L’Éducation
By Frederick William
Dame
Frederick William Dame has an international education (United States
of America, Federal Republic of Germany, Great Britain) with eight degrees (undergraduate, graduate, and post graduate) in
history, English, political science-international relations, political theory, adult education, philology, and cultural relations. Mr.
Dame has educated at graduate and undergraduate levels for the United States Army, the University of Maryland, the University
of Kaiserslautern, the Fachhochschule Trier, and the Technische Akademie Kaiserslautern. In addition, Mr. Dame has been
a regular speaker for the Department of Defense Public Schools, Europe, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, and the Goethe Institut.
He has written and translated books and essays on a variety of topics in the fields of architecture, culture, history,
literature, music, philology, poetry, and politics, among other subjects. Mr. Dame has a number of hobbies. Presently,
he devotes much of his leisure time to the alpine horn.
Detailed, academic research on the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, particularly that of Stephen Ellenburg, Rousseau's
Political Philosophy; Roger D. Masters The Political Philosophy of Rousseau; and James Miller, Rousseau
Dreamer of Democracy, has shown that no pedagogical philosophy can be completely understood without investigating and
learning from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s writings. [1] Indeed, without
education civilization does not exist. Education is the medium for the transmission of civilization’s culture;
its knowledge, skills, and character. Education is the instrument that turns the animal stage into the human stage.
Only through education do human beings differ from animals. Education formulates the connection between the citizen
and the nation-state.
The philosophy of the nation-state, regardless of the system, whether it runs the spectrum of despotism to democratic republicanism,
always seeks to consolidate and imbed itself within the individual so that an allegiance to the fatherland or the motherland,
as well as a desire for the maintenance of the governmental system will emerge.[2] The theory of
education expounded by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the role that education plays in this consolidating connection between citizen
and nation-state are manifest. Indeed, education as revolution is a method of educating adults into the realization
of new, corporate, moral, civil systems as the American Revolution and its aftermath attests proves. Politics and education
are intricately linked to each another in a symbiosis that will guarantee the ever continuance of the corporate civil form.
Education surely has intimacy to the relationship of matters concerning morality, social power, and economic conditions.
The Marxist interpretation claims that education is a means to an end – the indoctrination of revolution to overthrow
any society that is not communist. The Nazi-Fascist interpretation is of the same color: to breed a selected people
for the ultimate and complete destruction of all cultures that are not Nazi-Fascist. Both views miss the point.
Education is a cause in itself. At one and the same time on two different levels that are always in contact with
each other, education is apart from and yet satisfies the needs of the populace. This is why education is necessary:
it facilitates the sociological process whereby citizens become political beings. The achievement of the status of a
political human being is exactly the content-goal that Jean-Jacques Rousseau has in mind when he uses the word education.
This content-goal far exceeds the boundaries that the general concept of education has developed into in our present times.
Education is far more than what is meant by its suggestive and popularly accepted element of "going to school."
The participants in the process of education are those who educate and those who are educated. Both parties have to
understand that the core foundation of education is set with the aforementioned characteristics in mind and the unmistaken
intention it has in the Latin word éducare, meaning to lead out, to bring up, which in turn comes from
the Indo-European deuk-, to lead.[3] In other words,
the root of the process and the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau tell us that when we receive an education we are led
out of a previous situation and brought up to a higher level. Moreover, the higher level is not only one
of mentality, but a higher level socially and politically. Education is an ever-continuing process that leads
forth from one level to another, higher and better level. Explicitly, éducation is the process of bringing
up and coming forth of leaders in society. The word education is political from the very beginning of its word root
deuk- as some of the offspring and subsequent developed family words like doge, ducal, ducat,
duchess, duchy, duke, attest.
