4/3/12 10:37 PM ROUNDTABLE Vol3No1 Spring 2010 Guillemette Johnston Page 1 of 15 http://spse.us/spse/ROUNDTABLE/Vol3No1Spring2010GuillemetteJohnston.html Vol. 3 No. 1 Spring 2010 THE ROUNDTABLE A Refereed Publication of Scholarly Papers SOCIETY FOR THE PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY OF EDUCATION Discovering the Child’s Mind: Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Contribution to Education Guillemette Johnston DePaul University-Chicago Paper presented at the Annual Conference of The American Philosophical Association- Central Division, Session of the Society for the Philosophical Study of Education, February 18, 2010, Chicago, Illinois, USA Copyright © 2010 by Guillemette Johnston Early in his Confessions[1] Jean-Jacques Rousseau recounts an incident from his childhood that was to remain with him for the rest of his life. Reading it, one can see why Rousseau is credited with being one of the first philosophers to understand the world of children. When Rousseau writes about being wrongly accused of breaking a comb, he confronts his audience with a cunning strategy that leads readers to overlook the remarkable literary craft he employs. In recreating this crucial incident, Rousseau takes the reader into the very intricate labyrinth that separates the adult’s mind from the mind of the child. Though Rousseau’s Confessions is autobiographical, and so by logic limits its