The puzzle is palpable. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the most brilliant of all developmental psychologists and his Emile the most profound book ever written on education. In the age of revolutions, Rousseau was one of th...The puzzle is palpable. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the most brilliant of all developmental psychologists and his Emile the most profound book ever written on education. In the age of revolutions, Rousseau was one of the two most widely read philosophes in America and Emile the most popular of all his writings. More even than all that, Rousseau's ideas about education were far more in tune with the rhetoric of revolutionary America than those of his only real rival in pedagogy, John Locke. Yet Rousseau's influence on education in the new nation was negligible. How are we to explain that? This paper suggests an answer to that question.展开更多
文摘The puzzle is palpable. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the most brilliant of all developmental psychologists and his Emile the most profound book ever written on education. In the age of revolutions, Rousseau was one of the two most widely read philosophes in America and Emile the most popular of all his writings. More even than all that, Rousseau's ideas about education were far more in tune with the rhetoric of revolutionary America than those of his only real rival in pedagogy, John Locke. Yet Rousseau's influence on education in the new nation was negligible. How are we to explain that? This paper suggests an answer to that question.