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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Émile, by Jean Jacques Rousseau
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Émile
+       or, Concerning Education; Extracts
+
+Author: Jean Jacques Rousseau
+
+Editor: Jules Steeg
+
+Translator: Eleanor Worthington
+
+Release Date: November 9, 2009 [EBook #30433]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ÉMILE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Heath's Pedagogical Library--4
+
+
+
+
+ÉMILE:
+
+OR, CONCERNING EDUCATION
+
+
+BY
+
+JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
+
+
+EXTRACTS
+
+_CONTAINING THE PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS OF PEDAGOGY FOUND IN THE FIRST THREE
+BOOKS; WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY_
+
+
+JULES STEEG, DÉPUTÉ, PARIS, FRANCE
+
+
+
+TRANSLATED BY
+
+ELEANOR WORTHINGTON
+
+FORMERLY OF THE COOK COUNTY (ILL.) NORMAL SCHOOL
+
+
+
+
+D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS
+
+BOSTON -- NEW YORK -- CHICAGO
+
+
+
+
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1888, by
+
+GINN, HEATH, & CO.,
+
+In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+
+
+Printed in U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
+
+M. Jules Steeg has rendered a real service to French and American
+teachers by his judicious selections from Rousseau's Émile.  For the
+three-volume novel of a hundred years ago, with its long disquisitions
+and digressions, so dear to the heart of our patient ancestors, is now
+distasteful to all but lovers of the curious in books.
+
+"Émile" is like an antique mirror of brass; it reflects the features of
+educational humanity no less faithfully than one of more modern
+construction.  In these few pages will be found the germ of all that is
+useful in present systems of education, as well as most of the
+ever-recurring mistakes of well-meaning zealots.
+
+The eighteenth century translations of this wonderful book have for
+many readers the disadvantage of an English style long disused.  It is
+hoped that this attempt at a new translation may, with all its defects,
+have the one merit of being in the dialect of the nineteenth century,
+and may thus reach a wider circle of readers.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+Jean Jacques Rousseau's book on education has had a powerful influence
+throughout Europe, and even in the New World.  It was in its day a kind
+of gospel.  It had its share in bringing about the Revolution which
+renovated the entire aspect of our country.  Many of the reforms so
+lauded by it have since then been carried into effect, and at this day
+seem every-day affairs.  In the eighteenth century they were unheard-of
+daring; they were mere dreams.
+
+Long before that time the immortal satirist Rabelais, and, after him,
+Michael Montaigne, had already divined the truth, had pointed out
+serious defects in education, and the way to reform.  No one followed
+out their suggestions, or even gave them a hearing.  Routine went on
+its way.  Exercises of memory,--the science that consists of mere
+words,--pedantry, barren and vain-glorious,--held fast their "bad
+eminence."  The child was treated as a machine, or as a man in
+miniature, no account being taken of his nature or of his real needs;
+without any greater solicitude about reasonable method--the hygiene of
+mind--than about the hygiene of the body.
+
+Rousseau, who had educated himself, and very badly at that, was
+impressed with the dangers of the education of his day.  A mother
+having asked his advice, he took up the pen to write it; and, little by
+little, his counsels grew into a book, a large work, a pedagogic
+romance.
+
+This romance, when it appeared in 1762, created a great noise and a
+great scandal.  The Archbishop of Paris, Christophe de Beaumont, saw in
+it a dangerous, mischievous work, and gave himself the trouble of
+writing a long encyclical letter in order to point out the book to the
+reprobation of the faithful.  This document of twenty-seven chapters is
+a formal refutation of the theories advanced in "Émile."
+
+The archbishop declares that the plan of education proposed by the
+author, "far from being in accordance with Christianity, is not fitted
+to form citizens, or even men."  He accuses Rousseau of irreligion and
+of bad faith; he denounces him to the temporal power as animated "by a
+spirit of insubordination and of revolt."  He sums up by solemnly
+condemning the book "as containing an abominable doctrine, calculated
+to overthrow natural law, and to destroy the foundations of the
+Christian religion; establishing maxims contrary to Gospel morality;
+having a tendency to disturb the peace of empires, to stir up subjects
+to revolt against their sovereign; as containing a great number of
+propositions respectively false, scandalous, full of hatred toward the
+Church and its ministers, derogating from the respect due to Holy
+Scripture and the traditions of the Church, erroneous, impious,
+blasphemous, and heretical."
+
+In those days, such a condemnation was a serious matter; its
+consequences to an author might be terrible.  Rousseau had barely time
+to flee.  His arrest was decreed by the parliament of Paris, and his
+book was burned by the executioner.  A few years before this, the
+author would have run the risk of being burned with his book.
+
+As a fugitive, Rousseau did not find a safe retreat even in his own
+country.  He was obliged to leave Geneva, where his book was also
+condemned, and Berne, where he had sought refuge, but whence he was
+driven by intolerance.  He owed it to the protection of Lord Keith,
+governor of Neufchâtel, a principality belonging to the King of
+Prussia, that he lived for some time in peace in the little town of
+Motiers in the Val de Travera.
+
+It was from this place that he replied to the archbishop of Paris by an
+apology, a long-winded work in which he repels, one after another, the
+imputations of his accuser, and sets forth anew with greater urgency
+his philosophical and religious principles.  This work, written on a
+rather confused plan but with impassioned eloquence, manifests a lofty
+and sincere spirit.  It is said that the archbishop was deeply touched
+by it, and never afterward spoke of the author of "Émile" without
+extreme reserve, sometimes even eulogizing his character and his
+virtues.
+
+The renown of the book, condemned by so high an authority, was immense.
+Scandal, by attracting public attention to it, did it good service.
+What was most serious and most suggestive in it was not, perhaps,
+seized upon; but the "craze" of which it was the object had,
+notwithstanding, good results.  Mothers were won over, and resolved to
+nurse their own infants; great lords began to learn handicrafts, like
+Rousseau's imaginary pupil; physical exercises came into fashion; the
+spirit of innovation was forcing itself a way.
+
+It was not among ourselves, however, that the theories of Rousseau were
+most eagerly experimented upon; it was among foreigners, in Germany, in
+Switzerland, that they found more resolute partisans, and a field more
+ready to receive them.
+
+Three men above all the rest are noted for having popularized the
+pedagogic method of Rousseau, and for having been inspired in their
+labors by "Émile."  These were Basedow, Pestalozzi, and Froebel.
+
+Basedow, a German theologian, had devoted himself entirely to dogmatic
+controversy, until the reading of "Émile" had the effect of enlarging
+his mental horizon, and of revealing to him his true vocation.  He
+wrote important books to show how Rousseau's method could be applied in
+different departments of instruction, and founded at Dessau, in 1774,
+an institution to bring that method within the domain of experience.
+
+This institution, to which he gave the name of "Philanthropinum," was
+secular in the true sense of the word; and at that time this was in
+itself a novelty.  It was open to pupils of every belief and every
+nationality, and proposed to render study easy, pleasant, and
+expeditious to them, by following the directions of nature itself.  In
+the first rank of his disciples may be placed Campe, who succeeded him
+in the management of the Philanthropinum.
+
+Pestalozzi of Zürich, one of the foremost educators of modern times,
+also found his whole life transformed by the reading of "Émile," which
+awoke in him the genius of a reformer.  He himself also, in 1775,
+founded a school, in order to put in practice there his progressive and
+professional method of teaching, which was a fruitful development of
+seeds sown by Rousseau in his book.  Pestalozzi left numerous
+writings,--romances, treatises, reviews,--all having for sole object
+the popularization of his ideas and processes of education.  The most
+distinguished among his disciples and continuators is Froebel, the
+founder of those primary schools or asylums known by the name of
+"kindergartens," and the author of highly esteemed pedagogic works.
+
+These various attempts, these new and ingenious processes which, step
+by step, have made their way among us, and are beginning to make their
+workings felt, even in institutions most stoutly opposed to progress,
+are all traceable to Rousseau's "Émile."
+
+It is therefore not too much for Frenchmen, for teachers, for parents,
+for every one in our country who is interested in what concerns
+teaching, to go back to the source of so great a movement.
+
+It is true that "Émile" contains pages that have outlived their day,
+many odd precepts, many false ideas, many disputable and destructive
+theories; but at the same time we find in it so many sagacious
+observations, such upright counsels, suitable even to modern times, so
+lofty an ideal, that, in spite of everything, we cannot read and study
+it without profit.  There is no one who does not know the book by name
+and by reputation; but how many parents, and even teachers, have never
+read it!
+
+This is because a large part of the book is no longer in accordance
+with the actual condition of things; because its very plan, its
+fundamental idea, are outside of the truth.  We are obliged to exercise
+judgment, to make selections.  Some of it must be taken, some left
+untouched.  This is what we have done in the present edition.
+
+We have not, indeed, the presumption to correct Rousseau, or to
+substitute an expurgated "Émile" for the authentic "Émile."  We have
+simply wished to draw the attention of the teachers of childhood to
+those pages of this book which have least grown old, which can still be
+of service, can hasten the downfall of the old systems, can emphasize,
+by their energy and beauty of language, methods already inaugurated and
+reforms already undertaken.  These methods and reforms cannot be too
+often recommended and set in a clear light.  We have desired to call to
+the rescue this powerful and impassioned writer, who brings to bear
+upon every subject he approaches the magical attractiveness of his
+style.
+
+There is absolutely nothing practicable in his system.  It consists in
+isolating a child from the rest of the world; in creating expressly for
+him a tutor, who is a phoenix among his kind; in depriving him of
+father, mother, brothers, and sisters, his companions in study; in
+surrounding him with a perpetual charlatanism, under the pretext of
+following nature; and in showing him only through the veil of a
+factitious atmosphere the society in which he is to live.  And,
+nevertheless, at each step it is sound reason by which we are met; by
+an astonishing paradox, this whimsicality is full of good sense; this
+dream overflows with realities; this improbable and chimerical romance
+contains the substance and the marrow of a rational and truly modern
+treatise on pedagogy.  Sometimes we must read between the lines, add
+what experience has taught us since that day, transpose into an
+atmosphere of open democracy these pages, written under the old order
+of things, but even then quivering with the new world which they were
+bringing to light, and for which they prepared the way.
+
+Reading "Émile" in the light of modern prejudices, we can see in it
+more than the author wittingly put into it; but not more than logic and
+the instinct of genius set down there.
+
+To unfold the powers of children in due proportion to their age; not to
+transcend their ability; to arouse in them the sense of the observer
+and of the pioneer; to make them discoverers rather than imitators; to
+teach them accountability to themselves and not slavish dependence upon
+the words of others; to address ourselves more to the will than to
+custom, to the reason rather than to the memory; to substitute for
+verbal recitations lessons about things; to lead to theory by way of
+art; to assign to physical movements and exercises a prominent place,
+from the earliest hours of life up to perfect maturity; such are the
+principles scattered broadcast in this book, and forming a happy
+counterpoise to the oddities of which Rousseau was perhaps most proud.
+
+He takes the child in its cradle, almost before its birth; he desires
+that mothers should fulfil the sacred duty of nursing them at the
+breast.  If there must be a nurse, he knows how to choose her, how she
+ought to be treated, how she should be fed.  He watches over the
+movements of the new-born child, over its first playthings.  All these
+counsels bear the stamp of good sense and of experience; or, rather,
+they result from a power of divination singular enough in a man who was
+not willing to take care of his own children.  In this way, day by day,
+he follows up the physical and moral development of the little being,
+all whose ideas and feelings he analyzes, whom he guides with wisdom
+and with tact throughout the mazes of a life made up of convention and
+artifice.
+
+We have carefully avoided suppressing the fictions of the gardener and
+of the mountebank; because they are characteristic of his manner, and
+because, after all, these pre-arranged scenes which, as they stand, are
+anything in the world rather than real teaching, contain, nevertheless,
+right notions, and opinions which may suggest to intelligent teachers
+processes in prudent education.  Such teachers will not copy the form;
+they will not imitate the awkward clap-trap; but, yielding to the
+inspiration of the dominant idea, they will, in a way more in
+accordance with nature, manage to thrill with life the teaching of
+facts, and will aid the mind in giving birth to its ideas.  This is the
+old method of Socrates, the eternal method of reason, the only method
+which really educates.
+
+We have brought this volume to an end with the third book of "Émile."
+The fourth and fifth books which follow are not within the domain of
+pedagogy.  They contain admirable pages, which ought to be read; which
+occupy one of the foremost places in our literature; which deal with
+philosophy, with ethics, with theology; but they concern themselves
+with the manner of directing young men and women, and no longer with
+childhood.  The author conducts his Émile even as far as to his
+betrothal; he devotes an entire book to the betrothed herself, Sophie,
+and closes his volume only after he has united them in marriage.
+
+We will not go so far.  We will leave Émile upon the confines of youth,
+at the time when he escapes from school, and when he is about beginning
+to feel that he is a man.  At this difficult and critical period the
+teacher no longer suffices.  Then, above all things, is needed all the
+influence of the family; the father's example, the mother's
+clear-sighted tenderness, worthy friendships, an environment of
+meritorious people, of upright minds animated by lofty ideas, who
+attract within their orbit this ardent and inquisitive being, eager for
+novelty, for action, and for independence.
+
+Artifices and stratagems are then no longer good for anything; they are
+very soon laid open to the light.  All that can be required of a
+teacher is that he shall have furnished his pupils with a sound and
+strong education, drawn from the sources of reason, experience, and
+nature; that he shall have prepared them to learn to form judgments, to
+make use of their faculties, to enter valiantly upon study and upon
+life.  It seems to us that the pages of Rousseau here published may be
+a useful guide in the pursuit of such a result.
+
+JULES STEEG.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIRST.
+
+The first book, after some general remarks upon education, treats
+especially of early infancy; of the first years of life; of the care to
+be bestowed upon very young children; of the nursing of them, of the
+laws of health.
+
+He makes education begin at birth; expresses himself on the subject of
+the habits to be given or to be avoided; discusses the use and meaning
+of tears, outcries, gestures, also the language that should be used
+with young children, so that, from their tenderest years, the
+inculcating of false ideas and the giving a wrong bent of mind may be
+avoided.
+
+
+
+GENERAL REMARKS.
+
+The Object of Education.
+
+Coming from the hand of the Author of all things, everything is good;
+in the hands of man, everything degenerates.  Man obliges one soil to
+nourish the productions of another, one tree to bear the fruits of
+another; he mingles and confounds climates, elements, seasons; he
+mutilates his dog, his horse, his slave.  He overturns everything,
+disfigures everything; he loves deformity, monsters; he desires that
+nothing should be as nature made it, not even man himself.  To please
+him, man must be broken in like a horse; man must be adapted to man's
+own fashion, like a tree in his garden.[1]
+
+Were it not for all this, matters would be still worse.  No one wishes
+to be a half-developed being; and in the present condition of things, a
+man left to himself among others from his birth would be the most
+deformed among them all.  Prejudices, authority, necessities, example,
+all the social institutions in which we are submerged, would stifle
+nature in him, and would put nothing in its place.  In such a man
+nature would be like a shrub sprung up by chance in the midst of a
+highway, and jostled from all sides, bent in every direction, by the
+passers-by.
