EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 313 



would feel he was giving them the best education possible in sending 

 them were the College reformed on the principles which form the 

 base of the present proposal.' 1 



De Saussure had small sympathy with the view that looks 

 on education not as a method for forming a mind, but as a means 

 of making a livelihood. In a State where the majority rule, ought, 

 he asked, that majority to be ignorant ? Rousseau's theory of 

 the rights of man had little charm for his ears. He held that men 

 should be taught how to use a vote before they were trusted with 

 one . To hand over political control to an uneducated crowd went, he 

 urged , against common sense . He and his circle of the Upper Town 

 the governing classes looked on the author of the Lettres ecrites 

 de la Montagne as in local politics a disturber of his city's peace. 

 Yet on educational topics de Saussure was affected by the eloquence 

 and adopted not a few of the suggestions of Emile. In elementary 

 education he advocated a system of object-lessons such as he had 

 found serve with his own children ; he proposed to teach natural 

 science with the aid of specimens suited to the age of the learner, 

 to link and give life to history and geography by the aid of 

 maps and pictures, to supply models to illustrate lessons in the 

 industrial arts. For older pupils he recommended a mixture 

 of scientific teaching and classical literature. He claimed 

 for an association in secondary instruction between letters and 

 science. The children destined to manufactures and com- 

 merce the greater proportion of the townspeople got, he 

 held, under the existing system little advantage from their school 

 years. 



Early in 1774 he brought out his Projet de Reforme pour le 

 College de Geneve. In a short preface he tells us that it was the 

 result of a series of discussions in a Literary Society to which 

 he belonged, and that it embodied the view of many of its members. 

 He adds, surely superfluously, to the avowal of the public purpose 

 he has at heart a vigorous assertion that he has no personal end to 

 serve, since it would give him far less trouble to bring up his own 

 children privately than to undertake the thorny task of an educa- 

 tional reformer. 



The first sentences of the pamphlet sufficiently indicate the 



1 Avcrtissement to the Projet de Reforme pour le College de Geneve. 



