The downside of this is that there are some portions of this book (specially Book IV) that are heavily outdated nonetheless, with a sober hermeneutical attitude, one can somehow overcome these deficiencies to grasp a higher order of meaning underlying the whole of it (including the heavily time/place-specific context). Rousseau shows himself as a very passionate writer, one who's not afraid in taking stances about a wide range of issues.

As Emile grows, the goal starts to become more and more clear, as grows the scope of criticisms and reform proposals. So the child must be raised free, equal to all others around him/her, and connected to all through bonds of natural fraternity. Throughout the text, readers are instilled to think on their own, to come to terms with a new way of thinking Man from its most profound roots, and how a child must be raised in conformity to nature (his/her nature, as Rousseau conceives it). It's through this experience that we start to grasp the scope of his criticisms, and the way he wants to prepare people for the coming of a new order. And what best place to start with than by educating people to be good citizens? So the philosopher conceives of a thought experiment where he plays the role of a tutor for more than 20 years of a young scholar named Emile. Rousseau wants to reform the state of the decadent human institutions of his time. The book concludes with a profile of Emile's prospective bride, Sophie, that emphasizes the role of mothers in educating their children but encourages women to be submissive to their husbands-a view that excited controversy even among Rousseau's contemporaries and helped inspire Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The fourth part explores the cultivation of sentiment, with particular focus on natural religion. Rousseau's five-part approach devotes the first three sections to Emile's early education, including the child's interactions with the larger world and the selection of a trade. With its theories on the retention of innate human goodness and the avoidance of corruption from bourgeois society, the book offers prime examples of the author's philosophy. Emile recounts a boy's education, and Rousseau considered it the most important of his writings. A foundational text of Western education, this 1762 treatise served as a model for a new approach to teaching during the French Revolution.

Emile book rousseau