+
+Plants are improved by cultivation, and men by education.  If man were
+born large and strong, his size and strength would be useless to him
+until he had learned to use them.  They would be prejudicial to him, by
+preventing others from thinking of assisting him; and left to himself
+he would die of wretchedness before he had known his own necessities.
+We pity the state of infancy; we do not perceive that the human race
+would have perished if man had not begun by being a child.
+
+We are born weak, we need strength; we are born destitute of all
+things, we need assistance; we are born stupid, we need judgment.  All
+that we have not at our birth, and that we need when grown up, is given
+us by education.
+
+This education comes to us from nature itself, or from other men, or
+from circumstances.  The internal development of our faculties and of
+our organs is the education nature gives us; the use we are taught to
+make of this development is the education we get from other men; and
+what we learn, by our own experience, about things that interest as, is
+the education of circumstances.
+
+Each of us is therefore formed by three kinds of teachers.  The pupil
+in whom their different lessons contradict one another is badly
+educated, and will never be in harmony with himself; the one in whom
+they all touch upon the same points and tend toward the same object
+advances toward that goal only, and lives accordingly.  He alone is
+well educated.
+
+Now of these three different educations, that of nature does not depend
+upon us; that of circumstances depends upon us only in certain
+respects; that of men is the only one of which we are really masters,
+and that solely because we think we are.  For who can hope to direct
+entirely the speech and conduct of all who surround a child?
+
+As soon, therefore, as education becomes an art, its success is almost
+impossible, since the agreement of circumstances necessary to this
+success is independent of personal effort.  All that the utmost care
+can do is to approach more or less nearly our object; but, for
+attaining it, special good fortune is needed.
+
+What is this object?  That of nature itself, as has just been proved.
+Since the agreement of the three educations is necessary to their
+perfection, it is toward the one for which we ourselves can do nothing
+that we must direct both the others.  But perhaps this word "nature"
+has too vague a meaning; we must here try to define it.
+
+In the natural order of things, all men being equal, the vocation
+common to all is the state of manhood; and whoever is well trained for
+that, cannot fulfil badly any vocation which depends upon it.  Whether
+my pupil be destined for the army, the church, or the bar, matters
+little to me.  Before he can think of adopting the vocation of his
+parents, nature calls upon him to be a man.  How to live is the
+business I wish to teach him.  On leaving my hands he will not, I
+admit, be a magistrate, a soldier, or a priest; first of all he will be
+a man.  All that a man ought to be he can be, at need, as well as any
+one else can.  Fortune will in vain alter his position, for he will
+always occupy his own.
+
+Our real study is that of the state of man.  He among us who best knows
+how to bear the good and evil fortunes of this life is, in my opinion,
+the best educated; whence it follows that true education consists less
+in precept than in practice.  We begin to instruct ourselves when we
+begin to live; our education commences with the commencement of our
+life; our first teacher is our nurse.  For this reason the word
+"education" had among the ancients another meaning which we no longer
+attach to it; it signified nutriment.
+
+We must then take a broader view of things, and consider in our pupil
+man in the abstract, man exposed to all the accidents of human life.
+If man were born attached to the soil of a country, if the same season
+continued throughout the year, if every one held his fortune by such a
+tenure that he could never change it, the established customs of to-day
+would be in certain respects good.  The child educated for his
+position, and never leaving it, could not be exposed to the
+inconveniences of another.
+
+But seeing that human affairs are changeable, seeing the restless and
+disturbing spirit of this century, which overturns everything once in a
+generation, can a more senseless method be imagined than to educate a
+child as if he were never to leave his room, as if he were obliged to
+be constantly surrounded by his servants?  If the poor creature takes
+but one step on the earth, if he comes down so much as one stair, he is
+ruined.  This is not teaching him to endure pain; it is training him to
+feel it more keenly.
+
+We think only of preserving the child: this is not enough.  We ought to
+teach him to preserve himself when he is a man; to bear the blows of
+fate; to brave both wealth and wretchedness; to live, if need be, among
+the snows of Iceland or upon the burning rock of Malta.  In vain you
+take precautions against his dying,--he must die after all; and if his
+death be not indeed the result of those very precautions, they are none
+the less mistaken.  It is less important to keep him from dying than it
+is to teach him how to live.  To live is not merely to breathe, it is
+to act.  It is to make use of our organs, of our senses, of our
+faculties, of all the powers which bear witness to us of our own
+existence.  He who has lived most is not he who has numbered the most
+years, but he who has been most truly conscious of what life is.  A man
+may have himself buried at the age of a hundred years, who died from
+the hour of his birth.  He would have gained something by going to his
+grave in youth, if up to that time he had only lived.
+
+
+The New-born Child.
+
+The new-born child needs to stretch and to move his limbs so as to draw
+them out of the torpor in which, rolled into a ball, they have so long
+remained.  We do stretch his limbs, it is true, but we prevent him from
+moving them.  We even constrain his head into a baby's cap.  It seems
+as if we were afraid he might appear to be alive.  The inaction, the
+constraint in which we keep his limbs, cannot fail to interfere with
+the circulation of the blood and of the secretions, to prevent the
+child from growing strong and sturdy, and to change his constitution.
+In regions where these extravagant precautions are not taken, the men
+are all large, strong, and well proportioned.  Countries in which
+children are swaddled swarm with hunchbacks, with cripples, with
+persons crook-kneed, stunted, rickety, deformed in all kinds of ways.
+For fear that the bodies of children may be deformed by free movements,
+we hasten to deform them by putting them into a press.  Of our own
+accord we cripple them to prevent their laming themselves.
+
+Must not such a cruel constraint have an influence upon their temper as
+well as upon their constitution?  Their first feeling is a feeling of
+constraint and of suffering.  To all their necessary movements they
+find only obstacles.  More unfortunate than chained criminals, they
+make fruitless efforts, they fret themselves, they cry.  Do you tell me
+that the first sounds they make are cries?  I can well believe it; you
+thwart them from the time they are born.  The first gifts they receive
+from you are chains, the first treatment they undergo is torment.
+Having nothing free but the voice, why should they not use it in
+complaints?  They cry on account of the suffering you cause them; if
+you were pinioned in the same way, your own cries would be louder.
+
+Whence arises this unreasonable custom of swaddling children?  From an
+unnatural custom.  Since the time when mothers, despising their first
+duty, no longer wish to nurse their own children at the breast, it has
+been necessary to intrust the little ones to hired women.  These,
+finding themselves in this way the mothers of strange children,
+concerning whom the voice of nature is silent to them, seek only to
+spare themselves annoyance.  A child at liberty would require incessant
+watching; but after he is well swaddled, they throw him into a corner
+without troubling themselves at all on account of his cries.  Provided
+there are no proofs of the nurse's carelessness, provided that the
+nursling does not break his legs or his arms, what does it matter,
+after all, that he is pining away, or that he continues feeble for the
+rest of his life?  His limbs are preserved at the expense of his life,
+and whatever happens, the nurse is held free from blame.
+
+It is pretended that children, when left free, may put themselves into
+bad positions, and make movements liable to injure the proper
+conformation of their limbs.  This is one of the weak arguments of our
+false wisdom, which no experience has ever confirmed.  Of that
+multitude of children who, among nations more sensible than ourselves,
+are brought up in the full freedom of their limbs, not one is seen to
+wound or lame himself.  They cannot give their movements force enough
+to make them dangerous; and when they assume a hurtful position, pain
+soon warns them to change it.
+
+We have not yet brought ourselves to the point of swaddling puppies or
+kittens; do we see that any inconvenience results to them from this
+negligence?  Children are heavier, indeed; but in proportion they are
+weaker.  They can scarcely move themselves at all; how can they lame
+themselves?  If laid upon the back they would die in that position,
+like the tortoise, without being able ever to turn themselves again.
+
+
+[This want of intelligence In the care bestowed upon young children is
+seen particularly in those mothers who give themselves no concern about
+their own, do not themselves nurse them, intrust them to hireling
+nurses.  This custom is fatal to all; first to the children and finally
+to families, where barrenness becomes the rule, where woman sacrifices
+to her own convenience the joys and the duties of motherhood.]
+
+
+Would you recall every one to his highest duties?  Begin with the
+mothers; you will be astonished at the changes you will effect.  From
+this first depravity all others come in succession.  The entire moral
+order is changed; natural feeling is extinguished in all hearts.
+Within our homes there is less cheerfulness; the touching sight of a
+growing family no longer attaches the husband or attracts the attention
+of strangers.  The mother whose children are not seen is less
+respected.  There is no such thing as a family living together; habit
+no longer strengthens the ties of blood.  There are no longer fathers
+and mothers and children and brothers and sisters.  They all scarcely
+know one another; how then should they love one another?  Each one
+thinks only of himself.  When home is a melancholy, lonely place, we
+must indeed go elsewhere to enjoy ourselves.
+
+But let mothers only vouchsafe to nourish their children,[2] and our
+manners will reform themselves; the feelings of nature will re-awaken
+in all hearts.  The State will be repeopled; this chief thing, this one
+thing will bring all the rest into order again.  The attractions of
+home life present the best antidote to bad morals.  The bustling life
+of little children, considered so tiresome, becomes pleasant; it makes
+the father and the mother more necessary to one another, more dear to
+one another; it draws closer between them the conjugal tie.  When the
+family is sprightly and animated, domestic cares form the dearest
+occupation of the wife and the sweetest recreation of the husband.
+Thus the correction of this one abuse would soon result in a general
+reform; nature would resume all her rights.  When women are once more
+true mothers, men will become true fathers and husbands.
+
+If mothers are not real mothers, children are not real children toward
+them.  Their duties to one another are reciprocal, and if these be
+badly fulfilled on the one side, they will be neglected on the other
+side.  The child ought to love his mother before he knows that it is
+his duty to love her.  If the voice of natural affection be not
+strengthened by habit and by care, it will grow dumb even in childhood;
+and thus the heart dies, so to speak, before it is born.  Thus from the
+outset we are beyond the pale of nature.
+
+There is an opposite way by which a woman goes beyond it; that is,
+when, instead of neglecting a mother's cares, she carries them to
+excess; when she makes her child her idol.  She increases and fosters
+his weakness to prevent him from feeling it.  Hoping to shelter him
+from the laws of nature, she wards from him shocks of pain.  She does
+not consider how, for the sake of preserving him for a moment from some
+inconveniences, she is heaping upon his head future accidents and
+perils; nor how cruel is the caution which prolongs the weakness of
+childhood in one who must bear the fatigues of a grown-up man.  The
+fable says that, to render her son invulnerable, Thetis plunged him
+into the Styx.  This allegory is beautiful and clear.  The cruel
+mothers of whom I am speaking do far otherwise; by plunging their
+children into effeminacy they open their pores to ills of every kind,
+to which, when grown up, they fall a certain prey.
+
+Watch nature carefully, and follow the paths she traces out for you.
+She gives children continual exercise; she strengthens their
+constitution by ordeals of every kind; she teaches them early what pain
+and trouble mean.  The cutting of their teeth gives them fever, sharp
+fits of colic throw them into convulsions, long coughing chokes them,
+worms torment them, repletion corrupts their blood, different leavens
+fermenting there cause dangerous eruptions.  Nearly the whole of
+infancy is sickness and danger; half the children born into the world
+die before their eighth year.  These trials past, the child has gained
+strength, and as soon as he can use life, its principle becomes more
+assured.
+
+This is the law of nature.  Why do you oppose her?  Do you not see that
+in thinking to correct her you destroy her work and counteract the
+effect of all her cares?  In your opinion, to do without what she is
+doing within is to redouble the danger.  On the contrary, it is really
+to avert, to mitigate that danger.  Experience teaches that more
+children who are delicately reared die than others.  Provided we do not
+exceed the measure of their strength, it is better to employ it than to
+hoard it.  Give them practice, then, in the trials they will one day
+have to endure.  Inure their bodies to the inclemencies of the seasons,
+of climates, of elements; to hunger, thirst, fatigue; plunge them into
+the water of the Styx.  Before the habits of the body are acquired we
+can give it such as we please without risk.  But when once it has
+reached its full vigor, any alteration is perilous to its well-being.
+A child will endure changes which a man could not bear.  The fibres of
+the former, soft and pliable, take without effort the bent we give
+them; those of man, more hardened, do not without violence change those
+they have received.  We may therefore make a child robust without
+exposing his life or his health; and even if there were some risk we
+still ought not to hesitate.  Since there are risks inseparable from
+human life, can we do better than to throw them back upon that period
+of life when they are least disadvantageous?
+
+A child becomes more precious as he advances in age.  To the value of
+his person is added that of the cares he has cost us; if we lose his
+life, his own consciousness of death is added to our sense of loss.
+Above all things, then, in watching over his preservation we must think
+of the future.  We must arm him against the misfortunes of youth before
+he has reached them.  For, if the value of life increases up to the age
+when life becomes useful, what folly it is to spare the child some
+troubles, and to heap them upon the age of reason!  Are these the
+counsels of a master?
+
+In all ages suffering is the lot of man.  Even to the cares of
+self-preservation pain is joined.  Happy are we, who in childhood are
+acquainted with only physical misfortunes--misfortunes far less cruel,
+less painful than others; misfortunes which far more rarely make us
+renounce life.  We do not kill ourselves on account of the pains of
+gout; seldom do any but those of the mind produce despair.[3]
+
+We pity the lot of infancy, and it is our own lot that we ought to
+pity.  Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves.
+
+At birth a child cries; his earliest infancy is spent in crying.
+Sometimes he is tossed, he is petted, to appease him; sometimes he is
+threatened, beaten, to make him keep quiet.  We either do as he
+pleases, or else we exact from him what we please; we either submit to
+his whims, or make him submit to ours.  There is no middle course; he
+must either give or receive orders.  Thus his first ideas are those of
+absolute rule and of slavery.  Before he knows how to speak, he
+commands; before he is able to act, he obeys; and sometimes he is
+punished before he knows what his faults are, or rather, before he is
+capable of committing them.  Thus do we early pour into his young heart
+the passions that are afterward imputed to nature; and, after having
+taken pains to make him wicked, we complain of finding him wicked.
