ABSTRACT
Immanuel Kant's theoretical interest in questions of pedagogy had been especially aroused by the study of Rousseau's Emile. It is recounted that Kant, who, in later life adhered pedantically to a daily programme, became so absorbed in this novel, that it caused him to miss his habitual walk on the one and only occasion on which this happened. 'I must go on reading Rousseau', the philosopher once stated, 'until the beauty of his language ceases to interfere with the capacity of my reason to judge him'. And on another occasion: 'The first impression that a reader obtains from the writings of J. J. Rousseau is that he combines exceptional perspicacity, the noble ardour of genius and a depth of feeling to an extent probably unparalleled in any other writer'. Kant is particularly enthusiastic about the idea of re-establishing man's genuine, unadulterated nature, and the thesis that man has to learn, above all, how to be his natural self.
