Emile by Rousseau 1762 Preface
Channel: Age of Enlightenment
Date: 2015-11-13

Emile, or On Education or Émile, or Treatise on Education (French: Émile, ou De l’éducation) is a treatise on the nature of education and on the nature of man written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who considered it to be the "best and most important of all my writings". Due to a section of the book entitled The Creed of a Savoyard Priest Emile was banned in Paris and Geneva and was publicly burned in 1762, the year of its first publication. During the French Revolution, Emile served as the inspiration for what became a new national system of education. 

This historical period had several similar books.
The Vicar of Wakefield, by Oliver Goldsmith 1761
The Creed of a Savoyard Priest, Rousseau 1762
Confessions of a Fair Saint, by Johann Goethe Book VI of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels, Vol. I 1795–1796

The text is divided into five books: the first three are dedicated to the child Emile, the fourth to an exploration of the adolescent, and the fifth to outlining the education of his female counterpart Sophy, as well as to Emile's domestic and civic life.