociate knowledge of the good from the providential order.

Not just that I have, thanks be to God, sentiments which accord with what I see
through other means to be the universal good, but that the inner voice of my true
sentiments defines what is the good: since the élan of nature in me is the good, it
is this which has to be consulted to discover it.19
17
1989), Ch. 20.
18
Ibid., p. 361.
19
Ibid., p. 362.
Taylor argues that Rousseau never actually took this step but that he “provided
the language … which could articulate this view.”20 I believe that Morelly’s
educational work represents an early articulation of this position as well. He too
provides individuals with a “voix intérieure de la nature” that they can consult and
that enables them not only to understand the order of things but to draw specific
conclusions about moral conduct.
Morelly’s work thus represents a peak moment in the struggle of Enlightenment
educational thinkers to reconcile new notions of morality, community, and self-
expression in an educational context. Put otherwise, these thinkers seek to determine
how an educational scheme can ensure a child’s freedom without risking that in
the expression of this freedom he loses (or is never imbibed with) a social sense;
and conversely, how a child can be habituated to a social sense without having his
or her nature and individuality submerged.
We have seen how Locke and some of his French disciples try to resolve
this problem, twisting or adapting their views of freedom and individuality to
fit the demands of discipline and sociability. But for the most part their solution
entails a method whereby various qualities and aspirations are either blended like
ingredients in the soul of the child (so that the negative conveniently disappears
in the presence of the positive) or one set of qualities is methodically overcome
through exposure to the other (for example, over time it became more rewarding to
satisfy moral rather than physical needs). The novelty of these early thinkers is that
they recognize and build theories around the notion that qualities such as self-love
and love of others are not at war with each other but mutually supporting.
In contrast, Morelly appears to consider that as long as individual and social
aspects of human nature remain separate, they will eventually violate or clash
with each other. His sometimes unwieldy solution is to demonstrate that these
aspects are not merely interdependent but essentially the same: the moral sense
is a physical pleasure, and individual self-expression is a manifestation of the
social sense. From the moment of birth, the need for pleasure and recognition of
interdependence with others are present and coexist in the spirit of the child. They
both remain and are allowed to thrive throughout the sequence of development
into adulthood.
In this aspect of his thought, Morelly produces a holistic pedagogical vision,
based at its core on the self-expression of the individual, but an individual that is
fundamentally other-oriented: the “naturally sociable individual” I first mentioned
in the Introduction. And yet, in the body of his work, he also anticipates the most
extreme oppositions in Enlightenment educational thought. On the one hand, he
expresses the view that will be brought to its most extreme conclusions by Claude-
Adrien Helvétius: that “the diversity of beings can be explained by their ‘milieu.’
The art of educating thus consists above all in creating the right ‘milieu.’”21
Ibid.
20
Charles Rihs, Les philosophes utopistes: Le mythe de la cité communautaire en

21
France au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1970), p. 148.

On the other hand, Morelly plants the seeds that in the work of Rousseau—whether
through direct influence or due to an independent course of reasoning—flower
into the most poignant counterstatement to Enlightenment educational views: that
nature and individuality, rather than inculcated habit and environmental influence,
are the cornerstones of educational freedom and human development. In the
next section we see how Helvétius and Rousseau bring these oppositions to their
fullest expression.
Part 4
The Helvétius–Rousseau
Controversy
Prologue:
The Scandal Over Helvétius’s De l’Esprit
and the Origins of the
Helvétius–Rousseau Controversy
The revolution in educational theory that began in the seventeenth century reached
its apogee in the educational debates of the 1760s. This was a crucial moment in
educational theorizing for two reasons. First, the publication of Claude Adrien
Helvétius’s De l’Esprit in 1758 and of Rousseau’s Emile in 1762 brought to full
expression the many currents of educational thought traceable through the early
part of the century. Helvétius and Rousseau self-consciously elaborated educational
ideas based on the explicit acceptance or rejection of sensationist principles.
In addition, moving away from the details of educational method found in the
works of previous thinkers they focused, as Morelly had done, on the deeper
connections between philosophy, politics, and education.
The second reason why mid-century represents a climax is that the early 1760s
witnessed an outpouring of mémoires and articles about education, prompted by
the expulsion of the Jesuits from their collège in 1762 and an ensuing period of
turbulence in the French educational system.
The conflict between Helvétius and Rousseau and the debate that developed
in the wake of the Jesuit expulsion are chronologically simultaneous (both take
place in the early 1760s). However, they will be treated separately in my text.
In the interest of clarity, I discuss the debate between Helvétius and Rousseau
first. The reason for this is that the political thinkers, teachers, clergymen, and
philosophes who participated in the debate over the expulsion and its impact on
French education were clearly influenced by the pedagogical–philosophical issues
raised by Locke’s philosophy and some directly by Helvétius and Rousseau.
In contrast, Helvétius and Rousseau, although undoubtedly aware of practical
problems plaguing the educational system in France, did not discuss the events or
controversies of the 1760s in their works. Their debate was inspired more by the
philosophical issues we have been analyzing in previous chapters.
In view of the stature of the philosophers I treat in this section, the complexity
of their thought, and the large body of secondary literature devoted to them
(especially Rousseau), it is important that I delineate the purpose of these chapters
in the larger framework of my work. I do not intend to offer a comprehensive
analysis of the philosophical thought of Helvétius or Rousseau but rather propose
to examine their ideas about education in the context of a French debate already
in progress.
More specifically, the goals of this section are as follows. I show how
Helvétius and Rousseau brought educational–philosophical developments of the
late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries to their most extreme expressions.
In this they were influenced by the philosophical ideas of Locke and Condillac as
well as by the educational principles of thinkers such as Montaigne, Fleury, Rollin,
Cousaz, Dumarsais, and Saint-Pierre.
I also show how Helvétius and Rousseau influenced one another’s educational
thought. Not only did their work depend on similar sources, but their educational
ideas were also formulated at least in part in opposition to one another’s work.
The evidence of mutual influence is found in letters, reported conversations,
marginalia, and the contents of De l’Esprit, Emile, La Nouvélle Heloïse, and
De l’Homme. Before considering the details of the Helvétius–Rousseau controversy,
we will review this evidence and to look at the public response to Helvétius’s
controversial work.
The Publication of De l’Esprit
In 1758 Helvétius published De l’Esprit, a work that revealed the consequences of

sensationist thought and sent shockwaves through the camps of both philosophes
and anti-philosophes. Until the publication of Helvétius’s book, Rousseau had not

This mutual influence was first recognized at the beginning of the twentieth century
by Arthur Schinz and Pierre-Maurice Masson and subsequently acknowledged by Helvétius’s
biographers, all of whom devote a section or chapter of their work to analyzing the extreme
oppositions in the educational ideas of the two philosophes. In studies of Rousseau’s
ideas, including works on his educational thought, the connection is made less explicitly
and Helvétius’s influence is greatly underestimated. A. Schinz, “‘La profession de foi du
vicaire Savoyard’ et le livre De l’Esprit,” Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France (RHLF), 17
(1910): pp. 225–61; Pierre-Maurice Masson, “Rousseau contre Helvétius,” RHLF, 18 (1911):
pp. 103–24; and “Sur les sources de Rousseau,” RHLF, 19 (1912): pp. 640–46. Standard
works on Helvétius are Mordecai Grossman, The Philosophy of Helvétius: With Special
Emphasis on the Educational Implications of Sensationalism (New York, 1926); Irving
Lewis Horowitz, Claude Helvétius: Philosopher of Democracy and Enlightenment (New
York, 1954); Ian Cummings, Helvétius: His Life and Place in the History of Educational
Thought (London, 1955); D.W. Smith, Helvétius: A Study in Persecution (Oxford, 1965);
and Albert Keim, Helvétius: sa vie et son oeuvre (Geneva, 1970).

Some commentators have argued that Rousseau’s article “Political Economy,”
published in the Encyclopédie in 1752, influenced Helvétius in his educational views. See
Ian Cummings, Helvétius: His Life and Place in the History of Educational Thought, p. 162.
In “Political Economy,” Rousseau approached education as an instrument for the formation
of the citizen. In contrast, in Emile, he argues for the value of private education and what he
calls “the education of the man.”

D.W. Smith writes that in reaction to Helvétius’s materialism Diderot’s “sentimental
nature reasserted itself and forced him to refute his own materialistic ethic.” Smith,
Helvétius: A Study in Persecution, p. 207.
The Scandal Over Helvétius’s De l’Esprit 165
developed fully his position against materialism and atheism (his break with the
philosophes had been announced only recently in 1757 with the publication of his
Lettre à d’Alembert). In the late 1730s and early 1740s Rousseau had embraced
the principles of sensationism as expressed first in Locke’s Essay Concerning
Human Understanding (1690) and later in Condillac’s Essai sur l’origine des
connaissances humaines (1746). However, at the time Rousseau had many reasons
to overlook issues with which he might find himself in conflict. First, he was
preoccupied with music as well as philosophy, and second, his friendships with
Diderot and Condillac and his involvement with the Encyclopédie were important
enough that they either blinded him to differences of opinion or prompted him to
ignore them.
In the 1750s, however, Rousseau’s relationship with Diderot began to
deteriorate. He also saw less of Condillac, who had left for Parma in 1749. In
1754 Rousseau himself left Paris for Geneva and then Montmorency and began
questioning many of the assumptions he had previously accepted. By 1756–1758
he was at work on Emile, La Nouvélle Héloïse, and Le Contrat Social, all of which
would distance him further from his former friends.
In early August 1758 Helvétius published De l’Esprit. The work immediately
created a scandal in France. Some of his friends had suggested that he publish
De l’Esprit abroad, but Helvétius underestimated the radical nature of his own
ideas. Perhaps he felt that because so many other works with similar content,
such as Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Condillac’s
Essai sur l’origine des connaissances humaines (1746), and Diderot’s Pensées
philosophiques (1746), had been published in previous decades without incident,
his would be tolerated. As we will see, what differentiated De l’Esprit from these
earlier works was that Helvétius brought together several philosophical principles
that heretofore had been advanced only separately.
In addition to underestimating the radical content of his work, Helvétius failed
to recognize other, more general reasons why the timing of its publication might
have sparked reaction. The Seven Years War with England had begun in 1756,
and the army had already suffered one of its most devastating defeats by 1758,
at Krefeld. The struggle against Jansenism was at its peak, as was the tension
between King and the parlement of Paris. Louis XV was rapidly losing popularity
and had become morose and paranoid after the attempt on his life in 1757 by
Robert-François Damiens. Furthermore, the intellectual climate was embittered
by the scandal over the Prades thesis, which broke in 1751. The abbé de Prades,
a contributor to the Encyclopédie, was accused of deism, and his doctoral thesis

Rousseau wrote several articles for the Encyclopédie on music, elaborated a new
system of musical notation entitled Projet concernant de nouveaux signes pour la musique
(1742), wrote a Dictionnaire de la musique (1749–1764), and composed several operas,
among them Les Muses galantes (1745) and Le devin du village (1752).

He did not react to Diderot’s Lettres Philosophiques and, according to Schinz, did
not read the Preliminary Discourse until 1754.
was condemned both by the faculty of theology at the University of Paris and
by the Pope. His work was censured by the faculty of theology in 1752, and the
Encyclopédie was implicated in the ensuing scandal.
In a more general sense the camp of the anti-philosophes was mobilized by
the increasing popularity of radical ideas at mid-century, represented in the works
of Diderot, Condillac, Morelly, Helvétius, La Mettrie, and Mably. These authors
appeared to normalize anti-religious sentiment and to espouse a form of sensationism
bordering on materialism. Helvétius glorified self-love; Diderot, Condillac, and La
Mettrie insinuated or stated outright that there was little difference between men
and animals; and Diderot, Rousseau, and Morelly put forth new political theories
emphasizing the rights of subjects and the potential equality of citizens. Although
the Encyclopédie did not give voice to the most radical streams of Enlightenment
thought, its existence was a tribute to the increasingly widespread diffusion of new
ideas and it became an easy target for the anti-philosophe reaction.
The explosive response to Helvétius’s work was undoubtedly linked with all
of these events and views, but it was also a result of the direct and candid way in
which the philosophe expressed his thoughts. Although neither a profound nor an
original thinker, Helvétius used common sense and unequivocal arguments, boldly
weaving together several familiar principles and displaying their meaning with
such clarity that it became impossible to overlook their implications. As Mme du
Deffand complained, Helvétius had “revealed everybody’s secret.” The privilege
to publish De l’Esprit was revoked in August 1752, and by November it had been
condemned by the Archbishop of Paris, the Pope, the Paris parlement, and the
Faculty of Theology of the Sorbonne. Although ultimately Helvétius was spared
severe punishment and went into exile in England in 1764, the authorities used the
scandal as a reason for suppressing the Encylopédie; its privileges were revoked
following a formal denunciation of Helvétius’s De l’Esprit in 1759.
Rousseau and De l’Esprit
Many of the philosophes considered it reckless for Helvétius to have published

De l’Esprit in France. But although some reacted to the work with anger, they did
not openly denounce their colleague. Helvétius himself publicly recanted three
times and was deeply shocked by the incident, so much so that he decided not to
allow his last and major work, De l’Homme, to be published until after his death.
Rousseau’s reaction to De l’Esprit was the strongest. Helvétius’s work drove
Cummings, Helvétius, His Life and Place in the History of Educational Thought,

p. 80.
Diderot’s reaction was not dissimilar to that of Rousseau; as a result of reading

Helvétius’s work, he reconsidered materialism and emphasized the importance of individual

differences in the educational process. Diderot wrote “Réflexions sur De l’Esprit” in reaction
to De l’Esprit, but his tone was much milder than that of Rousseau’s later denunciations and
milder than the tone he himself would adopt in his later “Réfutation,” a long criticism of
The Scandal Over Helvétius’s De l’Esprit 167
him to reformulate his critique of contemporary society and to position himself in

opposition to materialism, atheism, and even to some extent sensationism.
We have learned of Rousseau’s reaction through letters, comments, and
marginalia. First, in his Lettres Écrites de la Montagne Rousseau claimed that
he wanted to attack De l’Esprit immediately, but he burned his comments when
he found out about the witch hunt against Helvétius. He went on to say that he
redirected this attack in several of his works. Second, in a letter dated September
1762 the pasteur of Montmollin wrote to his colleagues in Geneva that, in addition
to combating the church on the one hand and anti-religious philosophy on the other,
Rousseau told him that the principal goal of his Emile was to “Protest, not quite
directly but nevertheless clearly, against the infernal text of De l’Esprit which,
following the detestable principle of its author, claims that judging and sensing are
one and the same thing; a claim clearly tantamount to establishing materialism.”
Finally, Rousseau obtained a copy of De l’Esprit in 1758 and wrote notes
in the margins.10 We discuss these notes while commenting on Helvétius’s
work. But before approaching the text of De l’Esprit, we look briefly at the
most significant marginal note, the one that has caused the most problems for
commentators and that is most directly linked to the question of the influence
of Helvétius on Rousseau. Rousseau wrote: “I tried … to make a case for the
activity of our judgments, both in the notes that I wrote at the beginning of this
book and above all in the first part of the Profession of the Savoyard Priest.”11
This comment suggests that Rousseau recognized in De l’Esprit ideas that he
had formulated previously in early drafts of his “Profession de foi du vicaire
Savoyard” (on which he began work in 1756), as well as in other sections of
Emile. On the other hand, after reviewing closely earlier drafts of Book IV,
several scholars have shown that sections of the “Profession de foi” seem to have
Helvétius’s posthumous work, De l’Homme. For both of Diderot’s responses to Helvétius’s

works, see Diderot, Oeuvres complètes, ed. J. Assézat, vol. 2 (20 vols, Paris, 1875–1877).

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 3 (16 vols, Paris, 1969), p. 122.

Schinz, “La Profession de foi du vicaire savoyard,” p. 239. Schinz suggests that
Rousseau may never have read Condillac’s Traité des Sensations because his attack on
Helvétius’s idea that “juger c’est sentir” is worded as if he had encountered this notion for
the first time in Helvétius’s work.
10
It is not clear whether the notes were written all at once or during an extended
period. In “Rousseau contre Helvétius,” Masson makes a good argument that Rousseau
read and commented on the “First Discourse” of Helvétius’s work right away and only later
in 1760–1761 reread the entire work, adding further notes. Rousseau eventually sold his
copy of De l’Esprit in 1767 to a M. Davenport in England, who then sold it to M. Dutens,
a historiographer to the King. Helvétius found out about this transaction and wrote a letter
to Dutens in 1771 asking to see Rousseau’s notes. Dutens sent him copies of a part of the
notes but Helvétius did not offer any formal reply, considering probably that he had given
a full enough commentary on Rousseau’s views in his De l’Homme.
11
Jean Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 4, p. 1129.
been added after Rousseau read Helvétius’s work.12 First, there are strange and
sudden breaks in the flow of thoughts. Second, in some sections Rousseau seems
to be refuting Helvétius directly in his own words. And finally, when studying an
early draft of Emile, Pierre Maurice Masson found that all of the ideas specifically
formulated against Helvétius in the “Profession de foi” and throughout Emile were
absent from the early text. This does not mean that Rousseau wrote Book IV of
Emile with the unique aim of refuting Helvétius. Clearly, Rousseau had his own
preexisting reasons for undertaking the task, such as opposing the growing atheism
of the philosophes and attacking the corrupt practices of the Church. Nevertheless,
Masson shows convincingly that Helvétius’s work pushed Rousseau to rethink
and reformulate the most important philosophical issues presented in Emile.
The debate between Helvétius and Rousseau did not end with the publication
of Emile. In 1769 Helvétius wrote De l’Homme (published in 1772, one year after
his death). In this work, he devoted several sections to a refutation of Rousseau’s
educational theory, a refutation that can be considered “the only full response by
eighteenth-century pedagogical writers to the psychological theories of Emile.”13
Although the central message of Rousseau’s work seems to have bypassed
Helvétius, and although his refutation was limited to a set of superficial remarks,
he was nevertheless the only thinker to offer an exposé of the conflicting positions
Rousseau took concerning the role of education and nature in the development of
the individual (for a review of Helvétius’s comments on Rousseau’s educational
theory, see Appendix 2).14
Schintz, Masson, and D.H. Smith.

12
Jean A. Bloch, “Rousseau versus Helvétius on innate ideas and acquired traits: The
13
final stages of the Rousseau–Helvétius controversy,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 40/1
(January–March 1979): p. 21.
14
It is not known whether Rousseau read or reacted to De l’Homme.
Chapter 8
Helvétius’s De l’Esprit:
The Argument for Full Equality
Three of Helvétius’s principal objectives in De l’Esprit are intimately linked with

contemporary trends in educational theory. The first is to treat morale as a science.
He will accomplish this by bringing to fruition the ideas of Locke and Condillac
and creating a philosophy fully grounded on the premise that sensibilité alone
produces all ideas. The second objective, which follows directly from the first, is
to argue that all men and women are potentially equal and the differences among
them result only from external conditioning and accidental circumstances. Third,
he declares that government, through education and legislation, can perfect the
nature of individuals and thereby ensure public happiness.
De l’Esprit is not an educational treatise, and Helvétius makes no claim to
expertise in the area of education. Rather, like Locke’s Essay, it is a work with
implications for education that are all encompassing. Unlike Locke, however, who
wrote a separate treatise on education, Helvétius devotes only a few sections in
De l’Esprit and several chapters in his later work De l’Homme to demonstrating
the close connection between his philosophical principles and education. Below
I discuss De l’Esprit as it reflects developments in educational thought and
influences Rousseau’s Emile.
“Juger, c’est sentir” [To Judge Is to Sense]
Although both Diderot’s Pensées philosophiques and Condillac’s Traité des

sensations embraced the fundamental premises of sensationism, neither work
expressed its most radical implications—the possibility of thinking matter,
the absence of free will, and the full equality of human beings. In contrast,
Helvétius’s work offers a view of the mind as fully passive and individuals as fully
determined beings.
The mind, Helvétius argues, contains two faculties, two “passive powers,”
which are the productive causes of our thoughts. The first faculty, “sensibilité
physique” [physical sensibility], receives impressions from objects. The second,

In contrast to Morelly, when Helvétius uses the word esprit he primarily refers to
the mind. As we will see, his theory is based on the idea that there is no such thing as a soul
or a spirit, and the mind is a physical entity influenced and determined by sense response to
external stimuli.

Claude-Adrien Helvétius, De l’Esprit (Paris, 1758; reprint: Tours, 1988), p. 15.
Henceforth, this title will be cited directly following quotations as “DLE.”
memory, is simply a recurrence of sensation. Rather than constituting a separate

operation, memory is an act of “re-feeling.” In the case of sensing, we receive an
impression from an organ and feel the resulting sensation. In the case of memory,
we remember the experience or image from this idea; as we do, our sense organs
are placed in exactly the same situation that they were in when first perceiving the
object. We are thus in a state of “re-sensing” rather than reflecting.
Helvétius’s objective here is to demonstrate that there is no faculty, separate
from sensation, responsible for comparing and judging objects. Rather, the acts
of judging and comparing are simply extensions of the act of sensing. All the
operations of our mind, our ability to compare, reflect, and judge, are reducible to
“physical sensibility,” to feeling or sensing. What we call mind (esprit) is simply the
consciousness of the relationship between objects, the comparing of sensations and
ideas, and the perceiving of similarities and differences. The degree of consciousness
or intelligence is directly related not to our innate talent but to the extent of our
knowledge, which depends on the extent of our exposure to objects. In the same
way that memory is simply recalled and re-experienced sensation, judgment (the
perception of similarities and differences between two objects) is merely an act
of memory, a retracing of the many instances in which these objects were seen. In
other words, it is an extended version of remembering. The act of perceiving is thus
not separate from sensing, nor does it take place in a different part of the mind.
Free Will
The First Discourse of De l’Esprit is thus devoted to demonstrating the claim that
“juger, c’est sentir” [to judge is to sense]. Because our senses are responsible
for our thoughts and actions, Helvétius believes that pain and pleasure are the
motivating forces of human behavior. The distinctive aspect of Helvétius’s version
of this now-familiar formulation is that he holds immediate sensual gratification
to be the only motivating force of action. For Locke, there is a moral element at
play. As people learn to suspend their desires or direct them toward the good of
others, they become attached through reason and habit to moral responsibility.
Thus, a desire for what is morally right can coexist with, and even substitute
for (without violating), a desire for personal satisfaction. In contrast to Locke,
This idea leads him to the conclusion that only matter exists in the universe, despite

the fact that he tries to avoid stating this conclusion clearly. He insists that his intention is
not to address directly the controversial question of whether the faculties are of spirit or
matter but only to show that sensibility is the single productive cause of our ideas.

In his Traité des sensations (1754), Condillac had already gone further than Locke
by claiming that the only source of knowledge is the senses and all of our learning is
passive. However, Condillac did not deny the existence of a soul. Although he believed
the soul’s function was to sense rather than think, he considered it to be a spiritual entity
separate from the body. The senses are the occasion of sensation–reflection on the part of
the soul, but the soul exists independently of the senses.
Helvétius’s De l’Esprit 171
Helvétius takes no such detours to gratification. In his scheme, people are always
in search of immediate physical pleasure. They possess no moral sense separate
from their desire. Their ability to re-channel their desires toward the collective good
is not a result of reason or attunement to a universal morality. It is made possible
by manmade laws established precisely with the intention of allowing individuals
to satisfy their desires while contributing to collective welfare. Individuals do not
need to have a higher concept or intuition of the good and need no moral sense
or perception of order in the universe; they need only to behave in the prescribed
manner. Helvétius’s version of the pain–pleasure impulse leads him to the conclusion
that individuals are forced at all times to answer to their immediate needs: “The
desire for his happiness will always make him (always force him) to choose the
course that seems to him to be most amenable to his interests, tastes, passions, and
in the end to that which he considers to be his happiness” (DLE 47).
Helvétius does not deny that individuals can be conditioned to desire future
goods, or goods that are directed toward collective happiness. On the contrary,
conditioning them in this way will be the goal of his educational theory and
the primary duty of lawmakers. However, human beings cannot be free of their
inherent motivations. Helvétius thus considers that individuals have no free will,
or more precisely that there can be no such thing as freedom in relation to the
will. In his view, “a free man is a man who is not enchained, detained, in prison,
or intimidated, as a slave is, by fear of punishment” (DLE 46). In other words, he
is free if he has the free use of his physical powers. But because he is, and will
always be, led by the pleasure–pain impulse, he is never at liberty not to desire
his own pleasure, nor is his will free to reject self-interest. Helvétius concedes
only that individuals might be free to choose the means by which they obtain that
which they are necessitated to want. Thus, his broadest definition of freedom is
that individuals become “enlightened” to their own best interests, and enlightening
people this way is the aim of De l’Esprit.
Later in his work, Helvétius will conclude that because all individuals are led
by the same drives and all are capable of receiving an equal number of sensations,
they are fundamentally and fully equal. The only differences between them result
from external conditioning. At the end of his “First Discourse,” however, he limits
himself to concluding that, given what he has proved, error is not an essential part
of human nature but only an accident or the result of external circumstances.
Rousseau’s Marginal Notes on the First Discourse of De l’Esprit
Most of the dangers that Rousseau perceived as he read De l’Esprit were contained
in the short Discourse at the beginning of the work. He reacted to them forcefully

“We cannot … form any idea of this word freedom as applied to the will,” and,
“It is necessary that all of our thoughts and desires be the immediate effects, or the natural
outcomes, of the impressions that we have received.” See Helvétius, De l’Esprit, p. 47–8.
in his marginal notes, and later in Emile and La Nouvelle Héloïse. The most
contentious points for Rousseau were Helvétius’s views of the total passivity of
the mind, the absence of the soul or of God, and the equality of all individuals,
which for Rousseau implied that human beings lacked individuality and free will.
Rousseau first objects to the idea that the two faculties—which Helvétius
reduces to one—are passive. In the margin he notes emphatically that “sensation”
and “sentiment” are not the same. There is a fundamental difference, he argues,
between “local” impressions received at one particular moment and striking
one sense organ (sensation) and impressions that affect the whole individual
(sentiment). Further, he insists that immediate feeling and remembering are two
distinct reactions because, if they were the same, people would be unable to
distinguish sensation from memory.
Rousseau also rejects Helvétius’s conclusion that “juger, c’est sentir.” Since
perceiving and comparing are not the same, sensing and judging cannot be.
Perceiving an object is a different act from understanding relations between
objects. In the latter case, Rousseau insists, another faculty comes into play, an
active faculty. Although he does not elaborate on this point in his marginal notes,
it will be central to the story of the Savoyard Priest in Emile.
Both these initial criticisms will be linked later to Rousseau’s strong rejection
of the idea that the senses are primary motivators of human action, and to his
insistence that individuals possess an active faculty that is responsible for free and
morally based decisions. There is also an important link between this notion of an
active faculty and Rousseau’s concept of “negative education”; the latter is based
on the idea that education is a passive enterprise, while children are active beings
whose nature must determine the pedagogical process. This method will be in stark
contrast to Helvétius’s idea of “positive education,” elaborated in his second work
De l’Homme. In Helvétius’s method, the educator plays an active and central role,
and children remain passive receptors.
Rousseau raises another key objection to Helvétius’s idea that spirit or mind
(esprit) can be defined simply by the quantity of knowledge or information a
person has of the relations between objects. Rousseau insists in one of his notes
that the breadth of spirit is not determined by the amount of knowledge we have
of the relations among objects but “our greater or lesser aptitude for knowing
them.” In other words, the nature of spirit is determined by an innate capacity. The
importance of innate capacity and natural predisposition will play a central role in
Emile and in Rousseau’s rebellion against the trend in Enlightenment educational
thought of emphasizing the role of habit formation and socialization over nature
and individuality.
In his marginal notes to Helvétius’s De l’Esprit, Rousseau appears to be
frustrated but not strongly threatened by Helvétius’s claims. He considers them to

See Rousseau, “Notes sur De l’Esprit d’Helvétius,” Oeuvres complètes, vol. 4
(16 vols, Paris, 1969), pp. 1121–30.

Ibid., p. 1122.
be misguided, simplistic, and long-winded ploys. Notwithstanding this dismissive

attitude, however, Rousseau recognizes and is disturbed by the implications of
the work and confronts them directly in Book IV of Emile. Before looking at
Rousseau’s response, we return to an analysis of the remainder of De l’Esprit.
De l’Esprit, Continued: A Social Theory of Education
The theme of Helvétius’s posthumous work De l’Homme (published in 1772)

is that “l’éducation peut tout” [education can do all], a conclusion implied in the
works of countless French theorists but directly stated and developed only by
Helvétius. In De l’Esprit he prepares the ground for this claim by attempting to
prove that the environment is the sole influence on individual growth. The three
premises of his argument are: 1) the pain–pleasure impulse is the determining
factor in all behavior; 2) human beings are morally neutral and social morals are
relative to their time and place; and 3) all individuals are fully equal. These points
are of great consequence to educational thought because they problematize the
relationship between self-interest and virtue that most theorists tried to establish
in their works.
Having demonstrated that sensing and judging are one and the same, Helvétius
argues that people’s ideas, desires, and actions are all based narrowly on their
sense reactions; in other words, they are based on their self-interest and the pain–
pleasure impulse. In the same way that the physical universe is subject to laws
of movement, he states, so the moral universe is subject to laws of interest, “that
powerful enchanter” (DLE 59). This idea is not revolutionary in the educational
literature of the eighteenth century. Most educational theorists seek to discover
the optimal method through which children can be led to virtue through their self-
interest. However, no theorists go as far as Helvétius, stripping the idea of virtue
of any spiritual or moral connotations.
Helvétius is unapologetic in the picture he paints of humanity, which is sharp
and candid, revealing little disappointment or indignation. He does not judge
people by their motives, all of which he considers to be the same and none of
which they can truly know or be honest about. He believes that “on earth, there
is no pure vice or virtue” (DLE 333). Since people are compelled to give way to
their strongest interest and never to forgo pleasure, the virtuous man is not he who
sacrifices his desires to public interest (which is impossible) but he whose desires
conform to the public interest (DLE 335). Thus, while other educational theorists
struggle to balance nature and habit in a new interpretation of virtue—appealing
to partially innate characteristics such as reason, sentiment, or benevolence—
Helvétius removes nature from the equation altogether, arguing that virtue is

Claude-Adrien Helvétius, De l’Homme (2 vols, London, 1772; reprint, Tours, 1989).

One of the reformers of the 1760s, Colomb, also claims “l’instruction fait tout,” but
he does not use Helvétius’s philosophical justifications. Colomb, Plan raisonné d’éducation
publique (Avignon, 1762), p. 27.
produced simply through educational conditioning and reinforced through laws

that uphold the lessons children are taught in school. Ultimately, responsibility for
virtue lies not in the hearts of men but in actions to which they are habituated by
their parents, teachers, lawmakers, and rulers.10
Insisting that the morals of individuals must be judged only within the context
of their local environment, Helvétius describes the mores and belief systems of
other cultures with absolute neutrality. This can be seen in the many examples
he gives of ritual behavior in primitive cultures, all of which he judges according
to their use value, considering them equal to the rituals performed by his own
culture when measured by their success in satisfying social needs.11 One of the
most striking examples he offers concerns women. The vices of European women,
Helvétius claims, are not a result of their nature. They are a necessary effect of
the contradiction between the desires of human nature and the sentiments that
women are forced to effect because of the laws and values under which they
live. It is these values, rather than the nature of women, that necessitate “falsity”
in their behavior. In contrast, in Madagascar, where women are encouraged to
satisfy their desires and fantasies by having many suitors before deciding on one,
they are all true and honest. Although Helvétius insists he is not advocating that
such a system be implemented in Europe, his point is that one cannot blame
women for qualities that are a necessary consequence of national mores. He still
bases his argument on the idea of women as conveyors of pleasure (to men)
above all and thus falls in line with the general trend of Enlightenment thought
on women. But aside from Morelly he is the only thinker who does not close
the door to any educational opportunities for women or place any limits on their
natural capacities.
For Helvétius, virtue is thus fully relative to the particular circumstances,
historical period, and cultural milieu within which it is enacted. The concept of
a universal and unchangeable morality is an illusion. He considers morality to
be an instrument of politics and legislation and searches for the roots of virtue in
the laws and customs of nations. Throughout De l’Esprit he puts forth a scathing
critique of religious institutions and in particular on Christianity and Christian
views of human nature. According to Helvétius, human beings are “neither good
10
At one point, however, Helvétius calls “the light of the spirit” and “the nobility of
the soul” gifts of nature. See Helvétius, De l’Esprit, p. 83. He states that whoever combines
these gifts of nature always will act to promote public utility. This is not the only instance
in which Helvétius suddenly inserts a phrase that appears to describe inherent qualities
after having proved that these do not exist or are of no consequence. Later, in passing, he
mentions that pride is “necessary and inherent in human nature” but never elaborates on this
idea. Helvétius, De l’Esprit, p. 92.
11
Generally, Helvétius has a progressive view of culture and morals. He sees
everything in the light of various legitimate interests. In the course of his work, he describes
the most diverse cultural and national practices without prejudice or judgment. At the heart
of his extensive discussion of different cultures is the idea that there are many ways to
achieve same result: a good life for all people.
nor wicked but apt to be one or the other depending on whether a common interest
unites or devides them” (DLE 217–18).
The Argument for Full Equality
Although Helvétius does not discuss education until the end of his treatise, he has
established two principles that will make his analysis of the educational process
unique. Having demonstrated: 1) the moral neutrality of individuals; and 2) the
one-dimensional nature of their motivation, he eliminates the need to construct
elaborate theories reconciling habit and nature. However, Helvétius sets out to
prove a more difficult point, one that will allow him to further develop the idea
that habit (conditioning) is a unique force in human development: he argues that
all individuals are equal in their potential for talent and even greatness. He is
the first thinker who dares to bring the principles of sensationism to their logical
conclusions in the matter of malleability, and the first courageously to apply to
all individuals without reservation the notion of universal reason. Unlike his
contemporaries, Helvétius does not cushion his justification for equality with
arguments about individuals being “equal in the eyes of God” or having an “equal
right to happiness.” He argues that all difference is illusory and that individuals
are all, simply, fully equal.
I outline briefly the principal points of Helvétius’s argument about the illusion of
difference in order to underscore both how self-evident his conclusions were given
the premises of sensationism and why these conclusions nevertheless shocked so
many of his readers. Helvétius’s remarkably straightforward line of argument puts
into relief the extent to which previous educators had resisted the implications of
sensationist psychology and forces his successors to confront them.
Physical Differences
Helvétius begins by challenging some basic assumptions about difference. For

example, philosophers have theorized that since human beings exhibit great variety
in their physical appearance, one should naturally assume that these variations
reflect intellectual disparities. Helvétius strongly opposes such arguments.
Although he admits that slight variations in the senses are possible, he insists
that these are never significant enough to influence a person’s spirit. The key to
depth of insight is not a finer sense perception of an object, but rather a superior
understanding of the relations between objects. So while an individual with a more
refined sense of sight might perceive objects more clearly, he will not necessarily
be a better painter since there is no reason for him to have a better grasp of the
relations between the objects he paints.
Intellectual Differences
Helvétius proceeds to argue that memory, attention span, and passion, all traits
considered essential for intellectual excellence, are not in fact sources of great
differences among individuals. For example, some theorists argued that the
greater the memory, the larger the number of sensations that could be stored and
the more connections could be made between ideas. But Helvétius insists that
in fact the memory space of even moderately well-organized (meaning properly
functioning) individuals is massive, given how much they remember in a lifetime.
Although there might be slight variations, ultimately these are insignificant.
Given the mental storage capacity of most individuals, all are capable of talent
and even genius.
For Helvétius, giving credit to a faculty like memory for superior intellectual
achievement is only the first mistake. He further aims to demonstrate that each
quality usually believed to produce intelligence is in fact linked to another
quality, which in the end is reducible to the pain–pleasure impulse. For example,
memory is not in itself a sign of intelligence. Rather, attention—the faculty that
fixes objects in the memory—determines the capacity of mind. People with
poor memories but an ability to focus can achieve successes that people with no
attention and good memories cannot. In turn, however, attention is determined
by passion, and passion is awakened by desire for pleasure (DLE 258). Passion
is the “the celestial fire that vivifies the moral world” (DLE 287–8); it inspires
greatness, fixes attention, strengthens memory, and forces individuals to recognize
and to consider each other.12 Ultimately, Helvétius’s point is that since all people
are not only susceptible to pleasure but are also necessarily driven by the desire
for it, they are all capable of passion and therefore of attention, memory, and
all the qualities needed to produce a great mind. If the number of intelligent
people is small, this is simply because women and the lower classes have been
excluded from education and because the instruction of elites has been defective.
Helvétius challenges his readers not to flatter themselves, either as individuals
or as members of nations, into believing in their own superiority. The great
inequality among human beings is created only by education and environment,
and “the man of genius is merely the product of circumstances in which this man
found himself ” (DLE 417).
12
Although Helvétius recognizes that there are both natural and artificial passions—
like hunger as opposed to the need for glory—he does not rank passions according to merit.
This is because although he argues that a great deal of human activity is motivated by
the desire for glory, he does not actually believe that there is any such thing as desire for
esteem or glory. All desires are merely variants of the principal desire: to procure physical
pleasure. Esteem and glory are valued because they compel others to assist us in our search
for pleasure.
Education
In light of Helvétius’s radical interpretation of self-interest and the pain–pleasure

