Locke and Rousseau on Education

John Locke, Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

I imagine every one will judge it reasonable, that their children, when little, should look upon their parents as their lords, their absolute governors; and, as such, stand in awe of them: and that, when they are come to riper years, they should look on them as their best, as their only sure friends; and, as such, love and reverence them. . . .We must look upon our children, when grown up, to be like ourselves; with the same passions, the same desires. We would be thought rational creatures, and have our freedom; we love not to be uneasy under constant rebukes and brow-beatings. . .If, therefore, a strict hand be kept over children form the beginning, they will in that age be tractable, and quietly submit to it, as never having known any other: and if, as they grow up to the use of reason, the rigor of government be, as they deserve it, gently relaxed, the father's brow more smoothed to them and the distance by degrees abated: his former restraints will increase their love, when they find it was only a kindness for them . . .

The usual lazy and short way by chastisement, and the rod, which is the only instrument of government that tutors generally know, or ever think of , is the most unfit of any to be used in education. . . .

This kind of punishment contributes not at all to the mastery of our natural propensity to indulge corporeal and present pleasure, and to avoid pain at any rate; but rather encourages it; and thereby strengthens that in us, which is the root, from when spring all vicious actions and the irregularities of life. From what other motive, but of sensual pleasure, and pain, does a child act, who drudges at his book against his inclination, or abstains from eating unwholesome fruit, that he takes pleasure in, only out of fear of whipping? . . .What is it to govern his actions, and direct his conduct, by such motives as these? . . . I cannot think any correction useful to a child , where the shame of suffering for having done amiss does not work more upon him than the pain. . .

As children should very seldom be corrected by blows; so, I think, frequent, and especially passionate chiding, of almost as ill consequence. It lessens the authority of the parents, and the respect of the child: for I bid you still remember, they distinguish early between passion and reason: and as they cannot but have a reverence for what comes from the latter, so they quickly grow into contempt of the former . . .

I will perhaps be wondered, that I mention reasoning with children: and yet I cannot but think that the true way of dealing with them. They understand it as early as they do language.; and, if I misobserve not, they love to be treated as rational creatures sooner than is imagined. It is a pride should be cherished in them, and, as much as can be, made the greatest instrument to turn them by.

But when I talk of reasoning, I do not intend any other but such as is suited to the child's capacity and apprehension. Nobody can think a boy of three or seven years old should be argued with as a grown man. . . When I say, therefore, that they must be treated as rational creatures, I mean that you should make them sensible, by the mildness of your carriage, and the composure, even in your correction of them, that what you do is reasonable to you, and useful and necessary for them; and that it is not out of caprice, passion, or fancy, that you command or forbid them anything.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile (1762) Excerpts from Book II.

To reason with children was Locke's chief maxim. It is even more in vogue today. Its success however does not seem to me strong enough to give it credit; for me I see nothing more stupid that these children with whom people reasoned so much. Of all man's faculties, reason, which is, so to speak, the one composed of all the others, is the one that develops with the most difficulty and the latest, and yet you want to use it to develop the earlier ones! The culmination of a good education is to make a man reasonable, and you claim to raise a child with reason! You begin at the wrong end; you make the end the means. If children understood reason they would not need education. But by talking to them from their earliest age in a language they do not understand you accustom them to manipulate with words, to control all that is said to them, to think themselves as wise as their teachers, to become argumentative and rebellious. And whatever you think you gain from motives of reason you really gain from the greediness, or fear, or vanity, which you are always forced to add to your reasoning.

Most of the moral lessons which are and can be given to children may be reduced to this formula:

Master: You must not do that.

Child: Why not?

Master: Because it is wrong.

Child: Wrong! What is wrong?

Master: What is forbidden to you.

Child: Why is it wrong to do what is forbidden?

Master: You will be punished for disobeying.

Child: I will do it when on one is looking.

Master: We will keep an eye on you.

Child: I will hide.

Master: We will ask you what you were doing.

Child: I will tell a lie.

Master: You must not tell lies.

Child: Why must not I tell lies?

Master: Because it is wrong, etc.

That is the inevitable circle. Go beyond it, and the child will not understand you. What sort of use is there in such teaching? I should greatly like to know what you would substitute for this dialogue. It would have puzzled Locke himself. It is no part of a child's business to know right and wrong, to perceive the reason for a man's duties.

Nature wants children to be children before they are men. If we try to pervert this order we shall produce a forced fruit that will have neither ripeness nor flavor and that will soon spoil. We will have young doctors and old children. Childhood has its ways of seeing, thinking, and feeling that are proper to it. Nothing is less sensible than to try and substitute our ways. I would like no more to require a young child be five feet tall than that he have judgment at the age of ten. Indeed, what use would reason be to him at that age? It is the curb of strength, and the child does not need this curb.