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<TITLE>Jean-Jacques Rousseau -- Reading Revolutions -- Intellectual History</TITLE>
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    <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><b><a href="lectures.html">INDEX</a></b><br><br><font size="+1"><center><i>Reading Revolutions:  Intellectual History</i><br><br><font size="+1">
	Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Father of the French Revolution<br><br>
	<font size="+0">Grace Denison</center>


<br>
	<br>
	<font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
	The following is based on the presentation and slides of Grace Denison:<p>
	Rousseau as a revolutionary thinker and philosopher begins by questioning 
	the premise of society as the protector and arbiter of good.&nbsp; One of 
	his basic principles is that man is free in the natural state but that 
	within society his is more or less enslaved to that society.&nbsp; He refers 
	to this free man as the &quot;noble savage&quot; and sees him and the natural state he 
	lives in as good.&nbsp; If there is evil it is due to the constrictions on 
	freedom and to the corruption of the social compact.</p>
	<font size="+1">
	<p align="center"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
	&nbsp;</font><font size="+1"><img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/ROUSSEAU1.jpg" width="450" height="280"></font></p>
	<p>
    <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">In his description in the <i>
	Social Compact</i> of the relationship between the individual and society 
	and the <font size="+1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">
	<img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/ROUSSEA3.jpg" align="left" width="281" height="52" hspace="8"></font>population 
	and society, he lays out the forces which act within the society.&nbsp; 
	Throughout the <i>Compact</i> he says that all will be well as long as the 
	government abides by &quot;the general will.&quot;&nbsp; He never quite says what it 
	is, although he specifies that it is not necessarily the majority.&nbsp; The 
	best example that I can think of applied to Maine is that we all want peace, 
	we all want prosperity.&nbsp; If we were to hold an election to decide how 
	to get there, there would be vast differences of opinion on how to achieve 
	these goals.&nbsp; There would most likely be a &quot;lunatic fringe&quot; that would 
	advocate extreme measures but the central core would be an amalgam of other 
	positions.&nbsp; The majority might not be right or reflect the &quot;general 
	will.&quot; </font></p>
	<p><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">According to Charles 
	Frankl, a Rousseau scholar from Cornell, &quot;What most immediately appealed to 
	Rousseau's generation was his insistence that men's social arrangements are 
	the products of human choice...&quot;&nbsp; If they are not, they ought to be.&nbsp; 
	During the reign of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette many people did not feel 
	that they had a human choice in their poverty and standards of justice.&nbsp; 
	They were rather unhappy.&nbsp; </font></p>
	</font>
	<p>Rousseau insisted that men must bear the moral responsibility for the 
	kind of society they construct or accept.&nbsp; Of course, Rousseau used men 
	as the inclusive &quot;mankind&quot;, not being barred from sexist language during 
	that era.&nbsp; Both men and women had the moral responsibility for the 
	society, if they accepted what is and it wasn't good, then they bore the 
	responsibility for it.&nbsp; This concept struck a cord with the French 
	people. <font size="+1">
	<img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/lectRousseau2756w.jpg" width="350" height="263" align="right" hspace="8" vspace="8"></font></p>
	<p>Frankl 
	notes further that &quot;...<i>The Social Compact</i> was an incitement to 
	revolution because it did what a revolutionary book has to do:&nbsp; it 
	joined justice and utility, and showed men that their interest and their 
	duty were on the same side.&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;...<i>The Social Compact</i> made 
	social change not only a matter of self-interest but a <u>moral obligation 
	incumbent upon all</u>.&quot;&nbsp; The changes in society, the extreme 
	indulgence of the ruling classes, and an increased awareness of just how bad 
	the situation was among the common people created the perfect climate for 
	Rousseau's words to both hit home and inflame.</p>
	<p>According to Rousseau when man passed through the state of nature, he 
	passed from a place where he was perfectly free to do what he wanted to a 
	place where he was constrained by others.&nbsp; In nature he could choose to 
	build a house wherever he wished, but in society he has to defend it.&nbsp; 
	He must defend it because there may be somebody else who feels that he has a 