impulse as the sole motives of human conduct, the obvious pedagogical implication
of his theories is that the environment is the one and only influence on human
development. The most problematic consequence of this position, and the one that
Rousseau will oppose in his Emile, is that the individual is merely an afterthought
in the educational process. If Helvétius is correct, there is no need for teachers
to develop elaborate methods of instruction based on the ways in which students
receive impressions or absorb information differently. This does not mean that
Helvétius believes education should be the same for all children. On the contrary,
he considers it absurd that children who will enter different professions receive
exactly the same training. However, individual differences are relevant only in the
matter of vocational training. The common element in human nature, the search
for pleasure, is to be conditioned to virtue in the same way in all individuals, in
a social environment and with only one objective: to form loyal citizens whose
desires are properly aligned with the needs of the general public and the nation.
Even more offensive to Rousseau than Helvétius’s elimination of individual
variance was the fact that Helvétius’s theory stripped individuals not only of all
moral responsibility but also of their innate moral sense. Although educational
theorists had taken several steps in this direction already, their aim was not to
eliminate moral conscience but rather to locate it in different developmental stages or
define it according to different criteria. Most remained convinced that morality was
partially innate and could be cultivated, drawn out, or at least instilled in childhood.
For Helvétius morality is merely a consequence of action, and thus children must
simply be conditioned to perform good actions. Moral conditioning takes place in a
social or collective arena and does not involve any individual spiritual or intellectual
journey. Even if individuals could cultivate virtues in isolation from their fellow
men, these virtues could never counter social vices because the latter are “always
hidden in the heart of the nation’s legislation” (DLE 147).
Helvétius thus holds a “cultural theory of progress”; he does not believe that
human beings change but identifies progress only in cultures, societies, and laws.13
Further, individuals do not have to work on their own personal growth because
real transformation can be initiated only from outside and above. Education
has a fully positive and active role, but from a child’s perspective learning is a
passive experience. In response, Rousseau will base much of his educational
theory on the idea that morality is not only unteachable in a social context but
unteachable in general, since it is located deeply within the conscience of each
individual. Each child must be an active participant in the process of his or her own
moral awakening.
13
Mordecai Grossman, The Philosophy of Helvétius: With Special Emphasis on the
Educational Implications of Sensationalism (New York, 1926), p. 111.
The Legislator as Educator
As a corollary to his views on human nature and development, Helvétius elaborates

the first fully social theory of education. Education is “social” or “collective”
in the sense that it takes place in a public environment, aims at socialization,
and is based on the belief that children are equal and identical. Further, the
most important actors in the educational process are teachers, legislators, and
philosophers, all of whom are responsible for determining the best means of
guiding self-interest toward conduct that is useful and beneficial for the greatest
number. Helvétius develops this point in his posthumously published work
De l’Homme, where he argues that the legislators’ task is to study the principles
of human motivation. The information they receive from this study will enable
them to frame laws that offer human beings incentives to the kind of behavior
that is profitable to society and to the nation. Once the motives of individuals
have been discovered, the principles of public happiness will have been
established. The only work left will be for educators (under the guidance of
legislators) to ensure that schools instill correct values and direct self-interest
and passion toward the public good. The art of legislation “thus consists in
forcing men, through the sentiment of self-love, always to be just toward one
another” (DLE 217).
Helvétius is not the first to empower educators and government officials in
the educational process. As we have seen in previous chapters, theorists often
invalidated the role of parents as they embraced the idea of a science of education
that could be perfected only by professionals. And as we will see in Chapter
11, this trend intensifies at mid-century, when political and social reformers
argue almost unanimously for the virtues of public education. Although in De
l’Esprit Helvétius does not attack parents as directly as do other educational
theorists, he lays the groundwork there for the dogmatic position he will adopt in
De l’Homme, that parents should not be allowed to raise their own children.
Parents, he will argue in his later work, do not understand the contradictory
demands they place on their children because they do not understand the basic
laws of human nature. These laws can be mastered only by professionals who
devote their time to learning the science of education: legislators, philosophers,
and educators (in practice, Helvétius believes that the real work is that of the
legislator). Legislators require little philosophical background, beyond an
understanding of the general principles Helvétius offers in his book, in order
to discover the laws of human nature and design educational guidebooks for
teachers. Further, the information they gather enables legislators to establish laws
determining which actions are virtuous, and thus to ensure a direct correlation
between the lessons children learn in school and in society.
Despite its apparent rigidity, however, Helvétius’s system is more flexible
than Morelly’s in the Code de la nature. For example, Helvétius recognizes that
laws and morals must continually evolve with the changing needs of society, and
he insists that legislators regularly review laws to ensure that they correspond to
the moral maturity of each culture. In contrast, Morelly argues that once moral
laws are established they become “closed chapters” and are no longer to be
studied or questioned.
Educational Practice
Helvétius offers little information concerning the implementation of these views,

putting forth only a few recommendations when it comes to educational practice.
The art of education, he writes, consists of knowing how to form strong bodies
and enlightened minds. He is clearly influenced by French educational theory
and considers childhood to be a precious time, not to be wasted on the study of
dead languages. He insists on modern subjects such as physics, history, math,
and morale, all of which must be learned with the aid of objects in the world and
accessible concepts rather than abstract ideas. Following in the steps of Morelly,
Helvétius greatly expands the definition of education, which he considers to be
every single experience a person has in life, including those not connected to
active learning. Further, because of his faith in the malleability of individuals,
Helvétius believes that education can take place not only within any setting but
also at any developmental stage (including adulthood), as long as it consists of a
process that aligns individual interests and social needs.
The most important educational message of De l’Esprit is that as long as
there is a contradiction between what children are taught and what is expected
of them or rewarded in society, education will not have a positive effect on either
individuals or groups. Helvétius emphasizes more forcefully the point made by
previous theorists, that the fundamental challenge of education is to achieve the
proper alignment of the goals of education and those of society and the state.14
In order to do this one must:
Consider actions indifferent in themselves; recognize that it is up to the State to

determine those that deserve esteem or contempt; and to the Legislator, from his
knowledge of the public good, to fix the instant where each action ceases to be
virtuous and become vicious. (DLE 158)
Finally, since the most significant transformations take place on a political

and social level, Helvétius believes that the role of education is to mirror these
transformations and ensure their reproduction on a personal basis rather than to
initiate changes of any kind from within the individual. As in Morelly’s Code,
therefore, Helvétius empowers education in theory but in practice he strips
students, teachers, and schools of all initiative.
14
Helvétius was undoubtedly influenced by Montesquieu, who remarked that “today
we receive three contrary forms of education; from our fathers, from our teachers and from
the world. What the third tells us overturns all the ideas we receive from the first two.”
Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, livres I–V, ed. Paul Janet (Paris, 1887), p. 135
Conclusion
At first glance, it is difficult to see why Helvétius’s De l’Esprit created such a

scandal in mid-eighteenth-century France. Most philosophes and educational
thinkers had already conceded that pain and pleasure were the great motivators
of human action and that the definition of virtue was the proper alignment of
self-interest and the interests of society.
What is unique and dangerous about Helvétius’s conclusions is that he made
them unequivocally, offering no concessions to traditional morality. His analysis
of human nature was difficult for even the most progressive minds to accept. To
his contemporaries he appeared to have reduced human beings to sophisticated
beasts, eliminated all difference between vice and virtue, and stripped individuals
of their free will. Although Helvétius believed that he had merely elaborated on
the ideas of Locke and Condillac, his work in fact “stood alone as the articulation
of the implications of enlightened thinking for pedagogy.”15
It is difficult to establish how extensively eighteenth-century educational
thinkers read Helvétius’s work. Few of the theorists we discuss in Chapter 11
refer to him by name, although many appear in their language and concepts to be
influenced by De l’Esprit. In particular, we see a recurrence of Helvétius’s idea of
a science of education and his insistence on the ultimate power of the legislator
in educational matters. Despite the apparent lack of direct influence, however, De
l’Esprit is extremely significant as a distillation and radical statement of ideas that
had been put forth in French educational works by mid-century. Helvétius presents
a powerful, utopian vision of the possibility of change through education, a view
that “what man thinks, believes, even what he feels, is open to the most extensive
modifications through the social environment.”16 This is precisely the formulation
that Rousseau will oppose, as he attempts to re-empower the individual in the
educational process and reconsider the question of human malleability.17
15
Jeffrey Sworowski, “À la chasse des idées … The Educational Philosophy of Claude-
Adrien Helvétius in Context” (Columbia University Doctoral thesis, 1995), p. 184.
16
Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, vol. 2: The Science of Freedom
(2 vols, New York, 1977), p. 513.
17
Rousseau is less vehement in his critical comments on the remainder of De l’Esprit
than he was in his critique of the First Discourse. His principal points are the following:
1) against Helvétius’s idea that we esteem in others only that which we recognize in
ourselves, he asserts that he is able to recognize good ideas in others that contradict his
own; 2) against the idea that the first principle of virtue is public utility he argues that, if
this were true, only philosophers would behave virtuously; and 3) against Helvétius’s belief
that all legislation must tend toward the public good, Rousseau insists that the public good
is insignificant to individuals if they don’t believe in it.
Chapter 9
Rousseau’s Emile, Books I−III:
Individual Education
Not the least of Rousseau’s many achievements was his brilliant demolition of the
treaty between interest and virtue so carefully worked out by the philosophies.
Rousseau demolishes the “treaty between interest and virtue” in part by breaking the
association between nature and habit, which had been posited by so many eighteenth-
century pedagogical theorists. He rejects the great unacknowledged conclusion of
sensationist educational thought, that because of the prime influence of sensations
in childhood development, and due to the malleability of human nature, men and
women are or can be the product of habit alone. In Emile Rousseau attempts to
redefine the relationship and redraw the balance between nature and habit. In the
process, he advances his own interpretation of the tabula rasa theory, reconceptualizes
individuality and freedom, rejects the association between education and citizenship,
and offers alternative means of achieving social harmony through education.
This chapter examines closely Rousseau’s resistance to trends in eighteenth-
century pedagogical thought concerning nature and habit, active and passive
instruction, and individual and social education. However, we will also see how
deeply Emile was influenced by the work of Rousseau’s predecessors. After
having analyzed the literature of the early Enlightenment, we are now in a position
to appreciate Rousseau’s place in the eighteenth-century debate about education
and to understand what he intended to accomplish by writing Emile. We will see
that while Locke’s influence was of course central, the sensationist principles
as elaborated (and often rejected) in Emile are derived more specifically from
the work of French pedagogical theorists as they interpreted and struggled with
Locke’s ideas. I therefore review issues that are familiar to students of Emile,
but with an emphasis on how Rousseau appropriated concepts, examples, and
language from his contemporaries. My aim is not primarily to show, as many
authorities on Rousseau have, how he assumed an oppositional stance vis-a-vis
other philosophes or dominant currents of Enlightenment thought. I focus more
narrowly on how he drew from, and positioned himself against, other educational
theorists and the dominant currents of educational thought.
In exploring Rousseau’s pedagogical views, I focus on the individualistic
program he puts forth in Emile rather than the ideal of citizenship education he
develops in his 1752 Encyclopédie article “Économie politique” or Chapter IV

Mark Hulliung, The Autocritique of Enlightenment: Rousseau and the Philosophes
of Considérations sur le gouvernement de Pologne (1775). The ideas developed

in “Économie politique” and the Considérations are important not only for what
they tell us about Rousseau’s thought, but also because they were read by other
educational theorists. In both these works Rousseau participates in the French
debate on the relationship between the state and education, drawing on ancient
models of citizenship as well as on his own view of the social contract. However,
in Emile he elaborates a philosophical–educational theory based on individual
development, set in opposition to citizenship education. Here he participates in the
pedagogical debate on the nature of childhood, the possibility of freedom, and the
development of moral consciousness. While at times he appears to be preparing
Emile for life in society, and he restates the tenets of the Contrat Social in Book V,
the primary goal of the treatise is to put forth a philosophical representation of
freedom that has been created far away from—and cannot be usurped by—the
state or society. Thus, although from time to time I point out how in “Économie
politique” or Considérations Rousseau put forth contradictory positions to those in
Emile, in this and the next chapter I focus almost exclusively on the latter work and
its unfinished sequel, Emile et Sophie ou les solitaires.
Rousseau and the Question of Originality
Rousseau’s intellectual debts are difficult to establish. Notwithstanding the large

body of work completed during the past half-century on the history of childhood,
many commentators still present him as an educational Columbus who discovered
the island of childhood and explored the stages of youth. Rousseau is still often
credited with initiating a compassionate or experience-based approach to education
and for elaborating the idea of “natural education.” Commentators do not always
argue these points, but most mention them as truisms. By avoiding an excursion
into earlier educational literature and the roots of Rousseau’s vision, scholars have
inadvertently bolstered his reputation for innovation.
Rousseau himself is the greatest propagator of the myth of his own originality.
In the preface to Emile he declares that the book will be based entirely on his own
ideas. He acknowledges that many works on education have been published, but
reduces them collectively to a useless stream of criticisms offering no practical
solutions. He accuses educators of losing themselves in the details of curriculum
and ignoring “the art of forming men.” He claims that since the publication of
Locke’s treatise on education his is the only original work on the subject. Finally,
he insists that “we don’t know childhood (Emile 32) and that “the wisest writers
Rousseau does not often credit his sources. In Emile, he recognizes Locke,

Montaigne, and Plato as influences. He mentions Fleury, Rollin, and Crousaz briefly in his
discussion of physical education.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile ou de l’éducation (Paris, 1966), p. 32. Unless
otherwise noted, all quotations from Emile are taken from Emile ou de l’éducation, 1966
edition. Henceforth, this title is cited directly following quotations as “Emile.”
Rousseau’s Emile, Books I−III 183
focus on what men should know, without taking into consideration what children
are capable of learning” (Emile 32).
Scholars do not deny that Rousseau had important educational predecessors.
However, while some authors recognize pre-existing ideas, they do not look closely
at how these affected educational theory, focusing instead on doctors’ manuals,
memoirs, paintings, and literature. Most studies dedicated to Rousseau’s thought in
general, and which devote a substantial section to his educational theory, consider
the complexity of the issues presented in Emile rather than the connection between
this book and earlier works. Those who take into account the influence of earlier

For example, Richard Coe points to the importance of thinkers like Dumarsais and
Morelly; Jean Chateau discusses the influence of the Jesuits, the Jansenists, Fénelon, and
Pascal on Rousseau’s educational thought; and Villey-Desmerserets analyzes the influence
of Montaigne and Locke. In the “Conclusion” of his book La pédagogie en France aux
XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, Georges Snyders discusses the ways in which Rousseau’s work
can be seen as a synthesis of old and new pedagogical, and Elizabeth Wirth Marvick
shows the extent to which many of the ideas advanced by eighteenth-century educational
thinkers (including Rousseau) concerning breastfeeding, swaddling, corporal punishment,
and discipline were current and under discussion in the seventeenth century. Richard
Coe, “The Idea of ‘Natural Order’ in French Education, 1600−1760,” British Journal of
Educational Studies, 5 (November 1956−May 1957): pp. 144−58; Jean Chateau, Jean-
Jacques Rousseau: sa philosophie d’éducation (Paris, 1969); Pierre Louis Joseph Villey-
Desmerserets, L’influence de Montaigne sur les idées pédagogiques de Locke et Rousseau
(New York, 1971); Georges Snyders, La pédagogie en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles,
(Paris, 1965); Elizabeth Wirth Marvick, “Nature versus Nurture: Patterns and Trends in
Seventeenth-Century French Child-Rearing,” in Lloyd deMause (ed.), The History of
Childhood (Northvale, 1995).

See, for example, Alessandro Ferrara, Modernity and Authenticity: A Study of the
Social and Ethical Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (New York, 1993); Tracy Strong,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Politics of the Ordinary (London, 1994); Jean Starobinski,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction, trans. Arthur Goldhammer
(Chicago, 1971); Jennifer J. Popiel, Rousseau’s Daughters: Domesticity, Education and
Autonomy in Modern France (Durham, 2008); Asher Horowitz, Rousseau: Nature and
History (Toronto, 1987); Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseau’s Social
Thought (Cambridge, 1969); Ernst Cassirer, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(New Haven, 1989); Julia V. Douthwaithe, The Wild Girl, Natural Man, and the Monster
(Chicago, 2002); Thomas M. Kavanagh, Writing the Truth: Authority and Desire in
Rousseau (Berkeley, 1987). For studies devoted specifically to Rousseau’s educational
ideas, see Chateau, Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Yves Vargas, Introduction à l’Emile de
Rousseau (Paris, 1995); Pierre Burgelin, La philosophie de l’existence de J.-J. Rousseau
(Paris, 1973). Also see articles on Rousseau collected in Rousseau, l’Emile et la Révolution:
Actes du colloque international de Montmorency, ed. Robert Thiery (Paris, 1992); Rousseau
and the Eighteenth Century: Essays in Memory of R.A. Leigh, eds Marion Hobson, J.T.A.
Leigh, and Robert Wolker (Oxford, 1992); The Legacy of Rousseau, eds Clifford Orwin and
Nathan Tarcov (Chicago, 1997); Rousseau and Liberty, ed. Robert Wolker (Manchester,
1995). Some notable Rousseau scholars ignore the entire question of educational influence.
Allan Bloom, in his insightful introduction to Emile, hardly mentions earlier sources.
educational sources do not review them carefully enough to show their impact
on Rousseau, or they examine only the most well-known works such as those of
Locke or Montaigne. Finally, some influential scholars have taken Rousseau at his
word when considering the question of his originality. Peter Jimack, for example,
states that before Emile the only real reform proposals suggested in educational
works concerned breastfeeding, swaddling, and physical education: “There was
no serious challenge to the tradition of intellectual education; and most works
dealing with the subject, even after Emile, confined themselves to discussing minor
details of the curriculum and perhaps some changes in the methods of learning the
traditional subjects.”
From what we have seen in previous chapters, Rousseau’s claims, supported
here by Jimack, are altogether untenable. An examination of “what children are
capable of learning” is exactly what educators, from Fleury to Morelly, were
undertaking under the influence of sensationist psychology. Educational theorists
offered practical solutions of all kinds, and many recognized not only that the goal
of education should be “the art of forming men” but also that education could play
a significant role in improving social relations and preparing children for life as
citizens. Thus, in the area of pedagogy Rousseau was a disciple of the disciples of
sensationist educational theory.
My point in emphasizing the influence of previous thinkers on Rousseau is not
to minimize his intellectual contribution. Rather, it is to clarify precisely the ways
in which Emile presented a challenge to educational wisdom and to discuss why
both his contemporaries and ours recognized Rousseau’s educational deviations as
so important. Why, for example, did Rousseau reject the nature−habit association?
Why did he object to utilitarianism and socialization as guiding principles in the
educational process? Is the educational model he offers in Emile an alternative
to the political model he put forth in the Contrat Social or Considerations or its
complement? How, in Emile, did he attempt to overcome some of the contradictions
(Allan Bloom, Emile or On Education [New York, 1979]). Marcel Grandière, whose L’Idéal
pédagogique en France au dix-huitième siècle is dedicated to educational thought in the
eighteenth century, focuses on several of Rousseau’s predecessors but pays little attention
to their influence on his ideas.

In Rousseau’s Emile and Early Children’s Literature (Metuchen, 1971), Sylvia W.
Patterson does reference several authors who have argued against Rousseau’s originality. One
of the strongest statements comes from James Phinney Munroe: “Emile contains scarcely an
idea that is not already in the Greek and Latin literature, in Rabelais, Montaigne, or Locke.
Whole passages, even, if we put faith in his detractors, are taken bodily from obscurer writings”
(12). However, none of the critics Patterson mentions discusses the lines of influence in detail
or cites any other than the most obvious influences, like Locke and Montaigne.

Peter Jimack, Emile (London, 1992), p. xiv. In his Rousseau: Emile (London, 1983),
Jimack mentions that much of Emile is taken from Locke, whose ideas were circulating
in eighteenth-century France. However, having pointed this out he still credits Rousseau
with many innovations concerning the ideas of childhood that were current during the
mid-eighteenth century.
he exposed in his earlier works between nature and civilization, freedom and
authority, and individuality and citizenship?
Rousseau as a Disciple of Sensationist Educational Theory
At the heart of Rousseau’s Emile is his concept of childhood, and at the heart of
his concept of childhood are the principles of sensationist psychology. In Book I,
he describes infancy in much the same terms as his predecessors, a time “when
memory and imagination are still inactive, the child is attentive only to what
affects his senses at any given moment” (Emile 73). Given this reality, he goes
on to argue, information must be offered in the proper order (Emile 73). Parents
must not interfere with their children’s sensual explorations, through which they
will learn about all objects and, eventually, about the relations between objects.
Rousseau embraces the already common principles that human beings are guided
by the pain−pleasure impulse, direct experience is more effective in learning than
words, and habits can have a profound effect on children’s nature.
In many cases, the arguments and illustrations Rousseau uses to support his
position are strictly in line with those of previous reformers. His attack on words
in favor of “Things! Things!” (Emile 232) and his definition of a good tutor as
one who does not give precepts but has the child discover them (Emile 53) are
extrapolated from the ideas, developed in the pedagogical literature, that children
learn best when guided by their needs, are attracted to things they can see, feel,
and understand clearly, and absorb information through experience rather than
precepts. Rousseau’s hatred of rules, grammar, and tiresome moralizing tales are in
conformity with the emphasis that early Enlightenment educators placed on teaching
morals through simple, relevant stories; learning languages through practice;
and postponing rules until direct learning had already occurred. His suggestion
that children be gradually accustomed to ugly or frightening things through
the use of play and entertainment—“let them laugh as they enter the darkness”
(Emile 171)—is strikingly similar to the suggestions put forth in the works
of Fleury and Crousaz and is based on these theorists’ reevaluation of the
relationship between emotional or physical pleasure and successful intellectual
and psychological development.
Further, the charming tales Rousseau presents to his readers of Emile learning
about geography, astronomy, property, and vanity through his own curiosity
and driven by his needs and desires correspond to arguments we encountered in
previous literature, especially the work of Fleury, Crousaz, and the abbé Pluche.
These examples conform to the belief among educational theorists that the tutor’s
lessons should speak specifically to a child’s developmental stage and that the
natural curiosity of children should be engaged to entice them to learn. We recall
Fleury’s suggestion that children write the history of their town or family before
being asked to imagine distant lands and Crousaz’s description of an astronomy
lesson that takes the form of nightly stargazing. Rousseau brings these methods
to life in exciting stories as he describes Emile and his tutor, lost in a threatening
and stormy forest, saved by their knowledge of the position of the sun and stars.
But at the heart of Rousseau’s stories in Emile lie fundamental assumptions about
children and childhood that had become a familiar part of the educational literature
by 1762 and that had taken as their primary justification the idea that children
are malleable, sensual beings whose learning must be directly relevant to their
immediate experience of the world.
Childhood as the Model for Adulthood
Rousseau carries most of these Lockean principles further than his predecessors.
While the latter emphasize the centrality of sensual and physical experience, they
nonetheless also assume that there is a natural correspondence between physical
and emotional development. Rousseau appears to deny the significance (or even
existence) of emotional needs in early childhood, and in the first three books of
Emile he focuses primarily on fulfilling children’s physical needs. He also takes
the idea of a pleasurable and effortless education further than other thinkers, so that
not only are Emile’s experiences enjoyable but the child does not feel that his will
is thwarted by other human beings. Finally, Rousseau attempts to demonstrate
how children’s physical needs awaken their curiosity and how their senses, rather
than their judgment or reason, are engaged whenever a new piece of information
is introduced.
Rousseau’s ability to turn his most progressive colleagues into conservatives
is of course part of what makes his works powerful and moving. He ridicules
educational theorists’ attempts to put cultural norms into question and indict an
entire mode of thinking to which, he argues, they remain subject and are guilty
of perpetuating. In Emile he uses this approach to turn the already influential
reevaluation of childhood among pedagogical thinkers into a reconceptualization
of adulthood, by way of a discussion of childhood.
For example, while other theorists retain as the aim of education the creation of
a healthy adult, a project that necessarily includes and requires a happy childhood,
Rousseau makes happiness and fulfillment in childhood the model and prototype
of happiness and fulfillment in adulthood. Childhood is not only to be accepted,
embraced, and enjoyed, as many authors had already suggested. In the first three
As we will see below, the central obstacles Emile confronts in his early youth are

those of nature, which teach him the most important lesson of his life: how to surrender to
necessity. There are, however, a few cases where Emile encounters obstacles to his will,
such as the incident when the gardener Robert removes Emile’s harvest of beans or when
the Magician frustrates his attempt to gain glory. In each case, however, Emile does not
actually lock horns with an individual will or become dependent on another person’s view
of him. Rather, he comes face to face with the immutable (and non-ego-driven) laws of
social life. The latter mirror the lessons of nature but raise them to a moral plane, thereby
anticipating Emile’s eventual submission to the general will.
books of Emile Rousseau represents childhood as the living representation of the

long-lost state of nature and the original goodness of man; it is here that the secret
of humanity is hidden (this notwithstanding his insistence in other works that we
cannot return to the state of nature but should aspire to a higher and “denatured”
form of moral action born from the specific conditions of social life). He does
not merely claim that childhood is equal to adulthood; he posits it as superior. The
honesty and “presentness” of childhood are offered as a mocking mirror held up to
the lives of adults in society, a model from which adults can learn to discover their
own nature and uncover the roots of their moral being. It is mostly in this sense
that we can say Rousseau considered childhood to be a special time in a way that
others had never done.
Deeper Divisions: Rousseau’s Challenge to Enlightenment

Educational Thought
Although the issues mentioned above are noteworthy, at the heart of Rousseau’s
reevaluation of childhood and moral education lie deeper divisions between him and
his contemporaries. For Rousseau, the popular belief in self-interest as the central
motor force of human action, and habit as the formative element in education,
undermines the possibility of attaining freedom or cultivating individuality
through the pedagogical process. His response to theorists’ increasingly scientific
approach to pedagogy—their view that the nature of children can be decoded
and an educational method established that aligns perfectly with their needs—
is what he calls “negative education.” Negative education is more than the elusive
method Rousseau disarmingly describes as “doing nothing,” or “preventing
anything from being done” (Emile 41). Behind the general advice “don’t do
anything” lies a set of more specific rules that aim to inhibit particular educational
practices advocated by many eighteenth-century theorists: don’t create habits,
don’t socialize children, don’t mould personalities, don’t invent a secular morality
to replace a religious one. As we will now see, Rousseau undermines the basic
assumptions that by mid-century had become accepted wisdom in the pedagogical
literature. He does this through his discussions of the central themes and tensions
we have seen elaborated above—nature and habit, freedom and dependence,

Although Rousseau claims in Emile that he never intended for people to return to
the state of nature, until Emile reaches the age of 20 he truly is a man of the state of nature
as described in the Discours sur l’inégalité. He is indifferent to other human beings, but
he is good and would never harm others. He is strong and self-sufficient, understands the
basic rules of property and force, and lives utterly in the present. And although he has a
sharp eye for distinguishing between artifice and genuine human behavior, he has no virtue
in the sense that it will be described in the Contrat Social (and in the latter books of Emile):
a moral quality developed through social life and a conscious sense of self-sacrifice for the
greater whole. As we see below, these “state of nature” character traits are the only ones that
survive in Emile after he has been released into society.
utility, surveillance and control, the goodness of man, moral education, and social/
individual education. In the process, he simultaneously appropriates and challenges
the fundamental tenets of French Enlightenment educational thought.
Nature and Habit: From Second to Third Nature
Rousseau’s protest against the growing trend of identifying nature with habit (and
therefore habit formation with education) is fully developed only in Book IV,
where he attacks Helvétius’s assertion that “to judge is to sense,” and puts forward
a new concept of virtue. However, he prepares the ground for his position earlier
in Emile through his discussion of “natural education.”
Although Rousseau is famous for his use of the word nature, his definition of
the term in an educational context is often contradictory, both incorporating and
resisting previous interpretations. At various points in Emile, he defines nature
as: 1) an individual’s personal, innate characteristics; 2) the common elements
of human nature; 3) the order in which the human mind absorbs knowledge; 4)
life outside the city; and 5) the ability to engage in intuitive, self-generated, and
spiritual learning. In the early part of Book I, Rousseau defines natural education
according to the first definition, that part of education that deals with unchangeable
aspects of our being. He considers that there is an element of human nature that
is fixed and firmly rejects the idea, developed in so many educational texts of the
time, that “nature is only habit” (Emile 37). Although many habits are forced on
us, he argues, they cannot really alter our nature, which always asserts itself in
times of crisis.
Fundamental to this argument is Rousseau’s rejection of Helvétius’s vision
of humans as beings who react passively to external impressions. Recalling his
marginal notes on De l’Esprit, he insists that we are drawn to and away from
objects, not only according to the pleasure and pain they cause us, but “according
to the judgments formed by means of the ideas of happiness or perfection that
reasons gives us” (Emile 38). Although Rousseau does not elaborate on this
critically important idea in the early books of Emile, he sets up what will be a
major theme of his work (and the most important point in opposition to Helvétius):
that individuals are active beings who exercise their will and make judgments,
not only on the basis of sensual need, self-interest, or considerations of utility
(all of which can be produced through the formation of habits) but from internal,
nonlearned, or self-generated moral sensibilities (their nature). In contrast to
“Économie politique” and Considérations sur le gouvernement de Pologne, where
he argues that children can and should be conditioned to virtue from the moment
of birth, in Emile he will argue that it is not enough to habituate individuals to
virtuous behavior. Nature offers each individual the ability to access and act on
a higher form of virtue, which cannot be instilled through habit. It is with this
argument that Rousseau reintroduces the theme of the battle between the higher
and lower self and sets up his “brilliant demolition of the treaty between interest
and virtue,” quoted at the opening of this chapter. Virtue is not merely a matter of
well-directed self-interest, he argues; it is a particular human achievement.
A useful illustration of how Rousseau struggles to redefine virtue can be found
in his analysis of generosity. In this discussion he targets Locke’s unproblematic
formulation of the path from habit to virtue. Locke had suggested that generosity
be rewarded in children so that they learn to associate with it good feelings and
become progressively more generous. He even proposed making generosity
somewhat of a competition:
Make this a contest among children who shall outdo one another this way; and
by this means, by a constant practice, children having made it easy to themselves
to part with what they have, good nature may be settled in them into a habit, and
they may take pleasure and pique themselves in being kind, liberal, and civil
to others.10
This is precisely the philosophy dominating an increasing number of educational

texts during the eighteenth century, a philosophy that Rousseau opposes. He
believes that Locke’s method succeeds only in making children “appear generous
when they are in fact greedy” (Emile 127). Although he recognizes that habit can
produce generous acts, he does not believe that giving in order to receive or to be
validated constitutes real generosity. Once children cease to get back in return, he
argues, they will cease to give.
It is evident from all of Rousseau’s works that he expects human beings to
behave according to a set of motivations that differs from those put forth by his
contemporaries. What is special about how he articulates his expectations in Emile
as opposed to his other work is that, just as Locke used his educational treatise
to illustrate how his idea of political freedom is anticipated and prepared for in
early childhood, Rousseau aims to tell the story of how his particular notions of
virtue and autonomy, revealed only in abstract terms in the Contrat Social and
La Nouvelle Héloïse, are developed in the spirit of an individual child. Pedagogically,
this leads him to make a crucial break with contemporary educational theorists
and with his own position in “Economie politique” and Considérations. Rousseau
insists that children are incapable of virtue, which can be learned only in the late
stages of their education, when moral questions arise. He thus separates physical
and moral education (the development of the senses and of moral consciousness)
at the very moment when other theorists attempt to prove that they are one and the
same, or at least moving on a parallel track. In relation to the example above, this
means that while Rousseau believes children can learn the meaning of having and
losing by way of their senses, they can grasp the concept of giving or sharing only
through another part of their being. Thus he accepts Locke’s idea that the senses
determine the state of childhood without concluding that they determine the state
10
of the Understanding, eds Ruth Grant and Nathan Tarcov (Cambridge, 1996), p. 81.
of being, and he embraces the link between individual and social–political virtue
but not the reduction of the first to the second.11
Ironically, Rousseau’s objection to the idea that habit can create a positive
second nature compels him to disempower the process of education. He identifies
second nature as a corrupt intermediate stage of humanity, the false education
that individuals receive in a society in which they are dominated by the opinions
of others and are victims of useless luxuries, intellectual boredom, and moral
depravity. He offers his pedagogical model in opposition to this trend and transfers
the real power of reformation from the process of education to the individual,
whose own nature is responsible for his growth. The force of education thus
comes not from the fact that it creates a second nature but that it prevents one from
developing, allowing the underlying essence of human nature and individuality
to emerge. In this scenario habit, identified by previous educational theorists as a
magic solution to the imbalances of nature, is seen as a negative agent of change,
responsible for the alienation of individuals from themselves and each other: “The
more we distance ourselves from the state of nature, the more we lose our natural
tastes; or rather, habit creates in us a second nature that we so fully substitute for
the first, that we no longer know the latter” (Emile 139; emphasis added).12
In this way, Rousseau brings to the fore and problematizes the central question
of education: whether external conditioning can complement nature without
violating it. He does so at precisely the moment when other educators, from
Locke to Morelly, were theorizing that there was no necessary contradiction in
the educational process between coercion and freedom, conditioning and free
development, and individuality and socialization. Notwithstanding the remarkably
coercive methods used by the tutor in Emile, Rousseau does not accept the view
that the child’s education requires elements of constraint. He imagines that he can
create an individual for whom subjection to authority is a freely chosen reflection
11
In “Economie politique and Considérations” he does embrace the reduction of
virtue to social and political virtue, defining virtue in terms of and heroism and patriotism.
In both of these works, however, he is assuming the existence of a form of citizenship and
social life that in Emile he insists is not yet present in France.
12
It is important to note that Rousseau distinguishes two sorts of habits, although he
never acknowledges the difference. In the beginning of Emile he takes a position against
Locke (and many others), who advocated instilling habits into young children to accustom
them to everything from sleep to virtue. His famous statement on this theme is that the only
habit to acquire is not to acquire any. This is connected to his idea of freedom; being without
habits and able to control our physical need for things like food and sleep gives us freedom
and self-sufficiency in the face of nature. On the other hand, he has to admit at some point
that habits affect children; he does not fully reject their role in human development. At one
point he argues, surprisingly, that a teacher can gradually instill morality into a child by
having him imitate good acts. His way of excusing this seeming contradiction is to say that in
a natural environment imitation is natural. It is only emulation as a social vice that he rejects.
We will see the full implications of this problem later in our discussion of Book IV.
of his moral nature. Presumably this is the same individual for whom, later in life,
submission to the general will can be an act of liberty.13
Given this ambitious project, we can see that it is not casually that Rousseau
identified Emile as his “last and best work,” incorporating the themes of all of his
others.14 In his educational novel, he ambitiously tries to combine the tasks he had
given himself in the first and second Discours and the Contrat Social, namely, to
define the original nature of man, to identify the elements of and reasons for his
corruption, and to explain how we can move beyond both nature and civilized
society to a state of autonomy and virtue. In Emile he identifies what he considers
to be the true elements of first nature, guards his pupil fiercely against second
nature (civilization, the influence of man), and guides him toward a third nature,
a moral state in which he can achieve qualities that he was incapable of attaining
in his savage state.15
Freedom and Dependence: Wills versus Things
The second element that distinguishes Rousseau’s educational theory from that of
his contemporaries is his attempt to redefine the kind of freedom that individuals
can acquire through education. He does this through his analysis of infancy and
such practices as nursing, swaddling, beating, and later through a discussion of
religion. As we saw in previous chapters, he is not the first to extrapolate the
greatest social vices from the improper treatment of children or to suggest that
the improvement of educational methods carries the potential for realizing social
harmony. Increasingly, educational thinkers were linking the ideal of responsible
13
I say “presumably” because it can be argued that Emile’s personal journey to
autonomy is necessary only because society is still in a corrupt stage. If the world of the
Contrat Social were to be realized, a different kind of training might be required, such as the
education to virtue and patriotism put forth in “Economie politique” and Considérations.
However, this issue is complicated by the fact that Rousseau inserted the basic elements of
the Contrat Social into Book V of Emile and at times indicates that Emile is the prototype of
the kind of individual needed to form the perfect society. I discuss this issue further below.
14
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Les Confessions (Paris, 1959), pp. 672−5. He also mentions in
many different contexts that Emile forms part of a broader “system.” In a letter to Malesherbes
in January 1762 he writes that the inspiration he had before writing the Discours sur les
sciences et les arts carried over to the Discours sur l’inégalité and Emile and that these works
are “inseparable and together form a whole.” See Jimack, Rousseau: Emile, p. 13. Given Book
V and the elements of the social contract in it, I see Emile as an attempt, albeit unsuccessful,
to reconcile elements of both Discours and the Contrat Social.
15
See Peter Jimack, “Homme et Citoyen in Rousseau’s Emile,” Romanic Review,
56/3 (Oct. 1965): pp. 181−7 for a variation of this argument. Jimack claims that Rousseau
struggled to reconcile his ideal of the man and the citizen in Emile, and ultimately he found
the need to transcend both. “Homme” in Emile is both beyond natural man and superior
to the citizen. For a positive assessment of Rousseau’s definition of virtue, see Joseph R.
Reisert, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: A Friend of Virtue (Ithaca, 2003).
citizenship to freedom in childhood and to the proper alignment between a child’s

nature and his or her duty toward others.
However, Locke considered parental will over children to be unproblematic as
long as it was well directed, and Morelly saw it as a natural source of sociability.
Rousseau follows closely in Locke and Morelly’s line of thinking when he states
that a child will benefit from understanding the authority over him as soon as he is
capable of it. But he sees difficulties in reconciling authority and submission within
the family, especially because he considers family relations to be tainted by the
poison of civilized life. Rousseau insists that a feeling of dependence is acceptable
only if it is perceived to be the yoke of necessity rather than the action of one will
upon another, a distinction that is not made by either Locke or Morelly.16 It is here
that Rousseau makes his case about the difference between dependence on things
and on wills: “Dependence on things, being non-moral, does not harm liberty,
and does not engender vices; dependence on men, being out of order, engenders
every kind of vice, and it is through this dependence that master and slave become
mutually depraved” (Emile 100−101).
Rousseau follows his predecessors in considering that the first mistake of
parents is exposing children to physical pain and neglect. However, rather than
considering such abuse to be caused by parents’ misunderstanding the nature of
children, he interprets beating, swaddling, and women’s “refusal” to breastfeed as
indicators of more fundamental problems. In particular, he condemns denatured
family relations and the predicament of city life, which are based on trivialized
social obligations rather than genuine ties. Breast milk for Rousseau is not only
natural or physically beneficial to an infant and to the relationship between mother
and child; it is a source of moral development and bonding in the family and
of all positive human relations in society.17 It can even “re-populate” France
(Emile 47−8). It is for this reason—the infusion of moral content and passionate
tone—that Rousseau’s admonitions, although based on previously established
premises, carried such weight. And it is for this reason that, when reminded that
he had advocated breastfeeding earlier than Rousseau, Buffon answered, “Yes, we
all said it but M. Rousseau alone commanded it and made people obey him.”18
16
Rousseau does allow for some forms of human dependence in early childhood, for
example, of an infant on his or her mother or Emile on his tutor. But these are forms of
dependence that are primarily physical. Their salutary effects can be easily compromised
when a child begins to feel that he is engaged in a battle of the wills. Emile’s later emotional
dependence on his tutor comes in the second stage of his life, when he enters the social–
moral realm. At this time the child has already been formed to freedom and such dependence
will not have the same negative impact.
17
This view was not new. Elizabeth Wirth Marvick quotes a seventeenth-century
source: “to give birth is nothing, to nurse is to give birth continuously.” Marvick, “Nature
versus Nurture,” p. 265. The difference is that Rousseau emphasizes the importance of the
mother herself nursing.
18
Jimack, Emile, p. xxv.
In his discussion of infancy, Rousseau follows the logic of Locke’s concept

of self-mastery and the latter’s insistence on the importance of children learning
“to submit their desires and go without their longings even from their cradles.”19
However, by questioning the underlying premise of Locke’s argument Rousseau
recalls the problem posed in his point about generosity. Locke’s view of self-
mastery through education reflects his concept of social and civic duty. Individuals
in the state of nature, and children in the state of childhood, learn through reason
and through an understanding of God’s law that they owe respect to their fellow
men as equals and should never commit acts that violate the freedom of another.
An understanding of obligation is a crucial part of the socialization process in
Locke’s educational theory, and he constructs an ideal of virtue that is linked to his
own political notions of freedom and responsibility. In contrast, Rousseau aims to
disassociate children’s early learning of self-mastery from any sense of obligation
or the wills of other individuals. As remarked earlier, he embraces the link between
individual and social–political virtue, but he insists that they are not identical.
For Rousseau, political life can be based only on mature concepts of morality
and virtue, which children cannot grasp. If they are taught to abide by them in
childhood as a matter of habit, they will merely be aping adult behavior rather than
behaving autonomously. The goal instead is to avoid introducing any concept of
duty to children until they are already formed to freedom (self-sufficiency) through
an individualized process, unrelated to other human beings. In early childhood,
self-mastery is less about controlling desires and more about learning our limits,
something that children grasp naturally through their encounter with things: objects
in nature that they intuitively recognize they can neither dominate nor overcome.20
Rousseau thus moves away from Enlightenment educational trends and defines
freedom as a state experienced prior to the acquisition of a social and moral
conscience, before even any direct social encounters. Rather than socialize Emile,
the tutor teaches him to feel comfortable with his servitude to nature, necessity,
and mortality. For Emile freedom is individual and self-referential, happiness and
liberty are tied to self-sufficiency, and misery is defined as “the disproportion
between our desires and our abilities” (Emile 93).21 Further, in direct opposition to
John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, p. 29.