+
+A child passes six or seven years of his life in this manner in the
+hands of women, the victim of his own caprice and of theirs.  After
+having made him learn this and that,--after having loaded his memory
+either with words he cannot understand, or with facts which are of no
+use to him,--after having stifled his natural disposition by the
+passions we have created, we put this artificial creature into the
+hands of a tutor who finishes the development of the artificial germs
+he finds already formed, and teaches him everything except to know
+himself, everything except to know how to live and how to make himself
+happy.  Finally, when this enslaved child, this little tyrant, full of
+learning and devoid of sense, enfeebled alike in mind and body, is cast
+upon the world, he there by his unfitness, by his pride, and by all his
+vices, makes us deplore human wretchedness and perversity.  We deceive
+ourselves; this is the man our whims have created.  Nature makes men by
+a different process.
+
+Do you then wish him to preserve his original form?  Preserve it from
+the moment he enters the world.  As soon as he is born take possession
+of him, and do not leave him until he is a man.  Without this you will
+never succeed.  As the mother is the true nurse, the father is the true
+teacher.  Let them be of one mind as to the order in which their
+functions are fulfilled, as well as in regard to their plan; let the
+child pass from the hands of the one into the hands of the other.  He
+will be better educated by a father who is judicious, even though of
+moderate attainments, than by the most skilful master in the world.
+For zeal will supplement talent better than talent can supply what only
+zeal can give.
+
+A father, when he brings his children into existence and supports them,
+has, in so doing, fulfilled only a third part of his task.  To the
+human race he owes men; to society, men fitted for society; to the
+State, citizens.  Every man who can pay this triple debt, and does not
+pay it is a guilty man; and if he pays it by halves, he is perhaps more
+guilty still.  He who cannot fulfil the duties of a father has no right
+to be a father.  Not poverty, nor severe labor, nor human respect can
+release him from the duty of supporting his children and of educating
+them himself.  Readers, you may believe my words.  I prophesy to any
+one who has natural feeling and neglects these sacred duties,--that he
+will long shed bitter tears over this fault, and that for those tears
+he will find no consolation.[4]
+
+
+[It being supposed that the father is unable or unwilling to charge
+himself personally with the education of his son, he must charge a
+third person with it, must seek out a master, a teacher for the child.]
+
+
+The qualifications of a good tutor are very freely discussed.  The
+first qualification I should require in him, and this one presupposes
+many others, is, that he shall not be capable of selling himself.
+There are employments so noble that we cannot fulfil them for money
+without showing ourselves unworthy to fulfil them.  Such an employment
+is that of a soldier; such a one is that of a teacher.  Who, then,
+shall educate my child?  I have told you already,--yourself.  I cannot!
+Then make for yourself a friend who can.  I see no other alternative.
+
+A teacher! what a great soul he ought to be!  Truly, to form a man, one
+must be either himself a father, or else something more than human.
+And this is the office you calmly entrust to hirelings![5]
+
+
+The Earliest Education.
+
+Children's first impressions are purely those of feeling; they perceive
+only pleasure and pain.  Unable either to move about, or to grasp
+anything with their hands, they need a great deal of time to form
+sensations which represent, and so make them aware of objects outside
+of themselves.  But, during all this time, while these objects are
+extending, and, as it were, receding from their eyes, assuming, to
+them, form and dimension, the constantly recurring sensations begin to
+subject the little creatures to the sway of habit.  We see their eyes
+incessantly turning toward the light; and, if it comes to them from one
+side, unwittingly taking the direction of that side; so that their
+faces ought to be carefully turned toward the light, lest they become
+squint-eyed, or accustom themselves to look awry.  They should, also,
+early accustom themselves to darkness, or else they will cry and scream
+as soon as they are left in the dark.  Food and sleep, if too exactly
+proportioned, become necessary to them after the lapse of the same
+intervals; and soon the desire arises not from necessity, but from
+habit.  Or rather, habit adds a new want to those of nature, and this
+must be prevented.
+
+The only habit a child should be allowed to form is to contract no
+habits whatever.  Let him not be carried upon one arm more than upon
+another; let him not be accustomed to put forth one hand rather than
+the other, or to use it oftener; nor to desire to eat, to sleep, to act
+in any way, at regular hours; nor to be unable to stay alone either by
+night or by day.  Prepare long beforehand for the time when he shall
+freely use all his strength.  Do this by leaving his body under the
+control of its natural bent, by fitting him to be always master of
+himself, and to carry out his own will in everything as soon as he has
+a will of his own.
+
+Since the only kinds of objects presented to him are likely to make him
+either timid or courageous, why should not his education begin before
+he speaks or understands?  I would habituate him to seeing new objects,
+though they be ugly, repulsive, or singular.  But let this be by
+degrees, and from a distance, until he has become accustomed to them,
+and, from seeing them handled by others, shall at last handle them
+himself.  If during his infancy he has seen without fear frogs,
+serpents, crawfishes, he will, when grown up, see without shrinking any
+animal that may be shown him.  For one who daily sees frightful
+objects, there are none such.
+
+All children are afraid of masks.  I begin by showing Émile the mask of
+a pleasant face.  By and by some one puts the mask upon his own face,
+so that the child can see it.  I begin to laugh; every one else laughs,
+and the child with the rest.  By degrees I familiarize him with less
+comely masks, and finally with really hideous ones.  If I have managed
+the process well, he will, far from being frightened at the last mask,
+laugh at it as he laughed at the first.  After that, I shall not fear
+his being frightened by any one with a mask.
+
+When, in the farewell scene between Hector and Andromache, the little
+Astyanax, terrified at the plume floating from a helmet, fails to
+recognize his father, throws himself, crying, upon his nurse's breast,
+and wins from his mother a smile bright with tears, what ought to be
+done to soothe his fear?  Precisely what Hector does.  He places the
+helmet on the ground, and then caresses his child.  At a more tranquil
+moment, this should not have been all.  They should have drawn near the
+helmet, played with its plumes, caused the child to handle them.  At
+last the nurse should have lifted the helmet and laughingly set it on
+her own head--if, indeed, the hand of a woman dared touch the armor of
+Hector.
+
+If I wish to familiarize Émile with the noise of fire-arms, I first
+burn some powder in a pistol.  The quickly vanishing flame, the new
+kind of lightning, greatly pleases him.  I repeat the process, using
+more powder.  By degrees I put into the pistol a small charge, without
+ramming it down; then a larger charge; finally, I accustom him to the
+noise of a gun, to bombs, to cannon-shots, to the most terrific noises.
+
+I have noticed that children are rarely afraid of thunder, unless,
+indeed, the thunder-claps are so frightful as actually to wound the
+organ of hearing.  Otherwise, they fear it only when they have been
+taught that thunder sometimes wounds or kills.  When reason begins to
+affright them, let habit reassure them.  By a slow and well conducted
+process the man or the child is rendered fearless of everything.
+
+In this outset of life, while memory and imagination are still
+inactive, the child pays attention only to what actually affects his
+senses.  The first materials of his knowledge are his sensations.  If,
+therefore, these are presented to him in suitable order, his memory can
+hereafter present them to his understanding in the same order.  But as
+he attends to his sensations only, it will at first suffice to show him
+very clearly the connection between these sensations, and the objects
+which give rise to them.  He is eager to touch everything, to handle
+everything.  Do not thwart this restless desire; it suggests to him a
+very necessary apprenticeship.  It is thus he learns to feel the heat
+and coldness, hardness and softness, heaviness and lightness of bodies;
+to judge of their size, their shape, and all their sensible qualities,
+by looking, by touching, by listening; above all, by comparing the
+results of sight with those of touch, estimating with the eye the
+sensation a thing produces upon the fingers.
+
+By movement alone we learn the existence of things which are not
+ourselves; and it is by our own movements alone that we gain the idea
+of extension.
+
+Because the child has not this idea, he stretches out his hand
+indifferently to seize an object which touches him, or one which is a
+hundred paces distant from him.  The effort he makes in doing this
+appears to you a sign of domination, an order he gives the object to
+come nearer, or to you to bring it to him.  It is nothing of the kind.
+It means only that the object seen first within the brain, then upon
+the eye, is now seen at arm's length, and that he does not conceive of
+any distance beyond his reach.  Be careful, then, to walk often with
+him, to transport him from one place to another, to let him feel the
+change of position, and, in this way to teach him how to judge of
+distances.  When he begins to know them, change the plan; carry him
+only where it is convenient for you to do so, and not wherever it
+pleases him.  For as soon as he is no longer deceived by the senses,
+his attempts arise from another cause.  This change is remarkable and
+demands explanation.
+
+The uneasiness arising from our wants expresses itself by signs
+whenever help in supplying these wants is needed; hence the cries of
+children.  They cry a great deal, and this is natural.  Since all their
+sensations are those of feeling, children enjoy them in silence, when
+the sensations are pleasant; otherwise they express them in their own
+language, and ask relief.  Now as long as children are awake they
+cannot be in a state of indifference; they either sleep or are moved by
+pleasure and pain.
+
+All our languages are the result of art.  Whether there is a natural
+language, common to all mankind, has long been a matter of
+investigation.  Without doubt there is such a language, and it is the
+one that children utter before they know how to talk.  This language is
+not articulate, but it is accentuated, sonorous, intelligible.  The
+using of our own language has led us to neglect this, even so far as to
+forget it altogether.  Let us study children, and we shall soon acquire
+it again from them.  Nurses are our teachers in this language.  They
+understand all their nurslings say, they answer them, they hold really
+connected dialogues with them.  And, although they pronounce words,
+these words are entirely useless; the child understands, not the
+meaning of the words, but the accent which accompanies them.
+
+To the language of the voice is added the no less forcible language of
+gesture.  This gesture is not that of children's feeble hands; it is
+that seen in their faces.  It is astonishing to see how much expression
+these immature countenances already have.  From moment to moment, their
+features change with inconceivable quickness.  On them you see the
+smile, the wish, the fear, spring into life, and pass away, like so
+many lightning flashes.  Each time you seem to see a different
+countenance.  They certainly have much more flexible facial muscles
+than ours.  On the other hand, their dull eyes tell us almost nothing
+at all.
+
+Such is naturally the character of their expression when all their
+wants are physical.  Sensations are made known by grimaces, sentiments
+by looks.
+
+As the first state of man is wretchedness and weakness, so his first
+utterances are complaints and tears.  The child feels his need and
+cannot satisfy it; he implores aid from others by crying.  If he is
+hungry or thirsty, he cries; if he is too cold or too warm, he cries;
+if he wishes to move or to be kept at rest, he cries; if he wishes to
+sleep or to be moved about, he cries.  The less control he has of his
+own mode of living, the oftener he asks those about him to change it.
+He has but one language, because he feels, so to speak, but one sort of
+discomfort.  In the imperfect condition of his organs, he does not
+distinguish their different impressions; all ills produce in him only a
+sensation of pain.
+
+From this crying, regarded as so little worthy of attention, arises the
+first relation of man to all that surrounds him; just here is forged
+the first link of that long chain which constitutes social order.
+
+When the child cries, he is ill at ease; he has some want that he
+cannot satisfy.  We examine into it, we search for the want, find it,
+and relieve it.  When we cannot find it, or relieve it, the crying
+continues.  We are annoyed by it; we caress the child to make him keep
+quiet, we rock him and sing to him, to lull him asleep.  If he
+persists, we grow impatient; we threaten him; brutal nurses sometimes
+strike him.  These are strange lessons for him upon his entrance into
+life.
+
+The first crying of children is a prayer.  If we do not heed it well,
+this crying soon becomes a command.  They begin by asking our aid; they
+end by compelling us to serve them.  Thus from their very weakness,
+whence comes, at first, their feeling of dependence, springs afterward
+the idea of empire, and of commanding others.  But as this idea is
+awakened less by their own wants, than by the fact that we are serving
+them, those moral results whose immediate cause is not in nature, are
+here perceived.  We therefore see why, even at this early age, it is
+important to discern the hidden purpose which dictates the gesture or
+the cry.
+
+When the child stretches forth his hand with an effort, but without a
+sound, he thinks he can reach some object, because he does not properly
+estimate its distance; he is mistaken.  But if, while stretching out
+his hand, he complains and cries, he is no longer deceived as to the
+distance.  He is commanding the object to come to him, or is directing
+you to bring it to him.  In the first case, carry him to the object
+slowly, and with short steps; in the second case, do not even appear to
+understand him.  It is worth while to habituate him early not to
+command people, for he is not their master; nor things, for they cannot
+understand him.  So, when a child wants something he sees, and we mean
+to give it to him, it is better to carry him to the object than to
+fetch the object to him.  From this practice of ours he will learn a
+lesson suited to his age, and there is no better way of suggesting this
+lesson to him.
+
+
+Maxims to Keep us True to Nature.
+
+Reason alone teaches us to know good and evil.  Conscience, which makes
+us love the one and hate the other, is independent of reason, but
+cannot grow strong without its aid.  Before reaching years of reason,
+we do good and evil unconsciously.  There is no moral character in our
+actions, although there sometimes is in our feeling toward those
+actions of others which relate to us.  A child likes to disturb
+everything he sees; he breaks, he shatters everything within his reach;
+he lays hold of a bird just as he would lay hold of a stone, and
+strangles it without knowing what he is doing.
+
+Why is this?  At first view, philosophy would account for it on the
+ground of vices natural to us--pride, the spirit of domination,
+self-love, the wickedness of mankind.  It would perhaps add, that the
+sense of his own weakness makes the child eager to do things requiring
+strength, and so prove to himself his own power.  But see that old man,
+infirm and broken down, whom the cycle of human life brings back to the
+weakness of childhood.  Not only does he remain immovable and quiet,
+but he wishes everything about him to be in the same condition.  The
+slightest change disturbs and disquiets him; he would like to see
+stillness reigning everywhere.  How could the same powerlessness,
+joined to the same passions, produce such different effects in the two
+ages, if the primary cause were not changed?  And where can we seek for
+this difference of cause, unless it be in the physical condition of the
+two individuals?  The active principle common to the two is developing
+in the one, and dying out in the other; the one is growing, and the
+other is wearing itself out; the one is tending toward life, and the
+other toward death.  Failing activity concentrates itself in the heart
+of the old man; in the child it is superabounding, and reaches outward;
+he seems to feel within him life enough to animate all that surrounds
+him.  Whether he makes or unmakes matters little to him.  It is enough
+that he changes the condition of things, and that every change is an
+action.  If he seems more inclined to destroy things, it is not out of
+perverseness, but because the action which creates is always slow; and
+that which destroys, being more rapid, better suits his natural
+sprightliness.
+
+While the Author of nature gives children this active principle, he
+takes care that it shall do little harm; for he leaves them little
+power to indulge it.  But no sooner do they look upon those about them
+as instruments which it is their business to set in motion, than they
+make use of them in following their own inclinations and in making up
+for their own want of strength.  In this way they become disagreeable,
+tyrannical, imperious, perverse, unruly; a development not arising from
+a natural spirit of domination, but creating such a spirit.  For no
+very long experience is requisite in teaching how pleasant it is to act
+through others, and to need only move one's tongue to set the world in
+motion.