	right to it.&nbsp; Rousseau was not a supporter of wealth, property is fine 
	as everyone has some and nobody has too much.&nbsp; </p>
	<p>It gets tiresome to constantly defend your property in the state of 
	nature.&nbsp; There will be those who are bigger than you are, more able, 
	and more aggressive.&nbsp; It gets to the point, according to Rousseau, that 
	it makes sense to band together to form a society to protect the rights of 
	everybody.&nbsp; According to Rousseau, that is how society first came into 
	being.&nbsp; When we move from the state of nature to the civil state we 
	observe a great change.&nbsp; We can no longer use instinct in our conduct 
	and substitute justice.&nbsp; </p>
	<font size="+1">
	<p align="center">
	<img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/ROUSSEA6.jpg" width="450" height="302"></p>
	<p><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">So while man looses his 
	natural freedoms in return he has civil liberty and the compact frees him 
	from the necessity of defending himself, and yes, it frees him from the need 
	to attack others.&nbsp; Man is safe in his possessions and property.&nbsp; 
	Rousseau placed great emphasis on property and the laws governing property 
	as the justification for a society.&nbsp; </font></p>
	<p>	
	<font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">
	<a href="pictures/Rousseau/lectRousseau2817wl.jpg">
	<img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/lectRousseau2817w.jpg" width="293" height="400" align="left" hspace="8"></a></font></p>
	</font></font>
    <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="0">
	<p><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">Rousseau was not one to 
	speak simply.&nbsp; He could take one sentence and blow it up into three 
	chapters.&nbsp; I have never read so flowery a writer in my life.&nbsp; But 
	even he said that if you take the Social Compact and look at the barest 
	elements you would get the essentials of society:</font></p>
	<p>&nbsp;</p>
	</font>
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									<ul>
										<li>Each of us places in common his 
										person and all his power under the 
										supreme direction of the general will</li>
										<li>...and as one body we all receive 
										each member as an indivisible part of 
										the whole.</li>
									</ul>
								</blockquote>
							</blockquote>
						</blockquote>
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				</blockquote>
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	</font>
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	<p>&nbsp;</p>
	<p><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">This sounds like a lot of 
	fellowship and friendship, and it does mean just that, because that is the way it 
	should be.&nbsp; We should be doing things by common agreement.&nbsp; 
	Rousseau is not suggesting gamboling elves in a forest glen, but a smoothly 
	running society based on justice.&nbsp; If we 
	are not achieving that, there is something wrong.</font></p>
	</font>
    <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
	<p>Rousseau published the <i>Social Compact</i> in 1762 but he didn't pull 
	all of the ideas out of the blue.&nbsp; Earlier, in 1751, he entered an 
	essay contest to address the question whether the progress of the arts and 
	sciences improved the morals and habits of man.&nbsp; He answered with a 
	resounding no.&nbsp; He proposed that the development of the arts and 
	sciences had promoted inequality, idleness and luxury.&nbsp; He won first 
	prize.&nbsp; In 1755, he published his &quot;Discourse on Inequality&quot; in which he 
	reflected on the state of society around him.&nbsp; He draws an explicit 
	picture of the injustice and poverty of the time, the suffering of the 
	populace and the excesses of the rich.</p>
	<p>Also in <i>Discourse on Inequality</i>, Rousseau argues that in the state 
	of nature, the noble savages possessed a natural dispositions to compassion.&nbsp; 
	Thus, he saves his argument from despair and begins to develop his more 
	general theory of the natural good and the general responsibility for civil 
	justice.&nbsp; It's a fascinating work.&nbsp; He ends it by saying &quot;...it is 
	plainly contrary to the law of nature, however defined, that children should 
	command old men, fools wise men, and that the privileged few should gorge 
	themselves with superfluities, while the starving multitude are in want of 
	the bare necessities of life.&quot;</p>
	<p>The essay is only about twelve pages long, but it was powerful and 
	inflammatory.&nbsp; He is also the first philosopher to assert that 
	compassion is in the nature of man.&nbsp; He later expanded this idea and 
	included it in his work on education to say that compassion is something we 
	must instill in our children because society and the arts and sciences and 
