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Secondary sourceBook1893

Rousseau and His Émile

Ossian Herbert Lang · 1893

A short 1893 study by educator Ossian H. Lang of Rousseau and his educational treatise Émile. It is a later account, not Rousseau's own writing.

Lang's study shows how a later educator interpreted Rousseau's educational treatise Émile, which is central to understanding Rousseau's ideas about teaching.

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Rousseau and His ÉmilePDF · 54 pages
Ossian H. Lang, Rousseau and His Émile, 1893. Scanned book, Internet Archive.

About this source

What it is

This book of 36 pages was written by Ossian H. Lang and copyrighted in 1893. Its publisher's listing names New York and Chicago. Lang was also the author of books on teachers such as Comenius, Basedow, Herbart and Horace Mann. The book studies Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his educational treatise Émile. The scan is held by the Internet Archive and comes from a university library record.

Why it matters

Émile is Rousseau's book about how a child should be raised and taught. More than a century after Rousseau's death in 1778, a teacher-writer like Lang could still use his ideas as a starting point for thinking about education. Reading this book shows how a later writer explained Rousseau to his own readers.

Look closer

  • What does Lang choose to explain about Rousseau, and what does he leave out?
  • Why would a book about education be written for teachers in the United States in 1893?
  • How is a later study of Rousseau different from Rousseau's own writing about children?

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

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