+
+As we grow up, we gain strength, we become less uneasy and restless, we
+shut ourselves more within ourselves.  The soul and the body put
+themselves in equilibrium, as it were, and nature requires no more
+motion than is necessary for out preservation.
+
+But the wish to command outlives the necessity from which, it sprang;
+power to control others awakens and gratifies self-love, and habit
+makes it strong.  Thus need gives place to whim; thus do prejudices and
+opinions first root themselves within us.
+
+The principle once understood, we see clearly the point at which we
+leave the path of nature.  Let us discover what we ought to do, to keep
+within it.
+
+Far from having too much strength, children have not even enough for
+all that nature demands of them.  We ought, then, to leave them the
+free use of all natural strength which they cannot misuse.  First maxim.
+
+We must aid them, supplying whatever they lack in intelligence, in
+strength, in all that belongs to physical necessity.  Second maxim.
+
+In helping them, we must confine ourselves to what is really of use to
+them, yielding nothing to their whims or unreasonable wishes.  For
+their own caprice will not trouble them unless we ourselves create it;
+it is not a natural thing.  Third maxim.
+
+We must study carefully their language and their signs, so that, at an
+age when they cannot dissemble, we may judge which of their desires
+spring from nature itself, and which of them from opinion.  Fourth
+maxim.
+
+The meaning of these rules is, to allow children more personal freedom
+and less authority; to let them do more for themselves, and exact less
+from others.  Thus accustomed betimes to desire only what they can
+obtain or do for themselves, they will feel less keenly the want of
+whatever is not within their own power.
+
+Here there is another and very important reason for leaving children
+absolutely free as to body and limbs, with the sole precaution of
+keeping them from the danger of falling, and of putting out of their
+reach everything that can injure them.
+
+Doubtless a child whose body and arms are free will cry less than one
+bound fast in swaddling clothes.  He who feels only physical wants
+cries only when he suffers, and this is a great advantage.  For then we
+know exactly when he requires help, and we ought not to delay one
+moment in giving him help, if possible.
+
+But if you cannot relieve him, keep quiet; do not try to soothe him by
+petting him.  Your caresses will not cure his colic; but he will
+remember what he has to do in order to be petted.  And if he once
+discovers that he can, at will, busy you about him, he will have become
+your master; the mischief is done.
+
+If children were not so much thwarted in their movements, they would
+not cry so much; if we were less annoyed by their crying, we would take
+less pains to hush them; if they were not so often threatened or
+caressed, they would be less timid or less stubborn, and more truly
+themselves as nature made them.  It is not so often by letting children
+cry, as by hastening to quiet them, that we make them rupture
+themselves.  The proof of this is that the children most neglected are
+less subject than others to this infirmity.  I am far from wishing them
+to be neglected, however.  On the contrary, we ought to anticipate
+their wants, and not wait to be notified of these by the children's
+crying.  Yet I would not have them misunderstand the cares we bestow on
+them.  Why should they consider crying a fault, when they find that it
+avails so much?  Knowing the value of their silence, they will be
+careful not to be lavish of it.  They will, at last, make it so costly
+that we can no longer pay for it; and then it is that by crying without
+success they strain, weaken, and kill themselves.
+
+The long crying fits of a child who is not compressed or ill, or
+allowed to want for anything, are from habit and obstinacy.  They are
+by no means the work of nature, but of the nurse, who, because she
+cannot endure the annoyance, multiplies it, without reflecting that by
+stilling the child to-day, he is induced to cry the more to-morrow.
+
+The only way to cure or prevent this habit is to pay no attention to
+it.  No one, not even a child, likes to take unnecessary trouble.
+
+They are stubborn in their attempts; but if you have more firmness than
+they have obstinacy, they are discouraged, and do not repeat the
+attempt.  Thus we spare them some tears, and accustom them to cry only
+when pain forces them to it.
+
+Nevertheless when they do cry from caprice or stubbornness, a sure way
+to prevent their continuing is, to turn their attention to some
+agreeable and striking object, and so make them forget their desire to
+cry.  In this art most nurses excel, and when skilfully employed, it is
+very effective.  But it is highly important that the child should not
+know of our intention to divert him, and that he should amuse himself
+without at all thinking we have him in mind.  In this all nurses are
+unskilful.
+
+All children are weaned too early.  The proper time is indicated by
+their teething.  This process is usually painful and distressing.  By a
+mechanical instinct the child, at that time, carries to his mouth and
+chews everything he holds.  We think we make the operation easier by
+giving him for a plaything some hard substance, such as ivory or coral.
+I think we are mistaken.  Far from softening the gums, these hard
+bodies, when applied, render them hard and callous, and prepare the way
+for a more painful and distressing laceration.  Let us always take
+instinct for guide.  We never see puppies try their growing teeth upon
+flints, or iron, or bones, but upon wood, or leather, or rags,--upon
+soft materials, which give way, and on which the tooth impresses itself.
+
+We no longer aim at simplicity, even where children are concerned.
+Golden and silver bells, corals, crystals, toys of every price, of
+every sort.  What useless and mischievous affectations they are!  Let
+there be none of them,--no bells, no toys.
+
+A little twig covered with its own leaves and fruit,--a poppy-head, in
+which the seeds can be heard rattling,--a stick of liquorice he can
+suck and chew, these will amuse a child quite as well as the splendid
+baubles, and will not disadvantage him by accustoming him to luxury
+from his very birth.
+
+
+Language.
+
+From the time they are born, children hear people speak.  They are
+spoken to not only before they understand what is said to them, but
+before they can repeat the sounds they hear.  Their organs, still
+benumbed, adapt themselves only by degrees to imitating the sounds
+dictated to them, and it is not even certain that these sounds are
+borne to their ears at first as distinctly as to ours.
+
+I do not disapprove of a nurse's amusing the child with songs, and with
+blithe and varied tones.  But I do disapprove of her perpetually
+deafening him with a multitude of useless words, of which he
+understands only the tone she gives them.
+
+I would like the first articulate sounds he must hear to be few in
+number, easy, distinct, often repeated.  The words they form should
+represent only material objects which can be shown him.  Our
+unfortunate readiness to content ourselves with words that have no
+meaning to us whatever, begins earlier than we suppose.  Even as in his
+swaddling-clothes the child hears his nurse's babble, he hears in class
+the verbiage of his teacher.  It strikes me that if he were to be so
+brought up that he could not understand it at all, he would be very
+well instructed.[6]
+
+Reflections crowd upon us when we set about discussing the formation of
+children's language, and their baby talk itself.  In spite of us, they
+always learn to speak by the same process, and all our philosophical
+speculations about it are entirely useless.
+
+They seem, at first, to have a grammar adapted to their own age,
+although its rules of syntax are more general than ours.  And if we
+were to pay close attention to them, we should be astonished at the
+exactness with which they follow certain analogies, very faulty if you
+will, but very regular, that are displeasing only because harsh, or
+because usage does not recognize them.
+
+It is unbearable pedantry, and a most useless labor, to attempt
+correcting in children every little fault against usage; they never
+fail themselves to correct these faults in time.  Always speak
+correctly in their presence; order it so that they are never so happy
+with any one as with you; and rest assured their language will
+insensibly be purified by your own, without your having ever reproved
+them.
+
+But another error, which has an entirely different bearing on the
+matter, and is no less easy to prevent, is our being over-anxious to
+make them speak, as if we feared they might not of their own accord
+learn to do so.  Our injudicious haste has an effect exactly contrary
+to what we wish.  On account of it they learn more slowly and speak
+more indistinctly.  The marked attention paid to everything they utter
+makes it unnecessary for them to articulate distinctly.  As they hardly
+condescend to open their lips, many retain throughout life an imperfect
+pronunciation and a confused manner of speaking, which makes them
+nearly unintelligible.
+
+Children who are too much urged to speak have not time sufficient for
+learning either to pronounce carefully or to understand thoroughly what
+they are made to say.  If, instead, they are left to themselves, they
+at first practise using the syllables they can most readily utter; and
+gradually attaching to these some meaning that can be gathered from
+their gestures, they give you their own words before acquiring yours.
+Thus they receive yours only after they understand them.  Not being
+urged to use them, they notice carefully what meaning you give them;
+and, when they are sure of this, they adopt it as their own.
+
+The greatest evil arising from our haste to make children speak before
+they are old enough is not that our first talks with them, and the
+first words they use, have no meaning to them, but that they have a
+meaning different from ours, without our being able to perceive it.
+Thus, while they seem to be answering us very correctly, they are
+really addressing us without understanding us, and without our
+understanding them.  To such ambiguous discourse is due the surprise we
+sometimes feel at their sayings, to which we attach ideas the children
+themselves have not dreamed of.  This inattention of ours to the true
+meaning words have for children seems to me the cause of their first
+mistakes, and these errors, even after children are cured of them,
+influence their turn of mind for the remainder of their life.
+
+The first developments of childhood occur almost all at once.  The
+child learns to speak, to eat, to walk, nearly at the same time.  This
+is, properly, the first epoch of his life.  Before then he is nothing
+more than he was before he was born; he has not a sentiment, not an
+idea; he scarcely has sensations; he does not feel even his own
+existence.
+
+
+
+[1] It is useless to enlarge upon the absurdity of this theory, and
+upon the flagrant contradiction into which Rousseau allows himself to
+fall.  If he is right, man ought to be left without education, and the
+earth without cultivation.  This would not be even the savage state.
+But want of space forbids us to pause at each like statement of our
+author, who at once busies himself in nullifying it.
+
+[2] The voice of Rousseau was heard.  The nursing of children by their
+own mothers, which had gone into disuse as vulgar and troublesome,
+became a fashion.  Great ladies prided themselves upon returning to the
+usage of nature, and infants were brought in with the dessert to give
+an exhibition of maternal tenderness.  This affectation died out, but
+in most families the good and wholesome custom of motherhood was
+retained.  This page of Rousseau's contributed its share to the happy
+result.
+
+[3] This remark is not a just one.  How often have we seen unhappy
+creatures disgusted with life because of some dreadful and incurable
+malady?  It is true that suicide, being an act of madness, is more
+frequently caused by those troubles which imagination delights itself
+in magnifying up to the point of insanity.
+
+[4] This is an allusion to one of the most unfortunate episodes in the
+life of Rousseau,--his abandoning of the children whom Thérèse
+Levasseur bore him, and whom he sent to a foundling hospital because he
+felt within him neither courage to labor for their support, nor
+capacity to educate them.  Sad practical defect in this teacher of
+theories of education!
+
+[5] For the particular example of education which he supposes, Rousseau
+creates a tutor whom he consecrates absolutely, exclusively, to the
+work.  He desires one so perfect that he calls him a prodigy.  Let us
+not blame him for this.  The ideal of those who assume the noble and
+difficult office of a teacher of childhood cannot be placed too high.
+As to the pupil, Rousseau imagines a child of average ability, in easy
+circumstances, and of robust health.  He makes him an only son and an
+orphan, so that no family vicissitudes may disturb the logic of his
+plan.
+
+All this may be summed up by saying that he considers the child in
+himself with regard to his individual development, and without regard
+to his relations to ordinary life.  This at the same time renders his
+task easy, and deprives him of an important element of education.
+
+[6] No doubt this sarcasm is applicable to those teachers who talk so
+as to say nothing.  A teacher ought, on the contrary, to speak only so
+as to be understood by the child.  He ought to adapt himself to the
+child's capacity; to employ no useless or conventional expressions; his
+language ought to arouse curiosity and to impart light.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SECOND.
+
+
+The second book takes the child at about the fifth year, and conducts
+him to about the twelfth year.  He is no longer the little child; he is
+the young boy.  His education becomes more important.  It consists not
+in studies, in reading or writing, or in duties, but in well-chosen
+plays, in ingenious recreations, in well-directed experiments.
+
+There should be no exaggerated precautions, and, on the other hand, no
+harshness, no punishments.  We must love the child, and encourage his
+playing.  To make him realize his weakness and the narrow limits within
+which it can work, to keep the child dependent only on circumstances,
+will suffice, without ever making him feel the yoke of the master.
+
+The best education is accomplished in the country.  Teaching by means
+of things.  Criticism of the ordinary method.  Education of the senses
+by continually exercising them.
+
+
+
+Avoid taking too many Precautions.
+
+This is the second period of life, and the one at which, properly
+speaking, infancy ends; for the words _infans_ and _puer_ are not
+synonymous.[1]  The first is included in the second, and means _one who
+cannot speak_: thus in Valerius Maximus we find the expression _puerum
+infantem_.  But I shall continue to employ the word according to the
+usage of the French language, until I am describing the age for which
+there are other names.
+
+When children begin to speak, they cry less often.  This step in
+advance is natural; one language is substituted for another.  As soon
+as they can utter their complaints in words, why should they cry,
+unless the suffering is too keen to be expressed by words?  If they
+then continue to cry, it is the fault of those around them.  After
+Émile has once said, "It hurts me," only acute suffering can force him
+to cry.
+
+If the child is physically so delicate and sensitive that he naturally
+cries about nothing, I will soon exhaust the fountain of his tears, by
+making them ineffectual.  So long as he cries, I will not go to him; as
+soon as he stops, I will run to him.  Very soon his method of calling
+me will be to keep quiet, or at the utmost, to utter a single cry.
+Children judge of the meaning of signs by their palpable effect; they
+have no other rule.  Whatever harm a child may do himself, he very
+rarely cries when alone, unless with the hope of being heard.
+
+If he fall, if he bruise his head, if his nose bleed, if he cut his
+finger, I should, instead of bustling about him with a look of alarm,
+remain quiet, at least for a little while.  The mischief is done; he
+must endure it; all my anxiety will only serve to frighten him more,
+and to increase his sensitiveness.  After all, when we hurt ourselves,
+it is less the shock which pains us than the fright.  I will spare him
+at least this last pang; for he will certainly estimate his hurt as he
+sees me estimate it.  If he sees me run anxiously to comfort and to
+pity him, he will think himself seriously hurt; but if he sees me keep
+my presence of mind, he will soon recover his own, and will think the
+pain cured when he no longer feels it.  At his age we learn our first
+lessons in courage; and by fearlessly enduring lighter sufferings, we
+gradually learn to bear the heavier ones.
+
+Far from taking care that Émile does not hurt himself, I shall be
+dissatisfied if he never does, and so grows up unacquainted with pain.
+To suffer is the first and most necessary thing for him to learn.
+Children are little and weak, apparently that they may learn these
+important lessons.  If a child fall his whole length, he will not break
+his leg; if he strike himself with a stick, he will not break his arm;
+if he lay hold of an edged tool, he does not grasp it tightly, and will
+not cut himself very badly.
