Brooklyn College Library LibGuides Home: HIST 3320: The History of Childhood : Unit 7: John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau

Unit 7 Readings and Assignments Fall 2024

Week 7: John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau

Tuesday, Oct. 8:

Primary Sources:

John Locke, “Some Thoughts Concerning Education.” (Excerpts) https://download.tuxfamily.org/openmathdep/teaching/Education-Locke.pdf
Wiki article on John Locke, “Some Thoughts Concerning Education” provides a good overview

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_Thoughts_Concerning_Education

Thursday, Oct. 10:

Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile or On Education (Excerpts) https://brittlebooks.library.illinois.edu/brittlebooks_open/Books2009-

08/rousje0001emile/rousje0001emile.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), The Vindication on the Rights of Women

Read Chapter XII, “On National Education,” http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/wollstonecraft.html

Discussion Questions:

What does John Locke advocate in his Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)? Do you think it is still important to us?
Do you think Jean Jacques Rousseau Emile, or On Education or Émile, or Treatise on Education (1762) is fundamental to the understanding of the modern child in the West? Do you think his ideas of education were gender neutral? Substantiate your answers with suitable examples.
What role did Mary Wollstonecraft play in envisioning education for women?
The readings for this week are revealing in developing an understanding of modern childhood. What kind of reactions do the readings, including the primary sources, evoke in your mind? Do you think Locke, Rousseau, and Wollstonecraft are important for our understanding of modern childhood?

Read

Primary Sources

John Locke, “Some Thoughts Concerning Education.” (Excerpts)
This E-text is from the edition included in The Educational Writings of John Locke, edited by John William Adamson, published by Cambridge University Press in 1922. This edition was based primarily on the 1693 first print, but it includes most of the passages that Locke added in subsequent prints. For better readability, Adamson slightly modernized the spelling, replacing words like strengthen'd" or "physick" with "strengthened" and "physic", and using lowercase where in the original Print, numerous Nouns had Capitals like in this Sentence.
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
"Some Thoughts Concerning Education." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Jan. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_Thoughts_Concerning_Education
Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile or On Education (Excerpts)
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Jules Steeg, and Eleanor Worthington. Émile, Or, Concerning Education: Extracts Containing the Principal Elements of Pedagogy Found in the First Three Books. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co, 1889. Internet resource.
Emile, or On Education
"Emile, or On Education." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Feb. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) and the Vindication on the Rights of Women.
Steven Kreis. (13 Apr. 2012) Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) and the Vindication on the Rights of Women.
Full Text of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects. New York: Bartleby.com, Inc, 1999. Internet resource. NOTE: Read Chapter XII, “On National Education,” https://www.bartleby.com/144/12.html (Read from para 68 onwards)

Secondary Sources

The Eighteenth-Century Child
Andrew O’Malley. The Eighteenth-Century Child.