The Enlightenment Debate

Enlightenment Debate on Education In John Locke’s Thoughts Concerning Education (1693), he argues that adults should reason with children. Locke states, that children “must be treated as rational creatures” and that they “love to be treated as rational creatures” more than adults think them to be. Locke believes that children understand reasoning as early as they can speak and that they should be raised as so. He believes that using reason early with children is important in their upbringing in order for them to be passionate human beings. Locke also argues that punishment should not be used in education. He states, that teachers only know “the usual lazy and short way by chastisement, and the rod” but it is the “most unfit of any to be used in education” because it does not change a child’s behavior. Lock believes that punishment does nothing as it forces a child to read and stay away from unhealthy food only from the fear of pain. Therefore, Locke believes that punishment is irrational and unreasonable.

He states that reason “is the one that develops with the most difficulty and the latest, and yet you want to use it to develop the earlier ones!”. Rousseau thinks that Locke is wrong because reason is something that is taught to children as they grow up through education and that if children were being raised with reason as an early child then education would be useless. He also argues that if children are taught the use of reason while they cannot understand it; therefore, they are taught how to manipulate, becoming “argumentative and