Education was originally and primarily associated with elites who led society. At no place in his writings does
Jean-Jacques use any other word to convey what he means by éducation.[4] The word remains
the same throughout his complete works and throughout his life. Rousseau definitely does not mean the words enseigner
or apprendre. In English, both mean to teach. They cannot in any degree of stretching their meaning attain
the intent behind élever to elevate in the sense of éducation. To teach is of an
exceedingly lesser stature. To teach means to impart knowledge or skill; to give instruction to;
to provide knowledge of; to instruct in; to cause to learn by example or experience. All of these
meanings derive from the Latin dicere meaning to say, to tell, to proclaim, the ultimate origin of which is
the Indo-European word root stem deik- , meaning to show, to pronounce solemnly.[5]
Rousseau's goal in éducation is what we can term a real education, an éducation véritable, an éducation naturelle,
an éducation authentique. This means that Èmile is to learn how to go forth in life and live according to the
moral dictates of his own moral conscience. In no way whatsoever does Rousseau intend that Émile receive
a leçon, a teaching. Rousseau’s intent is simple. As he is pervasively concerned with
the original state of matters, Jean-Jacques Rousseau means that an original éducation is as much élever in the
political and sociological sense as it is in the intellectual regard. It is a criminalization of Rousseau’s originality
that modern English speaking peoples, particularly speakers of American English, use the words to educate and to
teach to mean each other without really understanding them or wanting to understand them. They do not have the same
meaning.
For Rousseau, those who received an education were, first of all, children; secondly adolescents; thirdly, adults. The
lackadaisical misuse of the word student has undergone the same, false development process. This word has no
function any more in its relationship to the real meaning because its purpose – particularly as Americans use it –
has metamorphosed into becoming one of raising expectations that cannot meet the qualifications assigned to it by its original
definition. The development is sophomoric and occurs extremely often in the pseudo-intellectual jargon of modern society:
without knowing what the substance evokes, words are used in such a way that a non-organic intent comes to the fore and the
result is that nothing more than commonplace, illogical attitudes and conceptions result. In the United States of America, particularly in urban areas and heavily populated areas like California, any person at any age whatever who goes to an institution
using the nomenclature school to learn something is a student. It is not uncommon for little children,
still babies or just out of the baby age, between two and four years old to be called play group students. When
they are finished with their play-group student days, they go through a graduation ceremony and enter kindergarten
as kindergarten students; then they become grade school students; then they advance on to the
level of junior high school students; then they attain the status of being high school students;
then the ultimata ratio is that they undertake a further stem on the pedagogical false road of rising expectations
to become a student at college, which in the United States of America is often interchanged at will with university
and vice-versa. Students, students everywhere, and no one stops to think. Students, students throughout the length and
breadth of the land, and no one really knows that the original meaning and the modern use do not really sync.[6] This is part of the
problem with the American educational system. The participants are not named what they are. The result is a misjudgment
of values and false impression of status. They are falsely led to believe in a revolution of rising expectations.
Why not call child playgroup participants toddlers (?) because that is what they do! Why not refer to those children
attending a kindergarten as pre-schoolers (?), because that is where they are! Why not name those who are in
grade school grade schoolers (?) or at most pupils (?) because as the Latin says, they are pupus (boy)
and pupa (girl)![7] Why not term those
who attend the next level, junior high schoolers, or junior high school pupils (?) because that is where
they are and what they are! Finally, why not designate those youth who go to a high school as being high schoolers,
or at best, __th graders or pre-students (?) because that is what they really are! The only exception
can be those who are child geniuses and do not attend these schools anyway. The author did not become a student until
attending university. The author did not go to college! Student, of course, has its base in Latin studēre
meaning to be diligent, to press forward. Studēre has its likely origin in the Indo-European
word roots *steud- and *teud-, which means to hit.[8] The latter
word root produced the Latin tundere, to hit, from whence we have the words contusion and obtuse, among others.
