Rousseau represents both these streams in his own person. His
sentimentalized egotism and bland sensuality pass belief. His
sensitive spirit dissolves in tears over the death of his dog but he
bravely consigns his illegitimate children to the foundling asylum
without one tremor. In his justly famous and justly infamous
_Confessions_, he presents himself Satan-wise before the Almighty at
the last Judgment, these _Confessions_ in his hand, a challenge to the
remainder of the human race upon his lips. "Let a single one assert
to Thee, if he dare: I am better than that man." But his preachment
of natural and spontaneous values, return to primitive conditions,
was equally aggressive. If anyone wants to inspect the pit whence the
Montessori system of education was digged, let him read Rousseau, who
declared that the only habit a child should have is the habit of not
having a habit, or his contemporary disciple, George Moore, who says
that one should be ashamed of nothing except of being ashamed.
There are admirable features in the schooling-made-easy system. It
recognizes the fitness of different minds for different work; that
the process of education need not and should not be forbidding; that
natural science has been subordinated overmuch to the humanities; that
the imagination and the hand should be trained with the intellect.
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