19
In contrast, in Considérations Rousseau writes that from an early age children

20
should be accustomed to “live under the eyes of their fellow citizens and to desire public
approbation.” Considérations sur le gouvernement de Pologne in Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
Oeuvres complètes, vol. 3 (5 vols, Paris, 1964), p. 968. But again, this is based on the
assumption that the “fellow citizens” who will be watching children have been properly
educated and live in a reformed society.
21
Rousseau’s goal, to “mettre en égalite parfaite la puissance et la volonté [establish a
perfect equality between force and will]” should be compared with the intriguingly similar
language of Crousaz: “la félicité de l’homme dépend en bonne partie d’une certaine harmonie
entre son pouvoir et sa volonté” [the happiness of man depends in great part on a certain
harmony between his power and his will]. See J.P. de Crousaz, Traité de l’éducation des
enfans, vol. 2 (2 vols, La Haye, 1722), p. 57. Although Crousaz does not draw Rousseau’s
the idea articulated in the works of most pedagogical thinkers at the mid-century—
that individuals must be educated to understand and embrace their “station”
in society or their “role” as citizens (we will see this especially in Chapter 11)
—Rousseau educates Emile to understand and embrace his place in nature and
in the universe. Even the boy’s encounters with other individuals, which could
easily be mistaken for social interactions or moral lessons, are orchestrated so that
Emile draws conclusions only about his personal needs rather than his duty toward
others.22 Liberty as a political or social phenomenon is relevant and possible only
once Emile has already become a free man.
For this reason, among others, Emile has been considered an “individualist”
educational treatise both by Rousseau’s contemporaries and our own. Whether
in the end he created an individualist or anti-individualist method of education is
discussed further below. The point here is that at a time when most thinkers are
elaborating the concept of public education for citizenship, Rousseau puts into
question the very idea that, given the corruption of ideas and institutions in modern
societies, children can be socialized. In contrast to his arguments in Contrat Social,
“Economie politique,” and Considérations sur le gouvernement de Pologne, in
Emile Rousseau insists that only through individual enlightenment can human
beings be led to a form of freedom that allows them to understand and participate
in the social contract. Consequently, although there is an intimate correspondence
between the notion of autonomy as developed in Emile and the Contrat Social,
when faced with having to describe how autonomy is developed in human
consciousness Rousseau faces the classic dilemma of the educational philosopher:
how to reconcile those aspects of individual and social–moral development that
demand conflicting pedagogical methods. His solution—a caricaturized version of
the mounting paranoia among his contemporaries regarding external influence—is
to isolate Emile fully during the time when autonomy is incubating, and thereby
preserve the purity of the child’s experience. As a result, he later faces the difficult
task of convincing his readers (and himself) that this form of pure freedom, attained
at a distance from others, can be adapted to the conditions of social engagement.
Utility
Rousseau’s concepts of virtue and freedom are also linked to his opposition to
the utilitarianism driving French educational thought during the Enlightenment.
As we have seen, the idea of “use” carried many meanings in French pedagogical
philosophical conclusions, he intuits that weakness is a relative state. It is impossible to

determine whether Rousseau was in any way influenced by Crousaz on this point, but it is
clear that in other circumstances Rousseau liberally borrowed language and concepts from
other writers (see Appendix 1).
22
Rousseau insists, for example, that Emile’s encounter with a farmer—whose land
he unjustly appropriates as his own—does not lead him to an analysis of moral or social
relations. This claim is not entirely convincing and not accompanied by an elaborate
argument. See Rousseau, Emile, pp. 119−23.
thought. In its Lockean sense, it implied that learning materials and methods must
be developmentally relevant (“useful” and pleasurable) for children. The appeal to a
“useful education” was also associated with the critique of the classical curriculum
and the view that children should have direct contact with society and with life in
its fullness. By mid-century, educational reformers increasingly identify as useful
those methods that maximize the kind of learning or skills needed to produce a
good worker, parent, or citizen.
Rather than reject the concept of utility, Rousseau redefines it. As he believes
that the ideas and actions that society considers useful have no real value and are
destructive to individual identity, he defines real utility in relation to individual
and “natural” needs rather than social needs.
Rousseau agrees with other educational theorists, for example, that children
should not be overwhelmed with books or raised to be sedentary pedants of no
value to society. He embraces the trend to incorporate apprenticeship experience
into the curriculum and prepare children for life and work rather than mere
reflection. However, rather than training Emile in one particular skill that will
enable him to contribute usefully to society’s economic needs, the tutor insists that
his pupil be prepared for various occupations. His reasoning is in total opposition
to the utility principle of other educational works (and is also in contrast to what
he actually does in the book, which is to train Emile only to be a carpenter!).
First, Emile’s general apprenticeship is useful principally for himself (rather than
for society), as it ensures that the boy will have a better chance of surviving the
vicissitudes of life. Second, Rousseau contrasts the idea of a professionally oriented
vocation with that of the vocation of man (Emile 42). Rather than being locked
into a particular identity, or performing tasks associated with one particular social
station, work should allow for the realization of talents that will benefit the entire
species. Work should make the individual whole, broaden rather than narrow him.
Emile learns a trade, not only in order to make money or contribute to the needs of
the state, but also because he “becomes a philosopher while believing he is only
a worker” (Emile 228). He learns the value of simplicity, focus, and respect and
experiences the freedom that is based on self-reliance, unconnected to power over
others or transient material goods. Finally, while in other pedagogical works “use”
is applied as a general guiding principle in education, in Rousseau’s view there
is a place and time for “useful” ideas in a child’s life. Useful ideas are presented
to Emile only in his second stage of life, after he has encountered necessity but
before he embarks on the path of social–moral development.
Rousseau therefore does not reject the concept of utility, but he refuses to
confound it with the moral realm. Emile is educated to be “useful for society”
only in the broadest sense, that each individual owes work to other human beings.
For Rousseau, a child should desire only that which he is capable of having, given
natural human limits, personal differences, nationality, gender, and perhaps even
social class.23 Although Rousseau maintains that participation in society is the

ultimate goal of the educational process, he insists that a utilitarian method is
central to individual formation, which predates (and is a precondition of) social
life. This logic runs counter to that of Enlightenment educational thought, which
defines as moral that which is social and as social that which is useful.24
Surveillance and Control
Notwithstanding his commitment to freedom in childhood (or perhaps because

of it), Rousseau makes a work of art of one of the most pervasive themes in early
modern educational thought—the role of surveillance and control in childhood. We
saw in previous chapters the ways in which reformers used both social justifications
(the need for social control) and intellectual arguments (the extraordinary power
of early impressions on the formations of character) to emphasize the necessity
of watching over children at all times. Rousseau’s position on the corruption of
society, combined with his desire to create an autonomous and untainted individual,
compels him to carry the technique of surveillance further than anyone before
him, albeit always under the banner of freedom. Paradoxically, the more Rousseau
succeeds in conceiving a form of freedom for Emile that is uncontaminated by
external forces, the more monitoring and limitations on freedom are required to
ensure the purity of the child’s experiences. The tutor’s manipulative technique
has been discussed by most of his critics and supporters, most of whom agree that
it is one of the most troubling aspects of his educational theory.
In Emile’s youth, the tutor controls the environment to such an extent that
the child does not even appear to be a living entity. In spite of Rousseau’s strong
23
Rousseau famously says that peasants do not need an education and seems to
condemn them to social immobility. However, this statement is often quoted out of context.
Rousseau’s principal point is that peasants are more in touch with nature and their education
conforms to their immediate needs, both physical and professional. In contrast, rich people,
educated only to frivolities, are not prepared for the reality that their station might change
dramatically in life. Thus, only rich children need an educational reorientation. Rousseau’s
argument is similar to Morelly’s on the education of girls.
24
Included in the idea of a useful education is also Rousseau’s distinct program of
educating Emile to understand the difference between artificial and natural needs. The
tutor, for example, brings Emile to a large banquet overflowing with good food in order to
show Emile the evils of excessive wealth. See Rousseau, Emile, p. 65. In another instance,
the tutor teaches Emile to respect the “useful” arts (which educational theorists had been
emphasizing for decades) and have disdain for useless ones. See Rousseau, Emile, p. 241.
Finally, he has Emile read Robinson Crusoe in order to understand what is useful in life and
how to judge everything according to its utility. He raises original criticisms of Dumas’s
bureau typographique, whose whole purpose was to bring children effortlessly to learning.
He argues that the bureau is overly complex and useless, requiring huge efforts to learn.
According to Rousseau, Dumas failed to recognize that the only real educational tool is
incentive and that all games intended to trick children into learning are a waste of time.
insistence that education be modified to suit the “particular character of the child”
(Emile 113), Emile’s personal characteristics are never described. In the beginning
of the book, Rousseau states that Emile will only be of mediocre intelligence
and will come from a wealthy family. Nothing more about his nature emerges.
Although Rousseau is celebrated for having urged educators to allow children’s
nature to unfold and shape pedagogical methods to each child’s nature, Emile’s
entire environment is manipulated to produce precise reactions, and the tutor is in
complete control of his interior and external life. The child is never left alone, his
spontaneous desires rarely determine his actions, his encounters with other human
beings are fully orchestrated, his fears are artificially created and then assuaged,
and his emotional and sexual experiences are stifled until late adolescence. When
he is ready for a mate, she is chosen by his tutor, and their sexual encounters are
choreographed. More importantly, the child is deceived in the most fundamental
way, taught to believe in the will-less nature of his surroundings when in reality
his entire universe is controlled by the will of one man.
Rousseau’s regime of surveillance has been a gift to his critics, a goldmine of
evidence for the perversion of his thought. Lester Crocker accuses Rousseau of
inventing “behavioural engineering” and calls Emile an “egocentric and isolated
monster.”25 The artificiality of Emile’s life is indeed disturbing, especially in a
work whose stated aim is to empower nature. However, in analyzing Rousseau’s
position on surveillance and control we must take into consideration his intention.
He himself maintained that Emile was not a manual of education but a philosophical
treatise on the goodness of man. He made it clear that while he recognized the
details of his own work to be nonapplicable in life, he considered his central
educational message to be relevant to the psychological and moral development
of individuals.26 Rather than offering a treatise on method he analyzes human
25
Lester Crocker, “Rousseau’s Emile: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,”
in Marian Hobson, J.T.A. Leigh and Robert Wolker (eds), Rousseau and the Eighteenth
Century: Essays in Memory of R.A. Leith (Oxford, 1992), p. 107, and “Qu’y a-t-il de
révolutionnaire dans l’Emile?” in Rousseau, l’Emile et la Révolution, p. 148. One of the
few authors to criticize the interpretation of the tutor as overly controlling is Tracy Strong,
in his Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Politics of the Ordinary. Strong argues that the most
important characteristic of the tutor is actually his absence. It is only because of his “active
absence” (101) that Emile is able to experience the world in an unmediated way. It is an
interesting argument, but Strong does not directly confront the problem of Emile’s coercion.
Another contrasting view of the tutor is offered by Yves Vargas in his Introduction à l’Emile
de Rousseau (Paris, 1995), who points to the near impossibility of orchestrating Emile’s life
as Jean-Jacques intends (274).
26
Several statements confirm this idea. Rousseau writes to a friend: “You say quite
rightly that it is impossible to make an Emile. But I cannot believe that you take this book to
be a real treatise on education. It is a philosophical enough work on that principle advanced
by the author in other writings, that man is naturally good. In order to bring this principle
into accord with that other no less certain truth that men are wicked, it was necessary to
show, in the history of the human heart, the origin of all its defects. That is what I have done
nature through a thought experiment, as he did in the Discours sur l’origine de

l’inégalité when he insisted that “the investigations we may enter into … must
not be considered as historical truths, but only as conditional and hypothetical
reasonings, rather calculated to explain the nature of things, than to ascertain their
actual origin.”27 Finally, the inapplicability of Rousseau’s educational theory is
vividly conveyed in a famous anecdote. When told by a proud father that he had
raised his child strictly according to the principles of Emile, Rousseau is reported
to have answered, “that’s too bad for you and even worse for him!”28
It is also important that before critically analyzing the results of Rousseau’s
educational method we ask whether he succeeds, if not in fulfilling his readers’
ideal of freedom, then in fulfilling his own: first, never to have Emile feel or believe
that he is dependent on or that his will is being thwarted by other human beings;
second, never to develop the qualities that result from dependence or a thwarted
will, such as lust for domination, envy, aggression, a slavelike disposition, and a
constant focus on the judgment of others. In theory, Emile’s lack of actual freedom
matters less than the fact that his will has been formed to freedom. As in the case of
Locke’s child, the boy’s belief in and formation toward freedom are considered by
Rousseau effective in making him truly free. Further, Rousseau’s idea of natural
education was never based on the idea that a child’s capricious desires should
dominate the educational process. The point of Rousseau’s thought-experiment is
to allow us to envision how a child would behave if his will had been determined
solely by his own awareness of natural physical limitations in the world. More
importantly, we are to imagine how, as an adult, this self-knowledge would
encourage the child to relate to others with respect and sympathy.
Thus, it can be argued that the psychological and philosophical implications
of the tutor’s coercion can be separated. Psychologically, Rousseau follows the
logic of sensationist thought. He uses surveillance and control as methods of
clearing away the rubble, introducing information to the child’s mind in the correct
order and allowing the pupil to experience his sensual nature fully and without
obstacles. Philosophically, he justifies his more subtle internal manipulations—
which we will see at work in Books IV and V—as the only way to re-empower the
passive product of Helvétius’s educational vision. By artificially disconnecting
Emile’s self-consciousness from the external influence of others, he intends to
put the active will of the child at the center of the educational process and create
in this book … .” Cited in Asher Horowitz, Rousseau: Nature and History, pp. 214−15.
In the “Lettres écrites de la montagne,” Rousseau writes: “In question here is a new system
of education, a draft of which I offer to the scrutiny of wisemen, and not a method to be used
by fathers and mothers, which I never imagined.” Cited in Jimack, Rousseau: Emile, p. 47.
27
Rousseau, Discours sur l’origine et les fondemens de l’inégalité parmi les hommes
in Oeuvres complètes, vol. 3, p. 133.
28
Qtd in Tanguy L’Aminot, “Rousseau et l’éducation individuelle” in Rousseau,
l’Emile et la Révolution, p. 497. Rousseau’s apprehensions about taking Emile literally
seem to have been borne out by experiments of his contemporaries. See Julia V. Douthwaite,
The Wild Girl, Natural Man, and the Monster, Ch. 4.
a model of freedom that stands in opposition to that which would be produced by

a passive, habit-driven educational method.
The Goodness of Man: “Negative Education”
The idea of the activity of the minds and wills of children leads Rousseau to conceive
of education as a passive enterprise, which he names “negative education.” But
negative education is also in great part a product of Rousseau’s critical interpretation
of the concept of the tabula rasa. Although Locke’s stance against innate ideas
made it more difficult for educators to attribute original sin to children, as we have
seen most were wary of abandoning all notions of innate depravity and moral
responsibility. Only Rousseau plainly asserts that men are good by nature (although
Morelly comes close), and it is from this premise that he develops his method of
negative education, the aim of which is to do as little as possible with or to children
and focus primarily on protecting them from negative external influences.
This method leads Rousseau to take an original stand against the nearly unanimous
faith among educators in the powers of emulation, vanity, and competition as
incentives to children.29 The belief in these incentives is based on the principle that
children learn best when led by self-love rather than through punishment or pain
and that competition is a superior incentive to good behavior compared with fear.
It is also inherited from the Jesuits, who cultivated the art of competition and rivalry
among their students. Further, the theory of emulation assumes that children need
active models and constant reflections of themselves in order to grow and succeed
and that socialization requires a certain amount of uniformity.
Rousseau resists each of these positions. His objective is to eliminate all
incentives to emulation, which to him represents a childhood version of that most
social of vices, the domination of one’s self-image by the opinion of others. He does
not want Emile to operate out of a consideration for how his actions appear to others.
Rather, he should be “his own rival” (Emile 238). Rousseau even rejects the power of
example, considered by most educational thinkers to be the child’s mode of learning
par excellence, based as it is on seeing and acting rather than reading and reflecting.
In his discussion of negative education Rousseau goes so far as to forbid the tutor to
act in a way that will influence Emile. He chooses experience over example, insisting
that the tutor be Emile’s companion in error rather than his guide.30 Rousseau’s
negative education thus entails total activity on the part of the child, in contrast to
29
Nira Kaplan argues that during the Revolution emulation became one of the
primary methods of reconciling some of the tensions between individual and social virtue
that we have seen above and thereby “relieved anxieties about the social implications of the
Revolution and helped shape the character of the emerging liberal society.” Nira Kaplan,
“Virtuous Competition Among Citizens: Emulation in Politics and Pedagogy During the
French Revolution,” Eighteenth Century Studies, 36/2 (2003): pp. 241–8, 242.
30
In contrast, in Considérations Rousseau argues that children should never be
allowed to play alone or in private, and their games should always be guided by a spirit of
competition and emulation. Rousseau, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 3, p. 968.
Helvétius’s idea of “positive education” in which the teacher is active and the child
passively receives instruction. It is this theory of activity that gives some credence to
Rousseau’s argument that his educational method is spontaneous and directed toward
the nature of children, despite the intense manipulation to which Emile is subjected.
The philosophy of negative education also influences Rousseau’s ideas about
the curriculum, many of which naturally follow from a long tradition of criticisms
against “useless” book learning and an excess of words. Like his predecessors,
he favors educational tools that stimulate children’s sensual nature. In addition,
his assertion that one needs to “lose time” in education (although primarily aimed
at retarding moral or sexual maturity) is a more elaborate version of the “natural
order” theories we examined in previous chapters. Dumarsais, for instance, insisted
that no new subject be broached until the previous one was perfectly understood.
He suggested that what was formerly judged in some children to be “slow”
learning should be reinterpreted as “correct” learning and that true understanding
takes longer than memorization or the gathering of large amounts of information.
Therefore, while Rousseau’s approach to books is radical, the idea on which it is
based—that the more people read the more they lose the ability to think, and that
rather than read about scientific inventions children should live in the world as
scientists—had long been cultivated by educators.
However, while many reformers point to the negative effects of book learning,
none contemplates Rousseau’s program for keeping books from children until they
reach the age of 12 or advocates total silence on the issue of God until adolescence.
Nor do they claim that ignorance can serve as an instrument of moral development.
While thinkers like Dumarsais concentrate on the intellectual errors that result
from improper learning and the psychological imbalances that are produced as a
consequence, Rousseau again turns to the question of moral error. He speaks less
of the dangers of incorrect impressions hitting the senses and generating false ideas
and more of incorrect impressions affecting the passions and generating premature
and destructive desires. And as other educators proudly announce their newfound
respect for children’s passions and spell out the best methods for directing self-
love toward social ends, Rousseau proposes the education of an idle soul, free
from as many impressions as possible (Emile 113).
Given the calculation involved in creating this idle soul, it is difficult to see how
negative education is really at work in Emile. But from Rousseau’s perspective
the reason that the tutor’s manipulations do not invalidate the theory of negative
education is that, as Tracy Strong points out, for Rousseau, “to be human is not to
be defined.”31 In other words, in theory at least, we must trust that the tutor does
as he promises and strictly follows Emile’s individual penchants in the educational
process. Consequently, Emile’s growth as a human being is determined through
external manipulation (he is put in touch with his undefined, universal nature), but
his individuality (his personal penchants) is allowed to unfold freely and even guide
Tracy Strong, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Politics of the Ordinary, p. 111.

31
the tutor’s choices. Whether Rousseau achieves this goal remains an open question,
but when judging his techniques of surveillance it must be kept in mind.
Moral Education
Like many of his contemporaries, Rousseau laments the moral vacuity of society.
However, he develops his concept and method of moral education precisely in
opposition to theirs. As we have seen, French pedagogical theorists hoped to
rescue morality from the loss of religion by infusing children’s lessons with moral
content, creating civic catechisms and teaching a secular ethics based on the idea
that “God and Nature link’d the general frame, And bade self-love and social be the
same.”32 Rousseau objects to the very idea of moral training, first because he does
not embrace the association between self-love and the social sense, self-interest,
and virtue; and second because he does not believe that virtue is instilled through
external conditioning. Instead, he will argue that morality is self-generated and
can emerge naturally through negative education.
Consequently, rather than create a moral educational philosophy, as others had
done, Rousseau makes his entire philosophy of education a theory of morality. It
is based on the idea that the depravity of individuals and human relations is neither
a result of natural evil, as religious thinkers had argued, nor simply a consequence
of impressions striking children’s senses in the incorrect order, as many of Locke’s
disciples believed. Rousseau argues that our problems result from a deeply flawed
understanding of human nature, one that continues to be propagated through
educational theories and in educational practice. In his criticisms he implies that
even as educators change their methods, becoming gentler with children and more
aware of childhood, they still fail to recognize that the current curriculum is fatal
to the proper development of human nature and human relations. Thus, while most
French theorists discuss the kind of morality that can be inculcated into children
once their nature has been properly understood, Rousseau infuses childhood and
the natural condition of children with a moral content that is never to be countered
but only enriched in the transition to adulthood.
Social Versus Individual Education
One of Rousseau’s most important educational deviations is also the reason that
much of Emile was either ignored or considered dangerous during the eighteenth
century.33 The trend in French educational thought during the mid- and late
32
Alexander Pope, Essay on Man and Other Poems (New York, 1994), p. 68. Pope’s
essay was widely qtd by educational thinkers, in particular to his arguments about the
link between self-love and the social sense. For an example of a “moral catechism,” see
Helvétius’s De L’Esprit, p. 158.
33
In her book Rousseauism and Education in Eighteenth-Century France (Oxford,
1995), Jean Bloch shows that most eighteenth-century responses to Emile were extremely
eighteenth century was toward public or social education, most clearly expressed
by Helvétius and later by the reformers of the 1760s and 1770s. In arguing for
social education reformers implied that children should receive their essential
values from school, that they should be imbued with a sense of sociability or
responsibility toward others, that parents were a useless if not pernicious influence
on children, and that the purpose of education was to create responsible citizens
and competent workers.34 The idea of social education was further influenced by
political theories emphasizing the importance of imparting civic values at an early
age, and was set in opposition to the pedagogical practices of the Jesuits. The latter,
reformers argued, produced cultivated but useless young gentleman with nothing
to contribute to society. In De l’Homme, Helvétius would call on lawmakers
to take children away from their parents even during holidays and assume full
responsibility for their moral and social development. Individual happiness and
satisfaction were not irrelevant, and in fact they were regularly discussed in
the literature. However, in most educational reform programs individual self-
expression became a by-product of a good social education rather than its goal.
In Emile, Rousseau’s educational method is intensely individualistic. Emile is
to be raised in a home, away from other children, by one individual and according
to the child’s inherent predispositions. For the first 15 years of his life, the tutor
cultivates only Emile’s personal relationship to the universe, nature, and his body.
He is not to have any moral, social, or intellectual training until he reaches early
adolescence. Despite Rousseau’s assertion that Emile is “made to live with men”
(Emile 428), and the fact that a précis of the Contrat Social is inserted into Book V,
most striking from an educational point of view is Rousseau’s argument that
neither schools nor society are capable of nurturing children in the proper way.
The most powerful educational tools are provided in one-on-one contact, and these
emerge from within the individual.
negative. Educational reformers criticized the isolation in which Emile was raised and attacked
Rousseau’s distinctions between nature and society, the education of the man and that of the
citizen. They also criticized the impracticality of the book. Although many people adopted
Rousseau’s ideas on breastfeeding and swaddling, the overall message was received critically.
See Robert Darnton, “Readers Respond to Rousseau,” in The Great Cat Massacre and Other
Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, 1985) for a study of one individual who
embraced Rousseau’s views wholeheartedly. For more on the reception of Rousseau, see
Gilbert Py, Rousseau et les éducateurs: Etude sur la fortune et les idées pédagogiques de
Jean-Jacques Rousseau en France et en Europe au XVIIIe siecle (Oxford, 1997).
34
The concept of “social education” was not clearly defined by theorists, and they did not
use this phrase in any uniform way. I am interpreting a trend in education in which the notion
of social education implies “public education” but also includes more general ideas about
training children (not necessarily in schools but in the home as well) for their role as citizens or
professionals. For a discussion of works that address domestic education in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, see Jennifer J. Popiel, Rousseau’s Daughters: Domesticity, Education
and Autonomy in Modern France (Durham, 2008) and Lesley H. Walker, A Mother’s Love:
Crafting Feminine Virtue in Enlightenment France (Lewisburg, 2008).
Ultimately, the question of individual and social education in Emile can be fully
evaluated only through a comparison of Books I−III and Books IV−V, to which we
turn now. Notwithstanding the individualistic methods presented in Books I−III,
“individuality” in the sense put forward by eighteenth-century pedagogues—
a focus on innate temperaments, self-expression, or an emphasis on children’s love
of liberty—does not feature in Books IV−V. And in spite of his effort to unite his
vision of individual freedom with an ideal of social morality, in Emile et Sophie,
ou les solitaires (the unfinished sequel to Emile), Rousseau encounters some of the
same difficulties that plagued other Enlightenment educational thinkers.
Chapter 10
Emile, Books IV−V, and
Emile et Sophie, ou les solitaires:
Social and Moral Education
In the first three books of Emile, Rousseau presents his readers with creative
variations on many current educational themes. It is not difficult to see why Emile
is the only French educational treatise of the eighteenth century to have retained a
wide audience into the twenty-first century. This is not merely (as has often been
said) because Rousseau seduces his audience with the language of sentiment and
provocative paradoxes. It is also because, like Helvétius, he dares to draw radical
educational conclusions from philosophical principles and radical philosophical
conclusions from educational principles.
In Book IV Rousseau’s rejection of some central tenets of Enlightenment
thought is broader and more extreme. Prompted in part by Helvétius’s stance
in De l’Esprit, Rousseau attacks sensationism, materialism, and atheism. He
challenges the underlying premises that drove Helvétius to identify virtue with
self-interest, and comes out forcibly against his reduction of human beings to
fully determined or pliable instruments in the hands of educators. While not
renouncing the principal tenets of sensationist psychology Rousseau redefines
their consequences in his educational philosophy, arguing that although it is
true that children are driven by their senses, sensual reactions do not define
human nature in its entirety. People have innate characteristics, and more
importantly they have an innate ability to know things independently of their
sensual experience.
However, in Books IV and V Rousseau is faced with a structural dilemma.
Having described in such detail the method of forming a free, honest, and self-reliant
young boy with no concept of the “other,” Rousseau must introduce his child of
nature to society and morality without exposing him to the poisonous elements of
existing social relations. He must build a bridge between the individual and the
social–moral state.
In contrast to most Enlightenment educational theorists, Rousseau thoroughly
separates the self-centered from the other-centered phases of life (individual
growth from socialization, self-interest from virtue), both in the soul of the child
and in the educational process. He is not content to argue that through habit
self-love can be transformed into virtue. On the one hand, he allows sensual pleasure
more freedom than other pedagogues; he expects nothing from Emile’s desires but
their gratification. On the other hand, he is demanding of virtue, insisting that it be
more than a mature form of self-satisfaction. He does not concur with Morelly that
the experience of sensual pleasure is simultaneous with that of love. By making

gratitude a higher form of dependence and sociability a higher form of gratitude,
Rousseau would have felt that Morelly did not account for the problematic nature
of dependence. But the dilemma remains: how will Rousseau unite the two phases
of development? How will he connect his philosophical attack against Helvétius,
the philosophes, and the Church (Book IV), as well as his political and social
theory (Book V), to the story of Emile’s early education?
Book IV: “Une Expérience Anticipée”
This quandary reflects the dilemma par excellence of all educational theory: how
to introduce an innocent child into an impure world and have the former influence
the latter rather than vice versa. Rousseau’s solution is to offer Emile an encounter
with morality through the experience of a third party—the deeply flawed but
humane Savoyard Priest. In this way, the child will be brought from first to third
nature without directly encountering second nature. (As we will see, ultimately
Rousseau is not comfortable with this solution, and in Emile et Sophie he allows
his pupil to experience a fall from Eden.)
But the obvious question is why, after arguing so forcefully that Emile must
encounter objects and obstacles only through direct experience; why, after negating
any form of learning through words, books, or even examples of good behavior
and why, after keeping all the ruses of emotion from his pupil, does Rousseau
introduce a lesson to Emile? Further, why does he introduce a lesson that is verbal,
expressed through the language of the heart and conveyed by another human being
rather than by direct experience—all methods that Rousseau had repudiated until
this point? Why does Rousseau not manufacture the ideal moral struggle for his
pupil, who until now responded so well to artificial learning environments? Why
does he create a living substitute for life?
Rousseau offers his readers a partial answer to this question when discussing
the teaching of history. However, when introducing the tale of the Savoyard Priest
he puts forth no explanations as to why he teaches morality and religion through a
story external to Emile’s life. I will make three tentative suggestions. The first is that
Rousseau’s introduction of a social and moral tale through the voice and experience
of another follows the logic of contemporary educational theory. As we have seen,
various thinkers suggested offering children what Morelly called “une expérience
anticipée” through history or literature. In this way they aimed to rescue children
from the world of the ancients and the Jesuits and to plunge them into—and prepare

At the point when the tutor decides to teach Emile history, he admits that he is
changing his educational method. He argues that, when introducing Emile to real human
beings, it is important that the boy see men at their best rather than as they are in society.
He concludes, as had many previous theorists, that the best way to do this is through the
experience of others. His justification is that if real people deceive Emile he will hate them,
but if he sees the spectacle of people deceiving each other he will learn to pity them.
Emile, Books IV−V, and Emile et Sophie, ou les solitaires 207
them for—life in the present, while at the same time protecting them from the
perils of contemporary society. Through the tale of the Savoyard Priest, Rousseau
characteristically appropriates and magnifies both the fascination and anxiety of his
time about the social environment. Second, perhaps Rousseau felt he had to take on
the philosophes directly, to engage them in a discussion of religion, morality and
society in their language and on their philosophical ground. He could not do this
fully by way of the story of Emile’s education. If this was indeed his goal, his success
was a mixed blessing; to this day, philosophers and intellectual historians often read
Book IV in isolation, overlooking the pedagogical–philosophical arguments of the
first three books and their implications for Book IV. Finally, on a more personal
level, Rousseau was able to tell the story of the solitary education of Books I−III
because it was derived from his own experience (both from the education that he
received as a child and the continuing education in survival that he provided for
himself later in life). In contrast, he never successfully integrated himself into
society, nor was he able to draw on his personal strengths to aid him in his social
relations. The artificial break between the education of the first three books and the
last two reflects the difficulty Rousseau experienced making the transition from the
real to the conjectural, from the experienced to the utopian.
I do not of course have a conclusive answer as to why Rousseau modified
his educational methods midway through Emile. Nor do I want to engage in too
much psychological speculation, which is difficult to resist when dealing with
this character. All conscientious students of Rousseau have noted the relation
between his personal isolation and the conclusions he draws in his works, or the
predicaments in which his heroes find themselves. I raise the question primarily
because I believe that one of the reasons Rousseau wrote the sequel to Emile, Emile
et Sophie, is that he was himself disturbed by the unresolved the tensions raised by
his educational treatise. Rousseau believed Emile could be a work of synthesis in
which his critique of society, view of natural man, and vision for social man could
be reconciled. He hoped to illustrate, through the story of the development of
one individual, the nature of the connection—or transition—between the state of
nature and the state of society, the individual and the social–moral, goodness and
virtue, natural freedom and mature liberty. When faced with the task of bringing
his own principles into alignment, however, he encountered the same obstacles as
did Locke and his French contemporaries. These are ultimately the same obstacles

Ernst Cassirer argues in The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (New Haven, 1989)
that the unifying principle between the first three books and the “Profession de foi” is that
underlying both is the idea that all information, whether sensual or spiritual, must be learned
by the individual alone; that “it is the pupil’s business to create … insight within himself, not
the educators’ to plant it in him” (118−19). Cassirer also insists that there is no radical break
between Emile and the principles of the Contrat Social because Rousseau prepares Emile to
be a citizen “among those who are to be” (123)—in other words, a citizen of an ideal social
polity. For other interpretations of the differences between the first three and last two books
of Emile, see Joseph R. Reisert, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: A Friend of Virtue (Ithaca, 2003),
p. 142; and Allan Bloom, Emile or On Education (New York, 1979), p. 15.
faced by all educational theorists since the Enlightenment: while there can be such
a thing as a liberal and noncoercive educational theory, there might not be such a
thing as a liberal and noncoercive educational method.
Passion and Pity: The First Bridges
The first step Rousseau takes in building the bridge between the self and the other,
even before he introduces the story of the Savoyard Priest, is to prompt a shift in
the soul of Emile. The child cannot be introduced to religion or to other people in
his current state; he has, as of the end of Book III, nothing but “insensibility” in
his heart. To absorb the lessons of Books IV and V, he has to become an emotional
being. The bridge Rousseau constructs between the two Emiles is pity, a sentiment
that lies somewhere between self-interest and love and is born of the passions
awakened in puberty.
Like other educators, Rousseau embraces passions as valid motives of action.
However, he rejects the prevalent definition of passion. First, he argues, desires that
manifest themselves before puberty are natural needs, not passions. The passions
employed by most educators in the service of socialization—desire for glory,
love of honor—Rousseau considers to be artificial. While educators claim to be
following the nature of children, they in fact use these artificial passions as agents
of division, both between and within individuals. According to Rousseau, real
passion is sexual and comes only with the “second birth” of puberty (Emile 274).
When properly identified and interpreted, passion is a force of unity. It is the
mother of pity, and pity is “the first relative sentiment that touches the human
heart according to the order of nature” (Emile 289).
Pity is a social instinct that evolves from passion but is not present at birth. Unlike
most educational theorists who claim that there is a direct link between passion and
virtue (and thus that in some form sociability is innate), Rousseau insists that while
people have innate instincts that can lead to sociability, they are not naturally sociable.
Pity arrives in Emile’s life as a hormonal imbalance rather than a reaction to another
human being. With the onset of puberty and his own suffering, he notices the suffering
of his fellows. Pity moves him to stand “beside himself,” to leave his being and take
on that of others, an act of imagination that can only take place in adulthood.
Emile’s experience of suffering is carefully monitored and unlike that of other
children. He is never to suffer from a feeling of inferiority; he is never jealous,
insecure, frightened, lonely, poor, or brokenhearted. Pity is an intensely personalized
impulse as it manifests itself in Emile. He feels it toward particular individuals but
still has no concept of society, God, the universe or morality. It is a “halfway house”
linking two separate states: states between which Locke tried to imagine a smooth
transition, Morelly identified as happily coexisting and Helvétius reduced to one.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile ou de l’éducation (Paris, 1966), p. 288.