The subsurface meaning behind study is that there is a concerted application of extreme effort, or one is concerned with an
undertaking intensively. Beginning in the fifteenth century student, and to study were used only with
respect to the undertaking of an advanced degree. In the sixteenth century, they became terms that were used in connection
to the university only. Being concerned with a particular matter, and not connected with a university, like to study
a role in a drama, came into use in the eighteenth century. Historically, and in all dictionaries, the word student
is used and should be used only in conjunction with university, college, or special schools of learning such as
The London School of Economics and Diplomacy, The Chicago School of Law, The Bartlett School of Architecture, etc. The
use of student as a collective nomenclature to refer to all of those concerned with going to a school or college, or
university is an American pedagogical invention of the twentieth century.
What can we learn from this groundwork exercise? Placing the nomenclatures together, a relationship develops that surely
supports Rousseau’s concern with origins and an educational philosophy. The similitude is as follows: éducation,
élève, and étudiant is to education, elevating, and student as leçon, apprendre,
and écolier is to teaching, learning, and pupil. Does this belittle the latter part of the
comparison? Surely not! The intent is to emphasize the very logical difference.
It is in the Rousseauian, socio-intellectual-political sense that éducation became the catalyst that integrated the
Colonial populace into the new, corporate society of American democratic, republican federalism, for it showed with diligent
pursuit that through universal education – in the long run even for minorities – the complete society
can raise the level of the political awareness for their own and future generations.
Rousseau’s Plan
In Émile, Jean-Jacques Rousseau presents a plan for developing the individual according to philosophical precepts focused
on experience and sensations. There is practically no regard paid to pedagogical training according to the whims of
society. The pedagogical argumentation is that if individuals are educated in accordance with man's innate, moral nature,
the outcome will be a change in the worth of modern civilization because the human being’s original nature is good.
It is the influence of society that has corrupted that righteous nature. The development of natural human goodness and
the returning of humans to their natural state is the expedient to the reforming of society. To this end, Émile
offers a plan of education that emphasizes direct contact with the physical world and sets aside education that may be obtained
from books alone.
The pedagogical philosopher places much emphasis on discovery in the child's education. Concurrently, he acknowledges
that the child must develop a well-regulated freedom in order to lead a self-sufficient existence as an adult so that the
new citizen can better enter the social state. The freedom is not anarchy, but a morally and equitably controlled freedom
that will enable the child to come to the recognition that the greatest freedom is self-respect and respect for the morality
and justness of the laws in the new society that he will experience as an adult in the corporate. Truly this is a social
idealism because the real object of the "... étude est celle
de la condition humaine."[9] The reason of the
heart, mind, and soul is the essence of passion that preserves and guards the human condition. "Nos passions sont les principaux instrumens
de nôtre conservation, ... ."[10]
A renovation of the social order
is extremely necessary because under existing conditions (in Rousseau’s age), "... un homme abandonné dès (sic) naissance
à lui-même parmi les autres seroit le plus défiguré de tours."[11] That the process of education plays an
exceedingly important role in the renovation of society is intuitively obvious. "Nous naissons foibles, nous avons besoin de forces; nous naissons dépourvus de tout, nous avons besoin
d'assistance; nous naissons stupides, nous avons besoin de judgement. Tout ce que nous n'avons pas à nôtre naissance
cet dont nous avons besoin étant grands nous est donné par l'éducation. Cette éducation nous vient de la nature, ou
des hommes, ou des choses."[12]
The
education system that cements a country's moral and just, social structure cannot have a complete understanding without including
Rousseau's philosophy. The learning process traces some principles, shows some influence, and records transformations
of his ideas. That way of thinking is not only applicable to the development of the child, but to the continued growth
of the adult citizen, as well. For all who participate in the process of education it is important to realize that when
placed in complementary positions, both education and politics form an active, corporate framework of specific importance.
In that framework is the essence of the relationship between the nature of education and the nature of politics. Without
the interactions of education and politics with each other, it would be impossible for human beings to become political and
it would be impossible for politics to become humane; to possess the necessary degrees of humanity if political undertakings
are to succeed for the betterment of moral, just, human beings, and their moral and just society.