	all of the bad and corrupt characteristics of civilization have gotten us 
	away from the idea of compassion, so we have to go back to our centers to 
	find the goodness which must serve as a foundation for a good society.</p>
	<p>In 1762, Rousseau published two works.&nbsp; In addition to <i>The Social 
	Compact</i> he published <i>Emile, or On Education</i>.&nbsp; This was a 
	very productive period for him.&nbsp; A year earlier he had published <i>
	Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse, </i>also a major work.&nbsp; In<i> Emile </i>
	he explores the same theme:&nbsp; &quot;Everything is good as it leave the hands 
	of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man.&quot;</p>
	<p>To understand Rousseau and his attitude both toward society and toward 
	childhood it is instructive to look at his background.&nbsp; R
	<font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/lectRousseau2779wrel.jpg" width="400" height="300" align="right" hspace="8"></font>ousseau 
	was born in 1712 and his mother died a week later of complications due to 
	childbirth.&nbsp; He lived with his father until he was ten and then his 
	father had to flee Geneva following a duel and move to Lyons.&nbsp; Rousseau 
	was abandoned to his relatives and bounced from place to place.&nbsp; He was 
	apprenticed to a lawyer, that failed, he was apprenticed to an engraver, 
	that failed, and he fled to Italy.&nbsp; He met Madame de Warens there and 
	she introduced him to polite society.&nbsp; He met writers, musicians, 
	philosophers, and began to self-educate.&nbsp; He didn't like much of what 
	he observed.&nbsp; He was both attracted and repulsed by the degraded state 
	of society.</p>
	<p>In Emile, he places himself in the role of tutor and governor to explain 
	how young men should be educated.&nbsp; In this instance, Rousseau intends 
	the pronoun in the limiting sense.&nbsp; The first teacher should be the 
	mother.&nbsp; She should have total control until the age of five or six and 
	then the responsibility shifts to the fathers.&nbsp; He comes down hard on 
	fathers, and in this he is referring to aristocratic fathers and those in 
	wealthy families because poor people don't need an education, life gives 
	them one.&nbsp; </p>
	<p>He says that when &quot;A father, when he engenders and feeds children, does 
	with that only a third of his task. He owes to his species men; he owes to 
	society sociable men; he owes to the state citizens.&quot;&nbsp; &quot;He who cannot 
	fulfill the duties of a father has no right to become one.&quot;&nbsp; This is 
	interesting when you consider that Rousseau and Therese le Vasseur had five 
	illegitimate children, all of whom were placed in care.&nbsp; He didn't 
	raise a single one.&nbsp; The story goes that the woman in charge of the 
	orphanage berated Rousseau for his neglect and he explained that he just 
	wasn't meant to be a father, to which she replied, &quot;Then you must stop being 
	one!&quot;&nbsp; Eventually, late in life he married Therese but that did not 
	mean that he mended his parental neglect.</p>
	<p>What gets to me about this man was that he was right.&nbsp; He was right 
	about education.&nbsp; Education begins before birth, before speaking, 
	before understanding.&nbsp; We know now that this is true.&nbsp; The child 
	starts learning in utero, they already have learned before they are born.&nbsp; 
	With the older child Rousseau observed that reading is a terrible pain for 
	children.&nbsp; They don't want to learn to see Spot run.&nbsp; They 
	couldn't care less.&nbsp; They have other interests and concerns.&nbsp; 
	Rousseau says that [Emile] &quot;must know how to read when reading is useful to 
	him.&quot;&nbsp; I've seen examples in my own teaching.&nbsp; I had a student in 
	the third grade who could not read a word.&nbsp; Then he fell in love.&nbsp; 
	The object of his affections sent him a letter.&nbsp; Now he needed to read!&nbsp; 
	He finished the three pre-primers of first grade, the second grade readers, 
	and the third grade readers in three months.&nbsp; We call that reading 
	readiness today and know that it applies to mathematics as well.&nbsp; Some 
	children, not only because of lack of interest, but also because of 
	maturation level, will not perform just because we specify something in the 
	curriculum.&nbsp; The &quot;No Child Left Behind&quot; initiative is taking us 
	backward and driving teachers into a frenzy of frustration.&nbsp; Rousseau 
	would understand.</p>
	<p>
	<img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/ROUSSE17.jpg" width="450" height="303" align="left" hspace="8">You 
	have to make things interesting if you want to teach a child about anything.&nbsp; 
	If you want to teach them about nature, take them out into the woods, take 
	them out in a boat, let them see, feel, and smell to excite their curiosity. 
