Jean Jacques Rousseau, On the Philosophy of Education

Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education. We

are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally unprovided,

we need aid; we are born stupid, we need judgement. Everything

we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are

grown is given us by education. (Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile)

I will say little of the importance of a good education; nor will I stop

to prove that the current one is bad. Countless others have done

so before me, and I do not like to fill a book with things everybody

knows. I will note that for the longest time there has been nothing

but a cry against the established practice without anyone taking

it upon himself to propose a better one. The literature and the

learning of our age tend much more to destruction than to

edification. (Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile)