Sophie Woman

Sophie- Woman’s Education According To Rousseau An Essay, Research Paper

Woman’s Education According to Rousseau and WollstonecraftGive, without scruples, a woman’s education to women, see to it thatthey love the cares of their sex, that they possess modesty, that theyknow how to grow old in their m nage and keep busy in their house. Jean Jacques Rousseau, EmileThe neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source ofthe misery I deplore. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights ofwomenThe salons of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s day greatly admired his theories,including his advocation of breast-feeding and his concept of naturaleducation. Today he has enormous influence on accepted educationaldoctrines. Rousseau describes his methods in Emile, the story of aboy’s upbringing in natural state. Admiring his sentiment, MaryWollstonecraft applauded Rousseau’s scheme for Emile but deplored theneglect of Emile’s perfect wife, Sophie. Her disappointment inRousseau was a main influence on Wollstonecraft’s best-known work, AVindication of the Rights of Woman. Rousseau outlines his theories forthe ideal education for women in Chapter V of Emile written between1757 and 1761. These so contradict his plan for Emile that it becomesnecessary to place them in the framework of his time and the particularprejudices of Rousseau. Certainly he broke no ground regarding thetopic of women. Nearly a hundred years before Emile, Mrs. Makinpublished An Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen. Inher Serious Proposal to Ladies of 1694, Mary Astell advocated aconvent where serious-minded women might retire for study andcontemplation. In his Essay on Projects , Daniel Defoe suggests anacademy for women where they might study whatever they chose. Heobserves as early as 1697, “We reproach the sex every day with follyand impertinence, while I am confident, had they the advantages ofeducation equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves.”1As women and their education were very popular topics among thefrequenters of the salons, Rousseau was often drawn into theirdiscussions as a consultant. After publication Rousseau realized somerecognition as a spokesman for the rights of people, although there wasa decided rise in the intensity of demands for recognition of women’sstate.2Rousseau describes his passionate feelings for several women in hislife in his Confessions, the first of which was the strange feelings hehad as a boy when Mademoiselle Lambercier punished him. “Who wouldhave believed that the chastisement I received at eight from athirty-year-old girl would have determined my tastes, desires, andpassions for the rest of my life.”3 Having left Protestant Switzerlandfor Catholic France, Rousseau began to meet the women who would supportand influence his work for the rest of his life. One of his firstencounters was with Madame de Warens, whom he referred to as maman,also a convert to Catholicism and an escapee from Geneva. Because ofher support he was able to take part in knowledgeable conversations,philosophical discussions, and intellectual pursuits. From herprivileged position he was able to observe with fraternal pity thepeople whose fate he might have shared. At the age of thirty, Rousseau left Madame de Warens’ residence. Hewished to be accepted in the intellectual circles of the salons, and togain entrance to the Academie des Sciences. He succeeded at theAcademie but failed to be accepted socially at the salons. One of hissponsors, P re Castel, advised, “Since musicians and servants will notsing together with you, change your tactics, and try the women.”4 Hetook this advice and made the acquaintance of several intelligent andinfluential women. According to Claude Fervel in Jean Jacques Rousseau et les femmes,Rousseau’s feelings of inferiority among these women induced hisunnatural attachment to a twenty-three year old servant girl, Th r seLevasseur. “She is so limited,” says Hume, “that she knows neither theyear, the month, nor the day of the week; she is unaware of the valueof money and in spite of all that, she has on Jean Jacques the empireof a nurse over her charge.”5 Certainly Levasseur had some influencein Rousseau’s concept of the ideal woman. Rousseau primarily claimed that “[n]ature has created man happy andgood, but society depraves him and makes him miserable.”6 In theeighteenth century, morality took on a new meaning founded on thenatural goodness of man. Happiness became a right supplanting the ideaof duty. Sensual delights were natural and therefore rational. All ofRousseau’s educational theories derive from his attempt to preservenature’s pure state. His concept of negative education allowed a childto discover for himself and to be punished by the nature he sought todefy. The tutor must not try to reason with the child or showauthority. Books would not be forced on the child; at twelve Emilewould hardly know what to do with a book. Positive education, ordirect instruction, would only begin at approximately the age ofadulthood, and then the studies would be based on the student’s naturalcuriosity. Rousseau stressed utility, the need for teaching thingswith practical applications. This concept of negative education as applicable to women was totallyinconceivable to Rousseau. He viewed women’s options as entirelylimited to the roles of wife and mother. What need would there be toallow her to determine for herself when nature had alreadyphysiologically dictated h