	&quot;Make your pupil attentive to the phenomena of nature.&nbsp; Soon you will 
	make him curious.&nbsp; But to feed his curiosity, never hurry to satisfy 
	it.&nbsp; Put the questions within his reach and leave them to him to 
	resolve.&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Let him know something not because you told it to him but 
	because he has understood it himself.&nbsp; ...If ever you substitute in his 
	mind authority for reason, he will no longer reason.&quot;&nbsp; Today we call 
	this &quot;Discovery Learning&quot; and strive to incorporate such experiences into 
	each child's day.&nbsp; And of course you are going to have to discover the 
	truth of it for yourself.&nbsp; </p>
	<p><i>Emile </i>got Rousseau kicked out of France, so he went back to 
	Switzerland.&nbsp; In Switzerland people stoned his home and attacked him in 
	the streets.&nbsp; He renounced his citizenship in Geneva, wanders, and the 
	David Hume offered him asylum in England.&nbsp; Why was there such a furor 
	over the book?</p>
	<p>&nbsp;</p>
	<p>&nbsp;</p>
	<p>&nbsp;</p>
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			He wrote of ideas that were not only challenging to the authority of the 
	government and Catholic Church but were considered scandalously immoral at 
	the time.&nbsp; While such quotes as:</font></td>
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			<p align="center"><font size="+1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/ROUSSE18.jpg" width="450" height="309" lowsrc="Our%20passions%20are%20the%20principle%20instruments%20of%20our%20preservation.%20%20The%20love%20of%20oneself%20is%20always%20good%20and%20always%20in%20conformity%20with%20order.%20%20To%20be%20loved,%20one%20has%20to%20make%20oneself%20lovable."></font></td>
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			may seem tame by our standards, the ideas which underlie them presaged a 
	revolution in social standards and structure.&nbsp; People were taught that 
	they must control, suppress their passions.&nbsp; That self-sacrifice not 
	self-love is the highest goal and that grace and God determine who will be 
	lovable.&nbsp; If that weren't bad enough, Rousseau goes on to say &quot;It is 
	from the moral system formed by this double relation to oneself and to one's 
	fellows that the impulse of conscience is born.&quot;&nbsp; God is not the source 
	of conscience, nature and our sense of self is.&nbsp; &quot;Conscience, 
	conscience!&nbsp; Divine instinct, immortal and celestial voice, certain 
	guide of a being that is ignorant and limited but intelligent and free; 
	infallible judge of good and bad that makes man like unto God;&quot;</font></td>
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	<p>&nbsp;</p>
	<p>
	<img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/lectRousseau2792w.jpg" width="350" height="322" align="right"></p>
	<p>He is reflecting on the destructive force of society when he asks, &quot;If it 
	speaks to all hearts, then why are there so few of them that hear it?&quot; and 
	answers &quot;Well, this is because it speaks to us in nature's language, which 
	everything has made us forget.&quot;&nbsp; We can no longer hear the passions, 
	the compassion, the conscience, or even the goodness of our natural self.&nbsp; 
	We start this at a very young age with children, we teach them not to 
	express their feelings.&nbsp; Boys don't cry, today, yes, but, men have 
	forgotten how.&nbsp; For Rousseau, if you were good you would express your 
	passions and develop a conscience, not because of anything the Church told 
	you, but by nature.</p>
	<p>Rousseau does not speak of religion in his education of Emile.&nbsp; He 
	explains this when he says:</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>&quot;I foresee how many readers will be surprised at seeing me trace the 
		whole first age of my pupil without speaking to him of religion.&quot;<br>
		<br>
		&quot;If I had to depict sorry stupidity, I would depict a pedant teaching 
		the catechism to children. If I wanted to make a child go mad, I would 
		oblige him to explain what he says in saying his catechism.&quot;</p>
		<p>&quot;You must believe in God to be saved.&quot;<br>
		<br>
		&quot;This dogma badly understood is the principle of sanguinary intolerance 
		and the cause of all those vain instructions that strike a fatal blow to 
		human reasoning in accustoming it to satisfy itself with words.&quot;<br>
		<br>
		&quot;Doubtless there is not a moment to lose in order to merit eternal 
		salvation. But if in order to obtain it, it is enough to repeat certain 
		words, I do not see what prevents us from peopling heaven with starlings 
		and magpies just as well as with children.&quot;</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>There doesn't seem to be much doubt as to why the Church would object to 
	those observations.&nbsp; While the <i>Emile</i> was condemned in France and 
	Geneva, only the <i>Social Compact</i> made it to the <i>Index</i> of books 
	banned by the Catholic Church.&nbsp; Perhaps they felt that was sufficient 
