Not only does Locke providean intellectual foundation for Rousseau’s view of the child as an experimenter,we can also see the seeds of Rousseau’s notions of the plasticity of the child’smind
John Locke provides some intellectual foundation in his Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) for Rousseau's Émile (1762) progressive and empiricist perspectives of teaching and learning.
Émile flew offthe shelves in 18th-century Paris. In fact, booksellers found it more profitable torent it out by the hour than to sell it. Ultimately the excitement got too much forthe authorities and Émile was banned in Paris and burned in Geneva
Émile: or On Education was so popular that it was rented out by the hour for additional profit instead of being sold outright. [summary]
When did book rental in education spaces become a business model? What has it looked like historically?
Rousseau’sheretical view was that anything which was outside children’s experience wouldbe meaningless to them, much as Plato, Comenius, and others had warned. Hisinsights had condensed principally out of the prevailing intellectual atmosphereat the time—empiricism, explicated by philosophers such as John Locke. We’lllook at Locke and Rousseau in more detail in Chapter 2.
Just as the ideas of liberty and freedom were gifted to us by Indigenous North Americans as is shown by Graeber and Wengrow in The Dawn of Everything, is it possible that the same sorts of ideas but within the educational sphere were being transmitted by Indigenous intellectuals to Europe in the same way? Is Rousseau's 18th century book Emile, or On Education of this sort?
What other sorts of philosophies invaded Western thought at this time?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who shockedthe world with Émile: or On Education ([1762] 1993).
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Émile, or On Education. Translated by Alan Bloom. 1762. Reprint, Basic Books, 1979. https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile/9780465019311/