+
+Our pedantic mania for instructing constantly leads us to teach
+children what they can learn far better for themselves, and to lose
+sight of what we alone can teach them.  Is there anything more absurd
+than the pains we take in teaching them to walk?  As if we had ever
+seen one, who, through his nurse's negligence, did not know how to walk
+when grown!  On the contrary, how many people do we see moving
+awkwardly all their lives because they have been badly taught how to
+walk!
+
+Émile shall have no head-protectors, nor carriages, nor go-carts, nor
+leading-strings.  Or at least from the time when he begins to be able
+to put one foot before the other, he shall not be supported, except
+over paved places; and he shall be hurried over these.  Instead of
+letting him suffocate in the exhausted air indoors, let him be taken
+every day, far out into the fields.  There let him run about, play,
+fall down a hundred times a day; the oftener the better, as he will the
+sooner learn to get up again by himself.  The boon of freedom is worth
+many scars.  My pupil will have many bruises, but to make amends for
+that, he will be always light-hearted.  Though your pupils are less
+often hurt, they are continually thwarted, fettered; they are always
+unhappy.  I doubt whether the advantage be on their side.
+
+The development of their physical strength makes complaint less
+necessary to children.  When able to help themselves, they have less
+need of the help of others.  Knowledge to direct their strength grows
+with that strength.  At this second stage the life of the individual
+properly begins; he now becomes conscious of his own being.  Memory
+extends this feeling of personal identity to every moment of his
+existence; he becomes really one, the same one, and consequently
+capable of happiness or of misery.  We must therefore, from this
+moment, begin to regard him as a moral being.
+
+
+Childhood is to be Loved.
+
+Although the longest term of human life, and the probability, at any
+given age, of reaching this term, have been computed, nothing is more
+uncertain than the continuance of each individual life: very few attain
+the maximum.  The greatest risks in life are at its beginning; the less
+one has lived, the less prospect he has of living.
+
+Of all children born, only about half reach youth; and it is probable
+that your pupil may never attain to manhood.  What, then, must be
+thought of that barbarous education which sacrifices the present to an
+uncertain future, loads the child with every description of fetters,
+and begins, by making him wretched, to prepare for him some far-away
+indefinite happiness he may never enjoy!  Even supposing the object of
+such an education reasonable, how can we without indignation see the
+unfortunate creatures bowed under an insupportable yoke, doomed to
+constant labor like so many galley-slaves, without any certainty that
+all this toil will ever be of use to them!  The years that ought to be
+bright and cheerful are passed in tears amid punishments, threats, and
+slavery.  For his own good, the unhappy child is tortured; and the
+death thus summoned will seize on him unperceived amidst all this
+melancholy preparation.  Who knows how many children die on account of
+the extravagant prudence of a father or of a teacher?  Happy in
+escaping his cruelty, it gives them one advantage; they leave without
+regret a life which they know only from its darker side.[2]
+
+O men, be humane! it is your highest duty; be humane to all conditions
+of men, to every age, to everything not alien to mankind.  What higher
+wisdom is there for you than humanity?  Love childhood; encourage its
+sports, its pleasures, its lovable instincts.  Who among us has not at
+times looked back with regret to the age when a smile was continually
+on our lips, when the soul was always at peace?  Why should we rob
+these little innocent creatures of the enjoyment of a time so brief, so
+transient, of a boon so precious, which they cannot misuse?  Why will
+you fill with bitterness and sorrow these fleeting years which can no
+more return to them than to you?  Do you know, you fathers, the moment
+when death awaits your children?  Do not store up for yourselves
+remorse, by taking from them the brief moments nature has given them.
+As soon as they can appreciate the delights of existence, let them
+enjoy it.  At whatever hour God may call them, let them not die without
+having tasted life at all.
+
+You answer, "It is the time to correct the evil tendencies of the human
+heart.  In childhood, when sufferings are less keenly felt, they ought
+to be multiplied, so that fewer of them will have to be encountered
+during the age of reason."  But who has told you that it is your
+province to make this arrangement, and that all these fine
+instructions, with which you burden the tender mind of a child, will
+not one day be more pernicious than useful to him?  Who assures you
+that you spare him anything when you deal him afflictions with so
+lavish a hand?  Why do you cause him more unhappiness than he can bear,
+when you are not sure that the future will compensate him for these
+present evils?  And how can you prove that the evil tendencies of which
+you pretend to cure him will not arise from your mistaken care rather
+than from nature itself!  Unhappy foresight, which renders a creature
+actually miserable, in the hope, well or ill founded, of one day making
+him happy!  If these vulgar reasoners confound license with liberty,
+and mistake a spoiled child for a child who is made happy, let us teach
+them to distinguish the two.
+
+To avoid being misled, let us remember what really accords with our
+present abilities.  Humanity has its place in the general order of
+things; childhood has its place in the order of human life.  Mankind
+must be considered in the individual man, and childhood in the
+individual child.  To assign each his place, and to establish him in
+it--to direct human passions as human nature will permit--is all we can
+do for his welfare.  The rest depends on outside influences not under
+our control.
+
+
+Neither Slaves nor Tyrants.
+
+He alone has his own way who, to compass it, does not need the arm of
+another to lengthen his own.  Consequently freedom, and not authority,
+is the greatest good.  A man who desires only what he can do for
+himself is really free to do whatever he pleases.  From this axiom, if
+it be applied to the case of childhood, all the rules of education will
+follow.
+
+A wise man understands how to remain in his own place; but a child, who
+does not know his, cannot preserve it.  As matters stand, there are a
+thousand ways of leaving it.  Those who govern him are to keep him in
+it, and this is not an easy task.  He ought to be neither an animal nor
+a man, but a child.  He should feel his weakness, and yet not suffer
+from it.  He should depend, not obey; he should demand, not command.
+He is subject to others only by reason of his needs, and because others
+see better than he what is useful to him, what will contribute to his
+well-being or will impair it.  No one, not even his father, has a right
+to command a child to do what is of no use to him whatever.
+
+Accustom the child to depend only on circumstances, and as his
+education goes on, you will follow the order of nature.  Never oppose
+to his imprudent wishes anything but physical obstacles, or punishments
+which arise from the actions themselves, and which he will remember
+when the occasion comes.  It is enough to prevent his doing harm,
+without forbidding it.  With him only experience, or want of power,
+should take the place of law.  Do not give him anything because he asks
+for it, but because he needs it.  When he acts, do not let him know
+that it is from obedience; and when another acts for him, let him not
+feel that he is exercising authority.  Let him feel his liberty as much
+in your actions as in his own.  Add to the power he lacks exactly
+enough to make him free and not imperious, so that, accepting your aid
+with a kind of humiliation, he may aspire to the moment when he can
+dispense with it, and have the honor of serving himself.  For
+strengthening the body and promoting its growth, nature has means which
+ought never to be thwarted.  A child ought not to be constrained to
+stay anywhere when he wishes to go away, or to go away when he wishes
+to stay.  When their will is not spoiled by our own fault, children do
+not wish for anything without good reason.  They ought to leap, to run,
+to shout, whenever they will.  All their movements are necessities of
+nature, which is endeavoring to strengthen itself.  But we must take
+heed of those wishes they cannot themselves accomplish, but must fulfil
+by the hand of another.  Therefore care should be taken to distinguish
+the real wants, the wants of nature, from those which arise from fancy
+or from the redundant life just mentioned.
+
+I have already suggested what should be done when a child cries for
+anything.  I will only add that, as soon as he can ask in words for
+what he wants, and, to obtain it sooner, or to overcome a refusal,
+reinforces his request by crying, it should never be granted him.  If
+necessity has made him speak, you ought to know it, and at once to
+grant what he demands.  But yielding to his tears is encouraging him to
+shed them: it teaches him to doubt your good will, and to believe that
+importunity has more influence over you than your own kindness of heart
+has.
+
+If he does not believe you good, he will soon be bad; if he believes
+you weak, he will soon be stubborn.  It is of great importance that you
+at once consent to what you do not intend to refuse him.  Do not refuse
+often, but never revoke a refusal.
+
+Above all things, beware of teaching the child empty formulas of
+politeness which shall serve him instead of magic words to subject to
+his own wishes all who surround him, and to obtain instantly what he
+likes.  In the artificial education of the rich they are infallibly
+made politely imperious, by having prescribed to them what terms to use
+so that no one shall dare resist them.  Such children have neither the
+tones nor the speech of suppliants; they are as arrogant when they
+request as when they command, and even more so, for in the former case
+they are more sure of being obeyed.  From the first it is readily seen
+that, coming from them, "If you please" means "It pleases me"; and that
+"I beg" signifies "I order you."  Singular politeness this, by which
+they only change the meaning of words, and so never speak but with
+authority!  For myself, I dread far less Émile's being rude than his
+being arrogant.  I would rather have him say "Do this" as if requesting
+than "I beg you" as if commanding.  I attach far less importance to the
+term he uses than to the meaning he associates with it.
+
+Over-strictness and over-indulgence are equally to be avoided.  If you
+let children suffer, you endanger their health and their life; you make
+them actually wretched.  If you carefully spare them every kind of
+annoyance, you are storing up for them much unhappiness; you are making
+them delicate and sensitive to pain; you are removing them from the
+common lot of man, into which, in spite of all your care, they will one
+day return.  To save them some natural discomforts, you contrive for
+them others which nature has not inflicted.
+
+You will charge me with falling into the mistake of those fathers I
+have reproached for sacrificing their children's happiness to
+considerations of a far-away future that may never be.  Not so; for the
+freedom I give my pupil will amply supply him with the slight
+discomforts to which I leave him exposed.  I see the little rogues
+playing in the snow, blue with cold, and scarcely able to move their
+fingers.  They have only to go and warm themselves, but they do nothing
+of the kind.  If they are compelled to do so, they feel the constraint
+a hundred times more than they do the cold.  Why then do you complain?
+Shall I make your child unhappy if I expose him only to those
+inconveniences he is perfectly willing to endure?  By leaving him at
+liberty, I do him service now; by arming him against the ills he must
+encounter, I do him service for the time to come.  If he could choose
+between being my pupil or yours, do you think he would hesitate a
+moment?
+
+Can we conceive of any creature's being truly happy outside of what
+belongs to its own peculiar nature?  And if we would have a man exempt
+from all human misfortunes, would it not estrange him from humanity?
+Undoubtedly it would; for we are so constituted that to appreciate
+great good fortune we must be acquainted with slight misfortunes.  If
+the body be too much at ease the moral nature becomes corrupted.  The
+man unacquainted with suffering would not know the tender feelings of
+humanity or the sweetness of compassion; he would not be a social
+being; he would be a monster among his kind.
+
+The surest way to make a child unhappy is to accustom him to obtain
+everything he wants to have.  For, since his wishes multiply in
+proportion to the ease with which they are gratified, your inability to
+fulfil them will sooner or later oblige you to refuse in spite of
+yourself, and this unwonted refusal will pain him more than withholding
+from him what he demands.  At first he will want the cane you hold;
+soon he will want your watch; afterward he will want the bird he sees
+flying, or the star he sees shining.  He will want everything he sees,
+and without being God himself how can you content him?
+
+Man is naturally disposed to regard as his own whatever is within his
+power.  In this sense the principle of Hobbes is correct up to a
+certain point; multiply with our desires the means of satisfying them,
+and each of us will make himself master of everything.  Hence the child
+who has only to wish in order to obtain his wish, thinks himself the
+owner of the universe.  He regards all men as his slaves, and when at
+last he must be denied something, he, believing everything possible
+when he commands it, takes refusal for an act of rebellion.  At his
+age, incapable of reasoning, all reasons given seem to him only
+pretexts.  He sees ill-will in everything; the feeling of imagined
+injustice embitters his temper; he begins to hate everybody, and
+without ever being thankful for kindness, is angry at any opposition
+whatever.
+
+Who supposes that a child thus ruled by anger, a prey to furious
+passions, can ever be happy?  He happy?  He is a tyrant; that is, the
+vilest of slaves, and at the same time the most miserable of beings.  I
+have seen children thus reared who wanted those about them to push the
+house down, to give them the weathercock they saw on a steeple, to stop
+the march of a regiment so that they could enjoy the drum-beat a little
+longer; and as soon as obedience to these demands was delayed they rent
+the air with their screams, and would listen to no one.  In vain
+everybody tried eagerly to gratify them.  The ease with which they
+found their wishes obeyed stimulated them to desire more, and to be
+stubborn about impossibilities.  Everywhere they found only
+contradictions, impediments, suffering, and sorrow.  Always
+complaining, always refractory, always angry, they spent the time in
+crying and fretting; were these creatures happy?  Authority and
+weakness conjoined produce only madness and wretchedness.  One of two
+spoiled children beats the table, and the other has the sea lashed.[3]
+They will have much to beat and to lash before they are satisfied with
+life.
+
+If these ideas of authority and of tyranny make them unhappy from their
+very childhood, how will it be with them when they are grown, and when
+their relations with others begin to be extended and multiplied?
+
+Accustomed to seeing everything give way before them, how surprised
+they will be on entering the world to find themselves crushed beneath
+the weight of that universe they have expected to move at their own
+pleasure!  Their insolent airs and childish vanity will only bring upon
+them mortification, contempt, and ridicule; they must swallow affront
+after affront; cruel trials will teach them that they understand
+neither their own position nor their own strength.  Unable to do
+everything, they will think themselves unable to do anything.  So many
+unusual obstacles dishearten them, so much contempt degrades them.
+They become base, cowardly, cringing, and sink as far below their real
+self as they had imagined themselves above it.
+
+Let us return to the original order of things.  Nature has made
+children to be loved and helped; has she made them to be obeyed and
+feared?  Has she given them an imposing air, a stern eye, a harsh and
+threatening voice, so that they may inspire fear?  I can understand why
+the roar of a lion fills other creatures with dread, and why they
+tremble at sight of his terrible countenance.  But if ever there were
+an unbecoming, hateful, ridiculous spectacle, it is that of a body of
+magistrates in their robes of ceremony, and headed by their chief,
+prostrate before an infant in long clothes, who to their pompous
+harangue replies only by screams or by childish drivel![4]
+
+Considering infancy in itself, is there a creature on earth more
+helpless, more unhappy, more at the mercy of everything around him,
+more in need of compassion, of care, of protection, than a child?  Does
+it not seem as if his sweet face and touching aspect were intended to
+interest every one who comes near him, and to urge them to assist his
+weakness?  What then is more outrageous, more contrary to the fitness
+of things, than to see an imperious and headstrong child ordering about
+those around him, impudently taking the tone of a master toward those
+who, to destroy him, need only leave him to himself!
+
+On the other hand, who does not see that since the weakness of infancy
+fetters children in so many ways, we are barbarous if we add to this
+natural subjection a bondage to our own caprices by taking from them
+the limited freedom they have, a freedom they are so little able to
+misuse, and from the loss of which we and they have so little to gain?