Our now-a-day conception and existence of public schools was not present in Colonial America. Education occurred
in the home, the church, voluntary associations, library companies, circulating libraries, philosophical societies, apprenticeships,
private study, by private tutors, and if the community felt it necessary, small schoolhouses were built in which three to
four classes were schooled in one room and taught by the same teacher at different grade levels. The educative goal
was simply to teach the youth the three Rs: reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmatic.
A fourth R that accompanied them inside and outside of school was religion.
Beginning with the early Puritan Colonists in Massachusetts,
the vehicle of education was the church. The Sunday sermon was the main literary form of education for the congregation.
It was in the Sunday services that the churchgoer could be educated in Biblical teachings, the history of classical literature,
and the history of the church. The pastor always gave immediate feedback on questions of importance. It was a
mixture of voluntary participation and a strong commitment that learning from God’s word was mandatory. If one
did not partake of the weekly Bible classes and Sunday School, where reading and writing were also taught, one would surely
got to purgatory, for according to Romans 13:2, "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power (of God) resisteth the ordinance
of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." Particularly the children were the target
group to be taught the right way because they were the gift from God. They had to be taught how to live correctly and
the proper foundation of the society was the protection of life and property. This was the interpretation that was given
to Romans 13:3, "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil." Thus for the early Pilgrim Colonials the
Bible was the educational and cultural influence that established the social and political foundations of the early communities.
Education was not a matter for civil governments.
Children learned in the home from their parents, first from the mother who taught the children reading from the Bible and
then from the father as he taught his offspring how to till the soil and earn a living. Auxiliary books were Pilgrim’s
Progress (1678-1684) by John Bunyan (1628-1688), The New England Primer (1688-1690) by Benjamin Harris
(flourished 1673-1716) and Divine Songs (1715) by Isaac Watts (1674-1748). From such books, the youth learned
about busy bees, fowl, productive cattle, strong, loyal horses, and the responsibility of humans to Nature and vice-versa
in the cultivation of the soil and the harvest that Nature provided for the upright worker were ever continuing learning processes.
For the non-agricultural professions the youth learned that "Honesty is the best policy."[13] There were
no educational experiments that were conceived by so-called education specialists and funded by quasi-government programs.
If a family was wealthy, enough they would engage a private tutor to educate the sons and daughters in Latin, Greek, mathematics,
accounting, and bookkeeping, arts of science like surveying, and even cultural activities such as music and dancing.
In the middle of the eighteenth century in Quaker Philadelphia, evening schools taught women, blacks, poor people (who did
not have to pay attendance fees) proper English and vocations. Another religious group in Pennsylvania, the Mennonites, maintained their own schools. They still do.[14] Rich families in
the Southern Colonies engaged private tutors to teach their children at an early age. Upon having reached a certain
qualitative education in the classical languages, literature, the sciences, and cultural activities, many times the young
adults were sent to England for a finishing-off education. The offspring who could not afford such a continuing
education could choose from nine Colonial colleges that were not funded by any civil government. Harvard University, for example, was established
by a grant from the General Court of Massachusetts. John Harvard donated up to eight hundred pounds and his private
library of approximately four hundred books to the institution. Financial support came mainly from donations.
Essentially the same development occurred in New Jersey with Princeton
University and Queens College,
now Rutgers University.
No financial assistance was received from a civil government.[15] Future Americans
who could not financially or on their free time afford to get an education always had the opportunity to use libraries (They
normally had excellent books on science, the classics of ancient Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance.), buy
books, which were relatively inexpensive, or join certain conversation groups hosted by a family or personage from the local
community. Philosophical societies like Benjamin Franklin’s Junto, established in Philadelphia
in 1727, or The Literary Republic of George
Rineholt (no dates) founded in Philadelphia
in 1764 were also available. Education in Colonial and later industrial America was never considered to be the responsibility of the local, civil governments
or the national government. By the beginning of the Civil War in 1860, the statistics on schools in the United States of America show that there were approximately
6000 private institutions of learning as compared with 300 public schools. This statistic is somewhat underscored by
an investigation conducted by Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) in 1800. His findings were that only four
out of a thousand Americans were illiterate.[16] The American
citizen belonged to a populace that was exceedingly literate.
