I believe that this pose, together with much of the sentimental liberalism which passes for “emancipation” among intellectuals, may be traced back to Jean Jacques Rousseau. Nearly all the basic ideas of contemporary liberalism as well as those of the “newer education” frequently associated with the liberal movement, may be found in the writings of Rousseau. It is amusing to hear liberals proclaim these old ideas as if they were the most advanced theories of life and education. And you have but to compare Rousseau with Erasmus or Voltaire or Huxley to see how far away he is from the spirit of liberal education. The latter is tender-hearted and hard-headed. Rousseau is soft-headed and hard-hearted. An emotional egoism feeds on dreams of social revolt and of an idyllic return to nature. Rousseau hates civilization, with its duties and responsibilities. He becomes romantic and sentimental about Nature. His ideal of the free man is Robinson Crusoe. “We are born sensible.” “The natural man is complete in himself; he is the numerical unit, the absolute whole, who is related only to himself or to his fellow-man. Civilized man is but a fractional unit.” “Civilized man is born, lives and dies in a state of slavery. At his birth he is stitched in swaddling clothes; at his death he is nailed in a coffin, and as long as he preserves the human form he is fettered by our institutions.” Hence if you would educate, “Observe nature and follow the route which she traces for you.” “All wickedness comes from weakness. A child is bad only because he is weak; make him strong and he will be good.” “Keep the child dependent on things alone, and you will have followed the order of nature in his education.” “Do not let him know what obedience is when he acts, nor what control is when others act for him. Equally in his actions and in yours let him feel his liberty.” “O men, be humane; it is your foremost duty.... Why would you take from those little innocents the enjoyment of a time so short and of a good so precious which they cannot abuse? Why would you fill with bitterness and sorrow those early years so rapidly passing, which will no more return to them than to you? Fathers, do you know the moment when death awaits your children? Do not prepare for yourselves regrets by taking from them the few moments which nature has given them.” “The only habit which a child should be allowed to form is to contract no habit whatsoever.” “It is absolutely certain that the learned societies of Europe are but so many public schools of falsehood; and very surely there are more errors in the Academy of Sciences than in the whole tribe of Hurons.” “Happy the people among whom one can be good without effort and just without virtue.”