Rousseau’s discussion of pity in Emile recalls that of the Discours sur l’inégalité, but

with an important distinction; in the Discourse pity is an “innate revulsion at watching one’s
Activity and Passivity: The Case against Helvétius
Once inspired with pity Emile embarks, through the story of the Savoyard Priest, on
the journey toward moral and social conscience. Throughout the Priest’s narrative,
Rousseau draws on his notes in the margins of De l’Esprit. He insists that individuals
are free beings with active wills, virtue is more than self-love, and morality is not an
accidental by-product of the pain–pleasure impulse. Against Helvétius’s assertion
that “juger, c’est sentir,” Rousseau claims that besides the passive faculty of
receiving impressions (sensing) there are other, active faculties that are responsible
for comparison and judgment (Emile 351). The difference between apercevoir,
which is to sense, and comparer, which is to judge, is that in comparing you
transpose one object onto the other rather than just receiving sensory information.
If this process were analogous to sensing, individuals would be unable to recognize
the difference between experiencing and remembering. Further, if judgment and
sensation were the same, individuals would always be correct in their judgments
since sensations, he claims, are always accurate. Consequently, while Rousseau
admits that comparison of ideas is occasioned by sensation, it is not identical to it.
The real comparative power is in the individual, he argues, not in things (Emile 352).
Moral conduct is not simply a result of the pain–pleasure impulse but is an active
principle deriving from more highly evolved human motivations. In addition,
Rousseau claims men are not only able to choose between good and evil; they also
have an innate moral capacity. Against Helvétius, he insists individuals do not love
the good simply because it furthers their interest, but rather because they have a real
sense of it as good. Notwithstanding his own assertions: 1) that human beings are
not naturally sociable, and 2) while they are naturally good (indifferent to others
and not predisposed to harming them), they can only grow into virtue (a concern
with others and a desire to help them), Rousseau writes, “There is therefore at the
core of souls an innate principle of justice and virtue according to which, in spite of
our own maxims, we judge our actions and those of others to be good or evil. It is
this principle I call “conscience”’ (Emile 376).
Rousseau admits that his assertions are based on faith and that the only evidence
he has of the activity of the mind is his own “inner conviction” (Emile 354).
To show his readers how he came to recognize his truths, he introduces the story
of the Savoyard Priest. The priest’s journey recalls Descartes’ intellectual travels
and also appears to draw on the insights of the moral sense theorists. In an attempt
to return to his true self after a faulty education and series of negative experiences,
a young priest is forced to detach himself from the world and inherited ideas and
to question the very nature of his existence. Through his senses and his reason he
comes to perceive the existence of order and beauty in the universe, to know God
as the cause of his being, and consequently to recognize his connection to others.
fellows suffer,” the “only natural virtue.” In Emile, pity is not innate but mediated by reason
and indicative of the onset of moral maturity. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres complètes,
eds Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond, vol. 3 (4 vols, Paris, 1969), p. 154.
As a result of his search, the priest understands his place in the order of things
and is content.
The priest’s guiding principle is his “lumière intérieure” [inner light] (Rousseau
also calls it the “voix intérieure” [inner voice]; Emile 349). This inner light is
not an effect of the senses or of reason, nor is it a simple reflection of God. It is
“conscience,” man’s personal vision, a self-referential instrument for perceiving
order and rightness in the universe. Although it is paired with reason, “conscience”
is not identical to it. Rather, this spiritual instrument is anterior to both Revelation
and reason. In appealing to the “inner light” and its role in leading individuals to
virtue, Rousseau challenges the idea that all knowledge originates in the senses
and thereby indirectly attacks materialism and atheism. In particular, he offers
the simple and universally accessible knowledge of the heart as a critique of what
he considers to be the philosophes’ dependence on ideas elaborated without any
reference to what is in the soul of each individual.
At the end of Chapter 5, we discussed Morelly’s notion of the sentiment
intérieur and its resemblance to Rousseau’s concept of the lumière intérieure.
Rousseau does not refer to the moral-sense theorists but, like Morelly, appears to
draw on Shaftesbury’s idea that the appreciation of virtue is linked to the perception
of order, harmony, and beauty in the universe. By realizing virtue through acts
of benevolence—rather than merely by satisfying their self-interest—individuals
fulfill their innate sense of order. Like Hutcheson, Rousseau implies that human
beings possess a sixth sense that supersedes reason and is the prime force behind
moral behavior. However, Rousseau’s concept differs significantly from both
Morelly’s sentiment intérieur and Hutcheson’s sixth sense. Although Rousseau
calls both conscience and lumière intérieure innate, neither is present at birth as is
the sentiment intérieur, or the sixth sense. Rousseau’s moral sense is developed at a
distinctly different stage of life than the other five senses and for different reasons.
It does not exist in the state of nature or in childhood but is necessitated by society.
These differences in interpretations of the moral sense reflect the fact that
Rousseau’s intentions in developing the concept of the inner light are quite different
from those of Morelly or the moral-sense theorists. Morelly appeals to the sentiment
intérieur in order to deny any natural tension between the individual and the
social aspects of being, between the physical senses and the social or moral sense.
He imagines the sentiment intérieur to be both a physical and spiritual impulse,
and although he emphasizes the spiritual aspect in adulthood it is noteworthy that
he believes it is still linked to physical satisfaction; being good to others literally
satisfies our sense of order and thus offers a type of physical pleasure.

In his Confessions, Rousseau mentions the sixth sense as “that moral sense, which
so few hearts possess, and without which none would know how to understand mine.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Les Confessions (Paris, 1959), p. 652. Also, in Emile he mentions
a sixth sense but defines it as, “a sort of sixth sense, called common sense, less because it
is common to all men than because it comes from the proper usage of the other senses.”
Rousseau, Emile, p. 202.
In contrast, Rousseau wants to call attention to the radical break between the
natural and the social–moral state, between physical sense response and virtuous
behavior. Moral sensibility was not necessary in the state of nature and is not inherent
in our physical response to the world. The development of a moral sense is linked
to a particular historical development—the emergence of modern civilization—
that had tragic consequences, creating divisions within and between individuals
and necessitating a change in our being. Consequently, this moral sense conflicts
with some innate drives and requires that some be suppressed, as will be painfully
obvious in both La Nouvelle Héloïse and Emile et Sophie. Rousseau still wants to
assert that the voix intérieure is natural and reflective of something fundamental in
our being. But its most important aspect is that it is internal (knowledge of it comes
from inside each individual rather than from tradition, philosophy, or religion), as
opposed to innate. It is in this sense, as I mentioned in Chapter 7, that Charles
Taylor considers that Rousseau takes a significant step in the path toward modern
subjectivity. As Taylor understands him, Rousseau moves beyond the notion that
there exists an innate moral sense that is a reflection of God, the external order,
or nature. Rather, the moral sense is something particularly human that has to
be learned and developed and can be reached only by individuals looking inside
themselves. Each must turn to his or her inner voice, not only to understand God
or to commune with nature, but also to learn about rules of conduct relevant to
civilized life—rules of conduct that we are no longer able to identify by looking
outside ourselves.
As mentioned in Chapter 1, the distinction between natural or innate in the
sense of being present at birth, and natural and innate in the sense of something
individuals naturally have the potential to grow into, is a crucial distinction in
eighteenth-century French pedagogical literature. Using the metaphor of weaving,
Locke argued that habit could form individuals without violating nature because,
as long as individuals grow into something that they are naturally inclined to, they
will not be deformed. But as we saw, Locke’s formulation created difficulties for
educational theorists who hoped to establish an even more harmonious vision of
the relationship between that which is innate and that which is instilled through
education. Both Helvétius and Morelly, for example, argued that mature, moral
desires correspond directly to natural and physical desires, and the former will
not violate or suppress the latter as long as educational methods correspond to
nature. Rousseau chooses the opposite path. He separates physical and moral
desires, arguing that both should be fully satisfied but at different moments in
time. Physical drives are required in the pre-social state and in childhood and can
be fulfilled during these periods. In contrast, moral drives are required in the social
state and in adulthood and must be fulfilled at those times. Although the moral
necessitates the partial subjugation of the physical, or the latter’s transformation,
the physical urge is not violated because it was allowed to express itself fully

1989), p. 362.
during the time at which it was developmentally required. This is perhaps the most
innovative and creative way in which Rousseau reinterprets (but does not invent)
the Enlightenment pedagogical idea of “stages of development.”
Negative Education: The Philosophical Rendering
The educational implications of Rousseau’s arguments about innate, self-generated

morality are paradoxical. He implies that in order to get in touch with their moral
sensibility individuals require a long and extremely individualized educational
journey. However, for the second time he deprives education of influence.
In Books I−III he argues that, given the fact that individuals are naturally without
malice, education does not have to do anything in order to make them good (as
they are in the state of nature). In Book IV Rousseau presents his readers with a
philosophical version of “negative education.” He claims that, given the existence
of “conscience,” education does not have to do anything to make individuals
virtuous. If individuals learn about morality through their own personal journey
and inner light, if the essence of morality is not transmittable through external
conditioning, then moral agency is located in the individual rather than imparted
by legislators, teachers, or parents. Virtue must be drawn out of each child
individually rather than instilled into children collectively. Thus, while most
educational reformers are aiming to prove how children can be formed into moral
beings through the proper inculcation of habits, Rousseau argues that there is
nothing at all educators can do to instill morality in children.
From an educational point of view, Book IV is therefore an attempt to rescue
the individual not only from what Helvétius had asserted in De l’Esprit but what
Rousseau correctly anticipates will be the educational implications of this theory.
In his posthumous work De l’Homme, Helvétius grants the determining power
in the formation of children to lawmakers. Education is a fully active process,
deliberated and then acted upon by legislators, teachers, and philosophers and
passively received by children. In rebellion against his position, in Book IV of
Emile Rousseau takes educational initiative away from parents, teachers, and
legislators and locates it solely within the individual. Thus, the child’s nature

Rousseau’s view of this innately developing morality is never fully explicated.
Helvétius recognized this problem and in De l’Homme accused Rousseau of inconsistencies
in his position concerning the power of education and the extent of innate ideas. Rousseau
argues that we feel before we know, thus acts of conscience are a result of sentiment rather
than judgment. See Rousseau, Emile, p. 377. However, he does not want to imply that
sociability is innate or attributable to physical causes; it is of a higher order, learned later in
life, through a process that requires the sublimation of physical drives. See Appendix 2 for
Helvétius’s critique of Rousseau.

In her book Rousseau’s Daughters, Jennifer Popiel argues that in Emile Rousseau
launched a vision of domestic virtue and social change that accorded an important role to
and respect for women as educators. In fact, however, the model of domestic education
leads the educational process not only because his senses require pleasure and
his mind requires information to be presented in an orderly fashion; it leads the
process because each individual must have the fundamental understanding of what
it means to be human, and virtuous, drawn out of him.
But what kind of individualism does Rousseau rescue? As Book IV comes to a
close it is not clear what kind of human being Emile is, whether we can reconcile
the tutor’s controlling methods with his pupil’s agency or whether it is possible to
imagine Emile as a member of a social or political community. Below I argue that
only partial answers to these quandaries can be found in Book V, when the tutor
delivers Emile into society. For further insights we must look to the unfinished
sequel to Emile, Emile et Sophie, ou les solitaires, in which Rousseau places his
whole educational project into question.
Book V: The Art of Surveillance
As we reach Book V, we find Emile back in the world and back in his tutor’s grasp.
Having acquainted his pupil with religion and morality in theory, the tutor now
has to introduce Emile into society and to other human beings in practice. But
how will the child act on principles that he has not personally learned? In the first
three books it could be argued that his belief in his freedom was enough to ensure
that he learned the lessons of nature. After all, in spite of the manipulations Emile
did have real experiences through which he learned to recognize his strengths
and become aware of his limits. It is more difficult for Rousseau to show how
Emile can achieve moral autonomy without having been an active participant in
the process of his own awakening.
At the end of Book IV, Rousseau admits that until Emile reached puberty
the tutor’s tools had been force and artifice. Until this time, he says, Emile has
not known either authority or duty. Now that his heart has been engaged by his
passions, the tutor admits that the boy will escape from him if he does not devise
a new method of education (Emile 416).
Interestingly, Rousseau—the man who gave up his five children to an
orphanage, the writer who so mistrusted the pedagogical skills of parents that he
dissolves in the sequel to Emile, Emile et Sophie. I discuss this, and Popiel’s view, below.
Jennifer J. Popiel, Rousseau’s Daughters: Domesticity, Education and Autonomy in Modern
France (Durham, 2008).

See Les Confessions for Rousseau’s discussion of why and under what circumstances
he gave up his children. Some have argued that both his interest in education and his
projected relationship with Emile were a result of his guilt at having given his children away
and an attempt to make up for the loss. In one passage he shows deep remorse, claiming that
“The position I had taken with respect to my children, as well thought through as it seemed
to me, did not always bring peace to my heart. In contemplating my Educational Treatise,
I felt that I had neglected duties that nothing could absolve me from. The remorse finally
became so strong that it almost compelled me to make a public confession at the beginning
made his imaginary Emile an orphan to be raised by an objective outsider—has

the tutor turn into a parental figure in order to accomplish his new task. The tutor
is suddenly desperate to bind the emotionless Emile to him, and he uses classic
parental ruses in his pursuit of attachment: guilt, sentimentality, duty, and fear.
“You are my wealth, my child, my handiwork; my happiness comes only from
yours; if you frustrate my hopes, you rob me of twenty years of my life, and make
a misery of my old age” (Emile 424). (It is unclear why Emile would even grasp
these ideas, since he has never encountered them before and since Rousseau’s
method was intended to make him impervious to manipulation.) The tutor tells
the boy the story of his origins, of all that his tutor has sacrificed for him, and
compels him to consider his teacher’s interest above his own. He ruminates on
Emile’s moral and existential condition, warns of enemies, and paints himself as
the child’s only protector in the world.
To justify the melodramatic and emotional tone (he used to argue against
terrifying children, but now he uses terror as a pedagogical method), Rousseau
deploys the logic of eighteenth-century sensationist pedagogy. He insists this
“gentle” awakening is adapted to children’s nature as well as to the temperament
of the individual child. The tutor, he argues, draws on the language of the heart
rather than delivering dry lectures and raises these issues only because Emile is
developmentally ready for them. But in fact there is more delicate maneuvering
at work and Rousseau has a broader agenda. The boy, after hearing terrible
stories about the real world, is now filled with a choking horror at the unknown.
At this point, the tutor entices him to enter into a freely chosen contract with his
mentor whereby he promises to be obedient while the tutor promises to make him
happy, never misuse his authority, or oppose the natural penchants of Emile’s age.
The vulnerable boy agrees to everything, and the tutor successfully instigates a
masterwork of self-inflicted pedagogical vassalage.
Rousseau is not apologetic about this turn of events. On the contrary, the tutor
is proud that his controlling method is superior to that of other pedagogues, and he
considers Emile’s docility to be a mark of his maturity. However, before condemning
Rousseau’s tactics as “a celebration of dependency,”10 we must again contextualize
his method. Rousseau’s technique in this section conforms in great part to the trend
of Emile.” Rousseau, Les Confessions, p. 704. However, in another passage, Rousseau

speaks quite coldheartedly about losing and disposing of children. After describing how
he and his girlfriend Thérèse gave away their first child, he writes of the second child,
“in the next year, same inconvenience, and same expedient.” Rousseau, Les Confessions,
p. 423. Later he insists that “The long absence from a child whom one does not know
further weakens and finally destroys paternal and maternal sentiments, and you will never
love [a child] who was sent to be nursed by another the way you would one that was nursed
under your eyes.” Rousseau, Les Confessions, p. 664. Finally, the reasons he offers for
having abandoned his children are: 1) he was unable to provide for them emotionally or
financially; and 2) citizens are better raised by society than by faulty parents! There was
also a question in his mind about the paternity of some of the children.
10
Crocker, Rousseau’s Emile, p. 104.
in educational thought at mid-century. As we see in the next chapter, the plans

submitted for educational reforms as a result of the crisis of 1762 contain inventive
methods for ensuring that, in the transition from childhood to adolescence and
early youth, children are never actually left alone. Rousseau’s control over Emile
is a variant of what was already a long tradition in which educators struggled to
find ways to integrate children into society while at the same time protecting them
from its pernicious effects. As we have seen, many theorists aimed paradoxically
to bring out the natural sociability in a child without stifling his or her individuality
through actual social intercourse: as though the “social sense” might engender
healthier human relations if it emerged from the individual’s nature and was created
in isolation from a societal sense. Rousseau’s pedagogical control is also linked
to what Michel Foucault described as a movement toward confining, controlling,
and watching over potentially dangerous elements in society in institutions such
as prisons, workhouses, and schools.11 Finally, it is part of the trap of freedom in
which many educational thinkers since the Enlightenment have found themselves,
whereby the urge to expand the nature and form of freedom experienced by the
individual in the educational process makes it almost impossible to imagine a
method of socialization that would not violate that freedom.
Are we to interpret the teacher–student relationship described above as the
model of “free consent” that Rousseau imagined when he described participation in
the social contract? Are we to see the manipulations of Book V as the pedagogical
preparation that leads to a political process described in the Contrat Social by
which adults recognize liberty as “obedience to a self prescribed law?”12 Is Emile’s
behavior a prototype for the internalization of authority that precedes a capitulation
to the general will?
We must bracket these questions temporarily, for the tutor has not yet completed
his mission. The first bridge between Emile and the world, between the boy and
the man, was pity. The second is Emile’s experience as a husband. Even though in
Book V he is taught the duties of citizenship, love is his first social act.13
It is the tutor, of course, who locates the love of Emile’s life. Her name is
Sophie, and her parents have agreed to enter into the tutor’s schemes. After
having orchestrated their meeting, their love, their passion, a forced and artificial
separation and an arranged reunion, the tutor informs Emile that now he is truly
free, ready to be a man. At the same time, however, it appears that the tutor is
unable to trust his pupil’s potential for independence and concocts yet another
form of control: he declares that he will transfer his rule over Emile to Sophie.
But Sophie reigns for only one brief moment—during the speech in which
the tutor tells her she will reign! In actuality, the tutor continues to ensure that he
11
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York, 1995).
12
Rousseau, Du contrat social, in Oeuvres complètes, vol. 3, p. 364.
13
In fact, Rousseau says that friendship is the first social link, but Emile never
has friends.
controls Emile’s experiences with Sophie.14 Entrapped in a splendid labyrinth of

thinly veiled constraints, Emile has one last chance to break free from his tutor and
assert an identity—when he becomes a father. However, at the moment when the
young lovers are about to have a child, when Emile is about to become a “man,” he
runs to the tutor and begs him: “Continue to be the teacher of the young teachers.
Advise us, guide us, we will be docile. As long as I live I will need you. I need you
more than ever, now that my duties as a man are about to begin” (Emile 629).
Woman: The Second Bridge
Who is Sophie, and why were the reigns of power not transferred to her? The
most important thing we can say about Sophie is that she is decidedly not a female
rendering of Emile. Not only does she not receive the same kind of instruction as
her husband, but her upbringing is based on opposite principles, more in line with
those put forth by Rousseau’s contemporaries.15 In fact, in describing the kind of
education girls should receive, Rousseau paradoxically draws on many views that
he rejected in earlier parts of the book; in particular, socialization, utility, and the
dependence on the wills and opinions of others.
The lessons of Emile’s early education do not apply to Sophie. First, Emile
is taught to find freedom in his relationship to nature. He identifies himself
primarily as a human being in the universe rather than a man in society. This kind
of identification is not possible for women because, according to Rousseau, they
are always tied to their sexual nature, their womanhood over their personhood.
Sophie thus learns the tricks of social life and human relations rather than the laws
of the natural universe. She is educated as a woman rather than as a human being.
Second, Emile is taught never to depend on the opinion of others. His self-image is
strictly deduced from what he learns about his personal strengths and limits. Since
women are made to please men, however, and need men for their survival, Sophie
must be trained to depend on and submit to the opinion of others (mostly men).
14
For example, he gives the lovers a lesson in sexual relations, arguing that sex must
always be consensual and never abused. Still not satisfied that his advice will be heeded,
the tutor secretly advises Sophie to manipulate sexual relations, carefully calculating the
pleasure she gives Emile in order to keep him both tame and interested.
15
Rousseau does not lament the lack of education offered to women, as did many of
his predecessors. On the contrary, he complains about their overeducation and identifies the
most literary of them as emblematic of all that is amiss in eighteenth-century society. See
Joan B. Landes, “Rousseau’s Reply to Public Women” in Women and the Public Sphere in
the Age of the French Revolution (Ithaca, 1988) for a discussion of how Rousseau identified
women, in particular the salonnières, with all the falsity, banality, and misguided values of
eighteenth-century city life. For more positive interpretations of Sophie and Rousseau’s
attitude toward women’s role in the educative process, see Jennifer J. Popiel, Rousseau’s
Daughters: Domesticity, Education and Autonomy in Modern France (Durham, 2008), and
Lesley H. Walker, A Mother’s Love: Crafting Feminine Virtue in Enlightenment France
(Lewisburg, 2008).
Third, Emile learns what is useful to him as a human being, but he is never guided
by the principles of crass utilitarianism. He does not judge the value of things
according to whether they can profit him in society, enable him to use others, or
define his “station.” In contrast Sophie learns, as Fleury would have all children
learn, only “that which is suitable for [her] to know” (Emile 474). Fourth, in order
to develop a healthy mind and psyche, Emile must never be subjected to injustice
or to the control of another’s will. Sophie, who Rousseau tells us will inevitably
suffer injustice at the hands of men, must learn to endure suffering at an early age.
Finally, Emile must learn to be in control of his desires in order to reach a higher
form of self-mastery and freedom. Sophie must learn to govern through her desires
so that she can please and support Emile.
In short, Frankenstein did not create a bride for his monster. Instead, Rousseau
offers Emile an appealing but unreformed woman, a young girl whose education
follows along the lines of those presented by Mme de Lambert to her daughter and
whose character has much in common with Julie of La Nouvelle Héloïse: simple,
virtuous, passionate, susceptible to vice but longing for virtue. At the end of the
Book V, Rousseau instructs Emile in the duties of marriage and the laws of the
social contract, and sends the young couple out into the world.
But can Emile be happy with a woman whose nature and destiny are linked to
the corruptions of contemporary life when he is programmed to a different reality?
Can Sophie (or marriage or family life) act as a bridge between the child of nature
and the man of society? Further, if only men are capable of receiving Emile’s
kind of education, how does Rousseau imagine reforming the world through
education? And if his ambitions are more modest (if he does not intend to create
an educational utopia in which Emile reproduces himself), how will his unique
individual survive the world as it is? Will they be the perfect citizens of the Contrat
Social? Will society destroy them? How will they define their individuality within
their relationship when their identities are based on opposing principles?
Rousseau leaves these questions unanswered. It is not clear, at the end of Emile,
how much Jean-Jacques expects from his young disciples. Initially, it appears as
though he has created Emile with the model of the Contrat Social in mind. He trains
him to the kind of virtue needed to submit to and understand the general will, and he
talks to him at length about his social obligations, referring directly to the lessons
of the Contrat Social. However, at times it seems that Rousseau’s aim is modest:
to educate individual children to psychological and moral health so they may
survive the vicissitudes of contemporary life. After all, on the fourth page of Emile
Rousseau clearly states that his educational plan is necessary precisely because,
given the current state of civilization, neither citizenship nor social education are
possible. One must choose between educating the man and the citizen. In addition,
although in Book V the tutor tells Emile that he must always fulfill his duties toward
the patrie, he counsels the youth to live far from the city. His focus on domestic
happiness, juxtaposed with his lecture on social obligation, makes it difficult to
discern whether the education of Emile would prepare him best for the world of
La Nouvelle Héloïse, that of the Contrat Social or for a third alternative.
Emile et Sophie, ou les solitaires: Book VI?
In an attempt to further probe these issues we can look in several places: the body
of Rousseau’s work, his own statements about the unity of his thought, or text such
as “Économie politique” and Considérations sur le gouvernement de Pologne,
where he outlines his vision for educational reform in relation to the strengthening
of patriotism and civic virtue. But the most useful work to examine might be Emile
et Sophie, ou les solitaires, in which we find Rousseau trying directly to confront
the unresolved issues from his educational treatise. Through the story, we see that
Rousseau was unsatisfied with the ending of Emile and questioned the oppositions
he elaborated in the educational process between liberty and constraint, man and
woman, nature and society, and individual growth and sociability. Although his
aim was to fashion two individuals who escaped the evils of contemporary life, it
appears that he did not trust his pupils unless they broke free from their master’s
teachings, experienced a fall from their Eden, and chose virtue freely.
The first publishers16 of Emile et Sophie claim that Rousseau wrote the work
because he wanted to show that “the principles on which Emile was nourished from
birth were sufficient in and of themselves to raise him above (his) circumstances.”17
I would argue that, more than simply testing out his theory, Rousseau had a strong
sense of uneasiness about the relationship between the first three and the last two
Books of Emile. Like most eighteenth-century educational thinkers, he struggled
to reconcile new ideals of individuality and sociability in the educational process.
Individuality defined by sensual satisfaction, personal happiness, freedom from
constraint or moral autonomy demands (methodologically) an education that is
spontaneous, pleasing, focused on liberty of action, and guided in part by the nature
or temperament of the individual child. Sociability defined by benevolence toward
others, a mature understanding of civic responsibility, an appreciation of one’s
place in society and the acquisition of skills required to assume that place demands
(methodologically) an education that is utilitarian, social, uniform, focused on
16
The work was first published in 1780 by Moulton and Du Peyrou. According to the
testimony of several of his friends and acquaintances, Rousseau began work on Emile et
Sophie in the same year that Emile was published but before the condemnation of Emile by
the Sorbonne and the Paris parlement. He ceased work on the book when he fled France,
but over the next decade he told several of his friends that he intended to return to it.
17
Rousseau, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 4, p. clxi. Hume is also qtd as saying that
Rousseau wanted to test out “the effects of his educational plan.” See Charles Wirz, “Notes
sur Emile et Sophie, ou les solitaires” in Annales de la société Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
36 (1963–1965): p. 297. For other interpretations of why Rousseau wrote his sequel, see
Michel Launay, Une grève d’esclaves à Alger au XVIIIe siècle: avec Emile et Sophie, ou les
solitaires de Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Paris, 1998), p. 98; Thomas M. Kavanagh, Writing
the Truth: Authority and Desire in Rousseau (Berkeley, 1987); Julia V. Douthwaithe, The
Wild Girl, Natural Man, and the Monster (Chicago, 2002); Mary Seidman Trouille, Sexual
Politics in the Enlightenment: Women Writers Read Rousseau (Albany, 1997); and Marie-
Hélène Huet, “Social Entropy,” Yale French Studies, 92 (1997): pp. 171−83.
duties, emphasizing the malleable nature of children, and guided primarily by the
needs of society. Notwithstanding Rousseau’s self-conscious attempt to overcome
this individual−social dilemma in education, in the end his approach only further
complicates the issue. His notion of both individual growth and social conscience
is more elaborate than any seen before and requires a high degree of purity; the
individual must grow so fully in accordance with his own rhythm that he must be
literally untouched by society, and his conscience must be so clearly disassociated
from self interest that it cannot emerge from sense experience.
In the short story of Emile et Sophie, written in the form of two letters from
Emile to his tutor, we find the couple’s happiness ruptured by the corrupt city life
that Rousseau exposed and condemned in his earlier works.18 It is fascinating to
note that the initial fracture is occasioned by nature, not culture. Paris does not
come into the lives of the young couple, but rather they are drawn to Paris as a
result of natural occurrences, the deaths of Sophie’s parents and that of Emile and
Sophie’s daughter. Sophie is overwhelmed by grief and unable to cope with these
events. The deaths shatter the couple’s bliss, and they flee to the city with their
surviving son to seek distractions.
This initial element is crucial because as it reveals a crack in the Emilian model.
One of the principal goals of the tutor’s educational method was to teach Emile to
understand and to accept mortality. Although programmed to fight social evil, he
was expected to confront nature’s obstacles—including death—with courage and
serenity. The fact that tragedy results from Sophie’s inability to cope with death
indicates either that: 1) her influence on Emile was more powerful than his early
lessons, in which case his education was a failure; 2) women, who cannot be raised
on the Emilian model because of their inherent difference, are destined to create
tragedies for men; or 3) Rousseau was simply unable to conceptualize how the
virtuous couple could navigate their way through life in corrupt society. Unable to
understand the natural order of the universe or her place within it, Sophie occasions
the fall from Eden. She will suffer for this transgression for the rest of her life but
will be also redeemed, as was Julie, by her ability to overcome her natural self and
become a woman of true virtue in the Rousseauean sense.
Once in Paris, the couple experiences the evils of city life: empty, sumptuous
evenings, well-dressed, emotionally vacant people, individuals lost in each other’s
reflection. Despite Emile’s training and Sophie’s natural goodness, their self-image
also becomes subject to the opinion of others. They lose their intimacy with each
other and their individual relationships with solitude and nature. Emile fears that
he will be unable to find himself again. Sophie changes. She forgets herself. She
even forgets her losses. The two become each other’s possessions, “wife” and
“husband” but no longer individuals.
18
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile et Sophie, ou les solitaires in Oeuvres de J.J. Rousseau,
ed. Mussay Pathay, vol. 2 (23 vols, Paris, 1826–1827). Henceforth, this title will be cited
directly following quotations as “E&S.”
The break takes place when Sophie becomes pregnant with another man’s
child. It is only when Emile leaves her (and his son), departs from the city, and
abandons all hope that he encounters the force of his early education. He realizes
that despite all of the artificial agony imposed on him by social life, he is “master
of myself” (E&S 483). He knows how to survive adversity because of his deep
understanding of the laws of necessity, the only slavery from which he cannot
free himself and to which he will voluntarily submit. He is quickly liberated from
the slavery of opinion, image, and possession, and rather than fight his situation
he draws “rules of conduct from my present condition” (E&S 483). He returns to
the “presentness” of life and profits from his tutor having taught him to live by
his own hands, to be humble and know his place, and to do good by not hurting
anyone. He lives not a particular form of life, but life itself. He breaks all ties with
France and renounces his identity as a citizen, husband, father, or anything other
than merely a man.19
While traveling toward Naples, Emile’s vessel is attacked by a ship of
barbarians and he is sold into slavery. Against our expectations, this event is not
a tragedy for the young man. On the contrary, with bondage Emile’s experiences
his ultimate personal triumph and the tutor his ultimate educational triumph. As
a slave Emile does not suffer, for again he recalls that his only real slavery is to
necessity, that most sublime of servitudes he learned to accept as a child. Just as
upon leaving Paris he recognized that the shackles of opinion had no hold over
him, he now realizes that there are no external chains that can take his liberty. His
physical bonds serve only to drive home the authenticity of his freedom, and he
admits that “the period of my servitude was that of my reign, and I never had as
much authority over myself as when I bore chains” (E&S 509).
Lester Crocker invokes this episode to reinforce his thesis that Emile is a
neurotic young robot raised to be a slave, a being who can feel comfortable only in
bondage.20 He argues that both Emile and Sophie failed in life because they were
never taught how to search for happiness. Emile et Sophie only confirms what Emile
had shown, that there is no liberty at work in Jean-Jacques’s subtle manipulations.
Crocker, however, fails to mention that in the story of Emile et Sophie, Emile in
fact does revolt against servitude. At one point he is sold to another master who is
capricious and evil. Rather than using his slaves to accomplish useful tasks, this
new master hurts them arbitrarily and cruelly. At this point Emile, well-versed
in the subtle distinctions between different orders of slavery, leads a mutiny for
the sake of his own dignity as well as that of his fellows. He shows initiative and
leadership, and he frees the slaves from the evil master. Emile thus fulfills his
tutor’s greatest expectations: he accepts the bondage of necessity while fighting
Emile and Sophie’s son, who came to Paris with them and who was present in the
19
early part of the story, disappears and is never again mentioned.

