Emile, or On Education

“Rousseau imagines himself the tutor of an ordinary boy, Emile, and follows him from birth to marriage, to show how a man might be raised according to nature rather than against it: free of swaddling and of books in childhood, taught by things rather than words, given a trade, led to religion through the conscience in the 'Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar' — and at last given a companion, Sophie.”