Emile, or On Education

an Englishman, a Bourgeois; he will be nothing.

To be something, to be oneself and always one, one must act as one speaks, one must always be decided on the path one must take, take it boldly, and always follow it. I wait for someone to show me this prodigy, to know if he is a man or a citizen, or how he manages to be both at once.

From these necessarily opposing objects come two contrary forms of institution: one public and common, the other particular and domestic.

Do you wish to get an idea of public education? Read Plato's Republic. It is not a work on politics, as those who judge books only by their titles think; it is the most beautiful treatise on education that has ever been written.

When people want to refer to a land of chimeras, they name Plato's institution. If Lycurgus had only put his in writing, I would find it much more chimerical. Plato only refined the heart of man; Lycurgus denatured it.

Public institution no longer exists, and can no longer exist; because where