	to prevent any of his works from being read.</p>
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			Rousseau did not feel that the responsibility for education ended until 
	the child married and then it would pass on to his wife.&nbsp; She would 
	teach him the passions of life and sexuality.&nbsp; Emile is to marry 
	Sophie.&nbsp; Sophie is given a complementary education to prepare her to 
	guide and support he husband while helping him maintain his individuality 
	and independence.&nbsp;</font></td>
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	<p>&nbsp;</p>
	<blockquote>
		<blockquote>
			<p>&quot;A woman's education must therefore be planned in relation to 
			man.&nbsp; To be pleasing in his sight, to win his respect and love, 
			to train him in childhood, to tend him in manhood, to counsel and 
			console, to make his life pleasant and happy, these are the duties 
			of woman for all time, and this is what she should be taught while 
			she is young.&nbsp; The further we depart from this principle, the 
			further we shall be from our goal, and all our precepts will fail to 
			secure her happiness or our own.&quot;<font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">&nbsp;
			</font></p>
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	<p align="left">
    <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">Rousseau did marry Therese 
	finally.&nbsp; The reason he didn't do so earlier was that, as he said in 
	his confessions, she was boring!&nbsp; So Sophie must be something more.&nbsp; 
	Although Rousseau doesn't use the word, a major part of Sophie's education 
	was to learn how to flirt.&nbsp; This is how she will get Emile to do her 
	bidding.&nbsp; When she has a good idea, she will lead him to think that it 
	was his idea.&nbsp; He was not unsympathetic to the role of women, he says, 
	&quot;Has not a woman the same needs as a man, but without the same right to make 
	them known?&nbsp; Her fate would be too cruel if she had no language in 
	which to express her legitimate desires except the words which she dare not 
	utter.&quot;</font></p>
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	<p align="left">Late in life Rousseau turned down a lucrative job writing 
	book reviews for a newspaper.&nbsp; He said he couldn't write to 
	prescription like a hack, but could only write from passion.&nbsp; And write 
	from passion he did.&nbsp; In 1761, a year before the <i>Social Compact</i> 
	and <i>Emile</i>, he published <i>Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse, </i>a novel 
	that became a big best-seller, probably the biggest best-seller of that 
	century.&nbsp; It went through 70 editions and was in such demand that book 
	sellers resorted to renting it, first by the day and then by the hour, to 
	meet demand.&nbsp; It was a novel about his search for the perfect woman.&nbsp; 
	Now he had been searching, through seven volumes he had been searching.&nbsp; 
	Rousseau was not hesitant to express his passions and to find new challenges 
	for his passion.&nbsp; Before his novel was published he found the company 
	of women, many different women, pleasurable.&nbsp; Both men and women were 
	deeply moved by reading the story of Julie.&nbsp; She died in the 6th volume 
	and people mourned her to the point of hysteria.&nbsp; </p>
	<p align="left">	
	<font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">
	<img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau_(painted_portrait).jpg" width="300" height="397" align="right"></font>Rousseau 
	became an instant celebrity.&nbsp; Although romantic novels existed during 
	that period, it was unusual for the writer to use his or her own name.&nbsp;&nbsp; 
	In one letter written to him by an army officer, the man says &quot;that reading 
	created such an effect on me that I would have gladly died during that 
	supreme moment.&quot;&nbsp; I have never had a book have such an effect on me, 
	and I read a lot!&nbsp; People attributed all of the passion of the novel to 
	Rousseau himself.&nbsp; Women threw themselves at him.&nbsp; They thought 
	that anyone who could write so accurately about their feelings and create 
	such empathy of grief must understand their inner soul.&nbsp; They could not 
	separate the fiction from reality, and to be frank, he was very good 
	looking.</p>
	<p align="left">I tried reading some of <i>Julie </i>in translation.&nbsp; I 
	like romance novels, but I've got to tell you, the action has to come along 
	with the story.&nbsp; Seven volumes!</p>
	<p align="left">The passion with which he wrote came through everything that 
	he wrote.&nbsp; People responded to it even if it seems verbose today.&nbsp; 
	When he wrote the <i>Social Compact</i> people were ready for it and they 
	read much more passion into it than you or I would because they now expected 
	it and as Frankl says we 
	read differently.&nbsp; I bet we do.&nbsp; We want the end of the story by 
	page 5 not by volume 17.&nbsp; </p>
	<p align="left">Rousseau is not known today as a novelist, the only reason
