Emile is an important work of Rousseau, an outstanding French enlightenment thinker. Written in 1757, it was first published in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in 1762, which caused a sensation in France and some bourgeois countries in western Europe and had a great influence. In this book, Rousseau opposed the feudal education system, and expounded his bourgeois education thought by educating Emile, the educational object he envisioned. This book is divided into five volumes. Rousseau put forward the principles, contents and methods of educating children of different ages according to their age. Such as physical education, sensory education, intellectual education, moral education and love education. This idea of phased education is undoubtedly a great progress, but this method of phased teaching and separation of morality, intelligence and physique is unscientific. Rousseau's educational thought is based on his view of natural humanity. He believes that people are born free and equal; In the natural state, everyone enjoys the rights given by this day. After human beings entered the civilized state, inequality, privilege and slavery appeared between people, thus making people lose their own nature. In order to change this unreasonable situation, he advocated "nature education" for children to adapt to the development process of nature, so as to cultivate "new people" in the bourgeois rational kingdom.

Rousseau's so-called nature education is to obey the eternal laws of nature and let people's body and mind develop freely, and its means are life and practice. He advocates the use of physical teaching and intuitive teaching methods, so that children can obtain the knowledge they need from personal experience of life and practice through sensory feelings. Closely related to nature education, Rousseau also advocates educating children on labor and freedom, equality and love, so that they can learn the means of making a living, develop the ability to control freedom and physical strength as soon as possible, and maintain natural habits.