20
Lester Crocker, “Rousseau’s Emile: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”
in Marian Hobson, J.T.A. Leigh and Robert Wolker (eds), Rousseau and the Eighteenth
Century: Essays in Memory of R.A. Leith (Oxford, 1992), p. 113.
that of arbitrary wills, accepts the obligation of work as it contributes to society

but not as a form of exploitation.21
Rousseau did not complete the text of Emile et Sophie, although according
to the abbé Prévost and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre he apparently had an end in
mind. Unfortunately, the two men relate different versions of the ending.22 In
Prévost’s version, Emile ends up on a deserted island. He encounters Sophie, who
tells him that in order to repent for her sin she wants to serve him and her rival,
a young woman who will marry Emile. Although Emile finds out that in Paris
Sophie had succumbed to temptation only under terrible pressures, he nevertheless
feigns a marriage to the other woman so that Sophie can feel the full force of her
repentance. Soon he reveals to Sophie that the marriage was a farce, and Emile and
Sophie remarry. In the second version, that of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Emile
also lands on a deserted island. Here he meets, and eventually marries, a beautiful
young Spanish woman stranded on the island with her father. One day Sophie
appears and tells Emile that she wants to serve him and his new wife to atone for
her sin. The Spanish woman takes pity on Sophie and tells Emile that he must be
with Sophie, as she is his real wife. Emile is torn between two duties, and in the
end he decides to marry both women. He and Sophie never discuss the past, nor do
they have a verbal reconciliation. It is only when Sophie dies, still sad and broken,
that Emile finds a note in which she reveals how, in Paris, she had betrayed him
only under great pressure.
Conclusion: Choosing the Man
It is difficult to evaluate the success of Emile’s education based on Emile et Sophie

or to determine which pedagogical lessons from Emile survive contact with the
“real world.” Significantly, while Rousseau might have intended a happy ending
of sorts in Prévost’s account, in both versions he leaves Emile with personal
and spiritual freedom but social (and in the second story, social and emotional)
alienation. In other words, he leaves him in a position similar to that in which he
(Rousseau) found himself at the end of his life.23 Even in the first, more hopeful
ending, the lovers live on a deserted island far from society. In both versions,
21
Thomas Kavanagh draws broad conclusions from this series of events, namely, that
there is something socially and politically successful about Rousseau’s educational scheme
since it left Emile able to live as a free man. There is no doubt that the events reflect Emile’s
victory over dependence. But the kind of freedom attained does not align with the broader
goals Rousseau himself set for the child in Emile. See Kavanagh, Writing the Truth.
22
Charles Wirz, an expert on the question, believes that Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s
version is the authentic one. See Wirz, “Notes sur Emile et Sophie, ou les solitaires,”
Annales de la société Jean-Jacques Rousseau, vol. 36, pp. 291−303.
23
See Jean Chateau, Rousseau et sa philosophie de l’éducation (Paris, 1969) for a
discussion of the similarities between Emile’s journey in Emile et Sophie and Rêveries d’un
promeneur solitaire.
Emile renounces his citizenship and is unlikely to be called on to fulfill any social
duties. He is thus both incapable of socialization—in the sense of being able to live
in contemporary society among his peers—and unable to transform society. To
survive, he has to return to the lessons of Books I–III, his personhood, his nature,
and his individualized journey. It appears that both the religious message of Book
IV and the social–political one of Book V are lost. Not only does Emile absent
himself from society; he does not call on God. In his time of need, he communes
with nature in what appears to be a spiritual sense, but he never has the opportunity
of putting the lessons of the social contract into practice.
Perhaps it could be argued that Emile’s education successfully prepared him
for marriage, a partial socialization. It appears from the endings of both versions of
Emile et Sophie that he did manage to take on the role of husband, although not that
of father. But the story of Emile et Sophie revisits the problem of the relationship
between men and women, passion and virtue, satisfaction and sublimation all so
movingly portrayed in La Nouvelle Héloïse. In both versions, Emile lives out his
relationship in a private setting resembling, but even more remote than, the world
of Julie and Wolmar in La Nouvelle Héloïse. And in both versions Sophie remains
the representative of the non-Emilian world and must endure a process of self-
subjugation to become his wife again. As Alessandro Ferrara has pointed out in
his discussion of authenticity and autonomy in Rousseau’s work, in La Nouvelle
Héloïse Julie was forced to become inauthentic in order to become virtuous and
autonomous.24 In other words, her virtue (autonomous in the sense that it is chosen
and conforms to morally correct behavior) necessitated her inauthenticity. In order
to activate it, she had to lie to herself and those she loved, deny her own needs,
subdue her womanhood, and disassociate from her individuality. The same fate
awaits Sophie. Because of her nature, she is unable to act as the bridge between the
presocial and the social Emile, and she never has a chance to embody the powerful
model of maternal education that Rousseau outlined in the early chapters of Emile.
Instead, she sets off a series of events that eventually return Emile to a form of
isolation (the island) and nature. Although it appears at the end of Book V that
Sophie might represent a new Julie, a reincarnation of the unfortunate girl now
able to live out her life with a reincarnation of Saint-Preux, Emile et Sophie does
not confirm this intuition. Instead, in the happier version Emile appears rather to
be Sophie’s Wolmar, a compassionate and dispassionate guardian in touch with a
higher truth, a protector who will ensure that she is never again led astray. In the
unhappier version Sophie dies of womanhood—her failure to live by the principles
of Emile’s education and inability to resist seduction in an evil society. Emile lives
on, drawing on the lessons of his early education in the first three books. In both
versions, marriage acts as a substitute for, rather than a conduit to, the social pact.
Within this domestic pact, joy and strength come from peace and isolation rather
than from communication or communion.
24
Alessandro Ferrara, Modernity and Authenticity: A Study of the Social and Ethical
Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (New York, 1993), Ch. 5.
Given these rather dreary non-endings, how are we to understand the connection
between Books I−III and IV−V, between education to individual self-sufficiency
and to social–moral consciousness, between the cultivation of virtue in the home
and the experience of virtue in the world? In her book Rousseau’s Daughters,
Jennifer Popiel has argued that in Emile Rousseau put forth an innovative and
extremely influential ideal of domestic education, one that might be seen as a
bridge of sorts between the individual’s journey and his or her social role.25 She
suggests that the reason this ideal was so powerful for eighteenth-century readers
(eliciting a much more passionate response than the Contrat Social) is because the
work posited that the most radical change takes place in the domestic–social, rather
than the political, realm. Thus, while women might be excluded from the public
sphere, if virtue was to be imbibed in the home then mothers would be central to
the construction of a new civil society. They would develop in themselves—and
then nurture in their sons—qualities that were essential to the development of
autonomous citizens: self-control, self-sacrifice, and concern for others.26 Hence,
Popiel argues, notwithstanding the fact that Sophie did not have an Emilian
education (or perhaps even because of it), she can be seen as “the genetrix of the
new society,” a mother who would create the conditions necessary to form new
radical individuals.27
These arguments are very insightful and have helped to reclaim Rousseau’s
work as one that speaks to rather than undermines women, and recognizes their
role as partners in the formation of modern society.28 But Popiel overlooks several
issues that are crucial not only to how we analyze the role of women in Emile
but how we evaluate the work’s integrity. First, it is true that Rousseau addresses
women and mothers directly, but these remarks come only in the early chapters
of Emile. In the bulk of the treatise Emile is educated by a man, and a man who
is a not member of the boy’s family. Second, although Emile does learn a special
form of autonomy in the home, the story of education as a catalyst for recreating
society from the bottom up (from the domestic to the political) does not end well.
In Emile et Sophie it becomes clear that Rousseau’s educational scheme did not
succeed in instituting radical social or political change, nor in creating a powerful
model of domestic bliss. And while the tutor does provide Emile with a sense
of freedom from the world, the child never experiences freedom in the world.
Further, the role of the mother-as-educator is undermined in Emile et Sophie,
as Sophie proves incapable of realizing her core virtues of self-control and self-
mastery. And although she rediscovers her moral center at the end of the story,
she does not manage to sustain any real form of family life. Rather than spawn
25
Jennifer J. Popiel, Rousseau’s Daughters.
26
On this issue, see also Lesley H. Walker, A Mother’s Love: Crafting Feminine Virtue
in Enlightenment France (Lewisburg, 2008).
27
Modern France (Durham, 2008), p. 38.
28
Ibid., p. 47.
a new and more perfect society, in Emile et Sophie the family suffers from the
blemishes of the world as it is.
This does not mean that Rousseau’s educational treatise did not have an
important role in creating a social–domestic ideal of virtue or putting forth a vision
of how this ideal might be linked to political change. The sequel Emile et Sophie
was not published during the author’s lifetime (and is infrequently read today)
and has not had a significant impact on discussions about Emile. But I would
argue that in order to understand Rousseau’s own struggle to define the evolution
of autonomy in the course of a human life, we should follow him as he tracks his
disciples’ journey into society. Read as the final (albeit unfinished) book of Emile,
Emile et Sophie underscores Rousseau’s failure to construct a model of education
as a bridge between the individual and the social–moral state or to approach these
two phases holistically, as did Morelly. And in showing us just how this bridge
collapses, the short story also highlights those aspects of Emile’s journey—his
education for self-sufficiency and “humanness”—that Rousseau himself felt were
most enduring.
Ultimately, Rousseau is preoccupied in Emile with two principal goals, both
of which determine the individualist tenor of his educational thought: 1) rescuing
the individual from Helvétius’s future; and 2) repudiating an excessively close
association between social–political and individual virtue that he perceived in the
work of Locke and his French disciples. Although Rousseau draws a great deal
from Locke, he rejects the technique in Some Thoughts of cultivating in children
a kind of liberty directly related to—if not in actual preparation for—what will be
required of them as adults participating in society. He insists that real citizenship
education can only take place in fully reformed societies, such as those portrayed
in the Contrat social or Considérations sur le gouvernement de Pologne. Any
attempt to socialize children for contemporary society will lead to a compromise
of both individual liberty and social virtue, to say nothing of childhood.
Thus Emile’s training in political liberty and social morality takes place only
after he has been fully formed to freedom, at a distance from other human beings.
Notwithstanding his ideals of public life, what Rousseau does in Emile is to offer an
individualist educational vision in opposition to what was increasingly becoming
the Enlightenment’s model, the reduction of education to a tool of socialization or
professionalization in the hands of legislators and the state. He constructs a solitary
and untouchable space within children’s souls, out of reach of the legislator, through
which all education must pass. What lives in this space is neither completely
unrelated to children’s social tendencies, nor can it be reduced to nature. However,
he never fully manages to reconcile this pedagogical ideal with his second goal,
designing a social universe in which individuals can thrive. He tries ambitiously to
create a space of pure freedom in which Emile can remain uncontaminated by the
social environment, while at the same time imbuing the child with a social–moral
consciousness that, although rising above the political, also provides a model for
citizenship. As a result he narrows the physical and emotional space in which the
child can experience any form of social engagement.
The shortcomings of Rousseau’s educational treatise, however, should not

detract from the work’s enduring legacy. Inasmuch as Emile represents a thought
experiment on the nature of autonomy rather than a pedagogical manual, the lessons
are timeless and deeply moving. Rousseau’s riveting vision of human flourishing
pierces effortlessly through questions about “practicality” or implementation.
More importantly, the paradoxes in Emile are not those of Rousseau alone. They
underscore the difficulty of reconciling freedom, individuality, sociability, and
political responsibility in the context of the definitions given to these terms by
Enlightenment theorists (and in the context of liberal education more broadly) and
of marrying lofty ideas about human potential to the exigencies of child-rearing
or socialization. This difficulty is further reflected in the work of so many later
theorists who were driven to make a choice between the man or the citizen and
individual or social education. In Chapter 11, we see how mid-eighteenth-century
reformers reject Rousseau’s model and choose instead to educate the citizen
and the professional.
Part 5
The Crisis of 1762:
“Children Belong to the State”
Prologue:
The Expulsion of the Jesuits and the
Educational Reformers of the 1760s
The educational revolution preceeded the political revolution by 28 years.
There will not be a single citizen [in the state] who, from his earliest youth, has
not been the object of the public minister’s solicitude and who does not consider
himself lucky to have lived in a century made forever memorable by such a
revolution in studies.
In the early 1760s, one hundred years of educational critique converged around
an historical event: the expulsion of the Jesuits from France and the closing of
their collège. In this chapter we look at the reform plans that were put together
by teachers, clergymen, and lawmakers in the wake of the crisis and trace the
influence of Enlightenment educational–philosophical literature on these plans.
The reformers of the 1760s are principally driven by two preoccupations.
The first is practical and reflects the urgency brought on by the crisis. Theorists
offer their views on the best new plan of studies to replace the Ratio Studiorum,
which had served as the theoretical basis for the Jesuit collèges since 1599. They
discuss various means of recruiting a new corps of professional teachers to replace
the Jesuits and explore ways in which education can be employed in the service
of the state. Like most eighteenth-century theorists, the reformers broaden their
definition of education beyond the acquisition of intellectual habits or religious–
moral precepts in the home, church, or classroom. Collèges are expected to offer
professional training, instill civic values, ensure social stability, enhance state
power, and contribute to the establishment of a new moral code.
The reformers’ second preoccupation is more theoretical and reflects the
tradition of pedagogical critique that we have traced from the seventeenth century.
Their references indicate that they are well-versed in educational theory and have

Maurice Gontard, L’enseignement en France de la fin de l’Ancien Régime à la loi
Falloux (1750−1850) (Aix-en-Provence, 1984), p. 22

Anonymous, Plan général d’institution, particulièrement destiné pour la jeunesse
du ressort du parlement de Bourgogne (Dijon, 1763), p. 40.

In 1762, there were 85 Jesuits collèges and 152 Jesuit establishments in France,
including seminaries, missionary houses, and residences. More than half of the children
who attended a collège passed through the Jesuits. Jean de Viguerie, Dictionnaire du temps
des Lumières, 1715−1789 (Paris, 1995), pp. 1055−6.

Most of the works I analyze were written between 1761 and 1764, although the
debate that continued through the 1760s reflects the same themes.
either read or heard of the major figures influencing French pedagogical thought.
Their recommendations concerning curriculum reform and psychological approach
to children suggest that they embrace the basic tenets of sensationism and support a
utilitarian conception of education. The reformers’ casual use of philosophical and
pedagogical concepts tells us a great deal about the extent to which the new views
about education were being absorbed and interpreted by professionals directly
involved in the educational process as well as by nonprofessional commentators.
Yet their tendency to present old ideas as new and radical indicates that little
educational reform had been implemented.
Rather than consider each thinker separately, as I have done in previous
chapters, I discuss the reformers of the 1760s as a group. I have chosen this
approach for two reasons. First, they all respond to the same crisis and to the call
by the parlement of Paris in December 1761 to devise a new educational system.
Second, none of these reformers is an original theorist. There is a surprising and
often tedious unanimity in the views put forth concerning the basic educational
philosophical issues we have discussed in previous chapters, not only the themes
but even particular examples recur in many works.
The reformers of the 1760s are difficult to identify as a group. They comprise
lawmakers, men and women of letters, educators, and clergymen. Although
there are some differences between them concerning the role of religion in the
curriculum (the Jansenists in particular assign a large role to religion), all the
reformers envision a close relationship between education and the state. None
puts forth a specific political philosophy, and none defines exactly the kind of
state that is envisioned. Rather than attack the monarchy directly, they criticize all
forms of “despotism” and insist that the most lawful and successful governments
are those that put an end to superstition and ignorance. They appeal to Lockean
notions of liberty and responsibility, which they believe education can impart to
most citizens.
The two most well-known mémoires on educational reform at mid-century were
written by Louis René François de Caradeuc de La Chalotais, attorney general of
the parlement of Bretagne, and Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau, a well-known
chemist, man of letters, and attorney general of the parlement of Dijon. Several of
the other mémoires were written by collège professors, men of letters, and members
of various Académies. Charles Marie de La Condamine was a mathematician,
geographer, and member of Académie des Sciences and Académie Francaise.

The authors most often mentioned in the mémoires are Quintilian, Plutarch, Erasmus,
Montaigne, Fénelon, Fleury, Locke, Nicole, Lamy, Saint-Pierre, Dumarsais, Vaniere, Rollin,
Pluche, Cousaz, and Rousseau. It is interesting to note that, notwithstanding Rousseau’s
praise of Plato’s educational theory, and the many references to education in ancient times,
the writers do not mention Plato. It is remarkable also that none appears to be familiar with
Comenius, in many respects the grandfather of all their ideas.

Ideas and concepts that I attribute to “the reformers” are ones that I found in the
large majority or all of their works.
The Expulsion of the Jesuits 231
He also wrote articles for the Encyclopédie on natural history and geography. N.M.
Fleury was a math teacher. Francois-Dominique Rivard and Jean-Baptiste Crevier
were both Jansenists; the former was professor of philosophy at the Collège
de Beauvais, the latter a historian and professor of rhetoric at the same collège.
Jean-Henri-Samuel Formey was a French protestant living in Berlin, secretary of
the Academy of Berlin, teacher of eloquence and philosophy at Collège Français
in Berlin and contributor to the Encyclopédie. Notwithstanding his ties to the
Encyclopédistes, he opposed their anti-Christian ideas and was particularly hostile
to the views put forth by Rousseau in his Emile. Formey was also the winner of a
prize competition of the Société Hollandaise des Sciences de Harlem in 1765. The
question asked by the Société—“How must we guide the spirit and heart of the
child to render him happy and useful?”—is itself indicative of the kind of inquiry
pursued at mid-century; reducing several core educational issues to one general
problem and posing a set of questions that assume a lack of tension between the
various elements (as though training the heart and mind and rendering a child
“useful” did not require clashing educational methods and values).
Some works to which I refer were submitted anonymously, and others were
written by authors about whom it is difficult to find information. This is the case
with J.B. Daragon, Pellicier, Colomb, F. de P. Combalusier, and Mlle Adélaïde de
Lespinassy (not to be confused with the salonniere Julie de Lespinasse).

Formey wrote Anti-Emile in 1763 and Emile Chrétien in 1764.

Works cited in this chapter are: Caradeuc de La Chalotais, Essai d’éducation
nationale ou Plan d’études pour la jeunesse (Paris, 1996); Colomb, Plan raisonné
d’éducation publique, pour ce qui regarde la partie des Études (Avignon, 1762); François de
Paule Combalusier, Mémoire de l’université Sur les Moyens de pourvoir à l’Instruction de
la Jeunesse, et de la perfectionner (1761); Charles Marie de La Condamine, Lettre critique
sur l’éducation (Paris, 1751); J.B.L. Crevier, Difficultés proposées à M. de Caradeuc de La
Chalotais (Paris, 1763); Jean-Baptiste Crevier, De l’éducation publique (Amsterdam, 1762);
J.B. Daragon, Lettre de M*** a M. l’abbé** sur la nécessité et la manière de faire entrer un
Cours de Morale dans l’éducation publique (Paris, 1762); N.M. Fleury, Projet d’une école
gratuite de sciences pour toutes les provinces du Royaume où tous les citoyens, de quelque
ordre qu’ils soient, trouveroient les secours de l’éducation (France, 1761) and Essai sur
les moyens de Réformer l’éducation des particulière et générale destiné a l’instruction des
Pères et Mères, à celle des Directeurs de Collèges et de tous les Éducateurs (Paris, 1764);
J.H.S. Formey, Traité d’éducation Morale, qui a remporté le prix de la Société de Sciences
de Harlem, l’an 1765 sur cette question: comment on doit gouverner l’esprit et le coeur
d’un enfant, pour le rendre heureux et utile (Liege, 1773); Mlle de Lespinassy, Essai sur
l’éducation des demoiselles (Paris, 1764); Guyton de Morveau, Mémoire sur l’éducation
publique (1764); Pellicier, Lettre à l’auteur des mémoires sur la nécessité de fonder une
école pour former les Maîtres, quatre lettres (Paris, 1762); and François Dominique Rivard,
Mémoire sur la nécessité d’établir dans Paris une Maison d’Institution pour former des
Maîtres, et quelques Collèges pour les basses Classes (date unknown) and Recueil de
mémoires touchant l’éducation de la jeunesse (Paris, 1763). Plans submitted anonymously
are: Plan général d’institution … de Bourgogne; Grammaire Française philosophique
(Geneve, 1760); Lettre à Monsieur l’abbé*** sur cette question: Les Gens de Communauté
The Crisis of 1762
The initial pretext for the attack on the Jesuits came in 1755 when a Jesuit father,
Père La Valette, entered into a risky commercial enterprise from which he was
unable to extricate himself. The entire order was held responsible for his debt,
and an inquiry into its funds was ordered. The parlement of Paris, many of whose
members were hostile to the Jesuits, took advantage of this incident to launch
a further investigation and in April 1761 issued a decree ordering copies of the
Society’s constitution to be examined by local parlements. After the examination
was completed, the Paris parlement declared that the founding acts of the society
constituted an abuse against French law (in particular, that institutions established
in France could not be despotically governed by a foreign force, as Rome governed
the Jesuits). In August 1761, another decree of the Paris parlement called for the
dissolution of the Society and the closing of their collèges. In September 1762, the
parlement called on all universities in the area of Paris to produce, within three
months, mémoires concerning a new plan of study for the collèges.
The parlement of Rennes was one of the first to follow in the steps of the Paris
parlement. Its attorney general, La Chalotais, one of the staunchest enemies of the
Jesuits, offered his analysis of the Society in his two Comptes Rendus delivered
to the parlement of Rennes in December 1761 and May 1762. He argued that
the Jesuits were a separatist community, a political body, and a menace to the
State. Further, he accused them of oppressing the youth of France, depriving
them of liberty and sacrificing their education to frivolity and useless learning.
Finally, he demanded the dissolution of their Society and collèges. In 1762, La
Chalotais published his Essai sur l’éducation nationale, which summed up the
views presented in his two Comptes Rendus. Many public figures supported him,
in particular and most vocally Voltaire, and to this day the Essai is considered the
most important work of this period concerning educational reform.
The Jesuit Society was finally dissolved in France on May 27, 1762. By February
1763 steps were taken to ensure that in each district communal administrations
took over responsibility for non-university collèges.10 In 1766 new rules were
established for hiring teachers and monitoring their qualifications. Rather than
presenting a certificate of their Maîtres-es-arts and demonstrating knowledge in
their particular area of study, teachers had to demonstrate that they had good morals
sont-ils aussi propres à l’Éducation publique que les Particuliers? (1763); Mémoire du
Bureau Servant de la Communauté de Rennes sur le nouveau Plan d’éducation demandé
par Arrêt de la Cour du 23 Décembre 1761 (Rennes, 1762); Lettre où l’on examine, quel
Plan d’étude on pourroit suivre dans les écoles publiques (1762).

Many members of the parlement were hostile to the Jesuits because of their Jansenist
leanings. Others were resentful of the Jesuits’ loyalty to the Pope and independence from
French law.
10
Each collège was to be run by a Bureau Municipal, which was to be comprised of
the local bishop, two judicial officers, two municipal officers, two notables chosen by the
town and the collège principal.
The Expulsion of the Jesuits 233
and a talent for teaching. New competitive examinationss for teachers (concours)
were established, open to both lay persons and the secular clergy but explicitly
excluding réguliers.
In practice, the transfer of power and the establishment of new collèges
was disorganized and arbitrary. Some collèges managed to keep their students
notwithstanding the transition, or even to acquire new ones; others lost both
their students and their revenues. The collèges received little financial help from
the government,11 and their collapse was further precipitated by the inaction of
parlement magistrates, many of whom believed that there were too many collèges
and were content to see them falter. Further, confusion and competition arose
between the responsible authorities—the parlement, the municipal bodies, the
university, and the clergy—and a lack of clarity concerning the delegation of
power among these groups. Finally, many parents removed their children from the
collèges, keeping them home with preceptors or sending them to private pensions
where they received a more “modern” education. Often these small institutions
were able to incorporate ideas and methods based on the new educational
philosophies. They placed less focus on Latin studies, devoted time to physical
exercise, behaved gently with children, and tried to incorporate learning techniques
based on children’s sensual nature and need for pleasure. Still other parents took
advantage of the new vocational schools (military, architectural, and engineering
establishments), which offered technical and practical education.12
The reformers of 1762 faced a daunting task: they had to tear down and then
reconstruct a central pillar of the French educational system. In their attempt to
reinvent the collèges as incubators of virtue and citizenship, they drew on a century
of educational theorizing about human nature and child psychology. We now turn
to an analysis of their views.
11
The King initially took a moderate position, allowing the Jesuits to remain if they
submitted to local bishops and taught Gallic doctrine. But when the Pope rejected this
course, all of the collèges were closed. In 1764, the King issued a decree suppressing the
Society throughout the kingdom and confiscating the Jesuits’ goods. For the most part,
however, the affair was driven by the parlements.
12
As Jean de Viguerie points out, the education of girls was less subject to disruption
in 1762, since their pensions were independent institutions not run by Jesuits. Most were
halfway houses between adolescence and marriage, in which girls learned some music,
dance, and religion.
Chapter 11
The Influence of Educational–Philosophical
Concepts on the Reform Plans of the 1760s
The Critique of Jesuit Education in the Reform Plans of the 1760s
Of the many tasks that they face following the demise of the Jesuit collèges, most
reformers in the early 1760s begin by putting forth a systematic critique of Jesuit
education. In doing so, they restate arguments made by educational theorists for
more than a century. They attack the Order for cloistering young students and
failing to offer a national or “modern” education (this would include less Latin
and more French, history, science, and modern authors). They call for practical,
use-oriented subjects over outdated scholastic methods and criticize the Jesuits’
excessive focus on books, words, and rules. In addition, they accuse the Society of
being antisocial and anti-French; dependent on a higher authority and promoting
the narrow interests of their community, they are charged with having no sense
of patriotism, family, or society. They imprison their students in ancient Greece
and Rome and teach them the language and values of a distant culture, rather than
inculcating in them a love of France or a knowledge of their duties as French
citizens. In short, the reformers argue that rather than produce workers, citizens,
or parents, the Jesuit collèges rob the nation of its potential glory and power,
its youth.
In addition to being socially useless, the Jesuit collèges are said to exercise a
harmful influence on the nature of children. Rather than forming morals or offering
professional training, they impose discipline that serves to “debase the hearts that
they should seek to elevate.” Reformers accuse the Jesuits of misunderstanding
the purpose of religion, using it to destroy the natural passions of children rather
than regulating them, and thereby failing to prepare their pupils for the “real”
world. They also consider the sedentary life and somber austerity of the collèges,
as well as the exaggerated length of studies, to be in contradiction with the physical
needs of children (La Chalotais 42). When making these accusations, reformers
draw on the language and concepts of sensationist educational theory, emphasizing
the physical and sensual needs of children, the importance of the pain−pleasure
impulse in their learning process, and the fact that they are action-oriented rather
than thought-oriented.
Colomb, Plan raisonné d’éducation publique, p. 11.

La Chalotais, Essai d’éducation nationale ou Plan d’études pour la jeunesse, p. 42.

Henceforth, this title will be cited within the text as “La Chalotais.”
In Jesuits collèges, the writers conclude, boys do not receive any “education”
at all. They emerge after years of isolation with a few phrases in Latin that they
will never use and shortly forget, and an inflated sense of their own importance.
They adopt a set of arbitrary and vague morals relevant to a distant time and place,
have little or no appreciation of their duties as citizens, and are possessed by a
naïve spirit that predisposes them either to behave pompously or to be ensnared
by temptations. As a result of the misguided principles that reign in the collèges,
the only real education that boys receive is their “second education,” the one they
encounter after collège upon entering the world. As Helvétius and Montesquieu
had argued, this education is totally at odds with the one they receive in school, and
the two are destined to clash with tragic consequences. Given the false information
and misguided morals the boys have stored up by the time they graduate, they have
no protective barriers against the worst corruptions of society and no appreciation
of its best aspects.
Sensationism in the Works of the 1760s
In opposition to the Jesuits, the reformers of the 1760s aim to construct an

educational philosophy based on both sensationist-inspired principles and on the
perceived needs of French society. Both their underlying assumptions and the
examples they use in their arguments directly reflect the ideas developed in the
pedagogical literature from the late seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century.
Reformers embrace the new view of education as a far-reaching process that
extends beyond a plan of studies or a set of disciplinary measures, and they
recognize it as an active force that influences the health of the nation and forms
character fundamentally. Further, most writers appear to believe that the essential
question of education is no longer “what should children learn?” but rather “what
are human beings?” Contrary to Rousseau’s assertion that educators never examine
“what children are in a state to learn,” many reformers insist that “we must first
find out what man can know, so that we can then examine what education must
teach.” Even when conservative on social issues, as a whole they are strikingly
progressive in their views of childhood and learning.
The reformers embrace the premise that children require sense-based
experiences to absorb knowledge properly and must be presented with simple
ideas, in the correct order, and according to their age and individual capacity.
They recognize that children are driven by the pain–pleasure impulse and that their


La Condamine, Lettre critique sur l’éducation.

Crevier, De l’éducation, p. xx. These ideas are abundant in the literature, despite
Rousseau’s accusation that educators never examine “what children are in a state to learn.”
Crevier first published De l’éducation in 1761, one year before Emile.
The Influence of Educational–Philosophical Concepts 237
minds and morals are almost fully malleable. Consequently, reformers believe
that “principles for educating children should be those by which nature herself
instructs them” (La Chalotais 52). They do not discuss the principles of “natural
education” in any detail, nor do they define the term nature. Nevertheless, there
is a general sense among them that nature (human nature, the nature of the mind,
and the order of the universe as it is reflected in both) is a commanding force that
must be studied, respected, and obeyed. Its secrets are locked inside children and
available for observation.
The reformers also concur with the popular theory of “agreeable education.”
They insist that pain must never be associated with learning and education must
be action oriented, exciting, “without effort,” and that all “useless, frivolous and
overly subtle questions” must be eliminated. Children should understand rather
than memorize, see rather than imagine, experience rather than be told, and learn
to reason rather than think abstractly. Education must take place “without being
noticed.” An anonymous writer from Rennes uses language of physical pain to
argue against the use of abstract principles “that terrify the ear with the barbarity
of their sound and repulse the mind because they are so covered with thorns.”10
Even Formey, whose treatise includes a traditional attack against overindulgence
and excessive caressing by parents, digresses into a long and compassionate
analysis of childhood. He insists that “gaity” is essential to the nature of youth
and that it must be an ever-present element of a child’s life; without it, docility
will never be instilled and work will never be accomplished. Although Formey is
extremely hostile to Rousseau, he nevertheless adopts the view that while natural
man is undemanding and has few needs, “education gives a second nature,”11 one
that demands unreasonable things and remains unsatisfied. Real independence,
therefore, is not to be found in the illusions of second nature, but in a feeling of
contentment with what one has and in the afterlife.12
Most mémoiristes believe that education must reach beyond the formation of
the intellect. They appeal to what they call “education of the heart” and demand
that collèges educate the “whole child.”13 They criticize both the contents of

Although none of the reformers delves deeply into the relationship of the mind to
order, as had Dumarsais or Morelly, most show a familiarity with the concept of correct
timing in education, with the idea that the order of studies must follow the “progress of the
human mind” and the notion that children develop through stages, each of which requires a
different pedagogical approach.

Crevier, De l’éducation, p. 18.

Mémoire du Bureau Servant de la Communauté de Rennes, p. 20.

Ibid., p. 13.
10
Ibid.
11
Formey, Traité d’éducation Morale, p. 237.
12
Ibid. Also see Formey’s Anti-Emile and Emile Chrétien.
13
Reformers do not clearly define “l’éducation du coeur.” It has some Morellian and
Rousseauean overtones.
the curriculum and the philosophy behind collège education, preoccupied with
imparting information but in which “man himself is criminally neglected.”14
Reformers’ suggestions on curriculum echo the popular emphasis on children’s
need to be inspired by the familiar. They insist that educators reach beyond the
“three R’s” and the classics and include in the curriculum training in practical
life and civic duties. They call for “modern” subjects, such as French language,
history, geometry, and geography, all of which can be taught with visual aids likely
to capture the attention of children. They repudiate the use of moral precepts and
argue that children learn to be virtuous only through habit, direct experience, good
example, or inspiring stories of heroism.15 La Chalotais insists that children be put
into direct contact with life through observation of nature (animals and plants) and
society (commercial and economic activities).
Having recognized that children are in need of special educational methods,
the writers of the 1760s adopt tolerant, sympathetic, and protective ideas
toward children. Scholars still overlook the degree of this tolerance, which is
clearly reflected in the progressive psychology of childhood I have been tracing
throughout this book (perhaps because it is often presented alongside ideas
about strict discipline or social control).16 Rather than focus on their inherent
sinfulness, reformers stack up evidence against the individuals and groups (mostly
parents and teachers) whom they hold responsible for the faults of young people.
They do not challenge directly the idea of original sin or make a case for the
goodness of human nature. In most cases, their language remains enmeshed in a
religious discourse of temptation and inherent depravity. Nonetheless, they focus
on discovering the means by which schools can profit from the malleability of
Pellicier, Troisième mémoire, p. 34.

14
The reformers of the 1760s take seriously the idea, formulated by so many
15
educational theorists, that history can play a principal role in children’s development. It is
useful in teaching virtue through example, and “the most agreeable and least suspect” of all
subjects. See Morveau, Mémoire sur l’éducation publique, p. 176. La Chalotais proposes
that history not be limited to the actions of a few heroes but that it include inspiring stories
of virtuous savants, women, children, and ordinary people. Reformers also encourage
natural history and physics as ways to learn about the earth, animals, and elements. They
recommend that morale focus on forming citizens, demonstrating the ends of human action,
proving that natural law lies in the human heart and transmitting principles of politics and
law. Most important, they agree “not to say anything but that which is useful and necessary.”
La Chalotais, Essai d’éducation nationale, p. 24.
16
In Wild Girl, for example, Julia Douthwaite makes this error when she calls Mme de
Genlis’s educational novel an “exemplary work of what one might call High Enlightenment
pedagogy in its strenuous promotion of human perfectibility and its intolerance toward
human weakness” (145) and argues that Enlightenment writers saw mankind as “infinitely
malleable entity” (10). Neither the urge toward perfectibility nor the idea of malleability was
formulated in absolutist ways but rather balanced with their opposite. And human nature—
particularly childhood—was given much more respect and compassion than she suggests.
children.17 In their discussions they imply that nature (inherited traits) is irrelevant
and adopt contemporary views about the positive (social and moral) potential of
qualities such as passion, self-love, and the desire for glory. As Daragon writes, it
is not human nature that makes children the dupes of passion but the boredom of
schoolwork. Their studies choke them, prevent them from turning their passions
toward beautiful or useful ideas, and thereby predispose them to give in to the first
interesting stimulation they encounter in the world.18
Given their views on children and the latter’s motivations, the reformers adopt
fairly mild views on discipline and punishment. With much less passion or detail
than the writers we have analyzed in past chapters, but drawing on the ideas and
language of their predecessors and contemporaries, reformers make a strong case
against corporal punishment. They adopt the view that punishment enslaves the
soul and that children’s weaknesses must be considered a “sickness of their age,”19
to be treated with understanding. Teachers must not behave like despots or abuse
their power, and discipline must never be arbitrary. Children’s faults result more
from intellectual misunderstanding than from moral frailty. Echoing Rollin, many
reformers argue that if students are made aware of the school’s penal code, the
consequences of their actions, and the reasons for their punishment, they will
commit fewer offenses.
Notwithstanding the fact that the reformers of the 1760s are driven by the
psychological premises presented above, in their educational plans they do not
enter into long digressions about the nature of childhood. We hear much less
sentimentality and are presented with fewer detailed descriptions of the inner life
and needs of children than in the works of previous theorists. In fact, a curious
underestimation of the effect of childhood experiences coexists with an obsessive
interest in education. Mlle de Lespinassy, for example, opens her treatise on the
education of girls by stating that education begins with birth, but then she goes on
to say that the first few years of children’s lives are of little importance. Further,
she argues, their early education would probably be better served if they were
raised by governesses or nurses rather than by their mothers, who have too much
on their minds to care for small children.
Most of the mémoires reflect this lack of clarity concerning the time at which
genuine education begins. Nevertheless, there is a general recognition among
reformers that children have particular needs and that these needs must be closely
considered in the educational process. In addition, most speak of childhood as a
special time and appreciate the unique qualities of young people. They see children
as tender beings with sensitive souls whose minds and hearts can be damaged
permanently by even the most minor pedagogical oversight.
17
Most of these works embrace the concept of nature as defined by the universal elements
of human behavior that can be “scientifically” observed, but reject the concept of nature as
defined by those human traits that predispose individuals to evil or that limit their capacities.
18
Daragon, Lettre de M***, pp. 46−8.
19
Plan général d’institution … de Bourgogne, p. 89.
Individuality and Socialization
Notwithstanding their lucidity concerning the needs and nature of children, the
mémoires of the 1760s reflect a deep uncertainty—as apparent at mid-century as
it was 50 years earlier—about the power and the goals of education. Like earlier
theorists, the reformers at mid-century make extensive claims for education based
on human malleability and the importance of early experience. But although they
absorb new ideas about the special nature of childhood and the importance of personal
attention to children, they are preoccupied with the urgent matter of reconstructing
the collège system, and thus there is little emphasis on individuality in their works.
In fact, at mid-century, natural talent, inherent difference, and self-expression, all of
which had been championed in various degrees by Locke, Fleury, Rollin, Crousaz,
Morelly, and Rousseau, become the gray zone of educational theory, an area in
which old and new assumptions rest awkwardly alongside one another.
As we have seen, theorists throughout the century have difficulty clarifying the
extent to which the educational process should be based on the needs or the nature
of individual children. On the one hand, they clearly believe that the preconditions
for political liberty can be imparted in schools and thus underscore the importance
of a free, individualized education and methods that aim to develop a secular
morality in each child. Their belief in human malleability leads them to argue
that all children are capable of learning at a high level and of developing their
individual talents. This trend continues in the work of mid-century reformers. Both
Crevier and Formey warn against prejudices concerning talent and suggest that
often “slow” children harbor great gifts that will be stifled and wasted if ignored
or abused. In the spirit of Helvétius, La Chalotais demystifies the concept of talent
with the use of sensationist principles, insisting that the most talented individuals
are not those who are gifted but those who have observed, reflected, and been
exposed to correct models (La Chalotais 53).
On the other hand, the belief in the social environment as the primary influence
on children also lures educators, especially the practically minded ones of the
1760s, to overlook individual needs and dispositions. Theorists emphasize that all
individuals are influenced in the same way by the same environment and therefore
devote much more time to discussing the best means for teachers and schools to
instill social and civic virtues uniformly than to discussing methods of instruction
related to individual development. For most reformers education becomes a tool
in the hands of the state, which promotes and cultivates talent and sociability for
the sake of national prosperity.
The concept of state-supervised education does of course include provisions for
individualized teaching; in order for each child to learn virtues like bienfaisance,
he or she must have his or her own self-interest satisfied first and then be guided
toward the interest of others. Also, many reformers argue that children must
gain self-knowledge through instruction. In learning about the nature of the
human mind and human society, each child will be inspired personally—rather
than collectively coerced—into fulfilling social duties. In the end, however, the
reformers focus primarily on methods for channeling children’s self-interest

