In this connection should especially be considered Rousseau’s theory of stages of development. He makes a sharp division of the pupil’s development into definite periods that seem but little connected with one another, and prescribes a distinct education for each stage. This seems like a breach of the evolution of the individual, and the _reductio ad absurdum_ of such an atomic training is reached in his hope of rendering Emile warm-hearted and pious, after keeping him in the meshes of self-interest and doubt until he is fifteen. But, as in the case of his attitude toward society, Rousseau takes an extreme view, and he has thereby shown that there are characteristic differences at different stages in the child’s life, and that only as the proper activities are provided for each stage will it reach maturity or perfection. He may, therefore, be credited to a great degree with the increasing tendency to cease from forcing upon children a fixed method of thinking, feeling, and acting, and for the gradual disappearance of the old ideas that a task is of educational value according as it is distasteful, and that real education consists in overcoming meaningless difficulties. Curiosity and interest rather are to be used as motives for study, and Rousseau therein points the way for the Herbartians. It is likewise due to him primarily that we have recognized the need of physical activities and sense training in the earlier development of the child as a foundation for its later growth and learning. To these recommendations may be traced much of the object teaching of Pestalozzianism and the motor expression of Froebelianism. Thus Rousseau made a large contribution to educational method by showing the value of motivation, of creating problems, and of utilizing the senses and activities of the child, and may be regarded as the father of the psychological movements in modern education. He could not, however, have based his study of children and his advanced methods upon any real psychological foundation, for in his day the ‘faculty’ psychology (see p. 182) absolutely prevailed. Instead of working out his methods from scientific principles, he obtained them, as did Pestalozzi afterwards, through his sympathetic understanding of the child and his ability to place himself in the child’s situation and see the world through the eyes of the child. [Sidenote: Intellectual progenitor of modern reformers, but influence upon schools not immediate.] [Sidenote: First attempt through Basedow.]