In 1762, Rousseau, published his book <em>Emile</em>, which shook education to its very foundations.
    Rousseau launched the modern era of schooling, teaching, and learning. Beginning with his educational insights and following with practices developed by Johann Pestalozzi, education shifted to a whole new set of assumptions. Truly we could say that man began to think of education from the bottom up. With the belief that man is basically good, education was no longer seen as an instrument to discipline the will, suppress the animal appetites, or save a worthless soul. With the belief that children do not learn like adults, the content, sequence, and the approach to subject matter changed. With a new appreciation for how people learn came a new appreciation for elementary education and the professional training of elementary teachers. With the rise of suffrage and concern for the common man came the notion that practical education could provide social and economic opportunity. Education could also help put man in control of his own destiny. In short, education was seen to begin at the bottom, based on the natural and social realities of the world. Man and his practical concerns were the new starting points In the educational quest.
    In the Social Contract Rousseau eloquently expressed his belief that man is naturally born noble and free. Society is artificial. Equality and liberty are the natural rights of man.
    For Rousseau the proper convention or social contract would be one that would preserve the natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A society has the right to overthrow any leader, government, or external power that violates this democratic covenant.
    <em>Emile</em> did for education what the Social <em>Contract</em> did for politics. <em>Emile</em> was a novel, a fictionalized account of how Rousseau would raise an imaginary son, Emile. To educate the child, Rousseau removed him from corrupt society and sent him with a tutor to a rural environment. There he learned from nature. The first words in <em>Emile</em> are as follows: "God makes all things good, man meddles with them and they become evil." According to Rousseau, only by living close to nature can one's natural goodness properly unfold and develop.
    Rousseau's revolutionary educational achievement was the formulation of a developmental psychology. Modern theories of developmental psychology differ from Rousseau's original view, but they owe their beginnings to him. Rousseau's psychology of the individual is a recapitulation theory. In such a theory, the individual's development from birth to adulthood is pictured as comparable to the developmental epochs of civilization. Each individual, in growing up, passes through the basic developmental stages of mankind. For Rousseau these stages were the Animal Stage (birth to age 5 years), a stage marked by the development of sense perception and motor activity; the Savage Stage (age 5 to 12 years), a stage marked by the development of self-consciousness; the Rational Stage (age 12 to 15 years), a stage marked by the development of the powers of reasons; and the Social Stage (15 to 20 years), a stage marked by the development of sexual maturity, social relationships, and moral conscience.
    Developmental stages that unfold according to a natural plan dictate the method, organization, and content of education. Here Rousseau made a radical break from the past—the child was no longer a miniature adult who should learn what adults wan, ted him to learn. The concerns of society did not take precedent over the concerns of the individual. The child's individual nature was the thing of importance. Education should be based on a thorough understanding of the developmental nature of children.
    Questions:

问答题   According to Rousseau, what does a contractual society look like?

问答题   Why is developmental psychology so important in Rousseau's education theory?

问答题   How to understand the sentence "Emile did for education what the Social Contract did for politics"?