	<i>Julie</i> survives beyond a footnote is because of his political and 
	educational theories.&nbsp; The novel serves to show the complexity of the 
	man.&nbsp; Certainly his own enjoyment of passion is important to the 
	understanding of his view of man and his fellow creatures.&nbsp; But beyond 
	that he had far-reaching influences with his 
	theories.&nbsp; What should we remember from Rousseau?</p>
	<font size="+1">
	<div align=right>	
	<font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">
	<p align="left">
	<img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/lectRousseau2790awend.jpg" width="400" height="300" align="left"></font></font></font><font face="Verdana" size="-1">&#8212;</font><font size="+1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">The 
	noble savage&#8230;that man is by nature good<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is the philosophy that you see in our schools today.&nbsp; 
	John Dewey took up where Rousseau left off.&nbsp; Most everything you see in 
	Dewey is straight out of Rousseau.</font></font></font></p>
	<p align="left">
	<font size="+1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">
	<font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">
	<font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><br>
	</font>
	</font>


</font>
    <font face="Verdana" size="-1">&#8212;</font><font size="+1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">The 
	general will&#8230;<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; If we are unhappy with our government it is probably 
	because it has departed from what we feel in the general will.</font></font></font></p>
	<p align="left">
	<font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><br>
	</font>
    <font face="Verdana" size="-1">&#8212;</font><font size="+1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">The 
	Social Compact&#8230;<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; That we are morally responsible for the state of the 
	social world, if it is corrupt it is because we tolerate it.</font></font></font></p>
	<p align="left">
	<font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><br>
	</font>
    <font face="Verdana" size="-1">&#8212;</font><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité&#8230;<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The cry that led people to storm the Bastille is right 
	out of the <i>Social Compact</i>.</font></p>
	<p align="left">
	<font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><br>
	</font>
    <font face="Verdana" size="-1">&#8212;</font><font size="+1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">Education 
	begins at birth<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And by extension the total responsibility of the 
	parents and the society for shaping that child.&nbsp; No longer can you 
	leave it in the hands of </font></font></font>
	<font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">fate to form or deform the 
	child.&nbsp; If the child is bad, it is because the civil world destroyed 
	what was good.</font></p>
	<p align="left">
	<font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><br>
	</font>
    <font face="Verdana" size="-1">&#8212;</font><font size="+1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">Education 
	should be done according to nature<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Reading and mathematics education must follow the 
	normal development of the child and the child should be involved in the 
	discovery process in order to make a reasoning, logical adult.</font></font></font></p>
	<p align="left">
	<font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><br>
	</font>
    <font face="Verdana" size="-1">&#8212;</font><font size="+1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">Passions, 
	feelings&#8230;<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Controlling the passions and denying their existence 
	warps and destroys what is good in us.&nbsp; We must express and enjoy those 
	feelings so that we may develop a conscience.</font></font></font></p>
	<p align="left">
	<font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><br>
	</font>
    <font face="Verdana" size="-1">&#8212;</font><font size="+1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">Compassion<br>
	&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; He was the first philosopher to propose that we 
	naturally develop compassion and that we nurture it and support it in our 
	children. </font>
	</font>


</font></p>
	<p align="left">
	<font size="-1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">His influence on the United 
	States can be found throughout the writings of the early founders.&nbsp; 
	Read the words of the Declaration of Independence with the Social Compact in 
	mind:</font></p>
	<div align="center">
		<table border="0" width="80%" id="table3" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="8">
			<tr>
				<td><font size="-1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">When in the Course of human events it becomes <u>necessary 
