Emile was prohibited in Paris and Geneva and publicly burned in 1762, the year the book was initially published, due to a portion titled "Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar." Emile was the idea for what would become a new national educational system during the French Revolution.



The essay explores fundamental political and philosophical concerns about the individual-society relationship, namely how the individual might retain what Rousseau considered as innate human virtue while retaining a polluting collectivity. "Everything is good when it leaves the hands of the Author of Things; everything degenerates in the hands of man," the book begins. In The Social Contract (1762), Rousseau attempts to describe a method of education that would enable the natural man, whom he defines, to live in a corrupt society. To show how such an ideal citizen might be educated, he uses the novelistic method of Emile and his instructor. Emile isn't a comprehensive parenting manual, but it does offer some unique parenting suggestions.