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Emile, or On Education

Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1762

Rousseau's 1762 treatise on natural education, which was banned and publicly burned in Paris and Geneva the year it appeared.

Rousseau's own foundational work on education, condemned and burned shortly after he wrote it.

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Title page of the 1762 first edition of Emile, ou de l'éducation by J. J. Rousseau, citoyen de Genève. Red and black print; A La Haye, chez Jean Néaulme, Libraire; Tome Premier; MDCCLXII.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education, The Hague, 1762.

About this source

What it is

This is the title page of the first edition of Emile, or On Education, a treatise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau published in 1762 in The Hague, using the story of a boy and his tutor to describe an ideal natural education.

Why it matters

Rousseau believed children should learn through experience and nature rather than books and discipline, an idea that influenced modern education. A section on religion, the 'Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar', led the Catholic Church to ban the book and authorities in Paris and Geneva to burn it, showing how dangerous Rousseau's ideas were seen to be at the time.

Look closer

  • Why might a book about raising children have been seen as politically or religiously dangerous?
  • What does the opening line, that everything 'degenerates in the hands of man', suggest about Rousseau's view of society?
  • Rousseau outlines different education for the boy Emile and the girl Sophie—what might that tell us about 18th-century views of gender?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Mary Wollstonecraft on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Title page of Du Contrat Social ou Principes du Droit Politique by J. J. Rousseau, citoyen de Genève, printed at Amsterdam by Marc Michel Rey, MDCCLXII. Below the text is an engraved allegorical figure of a woman holding scales and a staff, flanked by trees, with Latin mottos above her. A handwritten inscription appears at top right.Book

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The Social Contract

Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1762

Sepia-toned mezzotint print of a man in a tall fur hat and fur-collared coat, with his hand raised to his chest, set on a page of a bound book. Caption below reads Jean Jacques Rousseau, Vitam Impendere Vero, after Ramsay, published by David Martin.Painting

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Portrait of Jean Jacques Rousseau

David Martin · 1766

Open book spread showing the title page of Rousseau's Discours sur l'origine et les fondemens de l'inégalité parmi les hommes, Amsterdam, 1755, with red and black printed text and a engraved vignette of a seated woman. On the left page is an engraved plate of men in a landscape with a figure pointing.Book

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Discourse on Inequality

Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1754 (published 1755)

Black and white line engraving of an oval portrait of a man with curled powdered hair, white cravat, and dark coat, seated and smiling slightly, set within an ornate framed border with laurel leaves, ribbons, a book inscribed with a title, and a lamp. Caption at bottom reads 'Publish'd 1st of April 1780 By Fielding & Walker Pater Noster Row'.Painting

Secondary source

Engraving of Rousseau after La Tour's Portrait

E. Ficquet, after Maurice Quentin de La Tour · 1780

Engraved portrait print of a man with tousled hair and a fur-collared coat, seated and smiling slightly, framed by a stone-block border. A plinth below bears the Latin inscription 'VITAM IMPENDERE VERO'. Signed lower left 'De la Tour Pinx' and lower right 'R. Vinkeles Sc. 1764'.Painting

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Portrait of the French Writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau

R. Vinkeles, after Maurice Quentin de La Tour · 1764

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