Plato's Republic and Rousseau's Discourse on the Arts and Sciences

The role and significance of education with regard to political and social institutions is a subject that has interested political philosophers for millennia. In particular, the views of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, as evidenced in The Republic, and of the pre-Romantic philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, present a striking juxtaposition of the two extremes of the ongoing philosophical and political debate over the function and value of …

…ality of the society for which education -- any modern education -- purports to prepares us? When, "Jealousy, suspicion, fear coldness, reserve, hate, and fraud lie constantly concealed under ... [a] uniform and deceitful veil of politeness," what is left to us to educate citizens for, other than the pleasure we seem to derive in pedantic displays of hoary knowledge? If we remove the civility from "civilization", what remains to us that any education will remedy?