Emile or Concerning Education

émile, or On Education is a treatise on the nature of education and on the nature of man written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who considered it to be the "best and most important of all my writings." Due to a section of the book entitled "Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar," émile was banned in Paris and Geneva and was publicly burned in 1762. During the French Revolution, émile served as the inspiration for what became a new national system of education.