Of all the French Enlightenment writers Rousseau, Voltaire, and Montesquieu were the most widely read in America.

Of all the French Enlightenment writers Rousseau, Voltaire, and Montesquieu were the most widely read in America. Rousseau's best known work Emile offered the eighteenth century's most advanced ideas on education. When the U.S developed into the country it is today it also founded one of the most advanced educational institutions in the Western world. Yet Emile seems to have had no discernible influence on that development. Prof. Michael Zuckerman will elaborate on this puzzling juxtaposition.