outward. They embrace notions like “pleasurable work,” tenderness, and lack of
brutality, not because they enrich individual lives but because they provide the
best means of attaining a very particular end: the creation of good parents, good
citizens, and competent professionals. In the case of professionalization, which
after socialization is the reformers’ principle concern, most express the belief that
each person has a particular place in life, according to his individual talent, his état,
and his professional “destiny.”20 It is evident that the reformers have reflected on
the state of childhood, have sympathy for children, and are intolerant of teachers
who brutalize or ignore them. And yet, even as they expand their pedagogical
expectations they strictly limit the goals of instruction. As La Chalotais puts
it, “man is made to act, and studies only to render himself capable of acting”
(La Chalotais 54). The total identification of individual happiness with public
utility is commonplace in these mid-century works. Reformers do not confront
the possibility that individual needs might be more complex than, or come into
conflict with, the economic, social, and political needs of the State. They disregard
the benefits of any form of knowledge, the use of which is not immediately
evident, and put forth a view of education as utilitarian: that which forms people
for citizenship and for their station and profession.
Reformers do not justify their focus on the social uses of education with
sophisticated theories of man’s inherent sociability or detailed discussions of the
state of nature such as we encountered in the works of Morelly, Helvétius, or
Rousseau.21 What we find instead are general references to what is presented as
simple and established principles concerning human beings and human relations.
Most writers declare that people are naturally sociable and that sociability is a
result of “the condition of universal neediness in which we enter the world, and
our common powerlessness to satisfy it by ourselves.”22
Many reformers couple this view of man’s sociability with an undercurrent of
hostility toward Rousseau’s Emile, considered to be an individualist educational
treatise encouraging the isolation of children and denying the existence of a patrie.23
However, the conspicuous absence of direct reference to Rousseau is striking. His
concept of education as a “non-process” that indirectly favors the development of
the inner life of each child, his campaign against utility as a socially contaminated
criterion of instruction, and his desire to isolate children are all in direct contrast
to the goals and priorities of mid-century reformers. They cannot find a place for
20
Fleury, Essai sur les moyens de Réformer l’éducation, p. 63.
21
Many reformers are clearly influenced by social contract theory and theories of
moral sentiment. In the latter case, many paraphrase Pope’s Essay on Man, as Morelly had,
rather than referring to Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, or any other theorists. The most popular
comment is a variant of the theme that “self love and social are the same.”
22
Daragon, Lettre de M***, p. 15.
23
See Jean Bloch, Rousseauism and Education in Eighteenth-Century France
(Oxford, 1995) for details on the negative reception of Emile.
his theory in their social and utilitarian visions (and completely fail to grasp the
social aspects of Emile), and they either reject or completely ignore him. In the
few cases when they do appeal to Rousseau’s ideas (many invoke a vulgarized
version of Rousseauean autonomy), they rarely give him credit and couch their
ideas carefully in the language of practical reform.24
“Children Belong to the State”
The underlying belief dominating the works of the 1760s and supporting the idea
of “social education” as outlined above is that “men belong more to society than
they do to themselves”25 and “children belong to the State.”26 This language of
possession is used to drive home the idea that lawmakers have the right to “provide
for the education of children as they please.”27 The debate about education is less
about the rights of individuals or children than about the rights, prerogatives,
and duties of the State. As La Chalotais puts it: “I intend to claim for the nation
an education that depends only on the State, because it [education] is within the
State’s perview; because all nations have an inalienable and imprescriptible right
to instruct their members” (La Chalotais 41). Combalusier reminds his readers
that the nation with the best education is the most formidable and the happiest.
Drawing on the concept of the mind as a blank slate, he argues that because of
children’s malleability, as soon as a boy is able to receive enlightenment he must
be told that he is part of the great political body of the State. His talents must be
“directed toward the service of the State.”28
Given this view, almost all of the reformers argue for public education. They
consider private education to be threatening, divisive, and isolating, developing
children’s “amour-propre” over their social skills.29 In opposition to this separatism,
Combalusier suggests that all individuals and families model themselves on the
great and all-embracing family.30 Attacking Rousseau directly, N.M. Fleury argues
that a patrie does in fact exist and that it is the duty of this patrie to create an
educational system that unites all its subjects. The goal of education is to “procure
for the State” Christians, citizens, and men “useful to the patrie.”31
Later in the century, educational theorists like De La Fare and Mme d’Epinay take on
24
Rousseau’s ideas more directly and explore them in depth. See M. de la Fare, Le gouverneur
ou Essai sur l’éducation (London, 1768), and Mme d’Epinay, Les Conversations d’Emile
(Leipzig, 1774).
25
26
Combalusier, Mémoire de l’université, p. 5.
27
28
29
The reformers use the phrase amour-propre without giving it any particular
connotation. It is not clear exactly from which definition they draw.
30
31
Pellicier, Quatrième mémoire, pp. 2−4.
The “Limits of Reform”: The Education of the Lower Classes and Women
The Lower Classes
Most of the reformers who emphasize public schooling also focus on the leveling
powers of education. Many suggest that children of different ranks be treated
equally in the classroom, that specific lessons be devoted to teaching students that
all people are fundamentally equal, and that wealthy boys be shown the virtues
and skills of their less fortunate “brothers.” But they do not appeal to the dignity or
rights of individuals or children as the justification for treating all equally. Instead,
the rationale is utilitarian; in the service of social harmony, young boys must be
convinced that they are all brothers.32
The limits to equality are further defined in discussions of its role in the service
of social control. Notwithstanding arguments that all human beings are capable
of reason and that an enlightened nation has the responsibility to educate all of
its citizens, the fears of social mobility expressed in earlier works are explicitly
stated in the mémoires of the 1760s. Although universal reason and individual
rights often provide theoretical foundations for educational reform, in practice
instruction is to be carefully meted out to individuals “in proportion to the place
they must one day occupy in society and the state.”33 The State must ensure that
education does not encourage peasants and laborers to leave the land and become
“superfluous citizens.”34
La Chalotais’s discussion of lower class education becomes the classic statement
of the 1760s, praised for its wisdom and moderation by Voltaire, Grimm, and other
philosophes. According to La Chalotais, education is the key to the well-being of
the nation. Its goal is to inform all people of their duties and direct children to public
utility. Children are to receive instruction only in those subjects that are necessary
for the cultivation of their professional competence, their civic responsibilities,
and—as a result of the first two rather than as a goal in itself—their personal
happiness: “The good of society dictates that the people’s knowledge not extend
beyond their occupation. Any man who sees beyond his miserable trade will never
practice it with fortitude and patience” (La Chalotais 46). France is overflowing
with too many priests, writers, and lawyers, people who degrade their father’s
profession and then become harmful subjects (La Chalotais 45). The government
must use education to ensure that each individual is so happy in his or her station
that he or she does not feel the need to leave it (La Chalotais 46).
Most writers concur with this position. Guyton de Morveau insists that
“for the multitude, nothing but what is useful, and everything that is necessary.”35
Formey prescribes a different educational plan for each état, arguing that universal
32
Combalusier, Mémoire de l’université, pp. 5–6.
33
34
Ibid.
35
Morveau, Mémoire sur l’éducation publique, p. 223.
knowledge is a chimera.36 As in the case of the abbé Claude Fleury, this attitude
of limits applies to all classes and ranks. Formey calls not only for a limit to what
the lower classes learn but also criticizes the doctor who wastes his time reading
about theology. The idea is that people can look to fulfill other interests through
education only after they have fulfilled their social and occupational duties.
Notwithstanding these views, most authors pay lip service to an open
educational system, arguing that gifted members of the lower classes should have
the opportunity to receive an education and even the untalented poor should be
offered some kind of instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, religion, and civic
duty. But once again, the reason for this openness is not to encourage individuals to
fulfill their human potential but rather so that the state can profit from the strength
of its citizens.
A few authors argue in defense of a better and more universal education for the
poor. N.M. Fleury puts religion on trial, declaring, “What a shame for religion to
allow its children to perish!”37 He claims that there is nothing wrong with a worker
(ouvrier) reading books “relative to [his] work”38 or learning a minimal amount
of physics, geometry, mathematics, geography or dessin. He also insists that in
the classroom the poor and the wealthy sit side by side.39 As Harvey Chisick has
pointed out, the two most passionate calls for the education of the lower classes
come from religious thinkers, the Jansenist Crevier and a Jansenist sympathizer
Rivard. Crevier formulates his argument directly against La Chalotais’s restricted
vision. He declares that it is an injustice to refuse education to the people and
paints himself as a spokesman pleading “the cause of the people, the cause of the
peasant, the cause of the poor.”40 Crevier attacks La Chalotais’s restricted view of
what a poor person needs to know—what he calls his plan for one million people
at the expense of 20 million. He claims that education, far from turning laborers
from their work, would in fact make them more capable workers.
Crevier, however, argues from religious principles rather than in support
of the right of the individual to profit from educational opportunities. If you
take away a child’s ability to read, he asserts, you steal from him the ability to
know, contemplate, and love God. In other words, you deny original sin and fail
to recognize that without education men would be no different than animals.41
For Crevier, a central principle of education is to embrace all classes and form
subjects to virtue, patriotism, and their particular talent.42
In the end, Crevier and Rivard also make the case for lower class education
based primarily on the concept of utility and citizens belonging to the State.
36
Formey, Traité d’éducation morale, p. 20.
37
38
Fleury, Projet d’une école gratuite de sciences, p. 11.
39
40
Crevier, Difficultés proposées à M. de Caradeuc de La Chalotais, p. 12.
41
Ibid., p. 16.
42
Crevier, De l’éducation publique.
The principal difference between thinkers like La Chalotais or Fleury and Rivard or
Crevier, is not that the latter want to open the doors to social mobility, but that they
believe education will help peasants and artisans fluorish in their given profession.
N.M. Fleury’s ideas on universal education are limited to the first few years of
school, when all children would attend what he calls the “Écoles de Moeurs.”
Crevier does not suggest a comprehensive education for all children, but rather
that village schools teach poor children reading, math, “a rustic code” that contains
the basic elements of the law (what they owe to their sovereign, community, and
priest) and some agricultural principles, or in the case of town dwellers anything
relevant to the commercial production in their particular region. In the end, the
most progressive aspect of the argument is not that the “useful” classes should have
equal access to education, but that they should not suffer injustice or oppression
and education should offer them happiness and personal fulfillment. In the words of
N.M. Fleury, “The intention of the creator in establishing different ranks was less to
submit the weak to the oppression of the strong, than simply to contain the former
in subordination, without which all harmony would come to an end.”43
The Education of Girls
In the same spirit as the writings of the early century, the reformers of the 1760s
turn their attention to the education of women. The boundary lines, however, are
clearly set. Most writers devote a short section of their work to the education
of girls, and they all agree that it must be improved. Formey insists that “souls
have no gender.”44 N.M. Fleury quotes d’Alembert, who opposes the way in which
women, treated as if they had no reason, are held in slavery like a vanquished
people, and who claims that women are much stronger than men since they have
had to deal with more injustice. As in the case of our earlier educational theorists,
these authors claim that the reason women need education is that they exert a
43
Fleury, Projet d’une école gratuite de sciences, p. 38. In addition to spelling out the
(theoretical) limits of education, many of the mémoires include details about what kinds of
schools should be established, outlining the separation of schools according to social and
economic class. These plans show that attention was being given to improving what the
lower classes learned and how they learned it. However, they reveal that, just as learning
was being extended across social classes, it was simultaneously used to solidify differences
in education for different ranks. Plan général d’institution … de Bourgogne describes
in detail the various types of schools that should be found in: 1) small villages in the
countryside, where laborers would learn important information relating to their particular
work; 2) larger villages where the children of artisans would learn their craft; and 3) towns
where young gentlemen and men of leisure would get a collège education in the humanities.
The same division of education would exist for girls who would learn: 1) in small villages,
elements of rustic economy; 2) in larger villages, how to keep a house and the details of
other domestic functions; 3) in towns, how to be good workers and good mothers; and 4) in
cities, in the case of women of the elite, how to be mothers and wives.
44
Formey, Traité d’éducation morale, p. 172.
central influence on the morals of children and the nation rather than because they
are entitled to self-fulfillment or the pursuit of a profession.
Like Crousaz, many of the writers of the 1760s believe that overeducated
women are deviants, destined to remain outcasts from society. Only N.M. Fleury
offers a less utilitarian justification for educating women, claiming that books and
ideas can offer them the same benefits it offers men: solace and support in times of
idleness or distress. Mlle de Lespinassy writes that it is in their best interests that
women be given a minimal education. They must keep in mind that a mother’s job
is to be “self-abdicating”45 and that women must devote their lives and interests
to watching over their children. Although she believes that some modern subjects
should be taught to girls, she insists that a woman’s goal is never to become
something (professional) through education. Rather, like our previous theorists,
Mlle de Lespinassy appeals to the role of education as a deterrent for women;
it offers them an amusing and wholesome pastime that can protect them against
becoming capricious or giving into seduction later in life.
As I mentioned in previous chapters, historians Jennifer Popiel and Lesley
Walker have argued that this focus on self-abdication, and the relegation of women
to the domestic sphere, did not necessarily indicate that their education or influence
on society was considered negligible. On the contrary, in many cases women were
seen to occupy a privileged position as incubators of virtue, and the “republican
mother” would eventually become a symbol of women’s essential role in forming
autonomous citizens.46 However, as we see below, in the works of the reformers
of 1762, this progressive notion is less apparent than the “preventive” view of
education that we discussed in Chapter 4.
Surveillance and Uniformity: The Home, the School, and the Teachers
The Home and the School
An extensive philosophy of surveillance supports and reinforces the moral and

philosophical premises underlying the educational reform plans of the mid-
eighteenth century. In their mémoires, reformers reveal a great deal of apprehension
about the many dangers faced by children in their “environment”—defined in the
broadest sense as their sense experience, playtime activities, family life, schooling,
and natural and social surroundings. Thus, they attempt to put into practice many of
the concepts we have seen elaborated in earlier treatises concerning the monitoring
and controlling of children. A large number of reformers are fixated on dangers
of “abandoning” children to themselves, to their nurses, or to the “caprice” of
their parents. They emphasize the moral danger of home life and the corrupting
Lespinassy, Essai sur l’éducation des demoiselles, p. 25.

45

46
Modern France (Durham, 2008), p. 13; and Lesley H. Walker, A Mother’s Love: Crafting
Feminine Virtue in Enlightenment France (Lewisburg, 2008).
influence of parents on children, and they consider that only a uniform education
offered by the state can overcome the vicissitudes to which children are subject.
Vigilance over children is extended back into early childhood, forward into
adulthood, and horizontally in the life of a child beyond the walls of the school.
Not only does Formey suggest a “total vigilance” in school,47 but in addition he
wants children to be monitored carefully at home, especially between the ages of
two and four when they are to be “sequestered” from all domestics.48 Most writers
argue for less vacation time with parents, and some suggest that if children have
to go home at all they should follow a strict regimen of work to keep them busy
and out of danger.
Mlle de Lespinassy demands that girls never be let out of sight of their teachers;
never behave in any familiar way with boys, even their own brothers; and not be
allowed to form intimate friendships, even with other girls. The anonymous author
of the Plan général from the parlement of Bourgogne suggests that since many
dangerous things can take place during recreation time, each collège should have
a special recreation teacher who guides them in their pleasures.49 Daragon goes
even further, proposing that between the time when students complete collège and
enter into a profession or university, parents should hire a special individual to
watch over their children.50 This should be an enlightened man with experience of
the world who will fill the void of a young boy’s days with knowledge useful to
his future profession.51 Eventually the boy should be left alone but “without losing
sight of him.”52 Daragon recommends that collège be extended for two years,
during which time a young man should attend a “School of Morals,” where he
will be taught principles that align with his rank.53 In short, reformers attempt both
to transform the school into a prototype of life in society and to shape as many
nonscholastic activities as possible (at home, in the city, after collège) according
to the values, disciplines, and methods of school life.
In addition to suggesting vigilance over children individually, reformers show
an anxious desire to guarantee uniformity and invariability in the educational
process and to avert any possible disorder that could emerge if the instruction were
not controlled. Pellicier declares that education must not be subject to change and
its language must be fixed by law:
47
Formey, Traité d’éducation Morale, p. 160.
48
Ibid., p. 164.
49
50
Daragon, Lettre de M***, p. 49.
51
Ibid.
52
Ibid., p. 50. Many of these ideas sound Rousseauean, but it is difficult to determine
whether the reformers are drawing on the educational practices of the tutor in Emile.
It was not unusual for parents to surround young people with wise and protective guardians.
Locke himself joined his friend Banks’s child on his travels in order to protect him from
the real world.
53
Ibid., p. 52.
With education as with faith … there is only one doctrine … the essence of
education can never be the object of capricious systems. Every citizen must want
his children to be well raised. In a well ordered state, it should be impossible
for citizens to encounter a bad teacher. The principles of education … should be
fixed by law.54
Finally, in order to ensure uniformity the reformers suggest that the greatest possible
number of children must attend school. The author from Bourgogne recommends
that parish priests visit families regularly to make sure that if any children absent
themselves, there is a legitimate reason. The needs or special circumstances of
individuals or families are irrelevant because the primary beneficiary of education
is the State.
The reformers of 1762 face two urgent and practical tasks: they must create an
educational system that is no longer subject to the vices of the Jesuits and make use
of education as a tool in the construction of citizenship and nationhood. Naturally,
therefore, the general trend among them is to interpret developments in educational
theory as methodological innovations that can be used to instill values and improve
the ways teachers impart information, rather than philosophical considerations
that put into question the relationship between education and human nature. What
they call “total education”55 certainly includes the progressive concepts developed
in French pedagogical theory. But these insights are used to gain control over
education—the place, the time, the unexpected. In the reformers’ language we can
perceive the transition from the notion of education as an art, a process that reveals
and is guided by “natural order,” to the notion of education as a science whose goal
is to systematize the theory, methods, and materials involved in the educational
process.
Teachers: Monitoring the Monitors
As we saw in previous chapters, pedagogical thinkers in the late seventeenth and

early eighteenth centuries extended the area of surveillance beyond children to
the parents and the home. As theorists became more convinced that a science of
education could be developed, they began to distrust the ability of parents to know,
understand, or train their children properly without the knowledge provided by
this pedagogical science. In the works of the 1760s this distrust is extended to
teachers, who are to be tested and watched over to prevent transgressions against
the shared values of school and society. Although most reformers support the
educative role of teachers over that of parents, they remain concerned about how
to establish pedagogical qualifications. Many mémoires discuss the best means
for regulating teachers, who are assigned a secondary role as communicators of
educational norms established by the State.
Pellicier, Second mémoire, pp. 3–4.

54

55
Overall, the mémoires put forth an inconsistent attitude toward teachers. The
latter are given renewed responsibility and importance not only because they are
assumed to be more competent than parents but also because, given the idea of
children’s malleability, their sphere of influence reaches beyond the mind to the
heart of a child. In theory, they are responsible for children’s entire nature and must
study, know, and form them fully. In contrast, however, teachers are mistrusted,
watched over like children themselves, and considered expendable. La Chalotais
proudly announces that eventually good textbooks will enable schools to dispense
with teachers; the latter are variable and unreliable, whereas the former can be
fixed (La Chalotais 113). Guyton de Morveau adds that it is a crime to allow
teachers to choose the books for classroom use. The State alone should determine
such matters.
Notwithstanding some support voiced for teachers by reformers (Crevier, who
was an educator, argues specifically against La Chalotais’s position, claiming
that teachers are an important part of the learning process), most agree that it is
fundamental that “teacher and disciple be guided by fixed and invariable rules.”56
Teachers thus find themselves in the same category as parents; they are viewed
as suspect caretakers of children, whose instincts and professional expertise
must be subject to the more scientific understanding of childhood established
by the State. Parents, students, and teachers are all considered unstable subjects
whose educational action must be regulated. Despite the fact that the “science
of education” has not yet been formulated, the competence of the regulators is
not questioned. There is no discussion, as Helvétius suggested, of establishing a
system for the periodic reexamination of educational laws and values to ensure
that they are in accordance with the needs of society.
The reformers’ attitude toward teachers should not be interpreted merely as
a negative drive to define and control; it is also a positive drive, fueled by their
reaction to having experienced French schools under the control of an independent
body of teachers for so long. The reformers are determined to reverse what they
consider to be the destructive pedagogical culture of the Jesuits by recruiting a
corps of educators that is not only dependent on the State but also regulated by it
as directly as possible. Central to the discussion about teachers and their training
is the strongly held belief that they should be chosen either from the lay population
or from clergy who do not belong to a regular order, as both groups are a part of
society and have a stake in it.
This dual attitude toward teachers—empowered but held in suspicion—
is reflected in the widespread call for establishing new concours [competitions].
The discussions concerning concours reflect the tension between the drive to
uniformity and standardization within the teaching population and the aspiration
to humanize education from a psychological point of view. The concours are
considered a quick and efficient way to recruit a new group of educators and to test
56
Colomb, Plan raisonné d’éducation publique, p. 38; Combalusier, Mémoire de
l’université, p. 20.
the new skills and values demanded of them. Teachers will be required not only to
offer a piece of solid scholarship to the public on their chosen field of expertise,
but they will also have to prove their pedagogical talent. They will be judged less
on their intellectual competence and more on their ability to “form hearts,” their
human qualities, their morals, and their gift for communicating with students.
Moral and Religious Education
Morality in Theory
These new virtues and talents required by teachers become especially important
in the 1760s because moral education, which had been a topic of great concern
among educational thinkers throughout the century, becomes an urgent practical
matter with the dismissal of the Jesuits. Most reformers hope to fill the collèges
with lay teachers, or at least with secular priests, but they insist that moral and
religious education remain a central feature of collège life.
The mémoiristes put forth a straightforward and unproblematic view of moral
education based on the idea that children are neither inherently good nor evil. The
concept of morality expressed in these works is a hybrid of ideas we encountered
in previous texts: religious virtue, consisting of modesty, piety, love of God; and
civic virtue, which includes bienfaisance, a strong sense of family and a solid work
ethic. We recall how previous educational theorists struggled with the question
of how to develop moral consciousness through habit and conditioning while
endowing children with some form of innate moral responsibility. In the works
of the 1760s, this conflict does not exist. The reformers voice no discomfort with
the idea that virtue is a consequence of externally conditioned behavior, and they
generally accept the view that habit is the key determinant in moral development.
The precise relationship between nature and virtue is of little importance, while
the presumed existence of a God guarantees that human beings have a genuine
capacity for moral behavior. In practice, although the weakness of nature presents
a danger to youth, one can guarantee children against evil by removing them from
bad examples.57
Most reformers thus adopt pragmatic and imprecise views on the nature/nurture
debate, embracing positions that allow them to argue for the all importance of
second nature—habit, education and the social environment—and to formulate
urgent plans for education based on its enormous power to transform individuals
and society. Although many theorists acknowledge the existence of inborn
dispositions and even original sin, only a few of the more religious writers focus
on the influence of nature, and even these still rely on the redemptive powers of
education (“man needs education because he is the child of Adam”).58

57

58
With the exception of the more religiously minded authors like Rivard, Crevier,
and Formey, most theorists do not follow Saint-Pierre’s use of the afterlife as a
means of inciting good behavior in children but focus rather on this-worldly fears
and incentives. Although reformers assert that there is no real virtue without religion,
they limit their discussion of the practice of virtue to a set of external habits and
merge moral and religious lessons. Consequently, the observance of bienfaisance
becomes as important as (if not more important than) the study of religion. Although
in their analysis of the nature of morality reformers appear to be influenced by
theories of moral sentiment and natural law, they emphasize the methods through
which morality is to be instilled rather than the problem of where it originates.
Whether it is made possible by habit or an inner light or grace is less relevant than
the fact that, for the good of the nation, it must be imbued through the educational
process. Reformers believe that children can learn to behave virtuously by acquiring
the habit of reasonable thought as long as later in life they are introduced to higher
notions of virtue connected to religion. They do not attempt, as did Locke, to show
how this happens. And they are not burdened by Rousseau’s sense that social norms
have been corrupted beyond repair. The journey to virtue does not require a long,
personal, inner moral search. As long as morality reflects the needs of society, it
is assumed to be appropriate material for education. While none of the reformers
reduces virtue to physical pleasure as Helvétius did, many of the methods through
which they hope to inculcate morals indicate that they see it in such terms.
Religion in Practice
Although most reformers hope to minimize the role of traditional religion in collège
studies, they do not aim to eliminate it. And while they argue for changes in the
curriculum that would incorporate modern and technical subjects, they remind
their readers of the importance of religion in both classroom work and school life.
Theorists are unanimous in arguing (targeting some of the philosophes) that there
is no such thing as real virtue without religion and that morality without religion
is “a useless speculation on the best way for man to live with his fellows.”59 They
insist that religion be ever present in the teachers’ language, that classes begin and
end with prayer, and that mass be held in the morning before class.
What makes the reformers of the 1760s pedagogically progressive is less
their belief about the content of religious education than about the form it should
take. In accordance with the sensationist-based principle that education should
be agreeable and accessible, reformers insist that religion never be presented as
a tedious exercise accompanied by either fear or boredom. Instead, it should be
taught through the visual spectacle of nature, with the aid of inspiring stories of
Christ and clear examples of heroes who display goodness, humility, or resignation
in the face of challenge. Although none of the writers embraces Rousseau’s
version of religious education or his concept of moral awakening, many appear
59
to be influenced by him as they call for a “cult of the heart” to replace traditional
religious education. They do not define what they mean by the “cult of the heart,”
but it appears to be based on the idea that an emotional connection to God and
other human beings is natural to children.
Conclusion: Enlightenment or Utility-Driven Education?
Taken as a whole, the works of the 1760s indicate that the principles developed
in French pedagogical literature of the early eighteenth century had a great
influence on the debate among teachers, politicians, and even casual observers of
the educational process. Because of their conservatism on social issues and their
emphasis on social control, it is possible to overlook the fact that the reformers
of 1760s championed some the most dynamic and liberal educational principles
of the Enlightenment. Further, some of their core principles remain at the heart of
the movement for “alternative” or “holistic” education in our own day: their bid
for “natural education,” a psychological approach to children, an “education of
the heart,” apprenticeship and this-worldly instruction, and their insistence that
children be exposed to experiences rather than overburdened with books.
However, it is also the case that the writers of the 1760s undermine many of
the reformative elements of sensationist educational philosophy. They minimize
discussions of the nature of childhood, simplify Lockean theories of knowledge,
narrow the definition of what is “useful” in education, and abandon questions of
individual growth and self-expression as they relate to the process of learning.
Most theorists replace these concerns with a narrow emphasis on the formation
of sociable and useful citizens, education for a particular station in life, and the
principles of state-imposed uniformity. In theory, like their predecessors, they aim
to create a “naturally sociable individual”—a being whose association with others
does not entail the suppression but rather the realization of the self. In practice,
however, the personality that emerges in the reformers’ version of “second nature”
is fashioned primarily through habit and socialization. They do not focus on how
to achieve that perfect fusion between the innate and the habit-formed, individual
self-expression and social engagement.
Even in their more controlling moods, however, the reformers foreshadow our
contemporary concerns. Their seemingly obsessive attention to the influence of
early impressions on young minds echoes the psychological approach that has
often dominated our cultural–educational discourse, reflected in our endeavor
to bring psychological techniques into the classroom and establish norms of
mental health. And our tendency to allow teachers, psychologists, and sometimes
lawmakers to monitor the way parents raise their children is not far removed from
the surveillance methods suggested by the mémoiristes.
One of the most illustrative and telling examples of the conflict between
the progressive and traditional aspects of pedagogical thought in the works of
the reformers of the 1760s can be seen in the debate about enlightenment
through education. Many theorists insist that one of the most useful goals of
education is to teach children not only through nature but also about nature. They
suggest that schools include in the curriculum—through subjects such as natural
history, history, morale, and metaphysics—courses on the nature of the mind
and human history before civilization. As a result, they argue, children will learn
the basic principles of human nature and behavior and understand the reasons
why human beings came together in society. Many reformers view this kind of
instruction as a form of enlightenment through education and believe that it can
reduce the abyss between those who know and those who believe. They argue
that it will help individuals of all classes to understand their place in the world,
promoting good feelings between them and ultimately producing social peace. It
is part of the image held by some theorists of a society of autonomous persons
who are aware of, and in agreement with, the laws of nature and society and who
understand and freely choose the restrictions placed on them.
Contrary to this theoretical goal, the practical philosophy behind most
mémoires works against the conditions required for collective enlightenment.
Instead, reformers emphasize that scientific knowledge must be concentrated in
the hands of future political actors. Students, then parents, and finally teachers are
gradually removed from the process of enlightenment; they need not understand
the principles by which their minds or their society functions but must simply
implement or follow them. They are passive receptors who set in motion principles
established earlier by others. The educational journey is thus disassociated from
personal enlightenment or self-discovery.
One can argue that the reformers’ attention to the social and the functional is
natural, given their practical and limited goals during the 1760s. The writers do
not claim to be philosophers or to have produced philosophical treatises on the
nature of the human mind. Rather, they attempt to implement a plan for reforming
educational establishments and replacing the Jesuits. However, their focus on
sociability and utility in education is not unique to their circumstance. As we have
seen, many Enlightenment theorists and reformers, while trying to elaborate a
holistic notion of the “naturally social individual,” in the end were driven to choose
methods that weighed heavily toward the individual or the social, enlightenment,
or utility-driven learning in the educational process. It is true that thinkers like
Locke or Morelly argued (not always successfully) that there was no necessary
contradiction between these oppositions or that the educational process could
build a bridge between the individual and the social. But for the reformers of the
1760s, the demands of individuality defined by Locke or Morelly, to say nothing
of Rousseau, are too stringent to be met by an educational system whose goals
are driven by at least three central imperatives, namely: 1) to introduce modern
subjects like science, history, and French into an outdated curriculum; 2) to extend
education beyond elites while limiting the ambitions of the lower classes; and 3) to
create a nascent national consciousness and secularize educational methods while
keeping morality at the centre of the process. Although they continue to appeal to
ideals of individual freedom and enlightenment, reformers feel compelled, like
Rousseau, to choose between the formation of the man and the citizen. In contrast
to Rousseau, and sometimes in defiance of him, they choose the latter.
Thus it is certainly true that, like many French educational thinkers, the
reformers of the 1760s elaborated the conditions for a two-tiered system of
education in which the elite are offered training in the humanities and the masses
are given and education geared toward instilling civic values and increasing their
job skills. However, a deeper division is again visible here in which the concepts
of enlightenment and utility-driven instruction are separated for all individuals
and groups. “Enlightenment” is associated with sophisticated pedantry or other-
worldly religious training, both of which require long, individual, intellectual, or
spiritual journeys and are considered to be socially useless. This process is rejected
for all citizens, as its goals are abstract and not clearly applicable to life. In contrast,
utility-driven education is identified with vocational skill and training in civic and
moral responsibility—in other words, with socialization and professionalization.
Although these goals are attained by different groups through different means,
they become the core pedagogical objective for all individuals. Even in the case
of the humanities, where theorists still claim that the study of history, language,
and literature imparts a general knowledge and character to elites, the nature of
the character formed—or the morality instilled—is strictly tailored to the needs of
society and the state.
Although reformers do not refer to Helvétius directly, they appear to favor
his view of state-sponsored education and citizen formation. However, none
embraces the element of Helvétius’s philosophy that provided some justification
for his neglect of individual education: his unqualified belief in equality between
all individuals. Instead, the reformers combine a long-term utopian vision of the
potential for education to transform the human race with a short-term pragmatic
view of the role of the state and the legislator in determining and limiting the
educational agenda. In the words of La Chalotais:
To deny the power of education is to deny, against all experience, the power of
habit. What could instruction not do if formed by laws and directed by examples!
In just a few years it would change the moeurs of an entire nation; in the case of
the Spartans, it vanquished nature herself. There is an art of changing the race
of animals; couldn’t there be one for perfecting men? If humanity is capable of
attaining to a certain degree of perfection, it is by instruction that it can arrive
there. The legislator’s objective must be to procure the highest possible level of
soundness and capacity for the mind; the highest level of goodness and moral
uplift for character; and the highest level of bodily strength and health. (La
Chalotais 35)
Conclusion
Disciples and Critics:
The Impact of French Enlightenment
Educational Thought
Enlightenment educational theorists faced two principal obstacles in their quest

to give life to the prevailing beliefs of their time. First, philosophical concepts are
rarely packaged for direct application. Any attempt to fashion an implementation
mechanism is thus likely to fall short. Second, the nature of the educational
enterprise is such that several of its central aims are often in tension with each
other. This dilemma became much more pronounced during the early modern
period, as concepts being elaborated by philosophers about individual liberty
and social engagement became more expansive and more difficult to reconcile or
balance through teaching methods.
Thus, by the mid-eighteenth century, most theorists expected educators to
accomplish several conflicting, if not totally incompatible, tasks: 1) harmonize
freedom and constraint by instilling discipline and teaching self-mastery without,
however, breaking a child’s will or introducing a strong element of external
coercion; 2) reconcile the need for individual self-expression and socialization by
raising each child through personal enlightenment while simultaneously producing
citizens trained collectively to fulfill their social, political, and professional roles;
3) make “nature” (a child’s innate disposition, his or her sensual needs, or the
natural order of the learning process) the guiding principle of education, but to
instate habit formation and external conditioning as the methods through which
nature is drawn out; 4) to combine spontaneity and creativity with uniformity
and “science” in pedagogical methods; 5) to extend the benefits of education to
all human beings and yet limit the particular kinds of instruction offered to the
majority; and 6) to impart many of the values and skills required for a happy
and successful life in the classroom—values and skills that heretofore had been
acquired in such diverse settings as the home, church, workshop, professions, or
general life experience.
As we have seen, Morelly made the most comprehensive effort to reconcile these
apparent dichotomies. In his early Essais, he skillfully wove together strands from
the thought of educational writers who preceded him and anticipated the ideas of his
successors. Morelly drew on the concept of the sentiment intérieur to craft an image
of the “naturally sociable individual,” a being whose emotional, intellectual, and
physical needs are intimately and unproblematically bound up with his or her social
sense. Although Morelly’s synthesis was philosophically unwieldy, his work presents
us with an intriguing version of the Lockean nature–nurture tapestry described
in Chapter 1. Like Locke, he intuitively anticipated the synthesis that is being

formulated today in the work of some scholars and scientists who resist the either/or
dichotomies of nature/nurture, freedom/determinism, and conflict/cooperation. In
the spirit of these thinkers, he argued that various attributes are intimately tied
together in the mental and emotional development of human beings.
In contrast to Morelly, by the middle of the eighteenth century most French
pedagogical thinkers felt compelled to choose between educating the individual or
forming the citizen, emphasizing nature or habit, elaborating enlightenment-based
or utility-driven educational goals, and defining education as an art or a science.
Driven as much by the pressure of external events as by the paradoxes inherent in
educational theory, most chose in favor of the citizen, habit, utility, and science.
Of course, French thinkers did not abandon the hope that a new kind of individual
could be fashioned through education. Nor was there ever a strict separation in
Enlightenment thought between what we have called the “individual” and “social”
aspects of educational formation. During the latter half of the eighteenth century,
several educational writers adopted ideas from Emile, often mixing and matching
them with concepts from the Contrat Social. Even those who derided Rousseau’s
pedagogical method evoked his vision of autonomy in describing their view of the
social pact and the formation of the ideal citizen–child:
A free being who willingly obeys that which his reason tells him is advantageous,
who full of a noble yet gentle and docile pride submits with pleasure or at least
without pain to a rule whose wisdom and usefulness are known to him and from
which he does not seek to set himself free because it has been made agreeable
to him.
This citizen–child needs no external coercion or punishment because “we make

him approve the punishments and chastisements that most humiliate him, we bring
him to condemn himself before we have condemned him.” Here is James Tully’s
“calculating and calculable” subject, an individual conditioned through pleasure,
habit, and reason to be the source of his own submission.
See note 21, Ch. 1. On the issue of freedom and determinism, see Daniel Dennett,

Freedom Evolves (New York, 2003).

See, for example, M. de la Fare, Le Gouverneur, ou Essai sur l’éducation (Londres,
1768), and Mme d’Epinay, Les Conversations d’Emile (Leipzig, 1774).

Athanase Auger, Discours sur l’Éducation, prononcés au Collège Royal de Rouen,
suivis de Notes tirées des meilleurs Auteurs anciens et modernes; auxquels on a joint des
Réflexions sur l’Amitié (Rouen, 1775), p. 131.

Ibid., p. 132.

James Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts (Cambridge,
1993), p. 179. Countless examples of this kind of language can be found in educational
treatises of the 1770s and 1780s. See, for example, Abbé Coyer, Plan d’éducation publique
(Paris, 1770); L. Philipon de la Madelaine, Vues patriotiques sur l’éducation du peuple
(Lyon, 1783); Abbé le More, Principes d’institution, ou de la manière d’élever les enfans
Disciples and Critics 257
During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, French theorists did not
formulate original ideas about the education of children in their roles as individuals
and citizens. Rather, they attempted to synthesize the views of their predecessors.
This synthesis can also be detected in the work of the Encyclopédie, a project
with an inherently pedagogical intent. In articles concerning education—”Etude,”
“Education,” “Enfant,” “Enfance,” “Pouvoir Paternal,” and “College”—the
Encyclopédistes echoed very specifically the ideas elaborated by Locke and early
eighteenth-century French theorists.
Typically, the Encyclopédistes did not define their pedagogical concepts. In
fact, their casual reference to educational terms and processes suggests that many
ideas we have examined in this study had become commonplace by mid-century.
We hear the familiar attack on outmoded teaching methods in the collèges, a focus
on the body–mind connection and an insistence that instruction be pleasurable,
effortless, free of physical abuse, and driven by “utility.” The sinful and unruly
child is absent from the Encyclopédie, with authors placing responsibility for
the character of children on education and teachers and echoing Locke’s view of
parental instruction as “the privilege of children, and duty of parents,” rather than
a “prerogative of paternal power.” (For a detailed discussion of the contents of
these articles, see Appendix 3.)
The Practice of Theory
Consensus about the need for educational reform did not produce a revolution
in the practice of instruction during the eighteenth century. However, a few
experiments in the early and middle part of the century did reflect the impact
of new pedagogical ideas on educational institutions. In the plans and founding
documents for new schools, reformers argued for the importance of pleasurable
and useful education, criticized the excessive focus on Latin and grammar in
des deux sexes par rapport au corps, à l’esprit et au coeur (Paris, 1774); and Mathias,
De l’enseignement public (Paris, 1776).

A typical example of this ambitious endeavor to amalgamate various theories can
be seen in the work of the physiocrat Le Mercier de la Rivière, De l’instruction publique;
ou considérations morales et politiques sur la nécessité, la nature, et la source de cette
instruction (Paris, 1775). Le Mercier de la Rivière blends together almost all the pedagogical
ideals we have discussed. As most sensationist thinkers, he argues that all children must be
regulated by “the sacred law of common interest” (75). As does Helvétius, he believes there
is no such thing as a moral man but rather that vice and virtue are determined according to
the opinion people have of them and their use value (88). Like Rousseau, he argues that we
can enjoy our liberty only when “we depend only on things, and not on people” (90). Like
the reformers of the 1760s, he suggests that schools develop moral catechisms that teach
children about the laws of self-interest, duties of all individuals, principles of the social
order, and elements of a universal morality.

the curriculum, and emphasized the role of education in instilling morality and
promoting sociability.
Above all, the plans for new schools reflected a convergence between the
concepts of education and apprenticeship. Although many institutions were
founded with the express intent of offering artisans an education that reached
beyond vocational training, the underlying philosophy guiding most texts was
one that looked to apprenticeship as a model of education for individuals of all
social ranks. Politically and economically, the notion dovetailed with the hopes
of government officials that education could keep children out of trouble and
prepare citizens for a trade and for social duties. Pedagogically, apprenticeship
was associated with the idea that children learn best through direct experience.
It was argued that “experience” could be acquired either through contact with
objects and learning materials children find useful and pleasing or through visits
to local workshops where they would observe and gain appreciation for the most
“useful” citizens.
Many of these institutions either exemplified or were influenced by the theories
we have examined in this study. In 1715 Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, one of the
early innovators, opened several schools that addressed the practical needs of the
poor, combining a strict approach to moral discipline with a focus on vocational
training and modern subjects such as “natural history.” Aside from the emphasis
on practical learning, La Salle’s major educational work, La conduite des écoles
chrétiennes (1720), was an early rendering of the philosophy of surveillance we
have seen elaborated in so many pedagogical texts, with supervision brought to
new levels through an almost military style code of rules that both teachers and
students were forced to follow.
By mid-century, the influence of the new pedagogy could be seen in the écoles
de dessin for the poor children of artisans.10 These écoles focused primarily on

For some discussions on educational reform and experimentation in the eighteenth
century, see Harvey Chisick, “Institutional Innovation in Popular Education in Eighteenth-
Century France: Two Examples,” French Historical Studies, 10/1 (Spring 1977): pp. 41–73;
Marcel Grandière, L’Idéal pédagogique en France au dix-huitième siècle (Oxford, 1998);
Pierre Quef, L’Histoire de l’apprentissage: aspects de la formation technique et commerciale
(Paris, 1964); and Jean Viguerie, L’Institution des enfants: l’éducation en France,
XVIe-XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1978).

