Through a close reading of The Romance of the Forest, this paper argues that Ann Radcliffe was highly influenced by Rousseau on the topic of education, but that unlike Rousseau, viewed women as the enlightened equals of their male counterparts and deserving the same education in reason and morality. The rise of civil society identifies enlightened morality as the essential qualification for citizens for the security and prosperity of society, and education becomes the crucial vehicle for improving human reason and virtue. Through Emile: or on Education, Rousseau prescribes a model of education for “natural man,” endowed with innate morality, to foster the civic virtue necessary for an ideal republican society. The famous section entitled “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar” reveals Rousseau’s philosophical and theological position as anti-philosophe and deist, and La Luc, the Savoyard pastor who functions as his equivalent in Radcliffe’s novel, reveals how closely Radcliffe is working with Rousseau's text. The parallels are striking between the two figures, both religious men who disdain mere emprical science to espouse a higher esteem for sublime nature and the deity who has created such order. Although there is no direct evidence that Radcliffe read Rousseau's Emile, this paper shows how closely Radcliffe echoes Rousseau. Although known to be one of the most decorum-bound female authors of her time, this paper reveals Radcliffe to share the most liberal ideals of her age regarding equality and social compact. Going beyond Rousseau who denied women the same education as men, Radcliffe has her Savoyard pastor instruct his daughter Clara with the same goals as his son Theodore. Adeline, the heroine of the novel, is recognized by La Luc as a figure of true “genius” and the marriage between Adeline and his son presages a most auspicious future for the benefit of the social compact. In Radcliffe's rewriting of Rousseau, the mother of the citizen retakes center stage in the drama of enlightened domesticity where virtuous citizens are born and raised, revealing the Gothic novel to be an enlightened focal point for liberal educational philosophy. More ladylike and discreet than Wollstonecraft, Radcliffe the famously “proper lady” is shown to share the same ideals as the notorious “hyena in petticoats.”