In the beginning of Emile,  Rousseau writes:

“We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man’s estate, is the gift of education. This education comes to us from nature, from men, or from things. The inner growth of our organs and faculties is the education of nature, the use we learn to make of this growth is the education of men, what we gain by our experience of our surroundings is the education of things” (1).

At birth we are small and weak, incapable of doing nearly anything for ourselves. The  only thing that helps us grow is education. Education is what makes it possible for us to grow not just in size but in intellect.

In Frankenstein, we see two examples of what happens when a subject receives too much of one certain type of education. Rousseau says that “education come to us from nature, from men, or from things… If their teaching conflicts, the scholar is ill-educated and will never be at peace with himself. ”

In Dr. Frankenstein, we see a man who is increasingly influenced by the education of man and his knowledge of the nature around him. “From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation (Frankenstein Vol. I, Ch III).”

Dr. Frankenstein’s obsession with the knowledge of nature through the education of man created an imbalance in hi education which resulted in his abnormal plans to create and eventually bring to life a creature against the norms of nature.

As Rousseau writes, “God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil. He forces one soil to yield the products of another, one tree to bear another’s fruit (1). ” BY creating the monster, Dr. Frankenstein clearly goes against the norms of nature and against the education of nature by giving the monster limbs and organs that did not grow for his creation. As we can see here, from the beginning, the monster was destined to failure because his education through nature was manipulated right from the beginning. Although he did live most of his time out in the wild, he was unable to attain a proper education by man due to his abnormalities. Yes, its true that he was able to learn to speak and read like us, but because he lacked human interaction, he was unable to  know what to do with the emotions within himself.