The rules mapped out a detailed system of gestures to be used by the teacher
to indicate to students exactly what they should do and when. They eliminated the
need for direct speech regarding issues of discipline and brought to a minimum any
potential chaos.
10
The first of these was opened in 1714 at Rouen, and several followed in the ensuing
decades, including Beauvais, 1750; Lille, 1755; Lyon, 1756; Amiens, 1758; and Paris,
1766. See Jean-Jacques Bachelier, Discours sur l’utilité des écoles élémentaires en faveur
des arts mécaniques, prononcé par M. Bachelier à l’ouverture de l’école Royale gratuite de
Dessin (Paris, 1766) and J.B. Descamps, Sur l’utilité des établissements des écoles gratuites
de dessin en faveur des métiers (Paris, 1789). Jean-Jacques Bachelier (1724–1806),
the social uses of education11—inculcating patriotism, promoting professional

skills, and forming useful citizens—and on the familiar fears that too much
nonessential education would lead to a dangerous form of social displacement,
“subjects lost for the state, destined to lead a useless life.”12 Finally, several
académies des enfants were opened between 1746 and 1763. These institutions
claimed to offer an education tailored to a child’s age and individual needs. They
promised to observe and follow nature, using the “pain–pleasure principle” and
natural curiosity as educational incentives, and to focus on a child’s love of open
air and physical activity (some even used Dumas’s Bureau Typographique and
tried to apply Dumarsais’s ideas on learning through natural order). Many parents
who mistrusted the new administration of the former Jesuit colleges chose these
alternative institutions for their children.13
The majority of innovative educational projects during the eighteenth century
ended in failure. They were never securely funded, and they often had mixed
goals. On the one hand, they aimed to put into practice new and progressive
ideas about “nature” and learning. On the other hand, they were constrained by
the economic and social conditions of the late eighteenth century and did not
have the time or space to experiment with creative pedagogical methods. As
Harvey Chisick has shown, these and other experimental institutions had three
basic goals: 1) to supplement poorhouses and hospitals; 2) to prevent mendacity,
dangerous street life, and idleness; and 3) to promote social order and economic
utility by training children in manual crafts, agriculture, and the military arts.14
Nevertheless, in their focus on pleasure, “utility,” apprenticeship, “nature,”
modern subjects, and the link between theory and practice, they indicate that
many of the themes we covered in this study made their way into proposals and
plans for new schools in the eighteenth century.
a well-known painter, opened an école de dessin in Paris in 1766. J.B. Descamps, a friend
and disciple of Bachelier, wrote the winning treatise for the Académie Française in 1767 on
the topic of the utility of the free écoles de dessin.
11
There were no discussions of individualized educational methods aside from
passing remarks about the need to guide children according to their individual dispositions
and needs. See Bachelier, Discours sur l’utilité des écoles, p. 19.
12
Bachelier, Discours sur l’utilité des écoles, p. 13.
13
One such establishment was the École Militaire de Paris, founded in 1751 with the
support of the tate. A school for 500 poor gentlemen, its mission was to form useful citizens
and lead young men into vocations. The language and content of the school’s plan shows
that its founders were drawing from some of the new pedagogical theories: the curriculum
reveals an effort to link need and interest, change methods of teaching, focus more on
French, and teach “practical religion.”
14
See Chisick, “Institutional Innovation in Popular Education.”
“The unborn child already belongs to the patrie …”
Not surprisingly, scholars have sought to determine whether the same can be said
of the French Revolution: did the rich educational debate in eighteenth-century
France have a marked impact on pedagogical projects during the Revolution?15
Education certainly featured prominently on the agenda of revolutionary reformers.
One could say that the revolutionary drive itself was intrinsically pedagogical, with
the aim of reforming or in some cases fully recasting institutions and mentalities.
By declaring ignorance to be one of the great “causes of public calamities and
corruption of government” and announcing the eligibility of all people “to all
public positions and occupations,” the Declaration of the Rights of Man carried an
implicit recognition that the French public had to be educated in order to reap the
benefits of citizenship. For its part, the constitution of 1791 explicitly recognized
the need for “public instruction for all citizens, free of charge in those branches
of education which are indispensable to all men.” As the Revolution progressed
and lawmakers confronted regional and ideological divisions, education was
increasingly seen as the only means of “transmitting, constantly and immediately,
to all the French at once, the same uniform ideas.”16
In the spirit of earlier theorists, most revolutionary reformers attacked the
monastic practices of the Jesuits and other religious orders, championed reason
and freedom from ignorance, and promoted a curriculum that emphasized math,
science, French, and modern languages. As one might expect, in their educational
reports they placed less emphasis on individual formation and more on ensuring
uniformity and civic virtue. We encounter this tendency early on in the cahiers de
doléances of 1789,17 many of which insisted that schools should focus on moral
and civic education and accused the collèges of being useless, creating ignorance
15
For accounts of education during the French Revolution, see R.R. Palmer, The
Improvement of Humanity: Education and the French Revolution (Princeton, 1985);
H.C. Barnard, Education and the French Revolution (Cambridge, 1969); Joseph Moody,
French Education Since Napoleon (Syracuse, 1978); Nira Kaplan, “Virtuous Competition
Among Citizens: Emulation in Politics and Pedagogy During the French Revolution,”
Eighteenth Century Studies, 36/2 (2003): pp. 241–8; and Isser Wolloch, The New
Regime: Transformations of the French Civic Order, 1789–1820s (New York, 1994),
Ch. 6 and 7.
16
David Bell, The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 1680–1800
17
Many cahiers, however, lamented the expulsion of the Jesuits, complained about the
inept handling of the collèges after the expulsion, and insisted that they must regain their
moral and religious authority. For a discussion of the role of education in the cahiers, see
Abbé Ernst Allain, La question d’enseignement en 1789 d’après les cahiers (Paris, 1886)
and Louis Bourilly, Les cahiers de l’instruction publique en 1789; étude documentaire
(Paris, n.d.).
and rendering individuals slavelike. These themes were reproduced throughout the
revolutionary period in a variety of reports and assembly debates.18
In the end, however, efforts to create a framework for a new national system
of education were mired in disputes about fundamentals: should education be free
and/or compulsory? How many schools should be established in each district?
What measures should be taken to ensure the quality and loyalty of teachers? What,
if any, role should be given to the Church and religious orders in the education
of French children? And although dozens of reports were authored and debated
during the Revolution, almost all were shelved, postponed, or abandoned amidst
the turmoil of external events. In the transition between planning and on-the-ground
development, reformers encountered obstacles in their efforts to obtain even
the most basic goods and services: buildings, competent teachers, and funds to
pay instructors and sponsor students. In addition, local support was not always
forthcoming. Many parents and villages resisted the incursion of the state and the
imposition of “republican virtue,” turning to the more familiar and respected local
religious figures for moral support and instruction for their children.
Notwithstanding reformers’ preoccupation with procedural matters, between
the lines of their proposals one can detect the imprint of several key educational–
philosophical themes developed by Enlightenment educational thinkers. Some
revolutionaries, for example, demanded that education address the “whole man”
—intellectual, physical, and moral—and others recalled the sensationist view that
“man, as a sensitive being, is guided less by rigorous principles … than by impressive
figures, striking images, great spectacles, and profound emotions … . It is not enough
to show him the truth; the main point is to get him impassioned for it.”19
Even when reformers focused more narrowly on the practical requirements
of instruction, their views were underpinned by theories laid out earlier in the
century. This is particularly the case as concerns the three goals that were central
to the educational ambitions of the revolutionaries: 1) expanding the realm of
instruction so that it would reach all Frenchmen and some French women; 2)
ensuring surveillance over the actions and thoughts of citizens; and 3) asserting
the State’s right as primary educator. In each case, scholars have correctly shown
that revolutionary leaders were motivated by a desire to spread and consolidate
the Revolution and the republican ethos. But in each case, when putting forth
their arguments reformers relied on concepts that had been formulated in the
decades-long debate about the psychology of the mind, the nature of the learning
process, and the best methods for training the “naturally sociable individual.”
For instance, when in 1792 Jean-Paul Rabaut de Saint-Etienne declared to
the Convention that national education was “not an institution for childhood but
18
For details on various reports and projects, see Palmer, The Improvement of
Humanity; Barnard, Education and the French Revolution; and Woloch, The New Regime,
Ch. 6 and 7.
19
Deputy Gabriel Bouqier, speaking in a debate over national education in 1793, qtd
in Nira Kaplan, “Virtuous Competition Among Citizens,” p. 246.
for all of life”—a process that does not merely impart information but “shapes
the heart”20—he was justifying the use of festivals and collective experiences as
educational tools to inculcate loyalty in children and adults. But Rabaut’s words
stood on firm pedagogical ground: eighteenth-century educationists had made
it a truism that because children learn primarily through their senses and direct
experience, education had to be a holistic and all-encompassing experience. It
could not take place exclusively through an intellectual encounter with books,
in a classroom, or in childhood; learning required the engagement of children’s
physical senses and emotions, and the process stretched beyond the school walls
and reached into adulthood. Thus, children were naturally primed for festivals
and political inculcation because they absorbed information best through
direct experience and through a combination of the visual, the emotional, and
the intellectual. Similarly, it is true that the revolutionaries’ preoccupation with
surveillance of “every day, every moment”21 was nurtured by a progressively
oppressive and paranoid political culture in which revolutionary leaders and
their supporters were determined to quell opposition, bring the Revolution to the
countryside, and unite all citizens around a shared set of principles. We have seen
that this philosophy of surveillance had a long pedigree, first as a device to guard
against original sin and later as a tool of social control. However, surveillance had
become even more compelling as an educational tool because of the widespread
conviction, nurtured by educational theorists throughout the eighteenth century,
that the human mind was malleable, that the environment had a decisive influence
on children, and consequently that the latter’s encounter with the world had to be
simultaneously broadened and constricted. In short, surveillance was necessary
not only because social conditions warranted it but also because the mind required
it. Finally, when some of the more radical revolutionaries asserted that the “totality
of the child’s existence belongs to us,” the “unborn child already belongs to the
patrie,”22 or the “home is unfavorable to a good education,”23 they were not only
expressing the spirit of their times or harking back to a Spartan or monastic models
of education.24 They were joining the growing consensus among Enlightenment
pedagogical thinkers that only a science of education could ensure quality and
uniformity in schools, and consequently children should be weaned from the
nefarious influences of parents and priests. The State was to rely on the expertise
20

Bell, Cult of the Nation, p. 162.
21

Louis-Michel Lepeletier, Marquis de Saint-Fargeau, qtd in Ibid.
22

Ibid.
23

The Abbé Audrien, from his Mémoire sur l’éducation nationale française, qtd in
Barnard, Education and the French Revolution, p. 61.
24
David Bell, Cult of the Nation, p.163. Bell has shown that, at their most aggressive,
revolutionaries imitated the only available model of mass educational indoctrination
available to them: the efforts of Reformation-era Protestant and Catholic churches who
had been faced with the daunting task of reaching deep into the countryside, converting the
peasant population, and uniting different regions and classes around one set of beliefs.
of professional philosophers, educators, and legislators to replace the instinctive

or traditional approach of parents.
Aside from these broad and often indirect references, revolutionary reformers
did not dwell on the philosophical or sensationist aspects of education that we
have traced in this study, nor did they attempt to reconcile the oppositions that
had been set out in previous decades. Their focus was more in line with that of
the reformers of the 1760s, who sought to establish firm foundations on which a
national educational system could be built. There was, however, one revolutionary
report that succeeded in balancing the many-sided pedagogical agenda of the
Enlightenment. This was the plan put forward by the marquis de Condorcet, who
submitted his Rapport sur l’instruction publique to the National Assembly in
1792.25 Condorcet challenged educators to transform the call for equality into a
reality. He suggested reaching out to the poor, educating women alongside men,
closing the divide between those who think and those who believe, and providing
adult education in the form of public lectures. Further, moving against the grain
of his time, Condorcet insisted that educational institutions be free from direct
political control and never used as an instrument of propaganda. Even when
children were instilled with patriotism through their study of “The Declaration
of the Rights of Man,” they should be taught in such a way that they learn about,
rather than thoughtlessly absorb, the opinions of others. Of all eighteenth-century
educational thinkers, Condorcet appears to have taken most seriously the idea
that the “critical, secular and analytic habit of mind,” to which Harvey Chisick
refers, can and should be cultivated in all individuals, regardless of age, class,
or gender.26
25
See Condorcet: Écrits sur l’instruction publique, eds Charles Coutel and Catherine
Kintzler (2 vols, Paris, 1989). Unfortunately, Condorcet submitted his educational plan to
the National Assembly at the moment when the war with Austria was the most pressing
question, and it was shelved.
26
See also Denis Diderot’s Plan d’une université pour le gouvernement de Russie.
Although influenced by Helvétius’s view of schools as the domain of the state, Diderot reacts
strongly against Helvétius’s anti-individualistic stance in De l’Esprit and reemphasizes that
individual dignity and temperament must play a central role in the educational process.
Oeuvres complètes de Diderot, ed. J. Assézat (20 vols, Paris, 1875), vol. 3. For a discussion
of Diderot’s educational views, see Jean-Marie Dolle, Politique et pédagogie: Diderot et
les problèmes de l’éducation (Paris, 1973) and Denise-Jacqueline Chevalier, “Diderot et
l’éducation,” La Pensée, 146 (Juillet–Août, 1969). For Diderot’s response to Helvétius, see
Diderot, “Réfutation de l’ouvrage d’Helvétius intitulé De l’Homme” in Oeuvres complètes
de Diderot, vol. 2. Although Diderot stresses that education has a responsibility toward all
citizens, he nevertheless rails against the overextension of education to the lower classes,
which he calls the “foolish emigration from one estate to another.” Oeuvres complètes,
vol. 3, p. 527.
Disciples and Critics: The Influence of French Enlightenment

Educational Thought
Aside from Condorcet’s report, the trend in French educational thought in

the latter half of the eighteenth century was narrowly social and utilitarian.
Rousseau’s pedagogical individualism left an indelible mark on educational
theory but exerted its greatest influence outside France. Most notably, Immanuel
Kant drew on Rousseau’s Emile in his lectures on education,27 where he argued
that the development of a particular type of consciousness in childhood is crucial
to the fulfillment of our humanity, and that the job of education is to form “the
character of a child, and not the character of a citizen.”28 Like Rousseau, Kant
separated education into its physical and moral aspects, which he called negative
and positive education. He made a clear distinction between learning discipline
in childhood and learning how to behave according to certain maxims, which can
take place only during youth when a child is able to grasp the concept of duty.29
Rousseau’s ideals were placed in the service of more concrete goals in the work
of the Swiss educator, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827). Pestalozzi was
inspired by Rousseau’s educational treatise but recognized that his ideas required
systematizing and that the isolation of Emile was detrimental to the educational
process. In both his practical work and his writing, Pestalozzi made one of the most
impressive attempts to unite the individual and social aspects of Enlightenment
pedagogical thought and to make good on the promise of education as a holistic
enterprise, providing both spiritual and material benefits to all children. He devoted
his life to educating the poor, but rather than simply rescuing them from the street
or training them to fulfill their social roles, he was determined to offer them the
27
Kant’s lectures on education were offered at the University of Königsberg in 1776,
1780, 1783, and 1786. There was initially some controversy over the authenticity of the
Education because its sloppy and unsystematic character differentiates it from Kant’s other
writings. The book was edited by Kant’s student, Friedrich Theodor Rink (it was published in
1803 as Über pädagogik), who gathered several of Kant’s lectures and notes in a somewhat
haphazard fashion. Recent commentators have recognized the importance of the Education
in revealing another side of Kant’s thought and showing once again how much he owed
to Rousseau. See Immanuel Kant, Education (Ann Arbor, 1960) and Traugolt Weisskopf,
Immanuel Kant und die pädagogik (Zurich, 1970). For two recent accounts that include
discussions of Kant’s educational ideas, see Robert Louden, Kant’s Impure Ethics (Oxford,
2000) and G. Felicitas Munzel, Kant’s Conception of Moral Character (Chicago, 2000).
28
Kant, Education, p. 85.
29
As Robert Louden points out, Kant brought Rousseau’s educational individualism
to a new level. Rather than expecting education to improve the life and soul of one
individual in the present, he believed it can bring about “species perfectionism,” (37)
the moral perfection of humanity in the future. See Louden, Kant’s Impure Ethics. For
another example of Rousseau’s educational influence, see Friedrich Schiller, Letters on the
Aesthetic Education of Man (New York, 1965). Schiller’s letters are not directly concerned
with education, but in his vision of aesthetic and spiritual enlightenment, he draws on both
Rousseau and Kant’s ideals of nature, moral development, and autonomy.
full advantage of individual-moral, and social-professional education. Although he

tried to implement Rousseau’s ideal of natural and spiritual education—which he
combined with his own view that children need emotional care and a family-like
environment—he never lost sight of the practical needs of children. In his schools,30
children worked to maintain themselves and the school economically but also were
offered emotional support, moral guidance, and intellectual stimulation.
In the work of early nineteenth-century educational theorists, countless other
examples can be found that reveal the powerful influence of French Enlightenment
pedagogy in general and of the work of Rousseau in particular. For the most
part, however, post-Enlightenment thinkers remained within the confines of
eighteenth-century terms and debates. Our contemporary struggle with the
legacy of Enlightenment pedagogical theory has its origins in the middle of the
nineteenth century, when Marxist and anarchist thinkers began to criticize schools
as appendages and accomplices of an exploitative capitalist system, in which
relations of dominance were reproduced and children of the working classes were
either excluded from learning or indoctrinated with a slavelike consciousness.
However, because most nineteenth-century radicals placed their faith in economic
and social change, they treated education as a secondary issue, as Morelly had in
his Code de la nature. Rather than develop specific pedagogical agendas, they
assumed that educational institutions would reform themselves once society
had been transformed. Even when radical thinkers put forth specific educational
programs, as did Mikhail Bakunin in his “Revolutionary Catechism” of 1866,
these were distinctly unimaginative educationally.
In contrast, individualist anarchist thinkers like William Godwin in England
and the left-Hegelian thinker Max Stirner in Germany believed that education
must play a decisive role in protecting individuals from the encroachment of
the state and society.31 A particularly powerful example of this new educational
individualism can be found in Max Stirner’s 1842 essay “The False Principle of
Our Education.” Stirner insisted that education always must have as its goal the
emancipation of individuals from unexamined thoughts and their liberation from
political ideologies, in particular that of the new nation–state. In order for schools
to produce truly free individuals, rather than submissive and passive students, they
must train children to use their minds and wills at an early age. Stirner turned
to education to protect individuals from collectivist theories and, like Rousseau,
argued that a genuine social and political union can be established only after each
individual has become free within him or herself.
30
Pestalozzi founded or headed several educational projects in Switzerland: in Neuhof
from 1774 to 1779, Stand in 1799, Burgdorf from 1799 to 1804, and Yverdon from 1804
to 1825.
31
William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals
and Happiness (London, 1798); and Max Stirner, The False Principle of our Education, or,
Humanism and Realism, ed. James J. Martin (Colorado Springs, 1967).
Redefining the Terms, Dissolving the Oppositions
Most of the theories briefly sketched above recreated the dance, or tug of war,
between the oppositions set out during the Enlightenment. Marxist and anarchist
thinkers only amplified this problem by setting the individual and social aspects of
education more strongly against each other. One of the first truly radical critiques
of the entire paradigm comes from an unlikely source, the Russian novelist Leo
Tolstoy. Rather than trying to reconcile or rethink the Enlightenment oppositions
we have been discussing, he attacked the premises that underlay each of them,
anticipating our current debate about the legacy of Enlightenment thought
for education.32 Although few educational thinkers cite Tolstoy’s pedagogical
writings, many Critical Theorists and post-modernists have taken up the assault
on the Enlightenment’s educational views in the spirit of Tolstoy: they echo his
anger at the West and its imposing influence on other cultures, his anti-scientism,
his position as defender of the marginalized and oppressed, his determination to
reveal the trap of freedom lurking behind the liberal educational agenda, and his
suspicion of any form of educational authority or coercion.33
In his pedagogical journal and experimental schools, Tolstoy completely
redefined educational terms such as virtue, freedom, and society, creating a space for
a synthesis (at least in theory) that Enlightenment thinkers could not achieve. In his
scheme, the individual and social aspects of education would not be in conflict, first
because he considered that the child’s individual character and needs were intimately
connected with the social setting in which he or she was embedded; and second,
because for Tolstoy the “social” was local rather than national, spiritual, or innate,
emerging from the particular and variable life of the individual in the community.
Morality was completely missing from the pedagogical equation because, like
32
For a collection of Tolstoy’s articles in his journal Yasnaya Polyana, see Leo
Tolstoy, Tolstoy on Education: Tolstoy’s Educational Writings 1861–1862, eds Alan Pinch
and Michael Armstrong (Rutherford, 1982).
33
See, for example, Henry A. Giroux, Theory and Resistance in Education (New
York, 1995); Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (London, 1970); Pierre Bourdieu
and J.C. Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (London, 1977); Robin
Usher and Richard Edwards, Postmodernism and Education (London, 1994); Foucault
and Education: Disciplines and Knowledge, ed. Stephen J. Ball (London, 1990); and Lois
Holzman, Performing Psychology: A Postmodern Culture of the Mind (New York, 1999).
More recently, many scholars have condemned the postmodern posture, which they argue
has failed to put forth alternatives and left us with a sense of intellectual and moral paralysis.
See, for example, G. Biesa, “Say you want a revolution … suggestions for the impossible
future of critical pedagogy,” Educational Theory, 48/4 (1998): pp. 499–510; E. Ellsworth,
“Why doesn't this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical
pedagogy,” Harvard Educational Review, 59/3 (1989): pp. 297–324; Gur-Ze'ev, “Toward
a nonrepressive critical pedagogy,” Educational Theory, 48/4 (1998): pp. 463–86; After
Postmodernism: Education, Politics, and Identity, eds Richard Smith and Philip Wexler
(London, 1995); and Richard Taylor, Jean Barr, and Tom Steele, For a Radical Higher
Education: After Postmodernism (Maidenhead, 2002).
Rousseau, Tolstoy believed that “the consciousness of good and evil is latent in all
mankind,” and therefore instruction can do nothing to instill morality.34 Because he
retained a religious framework he was free of the burden faced by Enlightenment
theorists, of redefining the moral sense as a force located inside the individual
conscience or indoctrinated through political or social institutions. Further, although
he advocated a radical form of total freedom (a child’s right to be physically and
intellectually unfettered in his or her choice of whether to attend school and what
to learn), he did not aspire to a form of pure freedom (a state in which the child
is psychologically unfettered and morally untainted) as manifested in the work of
Rousseau and some of his contemporaries (as well as ours). In theory, therefore,
freedom would be attainable in Tolstoy’s scheme because it was born from—rather
than stifled by—the imperfections and vicissitudes of the social environment from
which so many Enlightenment educators sought to shield their students.
What is so interesting about Tolstoy’s work for our purposes is that while he
appropriated a great deal from French Enlightenment thinkers, he was perhaps the
first pedagogue to suggest that the oppositions with which they struggled might not
be reconcilable. More importantly, he recognized that the tensions that emerged
in Enlightenment thought were not particular to the eighteenth century, and as a
result he directly confronted the questions raised in the Introduction and throughout
this text, namely: How can education, which by definition requires a great deal of
conditioning, lead to or be delivered through freedom? How have our own sometimes
overambitious definitions of educational goals affected our ability to fulfill them? In
response to the latter question, Tolstoy attempted to redefine terms like freedom and
socialization to correspond to the realities of contemporary life rather than an ideal
future society. In response to the former question, he conceded that there might be no
satisfactory answer and argued that there is something inherently self-contradictory
about educational philosophy and the quest to create a natural-yet-constructed
second nature through the educational process. On the one hand, pedagogical
thinkers aim to liberate individuals by discovering, and then accommodating, their
“natural” needs for pleasure, self-expression, dignity, and community. On the other
hand, in fixing the methods by which they plan to accommodate these needs they
stifle the process of discovery and limit children’s freedom to express themselves as
they develop over time and in various settings. Tolstoy aimed to put an end to this
cycle by insisting that “the sole method of education is experience.”35 He rejected
34
Tolstoy, Tolstoy on Education, p. 84. The only aspect of moral formation that
Tolstoy recognized in the educational relationship results from the fact that, when a teacher
conveys information with passion and genuine moral fervor, these qualities are naturally
transmitted to the student. In general, he derided any training aimed at forming character as
“one man’s urge to make another the same as himself … the feeling of envy elevated into a
principle and a theory” (296).
35
Ibid., p. 85
the Enlightenment’s “quest for certainty”36 and embraced the unpredictable nature
of the mind and human development that so worried French reformers during the
eighteenth century.
Passion and Practice: Lessons Not Learned
Tolstoy’s synthesis, while impracticable (his own schools had limited success),
extremist, and theoretically idealist in its own way, nevertheless reveals a great deal
about the intellectual unrest that emerged from eighteenth-century debates about
education. Elements of his analysis have been reformulated in recent decades in the
work of post-modern thinkers, who have unpacked the fundamental premises of
Western educational thought and offered a stringent critique of the Enlightenment.
Unfortunately, critics (including Tolstoy) have not always appreciated how
French theorists’ committed exploration into questions of education opened up
the possibility for their own expansive visions of learning, freedom, and growth.
It is true that Enlightenment thinkers did not succeed in reconciling the oppositions
with which they grappled or in constructing a satisfactory formula for how nature
could be released through habit, freedom could be nurtured through conditioning,
or individuality could thrive under a strict regimen of socialization. But many of
the ideas developed by eighteenth-century pedagogues were perspicacious and
have become part of our conventional wisdom, rearticulated by each succeeding
generation and put forth as innovative (although rarely integrated into our
educational system). This is most clearly the case in two areas: 1) child and
educational psychology; and 2) the relationship between reflection and experience,
which today might be identified as the theory–practice divide.
Child Psychology
In the case of educational psychology, eighteenth-century thinkers developed in

great detail notions that are still considered progressive: that children have very
specific (valuable rather than destructive) sensibilities, that learning materials
must correspond to stages of intellectual and emotional development, that there is
a link between pleasure and successful learning as well as pain and intellectual–
psychological disability, that the mind is focused rather than distracted by passion,
and that education as a process not only conveys information but fosters self-
knowledge and promotes self-expression.
Unfortunately, we have not adequately embraced these insights, and most
progressive methods have not made their way into our educational system. While
many schools have incorporated softer disciplinary methods and some principles
of “hands-on learning,” they have often missed the original point of Enlightenment
thinkers’ endorsement of pleasure and utility in learning. Locke and his French
36
Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (Chicago,
1990), Ch. 5.
disciples believed that children must enjoy their studies, not just to ensure that
they are at all times happy and validated by adults, an approach that often leads to
a relaxation of discipline and rigor for the sake of perceived psychological health.
They believed that children must enjoy their studies because knowledge can only
be well integrated into the mind if an individual is emotionally, intellectually, and
sensually engaged and drawn to educational material by passion and a feeling
of meaning or purpose. Under these conditions, they argued, learning can be
pleasurable, useful, rigorous, and disciplined.
At the university level, there has been little systematic engagement with these
propositions. Perhaps we assume that educational “techniques” are for children,
who need to be enticed into learning, while young adults should be self-motivated;
or that university education is about the transmission of information and analytical
skills, both of which take place after students have developed requisite mental
habits. The result is that although professors continually incorporate new
scholarship and progressive content into their course syllabi, university classes
rarely stray from the traditional lecture or seminar style method. And although
curriculum committees work diligently to rethink and restructure courses and
construct “interdisciplinary” programs, they rarely engage with the question of
whether current teaching methods align with the ways in which human beings
absorb knowledge or translate theoretical visions into practice.37
The Theory–Practice Divide
In addressing the theory–practice divide French educators left an enduring mark in

their efforts to stretch the physical and mental space in which instruction takes place,
redefining education as something that extends beyond the school, classroom, books,
and other traditional teaching materials. The modern concept of experiential learning,
or “learning by way of doing,” evolves from their questions about how reading,
recitation, and memorization—sedentary exercises, removed from sense experience
and the “outside world”—could produce fruitful minds, and their insistence that
something is amiss in schools claiming to prepare children for life while actually
sequestering them from it (this notwithstanding their own elaborate schemes for
sequestration). They reconceived education as a new form of apprenticeship in
which life and learning rediscover each other, a process that requires a cohesive and
continual dialogue between reflection and experience. In many cases—most notably
in the latter half of the eighteenth century—this notion of apprenticeship was crushed
under the weight of a narrow utilitarian view of instruction that limited children’s life
encounters and relegated the lower classes to vocational studies. But in other cases
the concept was bold and ambitious, aiming to redefine the relationship between
school and society and challenging the assumptions that lay behind the moribund
methods of schools and universities.
37
For an example of an innovative educational method that addresses these concerns,
see Barnard College’s “Reacting to the Past” program at: www.barnard.edu/reacting.
Today, critics of the academy also demand that universities incorporate

“utility” or “relevance” into their missions and curricula, “re-enter the world,” and
become institutions involved in problem solving.38 Clearly, the university should
not be pressured into abandoning its particular quality as a place of reflection to
become a job-training factory, as there is always a need for the kind of scholarship
that is not utilitarian in the way that professional studies can be considered
utilitarian. However, as educators and program directors we might reevaluate
whether our curricula and methods are able to fulfill the goals that we ourselves
have set for our students, or are flexible enough to adjust to their changing needs.
Indeed there are today an increasing number of vibrant discussions in universities
about how to develop interdisciplinary curricula and productively integrate
classroom instruction with fieldwork or professional expertise.
I would argue, however, that efforts to that end will be counterproductive if we
do not take into account the message conveyed by Locke, Rousseau, and countless
other Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment pedagogues: that theory and practice,
or reflection and action, do not have to be united into an artificial “Third Way.”39
They are united naturally in the human learning experience. More important is to
consider how they became separated and how that separation has affected methods
of teaching and learning in schools and colleges. Before reshuffling programs and
classes we might reconsider more fundamental questions about the pedagogical
process as such, for there is a difference between presenting students with various
modes of learning side by side (a class on theory followed by an internship or field
work, co-taught courses, combined majors) and offering them a course of studies in
which the theoretical and practical aspects of a topic play out in an integrated and
dialectical manner.
Enlightenment theorists belabored all these points in their quest to discover
the natural laws governing the learning process and to create a “second nature”—
that perfect balance of character fashioned from an equal partnership between
innate qualities and habit-driven behavior. We have seen that in many cases, as
they unpacked the components of the educational experience and tried to rearrange
them into a more coherent whole, they exacerbated the very problems they hoped
to address. But we can still draw inspiration and direction from their fundamental
premises—that there should be a greater correspondence between what young
people are taught in school and what they require to thrive in their social
environment, and a greater alignment between how we teach and a continually
evolving understanding of how we learn.
38
Some of these calls come from inside the academy, as in the case qtd here. Columbia
President Lee Bollinger, qtd in Karen W. Arenson and N.R. Kleinfield, “Columbia’s Chief,
Free Speech Expert, Gets Earful,” The New York Times (May 25, 2005).
39
Richard Freeland, “The Third Way,” The Atlantic Monthly (October 2004).
Appendix 1
Rousseau’s Appropriation of Morelly
In his articles in Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France, 1912, Pierre-Maurice

Masson quotes two passages from Morelly and Rousseau that appear to prove that
Rousseau had read Morelly’s work. The paragraphs are so similar that one wonders
whether, rather than having consciously plagiarized, Rousseau simply forgot that
these were not his own words! I reproduce both passages, with Masson’s italics,
highlighting similarities.
From Morelly’s Basiliade, Chant IX, published in 1753:
Si la justice suprême se venge, vous et vos erreurs, ô Nations! êtes ses ministres
… Où il ne subsiste plus d’erreurs, il ne peut plus subsister de vices; où il n’y a
plus d’égarement, plus de punition … Où règne l’évidence, où se terminent tous
besoins passagers, cesse tout dessein criminel. Non, mon cher Fadhilah, notre
âme ne peut plus être méchante. Hélas! Pourquoi seroit-elle malheureuse?
[If the supreme justice calls for vengeance, O Nations, you and your errors are
its ministers … Where no errors remain, no vice can take hold; where none are
led astray, no punishment is necessary … Where clarity reigns, where all fleeting
needs are quieted, all criminal machination ceases. No, my dear Fadhilah,
our soul is can no longer be wicked. How then, I ask of you, could it ever be
miserable?]
From Rousseau’s Emile, Book IV, published in 1762:
Si la suprême justice se venge, elle se venge dès cette vie. Vous et vos erreurs,
ô nations! êtes ses ministres … Où finissent nos besoins périssables, où cessent
nos désirs insensés, doivent cesser aussi nos passions et nos crimes. De quelle
perversité de purs esprits seroient-ils susceptibles? N’ayant besoin de rien,
pourquoi seroient-ils méchans?… et quiconque cesse d’être méchant, peut-il
être à jamais misérable?
[If the supreme justice calls for vengeance, it claims it in this life. O nations,
you and your errors are its ministers. When our fleeting needs recede and our
mad desires are at rest, our passions and our crimes ought also to cease. To what
perversity can pure spirits be susceptible? Having need of nothing, why should
they be wicked? And he who ceases to be wicked, could he ever be miserable?]
Appendix 2
Helvétius’s Critique of Rousseau’s
Educational Theory
Below is a brief list of Helvétius’s direct criticisms (in De l’Homme) of Rousseau’s

educational theory, as reflected in Emile and La Nouvelle Héloïse:
1. In Emile, Rousseau claims that justice is innate. However, he also argues

that the poor do not have access to the inner voice of virtue that speaks to
children educated like Emile.
2. Rousseau denies innate ideas and insists that talent is acquired, but he also
believes in the existence of innate dispositions.
3. Rousseau claims that all human beings possess pity and compassion, and
yet Emile displays no natural compassion.
4. Rousseau claims that interest is a motive of action but then in La Nouvelle
Héloïse denies its value in favor of duty.
5. Rousseau claims that education is both useful and useless. In La Nouvelle
Héloïse, it is presented as something destructive of nature, which always
knows best. In both Emile and La Nouvelle Héloïse, Rousseau protests
against any formal education until the age of ten or twelve, arguing that
until then children have no sense of judgment and do not need to read
books. In contrast, he shows that children are capable of reasoning earlier
and that they in fact do judge with their feelings. Furthermore, despite
negating the power of education, he devotes an entire book to it.
6. Rousseau trains Emile from body to mind, as if the two were separable
entities. He does not understand the extent to which the senses determine
ideas and motives—in other words, that the mind is body.
7. Rousseau believes an adolescent is more mature than a child and thus
separates education into stages. Helvétius considers that the prime movers
in the educational process are passion and self-interest, and these are
always at work to the same degree in all human beings at each stage of life.
The important thing in education is therefore to understand the principles
of human nature and the operation of self-interest rather than to elaborate
stage-specific education protocols.

See Claude-Adrien Helvétius, De l’Homme (2 vols, London, 1772; reprint,
Tours, 1989).

None of the points are discussed in detail. In fact, the brevity and superficiality of
the refutation show Helvétius’s limited understanding of the extent to which Rousseau’s
ideas threatened his own.
8. Rousseau’s “elegy” to ignorance in both Emile and La Nouvelle Héloïse

glorifies ignorance and flatters the vanity of stupid people. In fact, ignorance
always creates laziness and encourages the triumph of despotism. (Helvétius
insists that all people can benefit from knowledge.)
9. Rousseau misunderstands the nature of pity, which does not emerge from
human nature but rather is instilled by laws; pity is a social emotion,
emerging only after human beings were brought together by circumstance.
Like justice, it never existed, and was never needed, before society.
Appendix 3
Education in the Encyclopédie
The Encyclopédie reveals the extent to which, by mid-century, education was

recognized as a subject of great importance among the philosophes. The particular
articles concerning education also reflect the direct influence of Locke, as well as
of French theorists, on views of childhood and early development.
Although the influence of educational thought must be sought in specific articles,
we can already see that the pedagogical spirit, as well as the influence of previous
theorists, is at work in d’Alembert’s Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopédie,
published in 1751. D’Alembert argues that utility must be the guiding principle
in what men learn and in how they determine the value of their fellow citizens.
He rejects “pedantic puerilities that have been honored by the name of Rhetoric”
and “are capable of giving only the most false and barbarous idea of Eloquence.”
He criticizes the disproportionate attention and respect accorded to the liberal over
the manual arts and points to the injustice done to manual workers in the past. Like
other reformers, although d’Alembert warns society not to “degrade the hands by
which it is served” and although he hopes to raise workers’ status, to improve
their conditions, and offer them respect, he focuses primarily on the utility of the
useful arts for the nation and on finding ways to increase their productivity.
More than the Preliminary Discourse, the articles related to education reveal the
obvious influence of pedagogical theory and sensationist principles on the editors
of the Encyclopédie. I do not linger on the details because the views expressed in
these articles mirror so directly the issues and arguments we have seen outlined
in the literature. I offer a few examples to show how directly the Encyclopédie
reflected the pedagogical preoccupations of its time.
Most of the catchwords and concepts of educational reform can be found
in the article “Étude” written by the Chevalier de Jaucourt. However, in the
Encyclopédie, new pedagogical ideas are not as clearly defined as they are in
the works of theorists. In fact, the casual reference to educational terms and
processes suggests that many ideas we have examined were in common use by
mid-century. For example, in the Lockean tradition Jaucourt perceives children
to be malleable creatures, empty vessels that must have water poured into them
slowly and carefully, ensuring that nothing overflows (meaning that information
must be inserted to children in the correct order). First, they must learn about the
most basic ideas. They must perceive objects that lie before them, examine them,
compare them with other objects, and reflect on the comparison. Because children

Jean-Baptiste Le Rond d’Alembert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopédie of
D’Alembert (Chicago, 1995), p. 34

Ibid., p. 42.
can absorb only what is in their capacity to absorb, they should not be expected to
compare ideas before having fully understood each idea separately. He also insists
that to appeal to children’s natural disposition for learning, education must be
pleasant, agreeable, and “useful” rather than harsh, oppressive, or pedantic.
In opposition to the view that studies are successful only when painful and
tortuous, Jaucourt appeals to methods of education based on a new view of human
nature linked to sensationist psychology. Because it is in the nature of individuals
to follow their self-interest and pleasure, they will learn and absorb knowledge only
if they are presented with pleasing and useful subjects and methods. Consequently,
French students must first learn to speak and read French. Even when learning
Latin, they should always read about subjects both relevant and pleasing. Finally,
rather than being a prime conduit to knowledge, memory is to be used as an aid to
teach children how to make use of their intelligence.
Use is defined in two different ways in the article “Étude.” First, education
must be useful in the sense mentioned above; it must appeal to a child’s immediate
needs. Second, the contents of education should be socially and professionally
useful because human beings are made to function in society and fulfill their
individual potential. On the latter subject, little is said. But the use value of
education for the State and society is clearly laid out. During the learning process,
children are provided with examples of good and valorous behavior, inspired with
love for the patrie, and enlightened as to their duties to the state and their fellow
men. Education is a wholly practical matter, “an apprenticeship for what we must
do and practice in life.”
The nature of educational goals is examined more philosophically in the article
“Education,” written by Dumarsais. He defines education as an “abstract and
metaphysical term” that entails nourishing, raising, and instructing children. Its
object is very broad, embracing children’s health, physical growth, spirit, morals,
and social virtues. Education targets both individual and social needs and aims to
ensure both mental and physical health. Because all children are destined to be
part of society, the purpose of education is to create good citizens who do their
job well and understand their duties to other people, the family, their station, and
the State.
The article “Collège,” written by d’Alembert, provides the most elaborate
summation of educational thought by mid-century. D’Alembert accuses public
schools of presenting children with a series of subjects that teach them to “speak
without saying anything.” Students leave the collège with little but an imperfect
knowledge of a dead language, corrupt morals, and a misunderstanding of religious
Chevalier de Jaucourt, “Étude,” in Diderot (ed.), Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire

raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 13 (28 vols, Paris, 1765), p. 298.

