List the general Principles in ‘EMILE'

1. Innocence and the perfect goodness of the child.

2. Education should be strictly based on nature. Nature demands free movement. This implied that the traditional subject matter was not to be offered to children. Curriculum was to consist of the children's natural activities and interests. Educational process was to develop children's ability to meet their natural needs. For example, health and physical education were important because they made children healthy and removed all hindrance on physical freedom by allowing them to jump, climb and swim naturally in the open fields. The teacher should be a facilitator to allow learning through nature and discoveries. The educator is nature - so the teacher should arrange nature to facilitate learning.

3. He was opposed to the 3Rs (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic) as they contained artificial symbols. He also hated books as they merely teach us to talk of what we do not know and they come between the child and nature. His library had only two books - ‘EMILE' and ‘ROBINSON CRUSOE'. Emile had only one book.

4. Rousseau rejected for Emile all intellectual exercises that would be including in education. His education was to exercise and develop sense especially in physical activities. For example:

- Running, jumping and swimming were encouraged as they facilitated psychomotor and sensory development.
- Agriculture and carpentry were recommended as they helped develop the use of related tools e.g. hoe and hammer helped in developing the child's sense perception and practical judgment.
- He recommended knowledge of human nature and institutions after 15 years - this was to be done through visits to prisons, hospitals and workshops.
- Advocated for vernacular as the main medium of institution.
- Handicrafts were to be taught for educational and social reasons.
- Arithmetic, geography, physics and geometry were to be taught from a practical viewpoint.

5. Though not opposed to moral education, Rousseau did not want it imposed. He advocated that moral training should be through natural experience e.g. a child who breaks a window should be made to sit next to it to experience the cold. Religion was to be taught from 16-17 years to avoid giving a child a superstitious idea of God.

6. Rousseau's idea on education of women was retrogressive. The perfect woman Sophie had no individuality. Her education was to complete the happiness of man; she was to learn music, dancing, embroidery, designing and morality in order to provide a good home for the man Emile. She learnt no reading. Emile was to mould her into his ideal. He was to command and she was to obey.

7. Rousseau was against hired nurses to look after children. He advocated that the natural thing was for mothers to nurse their own children - this would ensure proper development of the child and encourage dignity in the home.
8. Rousseau was the first person to develop the recapitulation theory as the basis for educational organization. He compared the development of the child from birth to maturity to the way human beings developed from savagery to civilization.
Child first an animal à then partly civilized à then a solitary Robinson Crusoe à then a rational being à finally a social being.

9. Rousseau also advocated the stage theory where he said certain faculties arise at certain stages of the child's development. He advocated that education at each stage must be adapted to the related characteristics, i.e. :

a. Infancy (birth to 5 years) - State of nature. An animal with few needs and faculties.

b. Childhood (5 to 12 years) - Non moral and non social stage. Few needs but child is active and dominant.

c. Boyhood/Girlhood (12 to 15 years) - Stage of solitude. Less dominant. Due to curiosity and power of judgment, he/she seeks to understand the meaning of things. Still amoral and non social. In ten years, becomes social but unable to satisfy his/her own needs by self, gets married.

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marto answered the question on March 19, 2019 at 10:29