[Illustration: FIG. 163. THE ROUSSEAU MONUMENT AT GENEVA]
So depraved was the age, and so wretched were the educational practices of his time, that, in spite of the malevolent impulse which was his driving force, what he wrote actually contained many excellent ideas, pointed the way to better practices, and became an inspiration for others who, unlike Rousseau, were deeply interested in problems of education and child welfare. One cannot study Rousseau's writings as a whole, see him in his eighteenth-century setting, know of his personal life, and not feel that the far-reaching reforms produced by his Émile are among the strangest facts in history.
THE VALUABLE ELEMENTS IN ROUSSEAU'S WORK. Amid his glittering generalities and striking paradoxes Rousseau did, however, set forth certain important ideas as to the proper education of children. Popularizing the best ideas of the Englishman, Locke (p. 433), Rousseau may be said to have given currency to certain conceptions as to the education of children which, in the hands of others, brought about great educational changes. Briefly stated, these were:
1. The replacement of authority by reason and investigation.
2. That education should be adapted to the gradually unfolding capacities of the child.
3. That each age in the life of a child has activities which are normal to that age, and that education should seek for and follow these.
4. That physical activity and health are of first importance.
5. That education, and especially elementary education, should take
place through the senses, rather than through the memory.
6. That the emphasis placed on the memory in education is
fundamentally wrong, dwarfing the judgment and reason of the child.
7. That catechetical and Jesuitical types of education should be
abandoned.