is a good teacher. “Look for someone who knows out to discreetly train him in good manners”, Locke writes, “entrust him to his hands, so that as much as possible he may guarantee his innocence, protect and nourish his sensitivity to what is good, gently correct and root out his bad inclinations and firmly establish in him good habits”.1332

It is in this light that we should view Locke's critique of punishments. which humiliate, and awards, which are materially delightful, and his theory of “natural punishments”. “I do not consider useful for a child corrections where physical pain is somehow a substitute for the shame and sorrow for having done something wrong”. Locke instead considers esteem, or lack of it, approval or disapproval for what has been done as more effective.1333 “The shame of having failed and deserving punishment is the only true support for virtue. At times a warning, an indication, a reprimand, a show of surprise and amazement would be sufficient”.1334

But the most radical turn in education was determined by the appearance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Émile ou de l'education in 1762. Rousseau is the one who has inspired the great far-reaching dimensions of education and pedagogy of the last two centuries.1335 From the countless debates and the

quite diverse interpretations of Rousseau's contributions, we can select some leading motifs which have

made histo ry.

The turning point is the statement which opens Rousseau's masterpiece: “Everything coming

from the hands of the Author of things, is good; and everything degenerates in the hands of

man”.1336 This is the manifesto of what would come to be understood as natural education,

active education focused on man. “We take as our starting point the incontrovertible maxim that

the first motions of nature are always right: originally there is no perversity at all coming from

the human heart; there is no vice at all of which we cannot say how or in what way it has

entered (into the human heart). The only passion natural to man is love of self or self-love taken

in its broad sense. Self love in itself or in reference to us is good and useful”. 1337 “Oh Man!

Your freedom, your power are as extensive as the limits of your natural powers and no further;

all the rest is only slavery, illusion, and prestige”.1338 “There are two kinds of dependence:

dependence on things, which is proper to nature; and dependence on man, which is proper to

society. “Dependence on things, since it does not have moral traits at all, does not damage

freedom and it does not generate vice. Dependence on man, since it is disorderly, generates

every vice and it is mainly because of it, that the master and slave indulged in mutual

depravedness”.1339

What follows naturally is a recognition of the intrinsic, absolute value of “childhood” which

should not be appreciated in terms of adulthood to be achieved but rather as a paradigm of what

the adult state should be, ifcarried out along the development of the original qualities according

to nature. “Humanity has its place in the order of things; childhood has its own place in the

order of human life. We should consider the man in man, and the child in the child. Although,

1332 J. Locke, Some thoughts concerning education, §147 p. 208.

1333 J. Locke, Some thoughts concerning education, §48, pp. 112-113; cf. §§ 43-63, pp. 110-120.

1334 J. Locke, Some thoughts concerning education, §66, p. 78-79, 85, p. 138, 141, 145.

1335 Citations from G. G. Rousseau, Emilio, Complete translation, introduction and notes in Italian by G. Roggerone,

Brescia, La Scuola 1965.

1336 G. Rousseau,Emilio, lib. I, p. 7.

1337 G. Rousseau,Emilio, lib. II, p. 89. “The fundamental principal of every morality about which I have reasoned in all

my writings”, he tells Christophe de Beaumont in an open letter, “and that I have developed in this latest one with all

the clarity I can muster, is that man is naturally good, loves justice and order; that there is no original perversity in the

human heart and that the first motions of his nature are right... I have shown that all the vices we impute to the human

heart are not in fact natural” (J. J. Rousseau, Lettre a C. de Beaumont archevêche de Paris, in Oeuvres complètes. Paris,

Gallimard 1969, pp. 936-936).

1338 G. Rousseau,Emilio, lib. II, p. 75

1339 G. Rousseau,Emilio, lib. II, pp. 77-78.