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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. 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. He refers
- to this free man as the "noble savage" and sees him and the natural state he
- lives in as good. 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">
- </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.
- Throughout the <i>Compact</i> he says that all will be well as long as the
- government abides by "the general will." He never quite says what it
- is, although he specifies that it is not necessarily the majority. The
- best example that I can think of applied to Maine is that we all want peace,
- we all want prosperity. 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. There would most likely be a "lunatic fringe" that would
- advocate extreme measures but the central core would be an amalgam of other
- positions. The majority might not be right or reflect the "general
- will." </font></p>
- <p><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">According to Charles
- Frankl, a Rousseau scholar from Cornell, "What most immediately appealed to
- Rousseau's generation was his insistence that men's social arrangements are
- the products of human choice..." If they are not, they ought to be.
- 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.
- They were rather unhappy. </font></p>
- </font>
- <p>Rousseau insisted that men must bear the moral responsibility for the
- kind of society they construct or accept. Of course, Rousseau used men
- as the inclusive "mankind", not being barred from sexist language during
- that era. 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. 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 "...<i>The Social Compact</i> was an incitement to
- revolution because it did what a revolutionary book has to do: it
- joined justice and utility, and showed men that their interest and their
- duty were on the same side." "...<i>The Social Compact</i> made
- social change not only a matter of self-interest but a <u>moral obligation
- incumbent upon all</u>." 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. In nature he could choose to
- build a house wherever he wished, but in society he has to defend it.
- He must defend it because there may be somebody else who feels that he has a
- right to it. Rousseau was not a supporter of wealth, property is fine
- as everyone has some and nobody has too much. </p>
- <p>It gets tiresome to constantly defend your property in the state of
- nature. There will be those who are bigger than you are, more able,
- and more aggressive. 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. According to Rousseau, that is how society first came into
- being. When we move from the state of nature to the civil state we
- observe a great change. We can no longer use instinct in our conduct
- and substitute justice. </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. Man is safe in his possessions and property.
- Rousseau placed great emphasis on property and the laws governing property
- as the justification for a society. </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. He could take one sentence and blow it up into three
- chapters. I have never read so flowery a writer in my life. 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> </p>
- </font>
- <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
-
- <blockquote>
- <blockquote>
- <blockquote>
- <blockquote>
- <blockquote>
- <blockquote>
- <blockquote>
- <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>
- </blockquote>
- </blockquote>
- </blockquote>
- </blockquote>
-
- </font>
- <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="0">
- <p> </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. We should be doing things by common agreement.
- Rousseau is not suggesting gamboling elves in a forest glen, but a smoothly
- running society based on justice. 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. 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. He answered with a
- resounding no. He proposed that the development of the arts and
- sciences had promoted inequality, idleness and luxury. He won first
- prize. In 1755, he published his "Discourse on Inequality" in which he
- reflected on the state of society around him. 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.
- 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. It's a fascinating work. He ends it by saying "...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."</p>
- <p>The essay is only about twelve pages long, but it was powerful and
- inflammatory. He is also the first philosopher to assert that
- compassion is in the nature of man. 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. In addition to <i>The Social
- Compact</i> he published <i>Emile, or On Education</i>. This was a
- very productive period for him. A year earlier he had published <i>
- Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse, </i>also a major work. In<i> Emile </i>
- he explores the same theme: "Everything is good as it leave the hands
- of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man."</p>
- <p>To understand Rousseau and his attitude both toward society and toward
- childhood it is instructive to look at his background. 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. He lived with his father until he was ten and then his
- father had to flee Geneva following a duel and move to Lyons. Rousseau
- was abandoned to his relatives and bounced from place to place. He was
- apprenticed to a lawyer, that failed, he was apprenticed to an engraver,
- that failed, and he fled to Italy. He met Madame de Warens there and
- she introduced him to polite society. He met writers, musicians,
- philosophers, and began to self-educate. He didn't like much of what
- he observed. 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. In this instance, Rousseau intends
- the pronoun in the limiting sense. The first teacher should be the
- mother. She should have total control until the age of five or six and
- then the responsibility shifts to the fathers. 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. </p>
- <p>He says that when "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." "He who cannot
- fulfill the duties of a father has no right to become one." This is
- interesting when you consider that Rousseau and Therese le Vasseur had five
- illegitimate children, all of whom were placed in care. He didn't
- raise a single one. 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, "Then you must stop being
- one!" 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. He was right
- about education. Education begins before birth, before speaking,
- before understanding. We know now that this is true. The child
- starts learning in utero, they already have learned before they are born.
