ABSTRACT
The importance of the education of the very young was recognized by several of the great thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Charles Fourier firmly believes that education must begin at birth. From birth the child should be brought up by the community in the company of all the other children of the phalange. In his system, the child will remain in the care of the phalange until four and a half, when he will become self-supporting. Associative education, says Fourier, in satisfying fully the infant, will relieve the parents, and make two beings contented, who previously were discontented. Fourier repeatedly emphasizes the importance of never changing the passions of infants but rather allowing them full development. Infants will moreover, says Fourier, become manageable by being classed with their fellows. Fourier’s conception of infant education is rather limited and narrow, and his account is hardly comprehensive. Nevertheless his ideas are interesting and suggestive.
