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/. /. E. C. Studies
THE HISTORY OF VISUAL EDUCATION
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Naturalism — Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). — The principle of Naturalism in education, which began to take hold of the public mind in the second half of the XVIII century, through the writings of J. J. Rousseau, was advanced in refutation of the theory of Humanism, according to which literary culture consists in the mere possession of a command of literary forms ; and had for its object also the propagation of the theory so brilliantly and, it may be said, paradoxically advanced by Rousseau in his Emile, of a natural, indirect and progressive education which should develop the natural gifts of each scholar to the utmost.
Emile, incisively defined by Credaro as " a mixture of the true and the false, of Utopia and reality, of paradox and clever truth ", opens with the author's profession of faith, which is to stand as the foundation of the artificial edifice of his educational theories ; theories that are a mixture of brilliant intuitions and Utopian or paradoxical assertions, and betray the lack of moral equilibrium that dominated his poverty-stricken and wandering existence. " Everything that proceeds from the Creator is good ; but everything degenerates in the hands of man ".
In order to carry out the education of his imaginary scholar under the best conditions, Rousseau places him far from towns, which he looks upon as " the tombs of mankind ", and from the intercourse of man, so that the natural gifts of the mind, which need nothing but a rational cultivation to reach their highest perfection, should draw their best possibilities of development from close contact with nature.
The preliminary education must disregard the reasoning powers, not yet sufficiently developed, and be devoted to the exercise of the senses. " The first faculties that are formed and perfected in us are the senses. They are therefore the first to be cultivated, whereas they are just the ones that are either completely disregarded or, at any rate, most neglected.
"... To exercise the senses is not merely to make use of them ; it means to learn by their means, so to speak, to feel, because we cannot touch, nor see nor understand except as we have learnt .„ and such exercise would therefore be mainly negative „.
This negative ideal, which is set forth in violent paradoxes, does not at all exclude education in the usual meaning of the term, but insists that it should be profoundly different from the education in vogue. In one of his letters, written in defence of Emile against the many attacks on his book, Rousseau says :
" I call positive, an education that tends to form the intelligence prematurely and to instruct the child in the duties of a grown man, while I call negative that education that aims at perfecting the organs of knowledge before imparting knowledge itself, and endeavours to prepare the road to reason by a proper exercise of the senses. Negative education does not mean a period of idleness : on the contrary ! It does not endow the pupil with virtues, but protects him from vice ; it does not inculcate truth, but