The Romantic Child and Emile Seminar Paper

Total Length: 997 words ( 3 double-spaced pages)

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This is one of the major aspects of Romanticism, a notion that was entirely missing from raising children up to this point.
Book II of Emile describes the educational framework of a child's formative years, most likely from the approximate ages of seven to eleven or twelve, within Rousseau's philosophy. In this theory, education in this stage should take place within the context of personal experiences and interactions with the outside world. The emphasis should be on developing the senses and drawing inferences from them. Book III has the child successfully integrated with the physical world and ready to make a decision regarding his trade, which Rousseau believed was necessary in order for him to search out the appropriate role models and focus on the necessary skills.
Book IV is the section that interests this writer the most. The child is now physically strong and able to carefully observe and interpret the world around him. He is ready for the last part of his education, what Rousseau terms 'sentiment.' "We have made an active and thinking being. It remains for us, in order to complete the being, only to make a loving and feeling being - that is to say, perfect reason by sentiment." (Rousseau, 1979) This is most fascinating because Rousseau is recognizing not only the fact of what we now call emotional intelligence, but the need to be trained in it. In order to socialize a child, he must be taught to acknowledge and understand his own emotions.
In this way he is able to realize when he is behaving inappropriately due to an excessive emotional state, and subsequently to know what to do to avoid this behavior or how to stop it once it has started.
William Stroup's article The Romantic Child discusses in great detail the literature of Romanticism. Stroup focuses on the evolution and modernization of early childhood learning theories and relational interactions between the child and his parents, peers, and society. His take on this period is that the three most important themes of Romanticism are nature, innocence, and individuality, three aspects that could be said to embody Rousseau's philosophy of childhood. Frances Ferguson (Winter 2003) tells us that romanticism was a revolt against the aristocratic and political norms of the time and a reaction against the scientific rationalism of nature. This incredible worldview gave birth to thee Romantic child, and allowed him to take advantage of his youth and focus on living in a state of intuition, imagination, and feeling, for the first time in history......

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"The Romantic Child And Emile", 02 May 2011, Accessed.15 May. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/romantic-child-emile-14320