Although the education of the populace in the American Colonies cannot be considered a system of learning with
the initiative residing with individual communities and supported by them and the larger political bodies, the Colonial governments,
there is definitely a relationship between education and the daily activities of politics. This relationship is quite
similar in its argumentative elements to the rendition in the section on philosophy and political character identity in
the respective section.
What is the meaning of the word education? A general description is that
education is "The field of study ... concerned with teaching and learning." Dictionary definitions say that it is "The act
or process of imparting knowledge or skill." Alternatively, we read that education is "The obtaining of knowledge through
a process of schooling." as well as "The knowledge or skill obtained or developed by a learning process."[17] These meanings fall in line with most of the definitions of
education, regardless of the dictionary searched. They are superficial, touching only the surface in their ambiguity.
They do not come to the core of the word. Indeed, they take for granted and, of course, presuppose that we already have
in our minds some concept of what the term and process we know as education is. The spectrum of the presupposition runs
from the infinite position that education includes everything that one can learn via written or oral communication, to the
finite position that education is separate, exclusive acts of doing. Such a presupposed concept of education is definitely
quite different from the actual one germane to this work that has been presented above and the delineation that will follow
below.
Regardless of the definition of education, the absolute, necessary ingredients in education are materials and citizens.
A proper organization of materials will activate our senses and give us pleasure. The process of education enables this
sensation because like all processes it provides the participants involved with definite meanings and situations. The
result is that the process of education conveys a value judgment to the communicants involved in the pedagogical procedure.
The educator learns and the educated learn congruently. The communication of a value judgment to the partakers of pedagogical
activity means that education is closely, even ultimately, concerned with the vital, everyday, simple and complex living situations
of humans, who since their appearance on the planet earth, have been political beings producing concrete activities that closely
reflect the values of the family, the group, the clan, the folk, that ultimately converge in the ideology of civilized, politicized
society. Civilized and politicized society is the elevation of humanity and education in theory, and more so in praxis
allows us to partake and become active in the elevation and the transformation of the human experience. Directly proportional
to the quality of that experience of elevation and transformation is the degree to which we become actively and properly involved
in the organization and functioning of political society. Education is only successful in so far as the educator
and educatee mean it to be successful.
Some direct statements relating to the operation of government and society and all matters related thereto will further illuminate
what is behind the surface definitions quoted above and why education’s success is important for the development of
government and society and why the development of government and society is important for education’s success.
1. Education is all-encompassing
and therefore, the normal man and woman can learn written and/or oral word and advance themselves and their co-citizens by
the process of doing.
2. Education contains the capacity to be both citizens politicized
and politics citizenized. As such, education has timeless value because by becoming educated the person is able to become
a profound part of the drama and dream called society more comprehensively than through any other socio-political process.
3. Education is an instrumentality
that provides citizens with an economic status and communicates an accompanying political ideology.
4. Education functions as a forum
to criticize society's values or lack thereof.
5. Education makes people aware of
the ways in which particular social groupings take it upon themselves to seek power and to sustain power over others, oft
times with despotic results.
6. Education is the continual betterment
of executing communication with citizens everywhere.
7. Through education, we have an intimate
access to people’s souls, peregrine cultures, international boundaries, foreign languages, and unfamiliar philosophies.
This important status of education in civilization positively contributes to society's values because it discloses meaning
within a structure of standards and values that are social and provide a definite plan or procedure to ensure the fulfillment
of consciousness. As political beings, citizens function and deliberate out of personally held beliefs in standards
and values. When the beliefs about standards and values change into opinion, new standards and values become established.
