Jean Jacques Russo (17 12 ~ 1778) was the most outstanding French enlightenment thinker in the18th century. He has been wandering from place to place all his life without a systematic school education. He has gained profound knowledge through long-term diligent self-study and has written a series of far-reaching works, such as On the Covenant of the People, On the Origin of Human Inequality and On the Social Contract. These works have comprehensively criticized and reformed politics, economy, culture, education and religion in modern society, and promoted the process of world history. Among his many works, especially "Emile", which has been conceived for 20 years and written for 30 years, integrates philosophy, education and literature, puts forward the theory of natural education and shapes new people in the future society. This is a medieval social thriller novel with great internal significance, historical and practical value. Rousseau's theory of nature education includes the following points: 1 Education should conform to nature. In Rousseau's view, human education has three sources, either "from nature", "from people" or "from things". He said, "Our talent and the internal development of organs are a kind of natural education; It is human education, and others teach us how to make use of this development; We get a good experience in things that affect us. This is the education of things. " These three aspects of education are interrelated. If these three different kinds of education conflict with each other in a person, his education is not good; If these three aspects of education are consistent and tend to the same goal, he can get a good education, realize his own goals and live a meaningful life. Rousseau further analyzed and said: "In these three different kinds of education, natural education can't be decided by me at all;" In the education of things, people can be decided by us in some aspects; Only human education is what we can really control. "Therefore, we should take the education of nature as the center, make the education of things and people subordinate to the education of nature, make these three aspects of education match and tend to be natural, and let children enjoy a good education. Rousseau's "nature" refers to human talents and organs, that is, human nature. Therefore, "natural education" is an education that obeys the laws of nature, conforms to the development process of children's nature and promotes the natural development of children's body and mind. Rousseau emphasized: "naturally, children want to look like children before they reach adulthood." In his view, if we interfere with the prejudice of adults and deprive children of their due rights, the result will only disturb the natural order, destroy the laws of nature and fundamentally destroy children. Rousseau believes that education that conforms to nature must also be free education, because the most important natural right of human beings is freedom. Rousseau declared: "A truly free man only wants what he can get and only does what he likes. This is my first basic principle. As long as this principle is applied to children, various educational principles can be derived. " Therefore, he demanded that children's freedom should be respected, that children should enjoy the possibility and conditions of full free activities, and that natural and free teaching methods should be adopted in the teaching process to adapt to children's physical and mental development level and individual differences. 2. Education should cultivate a "natural person". Rousseau's "natural person" has the following characteristics: first, it is not bound by tradition (rank, stage and occupation) and develops according to its nature; Second, independence, self-improvement and independence; Third, it has social adaptability and can bear social responsibility; Fourth, physical and mental development, physical and mental health, with the ability to think independently. 3. Education should pay attention to people's age characteristics. Rousseau divided children's development into four stages on the basis of natural education and his understanding of the natural process of children's development. At each stage, it is required to carry out corresponding and focused education according to the characteristics of children's growth and development, and oppose compulsory education that violates children's characteristics. In the first stage, from birth to 2-year-old education, Rousseau believes that babies begin to receive education from nature from the day they are born. At this stage, the main content of education is physical education. The main task of physical education is to make it develop healthily. Education in this period should give priority to infants' full and free activities. It is in the constant free activities that babies learn the initial knowledge by contacting things around them. The second stage is the education of 2- 12-year-old children, which Rousseau thinks is the "rational sleep" period of children. The child's reason is uncivilized and he is in a state of sleep. Children can only accept images in understanding and cannot form concepts. Therefore, educators should not instill knowledge and morality into children, but should educate the various senses of the body, so that children can accumulate sensory experience of the surrounding things through activities and lay the foundation for developing judgment and forming rationality. The third stage 12- 15-year-old children's education Rousseau believes that children in this period should study extensively and receive labor education, which is the main task of this period, and formal education has begun. Before that, children's nature developed naturally, and now they must start learning. Rousseau asked