The publication of Émile by Jean Jacques Rousseau was of great impact for the field of Western educational sciences. Even recognizing imagination as the most active faculty in the child, Rousseau clearly linked the overwhelming power of imagination to a state of unhappiness.
“As soon as his potential powers of mind begin to function, imagination, more powerful than all the rest, awakes, and precedes all the rest. It is imagination which enlarges the bounds of possibility for us, whether for good or ill, and therefore stimulates and feeds desires by the hope of satisfying them. But the object which seemed within our grasp flies quicker than we can follow; when we think we have grasped it, it transforms itself and is again far ahead of us. We no longer perceive the country we have traversed, and we think nothing of it; that which lies before us becomes vaster and stretches still before us. Thus we exhaust our strength, yet never reach our goal, and the nearer we are to pleasure, the further we are from happiness.”
The image described by Rousseau was a fruitful trigger for the imagination of his readers. A scenario in which the imagination is potentially good, but whose uncontrol would result in a state of sadness because what was desired would never be achieved. The world of reality “has its bounds, the world of imagination is boundless”, so, concluded Rousseau, “as we cannot enlarge the one, let us restrict the other”. The hopes and fears of imagination are played at this affective extract, and the fear of what cannot be anticipated gains advantage. Within the fear of imagination is the troublemaker child, that child that was close to the mad and the insane, but also close to the sensibility and unreason of women. Indeed, in Emile the reference to the undesirability of an imaginative mind appeared also associated with women. In Rousseau’s book, Sophy fell in love with Telemachus, and this imaginative story made her an “unhappy girl, overwhelmed with her secret grief” and “devoted to her imaginary hero”. The ever-wandering imaginations could be dangerous. The feelings of Sophy were part of an immersive and disorientating imagination, creating a scenario which was in disagreement with the reality and the horizons of possibility of that reality. To avoid a tragic and unhappy ending, Rousseau continues: “Let us give Emile his Sophy; let us restore this sweet girl to life and provide her with a less vivid imagination and a happier fate”.
Why was imagination felt as a fear?
Can you find continuities and discontinuities in terms of considering imagination in relation to children?
CM
A treatise on the nature of education and on the nature of man written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, first published in 1762, in French and, in 1763, in English.
Rousseau talks about imagination in childhood as a cause for unhappiness as it disconnects the child from reality. Imitation, on the other hand, appears as necessary to form habits.
Book II
"In this condition, nature, who does everything for the best, has placed him from the first. To begin with, she gives him only such desires as are necessary for self-preservation and such powers as are sufficient for their satisfaction. All the rest she has stored in his mind as a sort of reserve, to be drawn upon at need. It is only in this primitive condition that we find the equilibrium between desire and power, and then alone man is not unhappy. As soon as his potential powers of mind begin to function, imagination, more powerful than all the rest, awakes, and precedes all the rest. It is imagination which enlarges the bounds of possibility for us, whether for good or ill, and therefore stimulates and feeds desires by the hope of satisfying them. But the object which seemed within our grasp flies quicker than we can follow; when we think we have grasped it, it transforms itself and is again far ahead of us. We no longer perceive the country we have traversed, and we think nothing of it; that which lies before us becomes vaster and stretches still before us. Thus we exhaust our strength, yet never reach our goal, and the nearer we are to pleasure, the further we are from happiness. On the other hand, the more nearly a man’s condition approximates to this state of nature the less difference is there between his desires and his powers, and happiness is therefore less remote. Lacking everything, he is never less miserable; for misery consists, not in the lack of things, but in the needs which they inspire. The world of reality has its bounds, the world of imagination is boundless; as we cannot enlarge the one, let us restrict the other; for all the sufferings which really make us miserable arise from the difference between the real and the imaginary." (pp. 44, 45)
"I know that all these imitative virtues are only the virtues of a monkey, and that a good action is only morally good when it is done as such and not because of others. But at an age when the heart does not yet feel anything, you must make children copy the deeds you wish to grow into habits, until they can do them with understanding and for the love of what is good. Man imitates, as do the beasts. The love of imitating is well regulated by nature; in society it becomes a vice. The monkey imitates man, whom he fears, and not the other beasts, which he scorns; he thinks what is done by his betters must be good. Among ourselves, our harlequins imitate all that is good to degrade it and bring it into ridicule; knowing their owners’ baseness they try to equal what is better than they are, or they strive to imitate what they admire, and their bad taste appears in their choice of models, they would rather deceive others or win applause for their own talents than become wiser or better. Imitation has its roots in our desire to escape from ourselves" (p. 68)
"One cannot learn to estimate the extent and size of bodies without at the same time learning to know and even to copy their shape; for at bottom this copying depends entirely on the laws of perspective, and one cannot estimate distance without some feeling for these laws. All children in the course of their endless imitation try to draw; and I would have Emile cultivate this art; not so much for art’s sake, as to give him exactness of eye and flexibility of hand. Generally speaking, it matters little whether he is acquainted with this or that occupation, provided he gains clearness of sense—perception and the good bodily habits which belong to the exercise in question. So I shall take good care not to provide him with a drawing master, who would only set him to copy copies and draw from drawings. Nature should be his only teacher, and things his only models. He should have the real thing before his eyes, not its copy on paper. Let him draw a house from a house, a tree from a tree, a man from a man; so that he may train himself to observe objects and their appearance accurately and not to take false and conventional copies for truth. I would even train him to draw only from objects actually before him and not from memory, so that, by repeated observation, their exact form may be impressed on his imagination, for fear lest he should substitute absurd and fantastic forms for the real truth of things, and lose his sense of proportion and his taste for the beauties of nature. Of course I know that in this way he will make any number of daubs before he produces anything recognisable, that it will be long before he attains to the graceful outline and light touch of the draughtsman; perhaps he will never have an eye for picturesque effect or a good taste in drawing. On the other hand, he will certainly get a truer eye, a surer hand, a knowledge of the real relations of form and size between animals, plants, and natural objects, together with a quicker sense of the effects of perspective. That is just what I wanted, and my purpose is rather that he should know things than copy them. I would rather he showed me a plant of acanthus even if he drew a capital with less accuracy. Moreover, in this occupation as in others, I do not intend my pupil to play by himself; I mean to make it pleasanter for him by always sharing it with him." (pp. 108, 109)