- With the older child Rousseau observed that reading is a terrible pain for
- children. They don't want to learn to see Spot run. They
- couldn't care less. They have other interests and concerns.
- Rousseau says that [Emile] "must know how to read when reading is useful to
- him." I've seen examples in my own teaching. I had a student in
- the third grade who could not read a word. Then he fell in love.
- The object of his affections sent him a letter. Now he needed to read!
- He finished the three pre-primers of first grade, the second grade readers,
- and the third grade readers in three months. We call that reading
- readiness today and know that it applies to mathematics as well. 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. The "No Child Left Behind" initiative is taking us
- backward and driving teachers into a frenzy of frustration. 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.
- 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.
- "Make your pupil attentive to the phenomena of nature. Soon you will
- make him curious. But to feed his curiosity, never hurry to satisfy
- it. Put the questions within his reach and leave them to him to
- resolve." "Let him know something not because you told it to him but
- because he has understood it himself. ...If ever you substitute in his
- mind authority for reason, he will no longer reason." Today we call
- this "Discovery Learning" and strive to incorporate such experiences into
- each child's day. And of course you are going to have to discover the
- truth of it for yourself. </p>
- <p><i>Emile </i>got Rousseau kicked out of France, so he went back to
- Switzerland. In Switzerland people stoned his home and attacked him in
- the streets. He renounced his citizenship in Geneva, wanders, and the
- David Hume offered him asylum in England. Why was there such a furor
- over the book?</p>
- <p> </p>
- <p> </p>
- <p> </p>
- <div align="left">
- <table border="0" width="100%" id="table2">
- <tr>
- <td>
- <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
- 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. While such quotes as:</font></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>
- <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>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>
- <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
- may seem tame by our standards, the ideas which underlie them presaged a
- revolution in social standards and structure. People were taught that
- they must control, suppress their passions. That self-sacrifice not
- self-love is the highest goal and that grace and God determine who will be
- lovable. If that weren't bad enough, Rousseau goes on to say "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." God is not the source
- of conscience, nature and our sense of self is. "Conscience,
- conscience! 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;"</font></td>
- </tr>
- </table>
- </div>
- <p> </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, "If it
- speaks to all hearts, then why are there so few of them that hear it?" and
- answers "Well, this is because it speaks to us in nature's language, which
- everything has made us forget." We can no longer hear the passions,
- the compassion, the conscience, or even the goodness of our natural self.
- We start this at a very young age with children, we teach them not to
- express their feelings. Boys don't cry, today, yes, but, men have
- forgotten how. 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. He
- explains this when he says:</p>
- <blockquote>
- <p>"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."<br>
- <br>
- "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."</p>
- <p>"You must believe in God to be saved."<br>
- <br>
- "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."<br>
- <br>
- "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."</p>
- </blockquote>
- <p>There doesn't seem to be much doubt as to why the Church would object to
- those observations. 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. Perhaps they felt that was sufficient
- to prevent any of his works from being read.</p>
- <table border="0" width="100%" id="table5" cellspacing="7">
- <tr>
- <td><font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">
- <img border="0" src="pictures/Rousseau/ROUSSE22.jpg" width="450" height="257" align="left" hspace="8"></font></td>
- <td>
- <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
- Rousseau did not feel that the responsibility for education ended until
- the child married and then it would pass on to his wife. She would
- teach him the passions of life and sexuality. Emile is to marry
- Sophie. Sophie is given a complementary education to prepare her to
- guide and support he husband while helping him maintain his individuality
- and independence. </font></td>
- </tr>
- </table>
- <p> </p>
- <blockquote>
- <blockquote>
- <p>"A woman's education must therefore be planned in relation to
- man. 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. 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."<font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">
- </font></p>
- </blockquote>
- </blockquote>
- </font>
- <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="0">
- <p align="left">
- <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">Rousseau did marry Therese
- finally. The reason he didn't do so earlier was that, as he said in
- his confessions, she was boring! So Sophie must be something more.
- Although Rousseau doesn't use the word, a major part of Sophie's education
- was to learn how to flirt. This is how she will get Emile to do her
- bidding. When she has a good idea, she will lead him to think that it
- was his idea. He was not unsympathetic to the role of women, he says,
- "Has not a woman the same needs as a man, but without the same right to make
- them known? 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."</font></p>
- </font>
- <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">
- <p align="left">Late in life Rousseau turned down a lucrative job writing
- book reviews for a newspaper. He said he couldn't write to
- prescription like a hack, but could only write from passion. And write
- from passion he did. 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. 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. It was a novel about his search for the perfect woman.
- Now he had been searching, through seven volumes he had been searching.
- Rousseau was not hesitant to express his passions and to find new challenges
- for his passion. Before his novel was published he found the company
- of women, many different women, pleasurable. Both men and women were
- deeply moved by reading the story of Julie. She died in the 6th volume
- and people mourned her to the point of hysteria. </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. Although romantic novels existed during
- that period, it was unusual for the writer to use his or her own name.
- In one letter written to him by an army officer, the man says "that reading
- created such an effect on me that I would have gladly died during that
- supreme moment." I have never had a book have such an effect on me,
- and I read a lot! People attributed all of the passion of the novel to
- Rousseau himself. Women threw themselves at him. They thought
- that anyone who could write so accurately about their feelings and create
- such empathy of grief must understand their inner soul. 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. I
- like romance novels, but I've got to tell you, the action has to come along
- with the story. Seven volumes!</p>
- <p align="left">The passion with which he wrote came through everything that
- he wrote. People responded to it even if it seems verbose today.
- 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. I bet we do. We want the end of the story by
- page 5 not by volume 17. </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. The novel serves to show the complexity of the
- man. Certainly his own enjoyment of passion is important to the
- understanding of his view of man and his fellow creatures. But beyond
- that he had far-reaching influences with his
- theories. 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">—</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…that man is by nature good<br>
- This is the philosophy that you see in our schools today.
- John Dewey took up where Rousseau left off. 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">—</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…<br>
- 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">—</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…<br>
- 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">—</font><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité…<br>
- 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">—</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>
- And by extension the total responsibility of the
- parents and the society for shaping that child. 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. 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">—</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>
- 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">—</font><font size="+1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">Passions,
- feelings…<br>
- Controlling the passions and denying their existence
- warps and destroys what is good in us. 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">—</font><font size="+1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font size="+0" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1">Compassion<br>
- 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.
- 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’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>.—That to secure these
- rights, Governments are instituted among Men, <u>deriving their
- just power</u> from the consent of the governed.—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…<br></font>
- </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: 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. Following the French
- Revolution, his body was moved to the Pantheon in Paris and laid to rest in
- a crypt. 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>
- </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>
- </p>
- <p>
- </p>
- <p>
- </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">
- <table border="0" width="100%" id="table1">
- <tr>
- <td><a href="pictures/Rousseau/lectRousseau2811fwl.jpg">
- <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>
- </tr>
- </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). Please
- provide a link to this page with the image.</font><br>
- </p>
- <center><table border="6" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" width="80%" id="decorative" bgcolor="#cccccc">
- <tr>
- <td width="100%"><center><table border="6" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" width="100%" id="credits" bordercolor="#111111" bgcolor="#cccccc">
- <tr>
- <td width="100%"><blockquote><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><br>
- Citation:<br><br>
- "Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Father of the French Revolution."
- Summary of a lecture by Grace Denison. University of Maine at Farmington, November 2, 2005.
- Retrieved _______. <http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/Rousseau.html>. <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>
- </blockquote></td></tr></table></center>
- </td></tr></table></center>
- </td>
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