ature, rushes into an opposite extreme, and
exclaims, "I hate books; they only teach us to talk about what we do
not understand." Then, checked in the full tide of this declamation by
his own good sense, he adds:--

Since we must have books, there is one which, to my mind, furnishes the
finest of treatises on education according to nature. My Emile shall
read this book before any other; it shall for a long time be his entire
library, and shall always hold an honorable place. It shall be the
text on which all our discussions of natural science shall be only
commentaries. It shall be a test for all we meet during our progress
toward a ripened judgment, and so long as our taste is unspoiled, we
shall enjoy reading it. What wonderful book is this? Aristotle?
Pliny? Buffon? No; it is "Robinson Crusoe."

The story of this man, alone on his island, unaided by his fellow-men,
without any art or its implements, and yet providing for his own
preservation and subsistence, even contriving to live in what might be
called comfort, is interesting to persons of all ages. It may be made
delightful to children in a thousand ways. Thus we make the desert
island, which I used at the outset for a comparison, a reality.

This condition is not, I grant, that of man in society; and to all
appearance Emile will never occupy it; but from it he ought to judge of
all others. The surest way to rise above prejudice, and to judge of
things in their true relations, is to put ourselves in the place of an
isolated man, and decide as he must concerning their real utility.

Disencumbered of its less profitable portions, this romance from its
beginning, the shipwreck of Crusoe on the island, to its end, the
arrival of the vessel which takes him away, will yield amusement and
instruction to Emile during the period now in question. I would have
him completely carried away by it, continually thinking of Crusoe's
fort, his goats, and his plantations. I would have him learn, not from
books, but from real things, all he would need to know under the same
circumstances. He should be encouraged to play Robinson Crusoe; to
imagine himself clad in skins, wearing a great cap and sword, and all
the array of that grotesque figure, down to the umbrella, of which he
would have no need. If he happens to be in want of anything, I hope he
will contrive something to supply its place. Let him look carefully
into all that his hero did, and decide whether an