An ideology – shared beliefs in a system of standards and values – is never static and consequently, politicization
always undergoes development. Politics is in constant fluctuation. Like politics, which is an on-going process
concerning what matters should be its content, education is ever-occurring experience that is always open to interpretation
about what the contents of education should be. The content of politics and the content of education are extremely important
because they influence and decide the morality of a citizen and society. There is absolutely no doubt that the concerns
of education are the depiction of life in all of its manifest values and varieties. The actual living situation of a
country's citizens, the examination of the structure of the mind, the exploration of the bounds of the organic society, the
expounding of eternal truths, the inquiry into the limits of the human myth, the probing into the spectrum of the human imagination,
the researching and studying of mankind's languages, and the searching into the inner depths of the soul for feeling means
that education is real and tangible. That is why education’s proclamations and echoes can be heard regardless
of the centuries and great geographical distances involved.
The United States of America emerged out of a union of thirteen British
Colonies that became independent by conducting a war of revolution against the Colonial power, Great Britain. The political situation of the American Colonies reflected
the social and economic conditions as they were dependant on the relations with their Mother Country. Herein is situated
the likeness of revolution with education. Revolution is a process of political education because the educational aspect
of revolution is that, like all human activities, it comes into existence and is a reflection of social and economic conditions.
The history of education is always part of the political and ideological history of society. When ideological values
and political beliefs that occur throughout the land clash, the result is revolution; active, violent, and bloody. In
the long run, the success of revolution means freedom and as a pedagogical process revolution is capable of undermining the
restrictions of the power structure. Just as revolution can make one free, so too, can education make one free because
it enables us to make esthetic judgment while including and going behind political standards. Educative investigation
shapes a person’s understanding of history because the responsibility of education lies not only in showing the transactions
and thoughts of past eras, but also in identifying, investigating, and interpreting the ideological and economical confines
of one’s present age, and in making them aware to future generations, and in bringing them to bear upon successive generations.
Forgetting the recent and ancient history means that a country cannot educate its future. If a country cannot educate
for the future, its existence as a political entity and human species is condemned to extinction. To bury the past is
to deny the future. Education is politics and politics is education. They play seminal roles in helping humanity
to save itself. Through education, we know that a people’s past, class, gender, race, creed, and politics are
solemn tenets of art. They are important components and catalysts of human understanding. Once we achieve a functioning
degree of human understanding, we are able to share similar convictions of cognizance concerning virtue and harmony because
we are rationality’s explanation and Nature’s experience.
That the process of education plays an important role in the renovation of society is obvious. It is a fact that can
be traced directly to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. As he demonstrated in great detail in Émile, the real object of
educative concentration is a social idealism; that the "... étude est celle
de la condition humaine."[18] Education deals
with the reason of the mind, the heart, the soul, in short, the essence of passion, and these are the capacities that will
preserve the human condition. "Nos passions sont les principaux instrumens de nôtre conservation, ... ."[19] Furthermore, Rousseau
justifies a renovation of the social order – in actuality revolution – as being extremely necessary because under
existing conditions (in his time in France as well as in the American Colonies), "... un homme abandonné dès (sic) naissance
à lui-même parmi les autres seroit le plus défiguré de tous."[20]
"Nous naissons foibles, nous avons besoin de forces; nous naissons dépourvus
de tout, nous avons besoin d'assistance; nous naissons stupides, nous avons besoin de jugement. Tout ce que nous n'avons
pas à nôtre naissance et ce dont nous avons besoin étant grands nous est donné par l'éducation. Cette éducation nous
vient de la nature, ou des hommes, ou des choses."[21]
Society does not only promulgate positive elements of education. There are also negative educative
practices that can emit from society. For example, there is nothing more dangerous than the negative elements of education
such as neglect of duty and the absence of patriotism. An education and a political system that does not instill in
its citizenry a responsibility for one’s duties to fellow citizens and a respect for the concept of la patrie
is an education and political system that adorns minds and corrupts judgment. It is negative from the start. If
children and citizens are educated in everything except to recognize and execute their duties and to show admiration for their
country with patriotism, then that education is negative. The negative education that future citizens receive promotes
a "... l'inégalité funeste."[22] providing for "...la distinction des talens et par l'avilissement
des vertus."[23] Social injustice reigns in society and dictators and political demagogues who exist in leftist and rightist
political systems will always use this fact to make sure that the people are exploited and subjugated politically and economically.