+As nothing is more ridiculous than a haughty child, so nothing is more
+pitiable than a cowardly child.
+
+Since with years of reason civil bondage[5] begins, why anticipate it
+by slavery at home?  Let us leave one moment of life exempt from a yoke
+nature has not laid upon us, and allow childhood the exercise of that
+natural liberty which keeps it safe, at least for a time, from the
+vices taught by slavery.  Let the over-strict teacher and the
+over-indulgent parent both come with their empty cavils, and before
+they boast of their own methods let them learn the method of Nature
+herself.
+
+
+Reasoning should not begin too soon.
+
+Locke's great maxim was that we ought to reason with children, and just
+now this maxim is much in fashion.  I think, however, that its success
+does not warrant its reputation, and I find nothing more stupid than
+children who have been so much reasoned with.  Reason, apparently a
+compound of all other faculties, the one latest developed, and with
+most difficulty, is the one proposed as agent in unfolding the
+faculties earliest used!  The noblest work of education is to make a
+reasoning man, and we expect to train a young child by making him
+reason!  This is beginning at the end; this is making an instrument of
+a result.  If children understood how to reason they would not need to
+be educated.  But by addressing them from their tenderest years in a
+language they cannot understand, you accustom them to be satisfied with
+words, to find fault with whatever is said to them, to think themselves
+as wise as their teachers, to wrangle and rebel.  And what we mean they
+shall do from reasonable motives we are forced to obtain from them by
+adding the motive of avarice, or of fear, or of vanity.
+
+Nature intends that children shall be children before they are men.  If
+we insist on reversing this order we shall have fruit early indeed, but
+unripe and tasteless, and liable to early decay; we shall have young
+savants and old children.  Childhood has its own methods of seeing,
+thinking, and feeling.  Nothing shows less sense than to try to
+substitute our own methods for these.  I would rather require a child
+ten years old to be five feet tall than to be judicious.  Indeed, what
+use would he have at that age for the power to reason?  It is a check
+upon physical strength, and the child needs none.
+
+In attempting to persuade your pupils to obedience you add to this
+alleged persuasion force and threats, or worse still, flattery and
+promises.  Bought over in this way by interest, or constrained by
+force, they pretend to be convinced by reason.  They see plainly that
+as soon as you discover obedience or disobedience in their conduct, the
+former is an advantage and the latter a disadvantage to them.  But you
+ask of them only what is distasteful to them; it is always irksome to
+carry out the wishes of another, so by stealth they carry out their
+own.  They are sure that if their disobedience is not known they are
+doing well; but they are ready, for fear of greater evils, to
+acknowledge, if found out, that they are doing wrong.  As the reason
+for the duty required is beyond their capacity, no one can make them
+really understand it.  But the fear of punishment, the hope of
+forgiveness, your importunity, their difficulty in answering you,
+extort from them the confession required of them.  You think you have
+convinced them, when you have only wearied them out or intimidated them.
+
+What results from this?  First of all that, by imposing upon them a
+duty they do not feel as such, you set them against your tyranny, and
+dissuade them from loving you; you teach them to be dissemblers,
+deceitful, willfully untrue, for the sake of extorting rewards or of
+escaping punishments.  Finally, by habituating them to cover a secret
+motive by an apparent motive, you give them the means of constantly
+misleading you, of concealing their true character from you, and of
+satisfying yourself and others with empty words when their occasion
+demands.  You may say that the law, although binding on the conscience,
+uses constraint in dealing with grown men.  I grant it; but what are
+these men but children spoiled by their education?  This is precisely
+what ought to be prevented.  With children use force, with men reason;
+such is the natural order of things.  The wise man requires no laws.
+
+
+Well-Regulated Liberty.
+
+Treat your pupil as his age demands.  From the first, assign him to his
+true place, and keep him there so effectually that he will not try to
+leave it.  Then, without knowing what wisdom is, he will practise its
+most important lesson.  Never, absolutely never, command him to do a
+thing, whatever it may be.[6]  Do not let him even imagine that you
+claim any authority over him.  Let him know only that he is weak and
+you are strong: that from his condition and yours he is necessarily at
+your mercy.  Let him know this--learn it and feel it.  Let him early
+know that upon his haughty neck is the stern yoke nature imposes upon
+man, the heavy yoke of necessity, under which every finite being must
+toil.
+
+Let him discover this necessity in the nature of things; never in human
+caprice.  Let the rein that holds him back be power, not authority.  Do
+not forbid, but prevent, his doing what he ought not; and in thus
+preventing him use no explanations, give no reasons.  What you grant
+him, grant at the first asking without any urging, any entreaty from
+him, and above all without conditions.  Consent with pleasure and
+refuse unwillingly, but let every refusal be irrevocable.  Let no
+importunity move you.  Let the "No" once uttered be a wall of brass
+against which the child will have to exhaust his strength only five or
+six times before he ceases trying to overturn it.
+
+In this way you will make him patient, even-tempered, resigned, gentle,
+even when he has not what he wants.  For it is in our nature to endure
+patiently the decrees of fate, but not the ill-will of others.  "There
+is no more," is an answer against which no child ever rebelled unless
+he believed it untrue.  Besides, there is no other way; either nothing
+at all is to be required of him, or he must from the first be
+accustomed to perfect obedience.  The worst training of all is to leave
+him wavering between his own will and yours, and to dispute incessantly
+with him as to which shall be master.  I should a hundred times prefer
+his being master in every case.
+
+It is marvellous that in undertaking to educate a child no other means
+of guiding him should have been devised than emulation, jealousy, envy,
+vanity, greed, vile fear,--all of them passions most dangerous,
+readiest to ferment, fittest to corrupt a soul, even before the body is
+full-grown.  For each instruction too early put into a child's head, a
+vice is deeply implanted in his heart.  Foolish teachers think they are
+doing wonders when they make a child wicked, in order to teach him what
+goodness is; and then they gravely tell us, "Such is man."  Yes; such
+is the man you have made.
+
+All means have been tried save one, and that the very one which insures
+success, namely, well-regulated freedom.  We ought not to undertake a
+child's education unless we know how to lead him wherever we please
+solely by the laws of the possible and the impossible.  The sphere of
+both being alike unknown to him, we may extend or contract it around
+him as we will.  We may bind him down, incite him to action, restrain
+him by the leash of necessity alone, and he will not murmur.  We may
+render him pliant and teachable by the force of circumstances alone,
+without giving any vice an opportunity to take root within him.  For
+the passions never awake to life, so long as they are of no avail.
+
+Do not give your pupil any sort of lesson verbally: he ought to receive
+none except from experience.  Inflict upon him no kind of punishment,
+for he does not know what being in fault means; never oblige him to ask
+pardon, for he does not know what it is to offend you.
+
+His actions being without moral quality, he can do nothing which is
+morally bad, or which deserves either punishment or reproof.[7]
+
+Already I see the startled reader judging of this child by those around
+us; but he is mistaken.  The perpetual constraint under which you keep
+your pupils increases their liveliness.  The more cramped they are
+while under your eye the more unruly they are the moment they escape
+it.  They must, in fact, make themselves amends for the severe
+restraint you put upon them.  Two school-boys from a city will do more
+mischief in a community than the young people of a whole village.
+
+Shut up in the same room a little gentleman and a little peasant; the
+former will have everything upset and broken before the latter has
+moved from his place.  Why is this?  Because the one hastens to misuse
+a moment of liberty, and the other, always sure of his freedom, is
+never in a hurry to use it.  And yet the children of villagers, often
+petted or thwarted, are still very far from the condition in which I
+should wish to keep them.
+
+
+Proceed Slowly.
+
+May I venture to state here the greatest, the most important, the most
+useful rule in all education?  It is, not to gain time, but to lose it.
+Forgive the paradox, O my ordinary reader!  It must be uttered by any
+one who reflects, and whatever you may say, I prefer paradoxes to
+prejudices.  The most perilous interval of human life is that between
+birth and the age of twelve years.  At that time errors and vices take
+root without our having any means of destroying them; and when the
+instrument is found, the time for uprooting them is past.  If children
+could spring at one bound from the mother's breast to the age of
+reason, the education given them now-a-days would be suitable; but in
+the due order of nature they need one entirely different.  They should
+not use the mind at all, until it has all its faculties.  For while it
+is blind it cannot see the torch you present to it; nor can it follow
+on the immense plain of ideas a path which, even for the keenest
+eyesight, reason traces so faintly.
+
+The earliest education ought, then, to be purely negative.  It consists
+not in teaching truth or virtue, but in shielding the heart from vice
+and the mind from error.  If you could do nothing at all, and allow
+nothing to be done; if you could bring up your pupil sound and robust
+to the age of twelve years, without his knowing how to distinguish his
+right hand from his left, the eyes of his understanding would from the
+very first open to reason.  Without a prejudice or a habit, there would
+be in him nothing to counteract the effect of your care.  Before long
+he would become in your hands the wisest of men; and beginning by doing
+nothing, you would have accomplished a marvel in education.
+
+Reverse the common practice, and you will nearly always do well.
+Parents and teachers desiring to make of a child not a child, but a
+learned man, have never begun early enough to chide, to correct, to
+reprimand, to flatter, to promise, to instruct, to discourse reason to
+him.  Do better than this: be reasonable yourself, and do not argue
+with your pupil, least of all, to make him approve what he dislikes.
+For if you persist in reasoning about disagreeable things, you make
+reasoning disagreeable to him, and weaken its influence beforehand in a
+mind as yet unfitted to understand it.  Keep his organs, his senses,
+his physical strength, busy; but, as long as possible, keep his mind
+inactive.  Guard against all sensations arising in advance of judgment,
+which estimates their true value.  Keep back and check unfamiliar
+impressions, and be in no haste to do good for the sake of preventing
+evil.  For the good is not real unless enlightened by reason.  Regard
+every delay as an advantage; for much is gained if the critical period
+be approached without losing anything.  Let childhood have its full
+growth.  If indeed a lesson must be given, avoid it to-day, if you can
+without danger delay it until to-morrow.
+
+Another consideration which proves this method useful is the peculiar
+bent of the child's mind.  This ought to be well understood if we would
+know what moral government is best adapted to him.  Each has his own
+cast of mind, in accordance with which he must be directed; and if we
+would succeed, he must be ruled according to this natural bent and no
+other.  Be judicious: watch nature long, and observe your pupil
+carefully before you say a word to him.  At first leave the germ of his
+character free to disclose itself.  Repress it as little as possible,
+so that you may the better see all there is of it.
+
+Do you think this season of free action will be time lost to him?  On
+the contrary, it will be employed in the best way possible.  For by
+this means you will learn not to lose a single moment when time is more
+precious; whereas, if you begin to act before you know what ought to be
+done, you act at random.  Liable to deceive yourself, you will have to
+retrace your steps, and will be farther from your object than if you
+had been less in haste to reach it.  Do not then act like a miser, who,
+in order to lose nothing, loses a great deal.  At the earlier age
+sacrifice time which you will recover with interest later on.  The wise
+physician does not give directions at first sight of his patient, but
+studies the sick man's temperament, before prescribing.  He begins late
+with his treatment, but cures the man: the over-hasty physician kills
+him.
+
+Remember that, before you venture undertaking to form a man, you must
+have made yourself a man; you must find in yourself the example you
+ought to offer him.  While the child is yet without knowledge there is
+time to prepare everything about him so that his first glance shall
+discover only what he ought to see.  Make everybody respect you; begin
+by making yourself beloved, so that everybody will try to please you.
+You will not be the child's master unless you are master of everything
+around him, and this authority will not suffice unless founded on
+esteem for virtue.
+
+There is no use in exhausting your purse by lavishing money: I have
+never observed that money made any one beloved.  You must not be
+miserly or unfeeling, or lament the distress you can relieve; but you
+will open your coffers in vain if you do not open your heart; the
+hearts of others will be forever closed to you.  You must give your
+time, your care, your affection, yourself.  For whatever you may do,
+your money certainly is not yourself.  Tokens of interest and of
+kindness go farther and are of more use than any gifts whatever.  How
+many unhappy persons, how many sufferers, need consolation far more
+than alms!  How many who are oppressed are aided rather by protection
+than by money!
+
+Reconcile those who are at variance; prevent lawsuits; persuade
+children to filial duty and parents to gentleness.  Encourage happy
+marriages; hinder disturbances; use freely the interest of your pupil's
+family on behalf of the weak who are denied justice and oppressed by
+the powerful.  Boldly declare yourself the champion of the unfortunate.
+Be just, humane, beneficent.  Be not content with giving alms; be
+charitable.  Kindness relieves more distress than money can reach.
+Love others, and they will love you; serve them, and they will serve
+you; be their brother, and they will be your children.
+
+Blame others no longer for the mischief you yourself are doing.
+Children are less corrupted by the harm they see than by that you teach
+them.
+
+Always preaching, always moralizing, always acting the pedant, you give
+them twenty worthless ideas when you think you are giving them one good
+one.  Full of what is passing in your own mind, you do not see the
+effect you are producing upon theirs.
+
+In the prolonged torrent of words with which you incessantly weary
+them, do you think there are none they may misunderstand?  Do you
+imagine that they will not comment in their own way upon your wordy
+explanations, and find in them a system adapted to their own capacity,
+which, if need be, they can use against you?
+
+Listen to a little fellow who has just been under instruction.  Let him
+prattle, question, blunder, just as he pleases, and you will be
+surprised at the turn your reasonings have taken in his mind.  He
+confounds one thing with another; he reverses everything; he tires you,
+sometimes worries you, by unexpected objections.  He forces you to hold
+your peace, or to make him hold his.  And what must he think of this
+silence, in one so fond of talking?  If ever he wins this advantage and
+knows the fact, farewell to his education.  He will no longer try to
+learn, but to refute what you say.
+
+Be plain, discreet, reticent, you who are zealous teachers.  Be in no
+haste to act, except to prevent others from acting.
+
+Again and again I say, postpone even a good lesson if you can, for fear
+of conveying a bad one.  On this earth, meant by nature to be man's
+first paradise, beware lest you act the tempter by giving to innocence
+the knowledge of good and evil.  Since you cannot prevent the child's
+learning from outside examples, restrict your care to the task of
+impressing these examples on his mind in suitable forms.
+
+Violent passions make a striking impression on the child who notices
+them, because their manifestations are well-defined, and forcibly
+attract his attention.  Anger especially has such stormy indications
+that its approach is unmistakable.  Do not ask, "Is not this a fine
+opportunity for the pedagogue's moral discourse?"  Spare the discourse:
+say not a word: let the child alone.  Amazed at what he sees, he will
+not fail to question you.  It will not be hard to answer him, on
+account of the very things that strike his senses.  He sees an inflamed
+countenance, flashing eyes, threatening gestures, he hears unusually
+excited tones of voice; all sure signs that the body is not in its
+usual condition.  Say to him calmly, unaffectedly, without any mystery,
+"This poor man is sick; he has a high fever."  You may take this
+occasion to give him, in few words, an idea of maladies and of their
+effects; for these, being natural, are trammels of that necessity to
+which he has to feel himself subject.
