years; the acquirement of the power to learn rather than the
acquisition of learning,--in short, the natural and scientifically
progressive rather than the bookish and analytically literary method was
the end and aim of "Émile."

Actually, this book accomplished little in its own time, chiefly because
of its attack on established religion. Influentially, it reappeared in
Pestalozzi, the first practical reformer of methods; in Froebel, the
inventor of the Kindergarten; in Spencer, the great systematizer of the
philosophy of development; and through these its spirit pervades the
whole world of education at the present time.

In Rousseau's "New Héloïse" there are the same contradictions, the same
paradoxes, the same unsoundness as in his other works, but it is more
eloquent than any. It is a novel in which he paints all the aspirations
of the soul, all its unrest, all its indefinite longings, its raptures,
and its despair; in which he unfetters the imagination and sanctifies
every impulse, not only of affection, but of passion. This novel was the
pioneer of the sentimental romances which rapidly followed in France and
England and Germany,--worse than our sensational literature, since the
author veiled his immoralities by painting the transports of passion
under the guise of love, which ever has its seat in the affections and
is sustained only by respect. Here Rousseau was a disguised seducer, a
poisoner of the moral sentiments, a foe to what is most sacred; and he
was the more dangerous from his irresistible eloquence. His sophistries
in regard to political and social rights may be met by reason, but not
his attacks on the heart, with his imaginary sorrows and joys, his
painting of raptures which can never be found. Here he undermines virtue
as he had undermined truth and law. Here reprobation must become
unqualified, and he appears one of the very worst men who ever exercised