The best solution away from this course into political oblivion is the institutionalization of democratic republicanism in
which responsibilities and duties, as well as privileges, are divided between the powers of government and the different political
levels of national government, state government, local government, and district government. There is nothing whatsoever
wrong in framing this political course with a healthy sense of patriotism.
Regardless of the political system, it is easier to lead citizens than it is to enlighten and to educate them.[24] Jean-Jacques
underscores this train of thought in the preface to Narcisse, ou l'Amant de Lui-même, emphasizing that the morality
of the common people is not rational, but habitual.
"Car les coutumes sont la morale du peuple; et dès qu'il cesse de les respecter, il n'a plus
de régle (sic) que ses passions... ."[25]
In
this regard, we should not forget that at the close of the Discours sur les Sciences et les Arts Rousseau makes
two supportive, important claims. The first claim is tactical. It says that there are a few philosopher-kings
who are able to take part in and cultivate the sciences and the arts. Rousseau’s argument is that they must be
employed by the State to work for the total welfare of the society. To separate them from possessing political power
and executing responsibility is to condemn society to oblivion. The second claim is revolutionary. It maintains
an assertion of independence vis-à-vis a society that Rousseau condemns. Corrupt societies cannot be redeemed short
of a complete revolution that will reshape society. This is a new relationship based upon mutual responsibility between
the individual as citizen and the authority of the State: the authority of the collective whole.[26]
Frederick William Dame
[1]
See respectively: Ellenburg, Rousseau's Political Philosophy, pp. 27, 130, 139, 208-210, 236,
271-274, and 284-285; Masters. The Political Philosophy of Rousseau, pp. 5, 18-20, 384; and Miller, Rousseau
Dreamer of Democracy, pp. 45, 108, 174-181, 192, which give more supportive and conclusive information.
[2] There is really no difference between fatherland and motherland other than that one is
masculine and appeals to the virility in men to fight and defend their country against enemies, and that the other is feminine
and appeals to the desire to fight for and protect the amenable, delicate, genteel, refined relationships the citizenry have
with their country. [3] William Morris, editor, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston:
1976, p. 1512.
[4] Other words could have been the French language
counterparts of: teaching, instruction, tutoring, tuition, tutelage, direction, guidance, nurture, breeding, development,
inculcation, indoctrination, initiation, discipline.
[5]
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, pp. 1320 and 1151.
[6] The reader and student will understand that sync is an acceptable form of
synchronize.
[7]
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language pp. 1060 and 1532.
[8]
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language pp. 1279 and 1544. An asterisk before an Indo-European
word root or word stem means that linguists have reconstructed the nomenclature.
[9] Émile, Oeuvres Complètes, Vol. IV, p.
252. ("... investigation is that of the human condition.")
[10] Émile, Oeuvres Complètes, Vol. IV, p.
490. ("Our passions are the principal means of our preservation,
... .") There is controversy concerning what Rousseau means by passions. Synonyms range from the negative
side of the word-meaning spectrum with rage, anger, temper, tempest rampage, and frenzy to the somewhat neutral
middle zone of ardor, zeal, excitement, desire, hunger, thirst, and lust, to the positive side of the word-meaning
spectrum that includes affection, adoration, love, enthusiasm, keen interest, dedication, desire, fancy, and so on.
Therefore what does Rousseau mean by passions? It is perfectly in accordance with Rousseau’s logic to take
the word passions at face value: they are the complete spectrum of human feeling.
[11] Émile, Oeuvres Complètes, Vol.