+
+From this, the true idea, will he not early feel repugnance at giving
+way to excessive passion, which he regards as a disease?  And do you
+not think that such an idea, given at the appropriate time, will have
+as good an effect as the most tiresome sermon on morals?  Note also the
+future consequences of this idea; it will authorize you, if ever
+necessity arises, to treat a rebellious child as a sick child, to
+confine him to his room, and even to his bed, to make him undergo a
+course of medical treatment; to make his growing vices alarming and
+hateful to himself.  He cannot consider as a punishment the severity
+you are forced to use in curing him.  So that if you yourself, in some
+hasty moment, are perhaps stirred out of the coolness and moderation it
+should be your study to preserve, do not try to disguise your fault,
+but say to him frankly, in tender reproach, "My boy, you have hurt me."
+
+I do not intend to enter fully into details, but to lay down some
+general maxims and to illustrate difficult cases.  I believe it
+impossible, in the very heart of social surroundings, to educate a
+child up to the age of twelve years, without giving him some ideas of
+the relations of man to man, and of morality in human actions.  It will
+suffice if we put off as long as possible the necessity for these
+ideas, and when they must be given, limit them to such as are
+immediately applicable.  We must do this only lest he consider himself
+master of everything, and so injure others without scruple, because
+unknowingly.  There are gentle, quiet characters who, in their early
+innocence, may be led a long way without danger of this kind.  But
+others, naturally violent, whose wildness is precocious, must be
+trained into men as early as may be, that you may not be obliged to
+fetter them outright.
+
+
+The Idea of Property.
+
+Our first duties are to ourselves; our first feelings are concentrated
+upon ourselves; our first natural movements have reference to our own
+preservation and well-being.  Thus our first idea of justice is not as
+due from us, but to us.  One error in the education of to-day is, that
+by speaking to children first of their duties and never of their
+rights, we commence at the wrong end, and tell them of what they cannot
+understand, and what cannot interest them.
+
+If therefore I had to teach one of these I have mentioned, I should
+reflect that a child never attacks persons, but things; he soon learns
+from experience to respect his superiors in age and strength.  But
+things do not defend themselves.  The first idea to be given him,
+therefore, is rather that of property than that of liberty; and in
+order to understand this idea he must have something of his own.  To
+speak to him of his clothes, his furniture, his playthings, is to tell
+him nothing at all; for though he makes use of these things, he knows
+neither how nor why he has them.  To tell him they are his because they
+have been given to him is not much better, for in order to give, we
+must have.  This is an ownership dating farther back than his own, and
+we wish him to understand the principle of ownership itself.  Besides,
+a gift is a conventional thing, and the child cannot as yet understand
+what a conventional thing is.  You who read this, observe how in this
+instance, as in a hundred thousand others, a child's head is crammed
+with words which from the start have no meaning to him, but which we
+imagine we have taught him.
+
+We must go back, then, to the origin of ownership, for thence our first
+ideas of it should arise.  The child living in the country will have
+gained some notion of what field labor is, having needed only to use
+his eyes and his abundant leisure.  Every age in life, and especially
+his own, desires to create, to imitate, to produce, to manifest power
+and activity.  Only twice will it be necessary for him to see a garden
+cultivated, seed sown, plants reared, beans sprouting, before he will
+desire to work in a garden himself.
+
+In accordance with principles already laid down I do not at all oppose
+this desire, but encourage it.  I share his taste; I work with him, not
+for his pleasure, but for my own: at least he thinks so.  I become his
+assistant gardener; until his arms are strong enough I work the ground
+for him.  By planting a bean in it, he takes possession of it; and
+surely this possession is more sacred and more to be respected than
+that assumed by Nuñez de Balboa of South America in the name of the
+king of Spain, by planting his standard on the shores of the Pacific
+Ocean.
+
+He comes every day to water the beans, and rejoices to see them
+thriving.  I add to his delight by telling him "This belongs to you."
+In explaining to him what I mean by "belongs," I make him feel that he
+has put into this plot of ground his time, his labor, his care, his
+bodily self; that in it is a part of himself which he may claim back
+from any one whatever, just as he may draw his own arm back if another
+tries to hold it against his will.
+
+One fine morning he comes as usual, running, watering-pot in hand.  But
+oh, what a sight!  What a misfortune!  The beans are uprooted, the
+garden bed is all in disorder: the place actually no longer knows
+itself.  What has become of my labor, the sweet reward of all my care
+and toil?  Who has robbed me of my own?  Who has taken my beans away
+from me?  The little heart swells with the bitterness of its first
+feeling of injustice.  His eyes overflow with tears; his distress rends
+the air with moans and cries.  We compassionate his troubles, share his
+indignation, make inquiries, sift the matter thoroughly.  At last we
+find that the gardener has done the deed: we send for him.
+
+But we find that we have reckoned without our host.  When the gardener
+hears what we are complaining of, he complains more than we.
+
+"What!  So it was you, gentlemen, who ruined all my labor!  I had
+planted some Maltese melons, from seed given me as a great rarity: I
+hoped to give you a grand treat with them when they were ripe.  But for
+the sake of planting your miserable beans there, you killed my melons
+after they had actually sprouted; and there are no more to be had.  You
+have done me more harm than you can remedy, and you have lost the
+pleasure of tasting some delicious melons."
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  "Excuse us, my good Robert.  You put into them your
+labor, your care.  I see plainly that we did wrong to spoil your work:
+but we will get you some more Maltese seed, and we will not till any
+more ground without finding out whether some one else has put his hand
+to it before us."
+
+ROBERT.  "Oh well, gentlemen, you may as well end the business; for
+there's no waste land.  What I work was improved by my father, and it's
+the same with everybody hereabout.  All the fields you see were taken
+up long ago."
+
+ÉMILE.  "Mr. Robert, do you often lose your melon-seed?"
+
+ROBERT.  "Pardon, my young master: we don't often have young gentlemen
+about that are careless like you.  Nobody touches his neighbor's
+garden; everybody respects other people's work, to make sure of his
+own."
+
+ÉMILE.  "But I haven't any garden."
+
+ROBERT.  "What's that to me?  If you spoil mine, I won't let you walk
+in it any more; for you are to understand that I'm not going to have
+all my pains for nothing."
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  "Can't we arrange this matter with honest Robert?  Just
+let my little friend and me have one corner of your garden to
+cultivate, on condition that you have half the produce."
+
+ROBERT.  "I will let you have it without that condition; but remember,
+I will root up your beans if you meddle with my melons."
+
+In this essay on the manner of teaching fundamental notions to children
+it may be seen how the idea of property naturally goes back to the
+right which the first occupant acquired by labor.  This is clear,
+concise, simple, and always within the comprehension of the child.
+From this to the right of holding property, and of transferring it,
+there is but one step, and beyond this we are to stop short.
+
+It will also be evident that the explanation I have included in two
+pages may, in actual practice, be the work of an entire year.  For in
+the development of moral ideas, we cannot advance too slowly, or
+establish them too firmly at every step.  I entreat you, young
+teachers, to think of the example I have given, and to remember that
+your lessons upon every subject ought to be rather in actions than in
+words; for children readily forget what is said or done to them.
+
+As I have said, such lessons ought to be given earlier or later, as the
+disposition of the child, gentle or turbulent, hastens or retards the
+necessity for giving them.  In employing them, we call in an evidence
+that cannot be misunderstood.  But that in difficult cases nothing
+important may be omitted, let us give another illustration.
+
+Your little meddler spoils everything he touches; do not be vexed, but
+put out of his reach whatever he can spoil.  He breaks the furniture he
+uses.  Be in no hurry to give him any more; let him feel the
+disadvantages of doing without it.  He breaks the windows in his room;
+let the wind blow on him night and day.  Have no fear of his taking
+cold; he had better take cold than be a fool.
+
+Do not fret at the inconvenience he causes you, but make him feel it
+first of all.  Finally, without saying anything about it, have the
+panes of glass mended.  He breaks them again.  Change your method: say
+to him coolly and without anger, "Those windows are mine; I took pains
+to have them put there, and I am going to make sure that they shall not
+be broken again."  Then shut him up in some dark place where there are
+no windows.  At this novel proceeding, he begins to cry and storm: but
+nobody listens to him.  He soon grows tired of this, and changes his
+tone; he complains and groans.  A servant is sent, whom the rebel
+entreats to set him free.  Without trying to find any excuse for utter
+refusal, the servant answers, "I have windows to take care of, too,"
+and goes away.  At last, after the child has been in durance for
+several hours, long enough to tire him and to make him remember it,
+some one suggests an arrangement by which you shall agree to release
+him, and he to break no more windows.  He sends to beseech you to come
+and see him; you come; he makes his proposal.  You accept it
+immediately, saying, "Well thought of; that will be a good thing for
+both of us.  Why didn't you think of this capital plan before?"  Then,
+without requiring any protestations, or confirmation of his promise,
+you gladly caress him and take him to his room at once, regarding this
+compact as sacred and inviolable as if ratified by an oath.  What an
+idea of the obligation, and the usefulness, of an engagement will he
+not gain from this transaction!  I am greatly mistaken if there is an
+unspoiled child on earth who would be proof against it, or who would
+ever after think of breaking a window purposely.
+
+
+Falsehood.  The Force of Example.
+
+We are now within the domain of morals, and the door is open to vice.
+Side by side with conventionalities and duties spring up deceit and
+falsehood.  As soon as there are things we ought not to do, we desire
+to hide what we ought not to have done.  As soon as one interest leads
+us to promise, a stronger one may urge us to break the promise.  Our
+chief concern is how to break it and still go unscathed.  It is natural
+to find expedients; we dissemble and we utter falsehood.  Unable to
+prevent this evil, we must nevertheless punish it.  Thus the miseries
+of our life arise from our mistakes.
+
+I have said enough to show that punishment, as such, should not be
+inflicted upon children, but should always happen to them as the
+natural result of their own wrong-doing.  Do not, then, preach to them
+against falsehood, or punish them confessedly on account of a
+falsehood.  But if they are guilty of one, let all its consequences
+fall heavily on their heads.  Let them know what it is to be
+disbelieved even when they speak the truth, and to be accused of faults
+in spite of their earnest denial.  But let us inquire what falsehood
+is, in children.
+
+There are two kinds of falsehood; that of fact, which refers to things
+already past, and that of right, which has to do with the future.  The
+first occurs when we deny doing what we have done, and in general, when
+we knowingly utter what is not true.  The other occurs when we promise
+what we do not mean to perform, and, in general, when we express an
+intention contrary to the one we really have.  These two sorts of
+untruth may sometimes meet in the same case; but let us here discuss
+their points of difference.
+
+One who realizes his need of help from others, and constantly receives
+kindness from them, has nothing to gain by deceiving them.  On the
+contrary, it is evidently his interest that they should see things as
+they are, lest they make mistakes to his disadvantage.  It is clear,
+then, that the falsehood of fact is not natural to children.  But the
+law of obedience makes falsehood necessary; because, obedience being
+irksome, we secretly avoid it whenever we can, and just in proportion
+as the immediate advantage of escaping reproof or punishment outweighs
+the remoter advantage to be gained by revealing the truth.
+
+Why should a child educated naturally and in perfect freedom, tell a
+falsehood?  What has he to hide from you?  You are not going to reprove
+or punish him, or exact anything from him.  Why should he not tell you
+everything as frankly as to his little playmate?  He sees no more
+danger in the one case than in the other.
+
+The falsehood of right is still less natural to children, because
+promises to do or not to do are conventional acts, foreign to our
+nature and infringements of our liberty.  Besides, all the engagements
+of children are in themselves void, because, as their limited vision
+does not stretch beyond the present, they know not what they do when
+they bind themselves.  It is hardly possible for a child to tell a lie
+in making a promise.  For, considering only how to overcome a present
+difficulty, all devices that have no immediate effect become alike to
+him.  In promising for a time to come he actually does not promise at
+all, as his still dormant imagination cannot extend itself over two
+different periods of time.  If he could escape a whipping or earn some
+sugar-plums by promising to throw himself out of the window to-morrow,
+he would at once promise it.  Therefore the laws pay no regard to
+engagements made by children; and when some fathers and teachers, more
+strict than this, require the fulfilling of such engagements, it is
+only in things the child ought to do without promising.
+
+As the child in making a promise is not aware what he is doing, he
+cannot be guilty of falsehood in so doing: but this is not the case
+when he breaks a promise.  For he well remembers having made the
+promise; what he cannot understand is, the importance of keeping it.
+Unable to read the future, he does not foresee the consequences of his
+actions; and when he violates engagements he does nothing contrary to
+what might be expected of his years.
+
+It follows from this that all the untruths spoken by children are the
+fault of those who instruct them; and that endeavoring to teach them
+how to be truthful is only teaching them how to tell falsehoods.  We
+are so eager to regulate, to govern, to instruct them, that we never
+find means enough to reach our object.  We want to win new victories
+over their minds by maxims not based upon fact, by unreasonable
+precepts; we would rather they should know their lessons and tell lies
+than to remain ignorant and speak the truth.
+
+As for us, who give our pupils none but practical teaching, and would
+rather have them good than knowing, we shall not exact the truth from
+them at all, lest they disguise it; we will require of them no promises
+they may be tempted to break.  If in my absence some anonymous mischief
+has been done, I will beware of accusing Émile, or of asking "Was it
+you?"[8]  For what would that be but teaching him to deny it?  If his
+naturally troublesome disposition obliges me to make some agreement
+with him, I will plan so well that any such proposal shall come from
+him and never from me.  Thus, whenever he is bound by an engagement he
+shall have an immediate and tangible interest in fulfilling it.  And if
+he ever fails in this, the falsehood shall bring upon him evil results
+which he sees must arise from the very nature of things, and never from
+the vengeance of his tutor.  Far from needing recourse to such severe
+measures, however, I am almost sure that Émile will be long in learning
+what a lie is, and upon finding it out will be greatly amazed, not
+understanding what is to be gained by it.  It is very plain that the
+more I make his welfare independent of either the will or the judgment
+of others, the more I uproot within him all interest in telling
+falsehoods.
+
+When we are less eager to instruct we are also less eager to exact
+requirements from our pupil, and can take time to require only what is
+to the purpose.  In that case, the child will be developed, just
+because he is not spoiled.  But when some blockhead teacher, not
+understanding what he is about, continually forces the child to promise
+things, making no distinctions, allowing no choice, knowing no limit,
+the little fellow, worried and weighed down with all these obligations,
+neglects them, forgets them, at last despises them; and considering
+them mere empty formulas, turns the giving and the breaking of them
+into ridicule.  If then you want to make him faithful to his word, be
+discreet in requiring him to give it.
