human
, which appeared in 1762--curiously enough, the year of the suppression of Jesuitism in France--marked a new era in the history of education, if not in that of feminism. Of Rousseau it might have been reasonably expected as the champion of liberty and equality to carry to their full extent the philosophical venturings of Fénelon and thus to usher in a new era of female emancipation. However, with an inconsistency which is one of his chief characteristics, Rousseau not only deliberately left the female half of mankind out of his scheme for political enfranchisement, but ranged himself among the anti-feminists by the great emphasis he laid on the consideration of a sexual character, which he construed into evidence of female inferiority, by arguing that it makes the subjection of woman a natural law, which is to be respected according to the theory that