Emile, or On Education

Plants are fashioned by cultivation, and men by education. If a man were born large and strong, his stature and his strength would be useless to him until he had learned to use them: they would be harmful to him by preventing others from thinking of assisting him (2); and, abandoned to himself, he would die of misery before having recognized his needs. People complain about the state of infancy; they do not see that the human race would have perished if man had not begun by being a child.

We are born weak, we need strength; we are born lacking everything, we need assistance; we are born stupid, we need judgment. Everything that we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given to us by education.

This education comes to us from nature, from men, or from things.

I wanted to speak here of my mother, and that he said it in some work. This is making cruel fun of Mr. Formey or myself.

(2) Similar to them in exterior, and deprived of speech, as well as the ideas that it expresses, he would be unable to make them understand the need he would have for their help, and nothing in him would manifest this need to them.