ABSTRACT
The thought of Rousseau was an articulate response to political, social and economic developments in Europe and the New World; while he stimulated a vigorous stream of educational theorizing, he also heightened awareness of the need for systems whereby new educational ideas could be put into practice. His Considerations on the Government of Poland stressed that properly organized systems of education could promote social change and the common good, form the national character and institutionalize popular government - all attractive ideas to both liberal and radical reformers. When revolution broke out in the United States and France, one of the major concerns of the French revolutionary government, and to a lesser extent the American, was the creation of systems of national education that could implement the new ideals and at the same time secure the republics on a permanent basis. This trend, moreover, spread: Prussia became anxious to create a system of state education, not for revolutionary purposes, but for purely nationalistic reasons; while in other parts of Europe the idea also met with limited success, particularly in Switzerland and Austria; it was resisted in England. Not all the credit should go to Rousseau; while he was the central figure of the revolutionary ethos, his significance lies as much in the stimulus he gave to others. Moreover, it was a two-way process: he drew from his milieu and expressed 243more effectively than anyone else what was being thought by many and, in fact, from the publication of Émile in 1762 until the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 there was a keen interest in national systems.
