China and the West

[Rousseau, Jean-Jacques]. Aimi'er. Wei Zhaoji yi. Übersetzung von Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Emile, ou, De l'éducation. [ID D20472].
Wei Zhaoji who introduced Emile in the preface to a Chinese audience, commented that Rousseau's idea of 'returning to nature' not only had brought major changes in eighteenth-century Europe, but that it had offered similarly 'far-reaching inspirations for China in the twentieth century'. Yet though praising Books I through IV of Emile, in which Rousseau expounded his views on how a boy's character should be molded from infancy through early manhood, Wei denounced Book V, in which Rousseau advocated a different form of education for young women. Rousseau's beliefs concerning the education of women, Wei wrote, 'lacked thoroughness and did not acknowledge women's character'. He added that the spirit of Book V, with its unequal treatment of the sexes, was 'contradictory to that of the previous four books', which 'showed reverence for humankind.