Dumarsais, “Education,” in Diderot (ed.), Encyclopédie, vol. 11 (28 vols, Paris,
1765), p. 893.

Jean-Baptiste Le Rond d’Alembert, “Collège,” in Diderot (ed.), Encyclopédie, vol.
8 (28 vols, Paris, 1765), p. 495.
Appendix 3 277
devotion. Real philosophy should be the study of things, not of useless questions.
Rather than being forced to learn religion in heavy doses, children should focus
on subjects “by means of which they will one day make themselves useful to their
patrie.” Finally, d’Alembert argues that only the government can stop the evil
ways of education and has a responsibility to produce a plan of studies that can
create good citizens.
A more general reflection of changing ideas about childhood and the role
of parents and teacher can be seen in articles such as “Enfant,” “Enfance,” and
“Pouvoir Paternel.” Although none of these articles embarks on a deep analysis
of youth, each reveals a modern view of children and childhood. The authors
focus on the importance of developing both body and soul of children and discuss
parent–child relations in Lockean terms. For example, in “Pouvoir Paternel,”
Jaucourt draws almost directly from Locke’s Second Treatise when describing the
natural connection between freedom and subjection:
We are born free as well as reasonable, although we don’t actually exercise our
reason or our liberty right away; age which brings the first also brings the second,
and in this way we see how natural liberty and subjection to parents can coexist
together, and are both grounded in the same principle [emphasis added].
Although a child’s duty is to respect and honor his parents, Jaucout continues,
this duty does not stand in opposition to the liberty of the child. Further, it is not
an unconditional duty. Parents do not have arbitrary power over their children, and
they must earn their children’s respect by fulfilling their duties and obligations. He
concludes, like Locke, that “paternal power is a duty rather than a power.”
The Encyclopédie also reflects the shifting view of teachers and their role that
we have seen so clearly in the early Enlightenment pedagogical literature. The
authors condemn teachers’ use of oppressive disciplinary methods, in particular
corporal punishment, humiliation, and overwork. They insist that anyone who
beats a child is uninformed as to the nature of human beings and the learning
process. Teachers are expected to be gentler than learned, and considered to be
the key link between a child’s potential and his greatest possible achievement.
They are to be actively involved in their students’ work and watch over them, not
as their predecessors did, but in a systematic, scientific way. They are to observe
children’s inclinations and needs before making decisions how to approach them.
Ibid.

Other dictionaries of the time still define childhood according to its time period or

limitations. The Dictionnaire de L’Académie Française (1694) evaluates childhood by age;

childhood is considered to reach until the “age of reason,” meaning either age 7 or 8 or 12
to 13 years old, depending on the individual. The Dictionnaire de Trévoux calls childhood
a time of weakness and innocence.

Jaucout, “Pouvoir Paternel,” in Diderot (ed.), Encyclopédie, vol. 27 (28 vols, Paris,
1765), p. 185.

Ibid.
Teachers are to seize (and are expected to know!) the precise moment at which the
proper lesson should be taught or the appropriate punishment administered.
The evil, uneducable child does not feature in the Encylopédie. Instead of
focusing on the natural tendency of children to be lazy or nasty, the authors insist
that, because of their malleable nature, children must be subjected (soumis) to
education as soon as possible. They blame the educational material or teachers
for children’s dangerous laziness and imply that children will become docile if
they are treated with softness and respect, if their education is pleasurable, and
if materials are presented in the correct order. Finally, although the Encyclopédie
articles do not go as far as some treatises in questioning or diminishing the role
of parents, by placing the emphasis on the responsibility of schools and teachers
toward the children, they imply that the crucial influence on children is no longer
in the home.
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Index
D’Alembert, 96n61, 165, 245, 275–7 La Chalotais, Louis-Rene de Caradeuc de,

Antonetti, Guy, 120n13, 123, 125, 149 74, 238n15, 230, 240, 249, 254
apprenticeship, 137, 154, 195, 252, 258, Essai sur l’éducation nationale, 232
259, 269, 276 mémoires on educational reform, 230,
Fleury on, 96, 111–12 235, 237–8, 240–45, 249, 254
Ariès, Philip Chateau, Jean, 183n4
Centuries of Childhood, 16 child psychology
authority; see also freedom and constraint Enlightenment theory and
and freedom, 2, 4, 9, 12–16, 23, 28–9, contemporary practice, 268–9
30, 42, 51, 59–65, 86 childhood
parental, 23, 27, 29–32, 33, 36–8, 48–9 as compared to the state of nature, 187,
and religion, 117 187n9; see also nature, state of
and self-mastery, 36–7, 40 history of, 13, 15, 16–17, 41n15
nature of, 249
Babeuf, François, 120 progressive psychology of, 238
Bacon, Francis as special stage of life, 8, 41, 43, 54,
Advancement of Learning, 1, 65–6 74, 75, 132, 182, 212, 268
Bakunin, Mikhail, 265 children
Bayle, Pierre, 85 child-rearing methods, 2, 24, 35
Beatings, see corporal punishment development of judgment and
Bell, David, 87, 262n41, 270n24 reasoning, 45
Bernadin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques Henri, 221 emotional needs of, 85–6, 181–3
body, mécanique of, see physical fitness fears and fragility of, exploited by
and education; physical sensation adults, 84
and activity moral and existential condition of, 32–3
book-learning reasoning with, 43
debate over utility of, 200, 269, 273 in the state of nature, 28, 32–3; see also
breast feeding, 192 nature, state of
Bushnell, Rebecca temperaments innate or acquired, 38–9
A Culture of Teaching: Early Modern Chisick, Harvey, 100, 258n8, 259; see also
Humanism in Theory and Practice, “limits of reform”
16, 16n26, 28n15, 86n41 on education vs enlightenment, 100,
102, 109, 112, 244, 259, 263
cahiers de doléances of 1789, 260 on institutional innovation:
Campanella, Tomasso, 125 experimental institutions, 74n3,
Carrig, Joseph 258n8, 259, 263
on critiques of Locke, 31, 44, 59–61, The Limits of Reform, 5n4, 11n13,
60n16 99–102, 244, 259
Cartesianism, see Descartes, René citizenship
Cassirer, Ernst, 207n2 educational reform and, 233, 241,
Catholic church, 69, 103, 123, 262 248, 260
Locke on, 4, 31 precursor to Rousseau on teaching

and monarchy, 65 through experience, 81
Morelly on, 149–50 as transitional figure, 78–9
Rousseau on, 181–2, 185, 190, 192, views on education as play, 78–9
194, 215, 218, 222–5 works
Clarke, Edward, 23 Logique, 80
Code de la Nature (Morelly), 147, 150–51, Traite de éducation des enfans, 78–9
178, 265 Cumberland, Richard, 127, 140
Coe, Richard, 120n12, 127n2, 130n7, 140,
183n4 Daragon, J.B., 239, 247
Colbert, Jean Baptiste, 76, 115 Declaration of the Rights of Man, 260
Colomb de Jouvency, Joseph, 75n7
Plan raisonnè d’education publique, De Launay, Pierre Py-Poulain, 119
173n9, 231, 236n3, 243n33, 252–3 De l’Esprit (Helvétius)
Combalusier, François de Paule, 231, 242 Rousseau and, 166–8
Comenius, Johann Amos, 24, 54n44, 55, scandal of, 163–9, 180
66, 81, 93, 230n5 Descartes, René, 1, 4, 12, 66–7, 81, 85, 129
La Condamine, Charles Marie de, 230 Deschamps, Dom, 101, 124
Condillac, Etienne, 27, 164, 165, 263 de Xaictonge, Anne, 105
Essai sur l’origine des connaissances Diderot, Denis (ed. l’Encyclopédie),
humaines, 165 165–6, 166n7
Traité des sensations, 169 friendship with Rousseau, 165
Condorcet, Nicolas, marquis de (Marie Morelly’s Code de la Nature attributed
Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat de to, 120
Condorcet), 263, 264 Pensées philosophiques, 169
corporal punishment, 87–9, 239, 277 reaction to Helvétius’s De l’Esprit,
beatings, arguments against, 42, 42n17 165–6, 166n7
corrupting effect of, 41–3 Douthwaite, Julia, 238
and distorted notions of sensuality, 42 dual revolution, the, 140
Fleury, Rollin and Crousaz approaches Dumarsais, Claude César Chesnau, 117,
to, 87–9 119–20, 123, 131–3, 164, 183n4,
Foucault on, 42n16 200, 259, 276
Locke’s views on, 41–3 Dumas, Louis
Coste, Pierre, 23 Bureau Typographique, 119–20, 133,
Crevier, Jean Baptiste, 231, 240, 244–5 196n24, 259
Crisis of 1762, 2, 19, 163, 167, 173, 191 Durkheim, Emile, 69–70n11
and educational reforms, 215, 233,
246, 248 École Militaire des Paris, 259
and expulsion of the Jesuits (see Jesuit education
Society, dissolution and expulsion of) as art, 9
Critical Theorists, 266 compulsory schooling laws, 102
Crocker, Lester early Christian, inherent contradictions
on Rousseau, 197, 220–21 in, 69–70n11
Crousaz, Jean-Pierre de, 69, 78–9, 97, 109, as in the Encyclopédie, 275–8
110, 118–22, 152, 185; see also fundamental contradictions of, 2,
sensationism 12–13, 60–62, 255
on education of women and the poor, 106 habit in, see habit
fundamental goals of, 117 humanist, 68–9
Index 299
inequality in, see girls, education Erasmus, Desiderius, 65

of; lower classes, education of; Ezell, Margaret, 33n2
women, education of
negative, see negative education fables and fairy tales, 29, 84, 125, 185
philosophy of, defined, 2, 13–14 family relations; see also parental power
as preparation for an ideal world and authority
espoused by Helvétius, Morelly, state of nature and, 30–31
and Rousseau, 56–7 Fénelon, (Francois de Salignac de la
private, 56, 78, 89, 164, 222, 233, 242 Mothe, 1651)
public, 4–5, 10, 16, 56–7, 68, 89, 154, éducation des filles, 104–5
178, 194, 202, 241–3, 260, 263, 276 Ferry, Jules, 102
reforms of 1760s, 3, 47, 229, 235, Filmer, Robert, 30
242, 253 Fleury, Claude, abbé, 69, 75n6, 76, 112–13,
as science, 9 117, 164; see also “limits of
social theory of, and role of reform”; sensationism
government in, 178 anticipates Rousseau’s views, 97–8, 185
utilitarian orientation of, 56 on childhood education, 97, 109–12, 152
educational philosophy on effortlessness, 78–80
contemporary study of, 13 influences on, 75n6, 80, n20
in Enlightenment, 2–3 on utility, concept of, 74, 94–6, 99,
effortlessness, theory of, 79–82, 101–4, 109–10
119–20, 241 works
Emile; see also Rousseau Traite du choix et de la Methode
adventures of, 220–21 des etudes, 76, 94–6
conclusion of his story, 222–5 Fleury, N.M., 231, 242, 244–6
education of Formey, Jean-Henri-Samuel, 231, 237,
individualistic program, 181–2, 240, 243–4, 247
196, 202–3, 213 Foucault, Michel, 11, 42n13, 42n16, 215
Savoyard Priest and, 172, 206–10, France
213–14 educational outpouring in 18th century,
as a husband, 215–16 3, 10
on pity and suffering, 208–9, 215 free will, 29, 56–62, 170–72, 181–201
and Sophie, see Sophie contradictory aspects of, 59–62
Encyclopédie, 230–31, 257, 275–8 Helvétius, negation of, 171
education in, 275–8 freedom
influence of Locke in, 275, 277 and authority, 23, 28–9
involvement in controversies, 166 and dependence, 191–4, 295
on teachers, shifting view of, 7–8 in educational context, 12–13
Enlightenment and independence, 205
central oppositions in, 3–10 individual rights and, 33, 51
critiques of, 11–13 as universal aspiration, 43–4
and educational ferment, 10–13 and virtue, 50–51
environment, 6–7 freedom and constraint, 4, 9–10
external conditioning, 49–50; Morelly on, 127, 135, 144, 148, 155,
see also habit 158–9, 256
equality in Renaissance, 9, 12–13, 16
Helvétius’s argument for full, 175–6 Rollin on, 90–91
intellectual differences and, 176 Rousseau on, 190, 203, 205, 207, 213,
physical differences and, 175 215–19, 222, 225, 254
French Revolution on passions, 27, 29, 39, 67, 89, 176n12

constitution of 1791 and educational on pity as a social emotion, 274
reform, 260–63 radicalism of, 165–6, 254
Furet, François, 102 on religious institutions, 174–5
on Rousseau, 273–4
Gailhard, Jean Rousseau’s case against, 181–4,
The Compleat Gentleman, 51n25 209–10
Gauthier, Cleremont, 73n1 St. Pierre on, 118
Genlis, Madame D., 238n16 second nature and, 8, 12, 117–18, 145,
girls, education of; see also Lambert, 188–90, 193, 203
Madame de; Women, education of virtue and, 7, 120, 173, 174
Morelly on, 133–4, 247 works
Rousseau on, 189, 211, 216–25 De l’Esprit, 163–9, 212–13
Godwin, William, 265 First Discourse, 171–2
good and evil, innateness of, 7 De l’Homme, 173–5, 178, 212–13
memorists on, 250 history
Morelly on, 144, 146, 151, 155 use–value of, 97, 238n29
Tolstoy on, 266–7 Hobbes, Thomas, 65, 79
Grafton, Anthony, 68n9 human nature and motivation
Grandière, Marcel, 15, 15n25, 74n1 fixed vs habitual, 205
Grimm, Friedrich Melchior, Baron von, 10, and temperament of children, 38–9
150n1, 243 Huppert, George, 16n27, 68n9, 69
Grotius, Hugo, 67 Hutcheson, Francis, 122, 127–8, 140
Guyton de Morveau, Louis Bernard, 243, 249
individual rights and freedoms, 33, 51
habit, 270 individuality and socialization, 4, 163–9,
formation of, 1, 4, 7–8, 84, 111–13, 240–42
156, 181 and reformers of 1762, 240–42
habit-based educational method, 38, indoctrination, 12–13, 106, 155
47, 85, 90, 100, 175 Locke accused of, 51, 59–62
Helvétius on, 170–75 religious, 137, 262
Morelly on, 121, 127, 134, 141, 145, innatism, 27–8
147, 158–9 innate abilities, 101–2, 120, 273
motivation and, 26–8, 45 distinction between innate and
and nature, 17–18, 24–7, 46, 91 present at birth, 49–50, 211
Hallé, Noël innate dispositions, 203, 273
“education des pauvres,” 6 innate knowledge, 205
“education des riches,” 6 innate tendencies towards evil, 155
Helvétius, Claude Adrien Locke’s rejection of, 1, 6, 23, 26, 27,
critique of Rousseau’s Educational 28, 38–9, 48
theory, 273–4 and moral consciousness, 17, 23, 27,
on education, 177–9, 202, 236 40, 49, 50, 128, 136, 177, 209
on equality, 171, 175–6
on good and evil, 218, 222 Jansenists, 4, 67, 83, 123–4, 231
on habit, see habit, Helvétius on Jardine, Lisa, 68n9
on judgment and sensibility, 169–71 Jaucourt, Chevalier de
on memory and intellectual articles for the Encyclopédie, 275–7
achievement, 176 Jesuit Society, 13, 96, 98, 124, 132n
and Morelly’s Code de la Nature, 265 colléges, 5, 69, 76, 235–6
Index 301
dissolution and expulsion of, 3, 229, influences on, 24

232, 235 on liberty, 33, 37–8, 53–6, 59–62; see
educational philosophy of, 69–70, 75, also liberty
134–6, 260 practical experience in education, 24n3
Jesuit education relationship between philosophical and
and movements for change, 1, 2, educational works, 24–33
87, 97, 229–34, 249 and Rousseau, 36–7
legacy of, 68–71 social engineering and, 53–62
Jimack, Peter, 7, 184, 191n14, 198n26, n15 theories and political philosophy, 14, 33
de Jouvency, Joseph, 75n7, 87n42 on universal education, 57–8
views on corporal punishment, 41–3
Kant, Emanuel, 14, 264, 264n27, n29 works
Kaplan, Nira, 199n29 Essay Concerning Human
Kavanagh, Thomas, 221n21 Understanding, 24, 25–7,
127, 165
Lambert, Madame de (Anne Thérèse de Second Treatise of Government,
Marguenat de Courcelles, 29–32, 277
marquise de) sections VI and XV, 29–32
women’s nature and education, 108–9, Second Treatise of Government
117, 143, 217 Some Thoughts and, 28–32
law (legislator as educator), 153, 178–9 Some Thoughts Concerning
Lespinassy, Mlle Adélaïde de, 239, 347 Education, 24–5, 32–3, 35–51
Lespinesse, Julie D. (salonnierre), 231 influence of, 1, 6, 23–4, 33,
Lévesque de Pouilly, Louis-Jean, 127, 128n3 51–9
liberty Two Treatises
education for, 2, 9, 23, 38, 42, 44, 67 First Treatise of Government, 30
Locke, in Second Treatise, 28, 29, 31, Second Treatise of
37, 277 Government, 24, 28–9
Locke, in Some Thoughts on, 40, 51, Louden, Robert, 264n29
59–62 lower classes
Marxist and Foucauldian analyses, 101 education of, 6, 32n24, 56–8, 101n9,
and political responsibility, 73–4 109, 176, 243; see also Crousaz,
Rollin on, 90 Jean-Pierre de; “limits of reform”;
vs social engineering, 53–9 Morelly, Étienne-Gabriel,
“limits of reform” (Harvey Chisick), politicization of education;
103–12, 243–5 utility, social
literacy, 4 lumière intérieur
Locke, John Morelly and, 122, 210
on education as preparation for the real Rousseau and, 140, 210
world, 56–7
on equal rights, 58 de Mably, Gabriel Bonnot, 166
faith in God, 32–3, 45 Maintenon, Mme de, 105
fundamental goals of, 117 malleability, 6–7, 26, 38, 49, 89–91, 219,
health recommendations, 52n4 240, 278
inconsistencies in, 29–32, 57–62 Marvick, Elizabeth Wirth, 183n4, 192n17
indoctrination and paternal tyranny Marxism, 11, 265
perceived in his works, 59–62 Masson, Pierre-Maurice, 121–2, 122n16, 280
influence on French theorists, 28–9, 43, on mutual influence of Morelly and
120, 164 Rousseau, 271
on mutual influence of Rousseau and as precursor of Rousseau, 121–2,

Helvétius, 164n1 131–3, 140–41, 171
Revue d’histoire de la France, 1912, from reformer to utopian radical, 122–6
271, 289 Rousseau’s appropriation of, 181, 192
Maynes, Mary Jo and séntiment interior, 122, 130, 140,
on educational discrepancies and 145, 157, 158, 210
school reform, 100, 101–3 theory of human nature, 130–37, 146–8
on utopias, 33n24, 101n9 theory of personality types, 135
Le Mercier de la Rivière, Pierre-Paul, 257 works
Meslier, Jean, curé de, 101, 124 Basilade du celebre Pilpai
La Mettrie, Julien Offray de, 129–30, (Naufrage des iles flottantes),
129n5–130n5, 134, 166 121, 122n16, 128, 150, 271
Montaigne, Michel de, 1, 24, 55, 65, 66, Code de la Nature, 120, 123, 128,
111, 164 130n6, 133, 149, 154, 178, 265
Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Essais, 121–9, 130–39, 145–9,
Baron de, 134, 156, 236 151–6, 255
Esprit des lois, 124, 150–51 Essai sur le coeur humain, 134–9,
influence on Helvétius, 179n14 151–6, 255
moral and religious education, 201, 250–51 Essai sur l’esprit humain,
women as purveyors of, 43–4 127–41, 193
morality Mornet, Daniel, 121–2n16
innate vs. instilled, 209, 210, 211 de Morveau, Louis Bernard Guyton,
moral and religious education, 201, 230, 243, 249
250–51 motivation, 26–7, 178
women as conveyors of, 43–4 Munroe, James Phinney, 184n6
moral error and vice, 136
moral responsibility, 27, 177 “natural order” theory of learning
religious and secular, 181 Dumarsais and, 80n26, 131–2, 200, 259
More, Thomas, 125, 150 Morelly and, 17, 121, 131–2, 134, 141
Morelly, Étienne-Gabriel pleasurable education and, 8, 9, 119–21
as compared to Locke, Helvetius, and Rousseau and, 17, 120, 121, 132
Rousseau, 18, 67, 145–6, 155–9, 196 nature; see also second nature
and definition of education, 137–9 in educational context, 8, 205–6
education in the utopian city, 153–5 and habit, 27–8
educational philosophy of, 56, 122, law of, 32–3
128–9, 134 vs conditioning, 48–9
epistemological and educational vs nurture, 24, 26, 34, 59
theories, 128–31 nature, state of
influence on Helvétius, 122, 178–9 childhood and, 28, 32–3
influences on, 127–8, 127n2 family bond in, 31–4, 67, 241
on innate disposition, as guiding Hobbes on, 67n7
principle, 156, 255 Locke on, 193
Lockean/Cartesian principles and, Rousseau on, 187, 190, 193, 207,
121–2, 129, 130 210–12
and natural order, 131–3 negative education, 28, 200, 212–13
and natural sociability, 144–6, 151–3, 255 Dumarsais and, 131, 132, 200
and politicization of education, Morelly and, 17, 131
149–59, 178–9 Rouseau and, 17, 132, 172, 187, 199,
200, 202, 212
Index 303
Newton, Isaac, 66–7, 129 politics

Nicole, Pierre, 66n6 and educational theory, 29–32, 240
nurture paternalistic, 28–9
and nature/nurture debate, 17, 24, 26, Pope, Alexander, 122, 127, 131
48, 59, 250, 255, 256 Popiel, Jennifer
perils of environment and, 6–8; see Rousseau’s Daughters: Domesticity,
also environment; habit Education and Autonomy in
Modern France, 5n4, 246
original sin, 6, 31, 61, 77, 80, 199, 203, Port Royale
238, 244, 262 schools of, 66n6, 105
Ormesson, Olivier Lefevre, de, 114 positive education, 200
Ozouf, Jacques, 102 post-Enlightenment reformers and thinkers,
264–70
pain–pleasure impulse post-modern critique of education, 11, 12,
educational theorists on, 268, 276 91, 266, 268
Helvétius on, 170, 171, 173, 176, “Pouvoir Paternel” (d’Alembert), 277
177, 180 power, parental and political compared,
Locke on, 34, 43, 46, 48, 50, 53, 56 29–32
Morelly on, 151, 153, 164 Preliminary Discourse (D’Alembert), 275
reformers on Jesuit education and, 235–6 Prévost, abbé, 221
Rousseau on, 185, 188, 199, 209 principles
parental power and authority Cartesian and Lockean compared, 120
family relations, 29 Protestantism, 4, 66, 103, 262, 269
parental and political power, 7–8, 28, public schools, 56–7, 243; see also education
29, 41 Locke’s discussion of, 56–7
parents public vs private education, 89n47, 242
as agents of change, 7–8, 40–41 Pufendorf, Samuel, 67, 127
negative views on, 40–41
roles invalidated, 178–9, 278 Quintilian, 24, 81, 230n5
parlement of Paris, 124
Pascal, Jacqueline, 105, 105n19 Rabaut de Saint-Etienne, Jean-Paul, 261–2
Passmore, John, on malleability, 39 Rabelais, François, 65
Pellicier, 231, 247–8 Ramus, Pierre, 65
Pensées philosophiques (Diderot), 165 reform, limits of, 5, 99, 101–13, 118, 123,
Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich, 264–5 124, 147, 243, 275
philosophes, 4, 10, 125–6 reform movement of 1760s, 235–6, 252–4
philosophy and education sensationist philosophy in, 236–9
and history of ideas, 14 reformers, 3, 230, 232
in Some Thoughts, 24–33 Reicyn, Nina
physical fitness and education, 1, 35–6, 50, on Montaigne’s influence on Some
69, 75, 184, 186, 189, 259, 276 Thoughts, 24n5
physical sensation and activity, 1, 112, 131, Renaissance education, 68
132, 134–6, 139, 144–5, 171, 184, learning principles of, 81–2
190, 192, 211 Renaissance humanists, 4, 16, 24, 28, 65,
Plamer, R.R., 75n8 81–2
Plan General (parlement of Bourgogne), 247 rewards and punishments, 44–5
Plato, 1, 24, 29, 125, 230n5 Richelieu
Pluché, L’Abbé, 185 Testament Politique, 99–100
Spectacle de Nature, 119 Rihs, Charles, 121n16, 122, 122n20
Rivard, François Dominique, 231, 244–5, 251 surveillance and control in Emile,
La Riviére, le Mercier de, 257n6 196–9, 213–17
Rollin, Charles, 67, 69, 164, 239 works
on capital punishment, 87–9, 239 Les Confessions, 214n9
childhood education and, 69, 97, Considerations sur la
109, 152 Gouvernement de la Pologne,
influenced by Jansenism, 77 163, 182, 189, 205
on pleasure and effortlessness in Contrat Social, 163, 165, 182,
pedagogical thought, 78–9; see 202, 205, 207
also sensationism Discours, I and II, 181–205
Traite des études, 80 ‘Économie politique,’ 163, 182,
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 188–9, 190n11, 191n13, 194
and abandonment of his own children, Emile, Books I–III: Individual
213, 213n9 Education, 3, 81, 164,
on apprenticeship and occupation, 181–203, 271
195–6 Emile, Books IV–V: Social and
approach to autonomy, 54 Moral Education, 3, 164,
appropriation of Morelly, 271 205–21, 271
appropriations of/influences on, 181, Emile et Sophie ou les Solitaires,
182n2, 192–3, 195, 196n22, 271 189, 211, 216–17, 218–21,
education as preparation for an ideal 222–5
world, 57 Lettre á d’Alembert, 163, 165
on emotional needs of children, Lettres de la Montagne, 167,
163–205, 185, 186–7 198n26
individualism of, 165, 180, 181, 213, marginal notes on first discourse of
241–2, 264n29 Helvétius’s De l’Esprit, 171–3
influence of Fleury and Crousaz on, La Nouvelle Heloise, 163, 165,
163–205, 185 172, 189, 205, 211, 217, 222,
on innate characteristics, 170, 172, 273 273–4
internal motivation, 51 Julie and Wolmar in, 222–3
and Locke, 29, 163, 185, 205 “Professions de foi du Vicaire
lumière intérior and voix intérior, 17, Savoyard,” 167–8, 172
122, 140, 157, 210, 211
Morelly as precursor of, 121–2, 131–3, Saint Cyr (school for girls), 105
140–41, 171, 181–205 Saint-Pierre, Bernadin de, 221
personal isolation and solitary Saint-Pierre, Charles Irenée Castel, abbe de
education of, 207–8 bienfaisance, 117, 118n4, 240, 250
and question of originality, 163–9, Projet pour perfectionner l’éducation,
182–5 117–18
and rejection of nature–habit utility and religion combined,
association, 184–5 117–18, 164
Rousseau–Helvétius debate, 163–8, La Salle, Jean Baptist de
177, 180n17, 273–4 La conduit des écoles chrétiennes,
on second and third nature, 188–91 103n12, 258
on sensation vs. sentiment, 172–3 Savoyard Priest
sentiment intérieur and, 130n6, guiding principle of inner light
140, 210; see also sensationism; (sentiment intérieur), 210–11
sentiment intérior Schinz, Arthur, 164n1
sciences as secular Bible (Comenius), 66
Index 305
scientific studies education of, 216

astronomy, 81, 185 tragedy of, 219–20
“second education,” 236 state-centered education
second nature, 2, 3, 48, 51n25, 250, 270 “Children Belong to the State,” 242–3,
Rousseau and Locke on, 182, 185, 187, 260–63
188, 189, 190–91 state as primary beneficiary of
self control, 38, 40, 52, 54–5 education, 248–9, 254
body discipline and, 35–6 Stirner, Max, 265
parental authority and, 36–7 Strong, Tracy
self-interest on Rousseau’s theory of negative
Helvétius on, 171, 173, 177–8, 180, education, 200
205, 273 surveillance and control
Jaucourt on, 276 in childhood education, 188, 196–9,
Lambert, Mme. de on, 108 201, 213, 258; see also Rousseau on
Morelly on, 145–6, 157, 210 Jesuit Society and, 55, 69, 70
Rousseau on, 187–9, 201, 210, 285 over teachers, parents, and home, 246,
Sainte-Pierre on, 117–18, 181 248–9, 252, 261, 262
self-mastery; see also authority; self control sword nobility, education of, 110–11
and discipline, 80, 86
Locke on, 51, 54, 61, 86, 88 tabula rasa theory, 40, 57, 135, 181, 198–9
parental authority and, 27, 33, 36–8, Tarcov, Nathan, 40n13, 53
48–9 Tardif, Maurice, 109n1
Rousseau on, 193, 217 Taylor, Charles, 14–15, 27–8, 37–8, 55, 211
voluntary, 86, 87, 255 teachers, 7–8, 248–50, 277–8
sensationism Toland, John, 85
implications of, for concept of Tolstoy, Leo, 266–8
equality, 175 Tully, James, 14–15, 25n7, 26–7, 56n6,
Locke, as originator of, 74, 80, 81, 84, 58, 256
94, 112, 117–21, 132, 139, 141, 165
Morelly’s interpretation of, 129–31 utilitarianism, 5, 12, 92–4, 252–4,
in works of Fleury, 8, 17, 81–3, 139 256–7, 259
in works of Rousseau, 74, 81–2, 84, as applied to education, 18, 110, 241
165, 184–6, 253, 273 Comenius and, 66
in works of Saint-Pierre, 117–18 and Fleury, 111–12, 139
in works of 1760s, 236–40 Helvétius and, 174n10, 180n17
sentiment intérieur and legislative reforms of 1760s, 230,
Morelly and, 122, 130, 130n6, 140, 241–2
145, 210, 255 Locke and, 45, 54, 56, 94
Rousseau and, 210 Morelly and, 121, 138–9, 147
1762, crisis of, see Crisis of 1762 in Renaissance, 93
Shaftsbury, Earl of, 127, 128, 140, 210 Rousseau on, 110, 184, 188, 194–6,
Snyders, Georges, 70n12, 183n4 216–18
sociability, innate, 122, 140, 151, 156–8, utility, concept of, 103–12, 243–5
208, 218 and classical education, 74, 94–5, l68
social engineering, 53, 80 enlightenment or utility-driven
Sophie education, 252–4
character of, 216–18, 219, 268–70; see as method of education, 3, 5, 19, 74,
also Rousseau, works: Emile et 92–6, 98, 112
Sophie ou les Solitaires as opposed to Enlightenment, 5–6, 112
pedagogy, 3–5 Tostoy on, 266

utility, social vocational training, 5–6
in education of girls, women, and the voix intérieur
poor, 94–6, 104, 108, 111–12; in Morelly, 17, 122, 140, 152, 157, 158
see also Fleury, Claude, abbé; in Rousseau, 17, 122, 140, 157, 158,
Lambert, Mme de 210, 211
Utopian theorists, 125 Voltaire, 232, 243
utopias, 33n24, 101n9
Wagner, Nicolas
Vega, Garcilasso de la, 125 on natural order; sensationism, 141n18
vigilance, see surveillance and control Walker, Lesley, 108
Viguerie, Jean de Wilson, John
on educational manuals, 1n1, 1n3, on the study of educational
96n61, 233n12 philosophy, 13
virtue women
definitions of, 40–41, 47–8, 59, 257 education of, 5, 56, 105n19, 106, 176,
how attained, 36, 44–50, 56, 57, 60 245, 517
and motivation, Locke’s discussion of, Fleury, Claude, abbé, on, 106
27, 38, 42, 49–51 Helvétius on cultural expectations and,
as result of externally conditioned 174–6
behavior, 230 influence as parents, 43–4
Rousseau on, 273 Marquise de Lambert on, 108–9, 117,
as a source of pleasure, 37 143, 217
in the public sphere, 216, 223

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Educational Philosophy

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Part 1 The Educational Philosophy of John Locke

Prologue: Locke’s Educational Theory in Relation to his

Part 2 Early Enlightenment Educational Theory: Claude Fleury,

Prologue: Sources of French Educational Thought and the

Part 3 The Educational Philosophy of Étienne-Gabriel Morelly

Prologue: Educational Theory at Mid-Century  117

Part 4 The Helvétius–Rousseau Controversy

Prologue: The Scandal Over Helvétius’s De l’Esprit and the

9 Rousseau’s Emile, Books I−III: Individual Education  181

Part 5 The Crisis of 1762: “Children Belong to the State”

Prologue: The Expulsion of the Jesuits and the Educational

Conclusion: Disciples and Critics: The Impact of French Enlightenment

Appendix 1 Rousseau’s Appropriation of Morelly  271

By the mid-eighteenth century, many French Enlightenment thinkers had come to

The complexity of this enterprise—recasting child-rearing practices to reflect

The Central Oppositions

In analyzing educational texts, I focus on the way in which pedagogical debates

Individuality and Socialization: The Purpose of Education

Eighteenth-century French pedagogical theorists focused intensely on the

Enlightenment or Utility: The Method of Education

beings, regardless of their social status or intended profession. Further, the

Malleability and the Perils of the Environment

perspective, theorists suggested new methods through which to bring children to

The Power and Limits of the Educator

Nature and Habit, or “Second Nature”

Education as Art or as Science

Freedom and Constraint

Every week, a new educational work is born (Grimm).

More recently, historians skeptical of the “Enlightenment project” adopted a

C. Hippeau, L’instruction publique en France pendant la Révolution (Paris, 1883). General

Postmodernism and Enlightenment: New Perspectives in Eighteenth Century French

What Is Philosophy of Education?

Philosophers of education have given us no clear account of how their discipline

Education and the History of Ideas

Wilson, “Perspectives on the Philosophy of Education,” p. 280

a few of educational themes, traceable through the work of a broad range of

On the Structure of the Educational Philosophy in the

John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education encapsulates the principal

The Debate about Philosophy and Education in Some Thoughts

Scholars have taken starkly different positions concerning the relationship

his philosophy specifically to pedagogy” or that his pedagogical theory reveals

Some Thoughts and the Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Moral Education,” Educational Theory, 20/4 (Fall 1970): p. 364.

Nature and Habit

The problem of “nature versus habit” is related to Locke’s position on “innatism”

Some Thoughts and the Second Treatise of Government

Freedom and Authority

Parental Power and Authority

Locke, Second Treatise of Government, p. 37.

The State of Nature and the State of Childhood

The Clay Cottage: Locke’s Body Discipline

Parental Authority and Self-Mastery

Locke is never apologetic about parental authority in Some Thoughts, although

so important to Some Thoughts. He immediately contrasts two different notions of habit:

One finds this definition of liberty as self-mastery in Some Thoughts in Locke’s

Human Nature and Children’s Temperaments: “As Easily Turned as Water

Many of Locke’s readers considered the educational implication of his Essay—

tendencies and temperaments based ultimately on their natural desire to attain

What is Virtue? Redefining Virtue According to the Nature of Childhood

In order to gain greater insight into Locke’s position on these questions, we

Prologue: Educational Theory at Mid-Century 117

9 Rousseau’s Emile, Books I−III: Individual Education 181

Appendix 1 Rousseau’s Appropriation of Morelly 271