				for one people to dissolve</u> the political bands which have 
				connected them with another and to assume among the powers of 
				the earth, the separate and equal station to which the <u>Laws 
				of Nature</u> and Nature&#8217;s God entitle them, a decent respect to 
				the opinions of mankind required that they should declare the 
				causes which impel them to the separation.<br>
				<br>
				We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are 
				created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
				certain unalienable Rights, that among these are <u>Life, 
				Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness</u>.&#8212;That to secure these 
				rights, Governments are instituted among Men, <u>deriving their 
				just power</u> from the consent of the governed.&#8212;That whenever 
				any Form of Government becomes <u>destructive</u> of these ends, 
				it is the <u>Right</u> of the People to alter or to abolish it, 
				and to institute new Government&#8230;<br></font>
&nbsp;</td>
				<td>
	<img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/SheaFlag161ws.jpg" width="250" height="250"></font></td>
			</tr>
		</table>
	</div>
	
	<p align="left"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
	Then again in the Constitution:&nbsp; We the People of the United States, in 
	Order to form a more perfect <u>Union, establish Justice, insure domestic 
	Tranquility, provide for the common defence</u>, promote the <u>general 
	Welfare</u>, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our 
	Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States 
	of America.</font></p>
	<p align="left"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
	Rousseau died of a stroke on July 2, 1778.&nbsp; Following the French 
	Revolution, his body was moved to the Pantheon in Paris and laid to rest in 
	a crypt.&nbsp; He was and is a national hero to the French and hero to those 
	who benefit from his teachings and the freedom that it engendered.<br>
&nbsp;</p>
	<table border="0" width="100%" id="table4">
		<tr>
			<td>
			<p align="center"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
	<img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/Pantheon_paris.jpg" width="350" height="256"></font></td>
			<td>
			<p align="center"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
			<img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/rousseaucrypt.jpg" width="235" height="411"></font></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>
			<p align="center"><font size="2">Pantheon in Paris</font></td>
			<td>
			<p align="center"><font size="2">Rousseau's tomb</font></td>
		</tr>
	</table>
	<p>
	&nbsp;</p>
	<p>
	&nbsp;</p>
	<p>
	&nbsp;</p>
	<hr width="60%">
	<hr width="40%">
	<p align="left"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
	Following the presentation the audience was invited to examine the three 
	volumes of essays.</font></p>


</font>
    <font size="+1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">
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			<img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/lectRousseau2811fw.jpg" width="441" height="350"></a></td>
			<td>
			<a href="pictures/Rousseau/lectRousseau2830wl.jpg">
			<img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/lectRousseau2830w.jpg" width="300" height="400" lowsrc="Dissertation%20on%20Political%20Economy%20To%20Which%20Is%20Added%20A%20Treatise%20on%20the%20Principles%20of%20Political%20Law%20Title%20Page"></a></td>
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	</table>
	<p align="left"><br>


</font>
    <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-2">Rousseau painted</font><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><font size="+1"><font size=-2 face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"> 
	portrait from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rousseau">Wikipedia</a>, 
	etched portrait from frontispiece of 1797 edition shown above.</font></font><br><br>
	<font size=-2 face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">The photographs of the book may 
	be used freely on non-commercial sites (no advertisements).&nbsp; Please 
	provide a link to this page with the image.</font><br>


	</p>


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          <td width="100%"><blockquote><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><br>

Citation:<br><br>
"Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Father of the French Revolution."&nbsp;  
Summary of a lecture by Grace Denison.&nbsp;  University of Maine at Farmington, November 2, 2005.&nbsp;
Retrieved _______.&nbsp;  &lt;http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/Rousseau.html&gt;.  <br><br>URL:  <a href="http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/index.html">http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/index.html</a>  <br><br>Marilyn Shea, 2005<br><br>

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