children to learn "knowledge that is really beneficial to our happiness" and useful knowledge, that is, knowledge about nature, such as astronomy, geography and physics, rather than humanistic knowledge. Rousseau advocated that children should learn actively through practical observation. He said, "the problem is not to teach him all kinds of knowledge, but to cultivate his interest in learning. When this interest grows fully, teach him the methods of learning knowledge. "In the relationship between learning knowledge and developing intelligence, Rousseau emphasized the importance of cultivating children's ability to acquire knowledge. He believes that what children want is not knowledge, but judgment. He also stressed that children should have the ability to learn and think independently. The fourth stage,15-Adult Education Rousseau believes that the main task of this stage of education is to educate children in morality, including cultivating good feelings, correct judgments and good will, and should also begin to learn a lot of humanistic knowledge. Some main features of Rousseau's natural education theory are: 1. Anti-feudalism Rousseau's theory of natural education was put forward to criticize the irrationality of feudal education, expose its disadvantages, put forward the educational purpose of cultivating natural persons, and put forward many new ideas on educational methods, which has very important enlightenment to the development of modern western educational theory. 2. Emphasize that education should be child-centered, respect children's nature, love children, put forward that education should obey the eternal laws of nature, and demand that children be treated as children. 3. Emphasize the important role of activities in learning. Rousseau believes that real teachers should let children move completely freely, fully develop children's senses through activities, enrich their perceptual experience, and serve as the basis of rational activities. Therefore, Rousseau advocated doing middle school, attaching importance to physics teaching, stimulating children's desire for learning and cultivating children's interest. Of course, Rousseau's educational thought also has some shortcomings, such as not paying attention to book knowledge. Therefore, we should critically inherit the beneficial ideas in his thoughts. Nature wants children to look like children before they reach adulthood. If we disturb this order, they will become some precocious fruits, neither full nor sweet, and will rot soon, and we will create some young doctors and elderly children. "Rousseau said this passage in Emile, which is also very enlightening to our education today. 1, Comenius' principle of natural adaptability, the most important thing is that education must follow the universal laws of nature. Comenius believes that there are universal laws in nature, and man is a part of nature, so human educational activities must adapt to the universal laws of nature. He asked the new school to regard the "order" of nature as "the leading principle to teach all mankind everything". The principle of natural adaptability also includes that education must adapt to children's own "nature", that is, the characteristics of children's physical and mental development. In order to make his struggle to reform feudalism and scholasticism education invincible, Comenius took the universal laws of nature as the theoretical basis of his educational thought and paid attention to the age characteristics of children, which was progressive at that time. However, due to the limitations of the times and classes, Comenius did not understand the essential difference between education and nature, so a far-fetched and mechanical analogy appeared in his exposition. The understanding of children's psychology is also superficial and rough. 2. Comenius believes that comprehensive education must reform the old teaching methods. He accused the school of educating young people in a cruel way and turning the school into a place of terror for children and a slaughterhouse for children's intelligence. Teaching is time-consuming and laborious, and it is extremely incomplete. Not only the teachers are annoyed, but also the students are disgusted. Comenius believes that we should follow the laws of nature and raise teaching to a scientific level. According to the "order" of nature, he put forward five principles of new school teaching, namely, the principle of prolonging life; The principle of simplifying subjects in order to acquire knowledge more quickly; The principle of seizing opportunities and providing knowledge; The principle of developing the mind and making knowledge easy to obtain; The principle of sharpening judgment, so that knowledge can be obtained thoroughly. Comenius discussed these principles in detail. Although the content is too complicated, there are many insights, which reflect the teaching law to some extent. His teaching principles can be summarized as follows: (1) intuitive principle; (2) the principle of consciousness and initiative; (3) The principle of gradual progress; (4) the principle of merger. According to the principle of natural adaptability, Comenius discussed in detail the rules that should be followed in the teaching process, and was the first to put forward a relatively complete teaching principle system, which made great contributions to the teaching reform and established achievements in the history of world education. In fact, Comenius' teaching principle is the summary of predecessors, especially the humanist educator and his own educational practice experience, which has many reasonable factors, so it has been accepted by later generations, and has been enriched, developed and perfected continuously, becoming a valuable educational heritage.