Émile, or On Education

Across five books Rousseau follows Émile from infancy to marriage, prescribing an education that protects the child's natural goodness from the deforming pressures of civilization. Book IV contains the celebrated "Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar" — a confession of natural religion that scandalized Catholic Paris and Calvinist Geneva alike and forced Rousseau into exile. Book V introduces Sophy, Émile's intended wife, and lays out Rousseau's contested account of women's education. *Émile* is at once a novel, a parenting manual, a religious tract, and the most radical educational experiment ever proposed. Barbara Foxley's 1911 translation.