IV, p. 245. ("... a man [human being] left to himself
from birth would be more deformed than the rest.”) Sometimes défiguré is translated as being a monster.
This author feels that the limits of poetic license are thus overstretched. The word défiguré means disfigured,
deformed, defaced. When referring to truth, it means perverted.
[12] Émile, Oeuvres Complètes, Vol. IV, p.
247. ("We are born weak; we have need of strength; we
are born destitute of everything; we have need of assistance; we are born stupid; we have need of the capacity to judge.
All that we have not at our birth, but which we need when we are grown, is given to us by education. This education
comes to us from nature, from men, and from things.")
[13] The original quote is Honesty’s the best policy by Miguel de Cervantes
(1547-1603), in Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605-1615), III, 33, page 666. See Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations,
p. 151. In his Farewell Address (1796), George Washington wrote, "I hold the maxim no less applicable to public
than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy."
[14] Consult Louis B. Wright, The Cultural Life of the American
Colonies, Harper and Row, New York: 1957, p. 109, and Carl Bridenbaugh and Jessica Bridenbaugh, Rebels and Gentlemen,
Oxford University Press, New York: 1982, p. 36.
[15] Consult the respective entries in Frederick Rudolph, The American College and
University A History, Vintage Books, New York:
1962.
[16] See Rousas John Rushdoony, The Masonic Character of American Education,
The Craig Press, Nutley, New Jersey:
1979, p. 330. Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours was secretary to the King of Poland, Stanislaw August Poniatowski (1732-1798,
last King of Poland from 1764-1795) and instrumental as a member of the Polish government’s Commission of National Education
that was founded by the king on October 14, 1773. Known by its Polish abbreviation KEN (Komisja Edukacji Narodowej), it is considered the first ministry of education in history. KEN was the educational ministry for the Polish-Lithuania Commonwealth.
Du Pont de Namours was the father of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, the founder of E. I. Du Pont de Nemours and company.
Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours developed strong ties with Thomas Jefferson and it was Du Pont de Nemours idea for the United States to purchase the Louisiana Territory as a way to avoid French troops landing in New Orleans
and starting a war with the young United States of America.
[17]
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, op. cit., pp. 415 and 1512.
[18]
Émile, (P, IV), p. 252. ("... study is that of the human condition.") Rousseau means that the étude
is Emile and his education and the book contains deeper, revolutionary thoughts on educational, political, and social philosophy
that most readers do not recognize.
[19] Émile, (P, IV), p. 490. ("Our passions are the principal
instruments of our preservation, ... .")
[20]
Émile, (P, IV), p. 245. ("... a man left to himself from birth would be more of a monster than the remainder.")
[21]
Émile, (P, IV), p. 247. ("We are born weak; we have need of strength; we are born destitute of everything; we
have need of assistance; we are born stupid; we have need of judgment. All that we do not possess at our birth, but
which we need when we are grown, we obtain by education. We derive this education from nature, or from men, or from
things.").
[22]
Émile, (P, IV), p. 25. ("... fatal inequality.") This is a main theme of the Second Discourse, Discours sur l'Origine de l'Inégalité.
[23] Émile, (P, IV), p. 25. ("... the distinction (on the
basis) of talents and for the humiliation of virtues.")
[24] The terminology political system excludes anarchy which is not
the normal idea of a political system in either the etymological or political sense of the word because an means without
and arkhos means ruler. Anarchy is the condition in which no person occupies a position of power over
another; a condition where no one prevails so as to cause anyone to be subservient to coercive political control or authority.
[25] Narcisse, ou l'Amant de Lui-même, (P, II), p. 971. ("Because customs are the morality of the people; and when they cease to respect them, they have no rule but their
passions ... .")
[26] Marxists-Leninists corrupt Rousseau and use essentially the same phrase,
the collective whole being the bourgeoisie.
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Ellenburg, Stephen. Rousseau's Political Philosophy, Cornell
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John Rushdoony, Rousas The
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