the respect due to Holy
Scripture and the traditions of the Church, erroneous, impious,
blasphemous, and heretical."

In those days, such a condemnation was a serious matter; its
consequences to an author might be terrible. Rousseau had barely time
to flee. His arrest was decreed by the parliament of Paris, and his
book was burned by the executioner. A few years before this, the
author would have run the risk of being burned with his book.

As a fugitive, Rousseau did not find a safe retreat even in his own
country. He was obliged to leave Geneva, where his book was also
condemned, and Berne, where he had sought refuge, but whence he was
driven by intolerance. He owed it to the protection of Lord Keith,
governor of Neufchatel, a principality belonging to the King of
Prussia, that he lived for some time in peace in the little town of
Motiers in the Val de Travera.

It was from this place that he replied to the archbishop of Paris by an
apology, a long-winded work in which he repels, one after another, the
imputations of his accuser, and sets forth anew with greater urgency
his philosophical and religious principles. This work, written on a
rather confused plan but with impassioned eloquence, manifests a lofty
and sincere spirit. It is said that the archbishop was deeply touched
by it, and never afterward spoke of the author of "Emile" without
extreme reserve, sometimes even eulogizing his character and his
virtues.

The renown of the book, condemned by so high an authority, was immense.
Scandal, by attracting public attention to it, did it good service.
What was most serious and most suggestive in it was not, perhaps,
seized upon; but the "craze" of which it was the object had,
notwithstanding, good results. Mothers were won over, and resolved to
nurse their own infants; great lords began to learn handicrafts, like
Rousseau's imaginary pupil; physical exercises came into fashion; the
spirit of innovation was forcing itself a way.

It was not among ourselves, however, that the theories of Rousseau were
most eagerly experimented upon; it was among foreigners, in Germany, in
Switzerland, that they found more resolute partisans, and a field more
ready to receive them.

Three men above all the rest are noted for having popularized the
pedagogic method of Rousseau, and for having been inspired in their
labors by "Emile." These were Basedow, Pestalozzi, and Froebel.

Basedow, a German theologian, had devoted