Rousseau takes Émile from his parents and brings him up in antiseptic isolation from the society in which he must later live. Never having brought up children, he does not know that the average child is by “nature” a jealous, acquisitive, domineering little thief; if we wait till he learns discipline without commandments, and industry without instruction, he will graduate into an indolent, shiftless, and anarchic misfit, unwashed, unkempt, and unbearable.
