bath
In regard to the "hardening" of the child's body mentioned here, it is interesting to compare the methods of childrearing that Rousseau proposes in Emile with the education that Dr. Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard devised for a feral child discovered in Aveyron in 1800. Instead of gradually habituating him to cold baths, as Rousseau proposes for Emile, Itard made a point of encouraging the wild boy of Aveyron to indulge in warm baths. Instead of giving him simple and unrefined food, Itard tried to cultivate his pupil's taste for sweets and sauces. The difference in their methods can be seen as a direct consequence of the difference in their purposes. Rousseau's purpose is to enable Emile to resist manipulation by others, whereas Itard felt that the only way he could socialize his pupil was to sensitize his appetites so that he would become manipulable. For the story of the wild boy of Aveyron's education, see Harlan Lane, The Wild boy of Aveyron (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Prss, 1979); or see François Truffaut's film The Wild Child.