Compare and contrast the different ideas of education found in Emile and Le Neveau de Rameau.

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Compare and contrast the different ideas of education found in Emile and Le Neveau de Rameau:

As true enlighteners of the people Rousseau and Diderot aimed for the spread of enlightenment, the destruction of ignorance and darkness among the popular masses. They were keenly interested in questions of education and training of the rising of the generation.

Emile is a text book by Rousseau, which has been said to be a compromise between an educational treatise and a novel. It is concerned with the education of the individual; in this case it's a story book that tells the story of the education of a young rich boy called Emile.

As the work progresses, the text book aspect fades away and the fictional element or Emile's story becomes stronger, development derives from the subject itself.

In his book, Rousseau introduces an educational theory which he applies on Emile.

He claims that early childhood is fairly representative as in it doesn't vary from one child to another. When the child grows up they become separate individuals with an individual history, that's why we find quasi-fictional elements in the story.

Rousseau suggests that education is not all a matter of theory, but largely a practical business "malgr( tout d'(crits qui n'ont, dit-on, pour but que l'utilit( publique, la premi(re de toutes les utilit(s, qui est l'art de former des homes, est encore oubli(e" and to be practical Rousseau says you have to describe an individual story.

Rousseau moreover defended himself against the accusation that his special method is not applicable to everyone, everywhere and that it is of limited value. However, there is some truth in the accusation. By stacking facts in his form, i.e. by providing Emile with all the characteristics he has given him, it will allow the general theory to be expanded under formable conditions. But this doesn't mean the educational principles that Rousseau lays down in the book are not adaptable to other particular cases one should make a distinction between general principles involved and the method in all its detail. Rousseau is only saying that these principles are workable and can be applied if they are adaptable according to the situation of the child involved.

A major criticism of this is that Emile has the advantage of having a tutor, a preceptor and since this isn't available to all children considering that not all parents have high incomes to provide their children with tutors, then the whole book is thus of no value.

In the preface Rousseau touches on this issue, and makes an appeal to parents "P(res et m(res, ce qui est faisable est ce que vous voulez" this shows that Rousseau would have been staggered at the idea that all children should have a tutor, even if it happens that Emile does have one. The fact is that in this case Emile is an orphan. However if parents exist then it is they who should educate their children

Furthermore to this line of criticism towards Rousseau's book is that Emile is a young rich boy and that therefore the book doesn't apply to the children of the poor members of the community, or to how they are educated. But the fact that Emile is rich doesn't mean that the essence of Rousseau's educational theory is aristocratic or elitist. On the contrary, as Emile (as seen in the book) is taught how to earn his own living, even if he is bought up as a scrounging aristocrat living off the work of others.

Other criticisms that have been applied by educationists are questions such as; can the principles of education in Emile be applied to the class room, now that education is neither really a matter for parents or for private tutors? For the avant-garde section of the teaching body in France, Emile is considered as "le br(vieu de l'instituteur" since it incorporates, (especially of what we now call the primary school) an idea of children which is wholly modern in outlook.

The classroom question is also associated with another criticism: normally that within the context of this particular case Emile (the child) is supposed to be bought in isolation from others; however it could also be said that nonetheless, he has a lot of human contact in his education. As a matter of fact these points of contact are experiences that play an important role in Emile's education. The only reason isolation was used was to make sure that Emile is protected against undesirable influences.

What Rousseau has done in Emile, is envisaging education as a possible factor in the much needed improvement of man. The driving force behind the work is that while society goes to the days, the individual at last may be reclaimed. Emile as the individual is going to become the social equivalent to the happy and healthy man of nature. The reason social equivalent is used here is because the "natural" man of the primitive states is not the same as the "natural" man in modern society. That is to say that what Rousseau is trying to have in his educational treatise, is not a return to what has been lost, but achievement of the equivalent of what has been lost. Therefore Emile is very important to Rousseau, as through out the book; he expresses his anxiety about the present state of man and his future.

Rousseau's aim , in Emile like in other texts, is to show that vice is not inherent in man but, that it is the product of false ideas and wrapped human institutions " Dans l'(tat o( sont d(sormais les choses, un homme abandonn( d(s sa naissance ( lui-m(me parmis les autres serait le plus d(figur( de tous. Les pr(jug(s, l'autorit(, la necessit(, l'example, toutes les institutions socials dans lesquelles nous nous trouvons submerg(s, (tonfferaient en lui la nature, et ne mettaient rien ( leur place". Evil therefore must be prevented from striking root in the good nature of the child.

In Emile Rousseau claims that the child is completely innocent, and helpless in the world of bigger, stronger grown ups. He suggests that the child shouldn't be forced to learn and that any teaching of the sort is a pedagogic failure and disaster. Instead he proposes that education should be a labour of love.

The basic plan on which Emile is constructed is, what is in modern educational psychology is called the Psycho-Genetic principle.

According to this principle, education is to follow and to keep pace with the development of the mind, neither lagging behind mental development nor jumping ahead of it. Rousseau had such ideas from the "Sensationalist" philosophy of the thinker Condillac.

Condillac Claimed that all mental processes could be analysed into their consistent parts consisting of basic units of sensation. He showed this using the famous image of a statue which was given new senses such as smell, taste etc. gradually one by one as if to construct the world of normal human beings bit by bit. However Condillac's psychology is no psychology at all, it is only really rationalism applied to the human mind, and it could be said that because Rousseau adapted C's account of development of our faculties, that his notions of human development seems too simple today.
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Following Condillac's theory, Rousseau isolated 4 main phases of development. In the first the senses are developed, the second sees the development of the imagination, the third that of sensibility and finally there is the phase in which reason is developed. These seem to be all clear and neatly cut for our complex ideas of development, however the basic principle of phasing does remain with us in educational theory and practice.

In Emile, Rousseau's sets out the different stages of the child's life( infancy-3 years, 12-15, 15-20, and manhood from 20 onwards) His point in doing ...

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