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certain views from Locke and others, who had previouslywritten on education, does not in the least deteriorate fromits merit ; that, as a system, it is full of faults and im-practicability takes little from its utility. He shows thetrue end of education; and he first explained howchildren ought to be treated like younger men, not asslaves or automata. His success in casting an odiumon the habit of putting infants out to nurse — his ad-mirable aphorism, that children ought to be renderedhappy, since childhood is all of life they may ever know—his exhortations to prepare the pupil to be a man inthe first place, instead of considering him as a noble orgentleman in embryo — are among the most admirableof his principles. Others may regard the work dispar-agingly ; but every parent who in any degree superin-tends the education of his offspring—every mother whowatches over the health and welfare of her babes —willreadily acknowledge the deepest obligations to the authorof “ Emile.”
It fills the soul with bitterness to think that this ad-mirable work, whence generations of men derive wisdomand happiness, was the origin of violent persecutionagainst the author; and, by expelling him from his home,and exposing him bare to the assaults of his enemies, drovehim into a state of mind allied to madness, and devotedhim to poverty and sorrow to the end of his life.
The printing and publishing of the work had beengreatly assisted, not only by the duke and duchess deLuxembourg , but by M. de Malesherbes, a man of knownprobity and kindness of disposition. Rousseau hada quality, belonging to the warm of heart, and un-known to the cold and dull, — that of desiring to confidein, and to be fully known to, those whom he respectedand loved. The benevolent attentions of M. de Male-sherbes, even to the whims and groundless suspicions ofa man who, from his state of health, believed himselfto be dying, and feared to leave his unpublished worksin the hands of enemies, evinced that warmth and truthof sympathy which is the golden treasure of humanl 4