Robinson Crusoe has made a profound impression on readers as
well as on whole cultures. Samuel Johnson, a demanding critic,
gave it the highest praise, "Was there ever yet any thing
written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers,
excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's
Progress?" (1776). Jean-Jacques Rousseau regarded it as "the one
book that teaches all that books can teach." In Emilius and
Sophia: or, A New System of Education (1762), he wanted Emilius
to read only Robinson Crusoe during his formative years, because
it would "guide his development to a state of reason" and teach
him to judge everything by its usefulness. According to John
Robert Moore, Crusoe created not only a new literary form (the
novel), but also a new reading public. Crusoe can also be
appreciated by unsophisticated or novice readers and has even
been memorialized in children's culture by a nursery rhyme: Poor
old Robinson Crusoe! Poor old Robinson Crusoe! They made him a
coat Of an old nanny goat; I wonder