+
+The details just entered upon in regard to falsehood may apply in many
+respects to all duties which, when enjoined upon children, become to
+them not only hateful but impracticable.  In order to seem to preach
+virtue we make vices attractive, and actually impart them by forbidding
+them.  If we would have the children religious, we tire them out taking
+them to church.  By making them mumble prayers incessantly we make them
+sigh for the happiness of never praying at all.  To inspire charity in
+them, we make them give alms, as if we disdained doing it ourselves.
+It is not the child, but his teacher, who ought to do the giving.
+However much you love your pupil, this is an honor you ought to dispute
+with him, leading him to feel that he is not yet old enough to deserve
+it.
+
+Giving alms is the act of one who knows the worth of his gift, and his
+fellow-creature's need of the gift.  A child who knows nothing of
+either can have no merit in bestowing.  He gives without charity or
+benevolence: he is almost ashamed to give at all, as, judging from your
+example and his own, only children give alms, and leave it off when
+grown up.  Observe, that we make the child bestow only things whose
+value be does not know: pieces of metal, which he carries in his
+pocket, and which are good for nothing else.  A child would rather give
+away a hundred gold pieces than a single cake.  But suggest to this
+free-handed giver the idea of parting with what he really prizes--his
+playthings, his sugar-plums, or his luncheon; you will soon find out
+whether you have made him really generous.
+
+To accomplish the same end, resort is had to another expedient, that of
+instantly returning to the child what he has given away, so that he
+habitually gives whatever he knows will be restored to him.  I have
+rarely met with other than these two kinds of generosity in children,
+namely, the giving either of what is no use to themselves, or else of
+what they are certain will come back to them.
+
+"Do this," says Locke, "that they may be convinced by experience that
+he who gives most generously has always the better portion."  This is
+making him liberal in appearance and miserly in reality.  He adds, that
+children will thus acquire the habit of generosity.
+
+Yes; a miser's generosity, giving an egg to gain an ox.  But when
+called upon to be generous in earnest, good-bye to the habit; they soon
+cease giving when the gift no longer comes back to them.  We ought to
+keep in view the habit of mind rather than that of the hands.  Like
+this virtue are all others taught to children; and their early years
+are spent in sadness, that we may preach these sterling virtues to
+them!  Excellent training this!
+
+Lay aside all affectation, you teachers; be yourselves good and
+virtuous, so that your example may be deeply graven on your pupils'
+memory until such time as it finds lodgment in their heart.  Instead of
+early requiring acts of charity from my pupil I would rather do them in
+his presence, taking from him all means of imitating me, as if I
+considered it an honor not due to his age.  For he should by no means
+be in the habit of thinking a man's duties the same as a child's.
+Seeing me assist the poor, he questions me about it and, if occasion
+serve, I answer, "My boy, it is because, since poor people are willing
+there should be rich people, the rich have promised to take care of
+those who have no money or cannot earn a living by their labor."
+
+"And have you promised it too?" inquires he.
+
+"Of course; the money that comes into my hands is mine to use only upon
+this condition, which its owner has to carry out."
+
+After this conversation, and we have seen how a child may be prepared
+to understand it, other children besides Émile would be tempted to
+imitate me by acting like a rich man.  In this case I would at least
+see that it should not be done ostentatiously.  I would rather have him
+rob me of my right, and conceal the fact of his generosity.  It would
+be a stratagem natural at his age, and the only one I would pardon in
+him.
+
+The only moral lesson suited to childhood and the most important at any
+age is, never to injure any one.  Even the principle of doing good, if
+not subordinated to this, is dangerous, false, and contradictory.  For
+who does not do good?  Everybody does, even a wicked man who makes one
+happy at the expense of making a hundred miserable: and thence arise
+all our calamities.  The most exalted virtues are negative: they are
+hardest to attain, too, because they are unostentatious, and rise above
+even that gratification dear to the heart of man,--sending another
+person away pleased with us.  If there be a man who never injures one
+of his fellow-creatures, what good must he achieve for them!  What
+fearlessness, what vigor of mind he requires for it!  Not by reasoning
+about this principle, but by attempting to carry it into practice, do
+we find out how great it is, how hard to fulfil.
+
+The foregoing conveys some faint idea of the precautions I would have
+you employ in giving children the instructions we sometimes cannot
+withhold without risk of their injuring themselves or others, and
+especially of contracting bad habits of which it will by and by be
+difficult to break them.  But we may rest assured that in children
+rightly educated the necessity will seldom arise; for it is impossible
+that they should become intractable, vicious, deceitful, greedy, unless
+the vices which make them so are sowed in their hearts.  For this
+reason what has been said on this point applies rather to exceptional
+than to ordinary cases.  But such exceptional cases become common in
+proportion as children have more frequent opportunity to depart from
+their natural state and to acquire the vices of their seniors.  Those
+brought up among men of the world absolutely require earlier teaching
+in these matters than those educated apart from such surroundings.
+Hence this private education is to be preferred, even if it do no more
+than allow childhood leisure to grow to perfection.
+
+
+Negative or Temporizing Education.
+
+Exactly contrary to the cases just described are those whom a happy
+temperament exalts above their years.  As there are some men who never
+outgrow childhood, so there are others who never pass through it, but
+are men almost from their birth.  The difficulty is that these
+exceptional cases are rare and not easily distinguished; besides, all
+mothers capable of understanding that a child can be a prodigy, have no
+doubt that their own are such.  They go even farther than this: they
+take for extraordinary indications the sprightliness, the bright
+childish pranks and sayings, the shrewd simplicity of ordinary cases,
+characteristic of that time of life, and showing plainly that a child
+is only a child.  Is it surprising that, allowed to speak so much and
+so freely, unrestrained by any consideration of propriety, a child
+should occasionally make happy replies?  If he did not, it would be
+even more surprising; just as if an astrologer, among a hundred false
+predictions, should never hit upon a single true one.  "They lie so
+often," said Henry IV., "that they end by telling the truth."  To be a
+wit, one need only utter a great many foolish speeches.  Heaven help
+men of fashion, whose reputation rests upon just this foundation!
+
+The most brilliant thoughts may enter a child's head, or rather, the
+most brilliant sayings may fall from his lips, just as the most
+valuable diamonds may fall into his hands, without his having any right
+either to the thoughts or to the diamonds.  At his age, he has no real
+property of any kind.  A child's utterances are not the same to him as
+to us; he does not attach to them the same ideas.  If he has any ideas
+at all on the subject, they have neither order nor coherence in his
+mind; in all his thoughts nothing is certain or stable.  If you watch
+your supposed prodigy attentively, you will sometimes find him a
+well-spring of energy, clear-sighted, penetrating the very marrow of
+things.  Much oftener the same mind appears commonplace, dull, and as
+if enveloped in a dense fog.  Sometimes he outruns you, and sometimes
+he stands still.  At one moment you feel like saying, "He is a genius,"
+and at another, "He is a fool."  You are mistaken in either case: he is
+a child; he is an eaglet that one moment beats the air with its wings,
+and the next moment falls back into the nest.
+
+In spite of appearances, then, treat him as his age demands, and beware
+lest you exhaust his powers by attempting to use them too freely.  If
+this young brain grows warm, if you see it beginning to seethe, leave
+it free to ferment, but do not excite it, lest it melt altogether into
+air.  When the first flow of spirits has evaporated, repress and keep
+within bounds the rest, until, as time goes on, the whole is
+transformed into life-giving warmth and real power.  Otherwise you will
+lose both time and pains; you will destroy your own handiwork, and
+after having thoughtlessly intoxicated yourself with all these
+inflammable vapors, you will have nothing left but the dregs.
+
+Nothing has been more generally or certainly observed than that dull
+children make commonplace men.  In childhood it is very difficult to
+distinguish real dullness from that misleading apparent dullness which
+indicates a strong character.  At first it seems strange that the two
+extremes should meet in indications so much alike; and yet such is the
+case.  For at an age when man has no real ideas at all, the difference
+between one who has genius and one who has not is, that the latter
+entertains only mistaken ideas, and the former, encountering only such,
+admits none at all.  The two are therefore alike in this, that the
+dullard is capable of nothing, and the other finds nothing to suit him.
+The only means of distinguishing them is chance, which may bring to the
+genius some ideas he can comprehend, while the dull mind is always the
+same.
+
+During his childhood the younger Cato was at home considered an idiot.
+No one said anything of him beyond that he was silent and headstrong.
+It was only in the antechamber of Sulla that his uncle learned to know
+him.  If he had never crossed its threshold, he might have been thought
+a fool until he was grown.  If there had been no such person as Caesar,
+this very Cato, who read the secret of Caesar's fatal genius, and from
+afar foresaw his ambitious designs, would always have been treated as a
+visionary.[9]  Those who judge of children so hastily are very liable
+to be mistaken.  They are often more childish than the children
+themselves.
+
+
+Concerning the Memory.
+
+Respect children, and be in no haste to judge their actions, good or
+evil.  Let the exceptional cases show themselves such for some time
+before you adopt special methods of dealing with them.  Let nature be
+long at work before you attempt to supplant her, lest you thwart her
+work.  You say you know how precious time is, and do not wish to lose
+it.  Do you not know that to employ it badly is to waste it still more,
+and that a child badly taught is farther from being wise than one not
+taught at all?  You are troubled at seeing him spend his early years in
+doing nothing.  What! is it nothing to be happy?  Is it nothing to
+skip, to play, to run about all day long?  Never in all his life will
+he be so busy as now.  Plato, in that work of his considered so severe,
+the "Republic," would have children accustomed to festivals, games,
+songs, and pastimes; one would think he was satisfied with having
+carefully taught them how to enjoy themselves.  And Seneca, speaking of
+the Roman youth of old, says, "They were always standing; nothing was
+taught them that they had to learn when seated."  Were they of less
+account when they reached manhood?  Have no fear, then, of this
+supposed idleness.  What would you think of a man who, in order to use
+his whole life to the best advantage, would not sleep?  You would say,
+"The man has no sense; he does not enjoy life, but robs himself of it.
+To avoid sleep, he rushes on his death."  The two cases are parallel,
+for childhood is the slumber of reason.
+
+Apparent quickness in learning is the ruin of children.  We do not
+consider that this very quickness proves that they are learning
+nothing.  Their smooth and polished brain reflects like a mirror the
+objects presented to it, but nothing abides there, nothing penetrates
+it.  The child retains the words; the ideas are reflected; they who
+hear understand them, but he himself does not understand them at all.
+
+Although memory and reason are two essentially different faculties, the
+one is never really developed without the other.  Before the age of
+reason, the child receives not ideas, but images.  There is this
+difference between the two, that images are only absolute
+representations of objects of sense, and ideas are notions of objects
+determined by their relations.  An image may exist alone in the mind
+that represents it, but every idea supposes other ideas.  When we
+imagine, we only see; when we conceive of things, we compare them.  Our
+sensations are entirely passive, whereas all our perceptions or ideas
+spring from an active principle which judges.
+
+I say then that children, incapable of judging, really have no memory.
+They retain sounds, shapes, sensations; but rarely ideas, and still
+more rarely the relations of ideas to one another.  If this statement
+is apparently refuted by the objection that they learn some elements of
+geometry, it is not really true; that very fact confirms my statement.
+It shows that, far from knowing how to reason themselves, they cannot
+even keep in mind the reasonings of others.  For if you investigate the
+method of these little geometricians, you discover at once that they
+have retained only the exact impression of the diagram and the words of
+the demonstration.  Upon the least new objection they are puzzled.
+Their knowledge is only of the sensation; nothing has become the
+property of their understanding.  Even their memory is rarely more
+perfect than their other faculties: for when grown they have nearly
+always to learn again as realities things whose names they learned in
+childhood.
+
+However, I am far from thinking that children have no power of
+reasoning whatever.[10]  I observe, on the contrary, that in things
+they understand, things relating to their present and manifest
+interests, they reason extremely well.  We are, however, liable to be
+misled as to their knowledge, attributing to them what they do not
+have, and making them reason about what they do not understand.  Again,
+we make the mistake of calling their attention to considerations by
+which they are in no wise affected, such as their future interests, the
+happiness of their coming manhood, the opinion people will have of them
+when they are grown up.  Such speeches, addressed to minds entirely
+without foresight, are absolutely unmeaning.  Now all the studies
+forced upon these poor unfortunates deal with things like this, utterly
+foreign to their minds.  You may judge what attention such subjects are
+likely to receive.
+
+
+On the Study of Words.
+
+Pedagogues, who make such an imposing display of what they teach, are
+paid to talk in another strain than mine, but their conduct shows that
+they think as I do.  For after all, what do they teach their pupils?
+Words, words, words.  Among all their boasted subjects, none are
+selected because they are useful; such would be the sciences of things,
+in which these professors are unskilful.  But they prefer sciences we
+seem to know when we know their nomenclature, such as heraldry,
+geography, chronology, languages; studies so far removed from human
+interests, and particularly from the child, that it would be wonderful
+if any of them could be of the least use at any time in life.
+
+It may cause surprise that I account the study of languages one of the
+useless things in education.  But remember I am speaking of the studies
+of earlier years, and whatever may be said, I do not believe that any
+child except a prodigy, will ever learn two languages by the time he is
+twelve or fifteen.[11]
+
+I admit that if the study of languages were only that of words, that
+is, of forms, and of the sounds which express them, it might be
+suitable for children.  But languages, by changing their signs, modify
+also the ideas they represent.  Minds are formed upon languages;
+thoughts take coloring from idioms.  Reason alone is common to all.  In
+each language the mind has its peculiar conformation, and this may be
+in part the cause or the effect of national character.  The fact that
+every nation's language follows the vicissitudes of that nation's
+morals, and is preserved or altered with them, seems to confirm this
+theory.
+
+Of these different forms, custom gives one to the child, and it is the
+only one he retains until the age of reason.  In order to have two, he
+must be able to compare ideas; and how can he do this when he is
+scarcely able to grasp them?  Each object may for him have a thousand
+different signs, but each idea can have but one form; he can therefore
+learn to speak only one language.  It is nevertheless maintained that
+he learns several; this I deny.  I have seen little prodigies who
+thought they could speak six or seven: I have heard them speak German
+in Latin, French, and Italian idioms successively.  They did indeed use
+five or six vocabularies, but they never spoke anything but German.  In
+short, you may give children as many synonyms as you please, and you
+will change only their words, and not their language; they will never
+know more than one.
+
+To hide this inability we, by preference, give them practice in the
+dead languages, of which there are no longer any unexceptionable
+judges.  The familiar use of these tongues having long been lost, we
+content ourselves with imitating what we find of them in books, and
+call this speaking them.  If such be the Greek and Latin of the
+masters, you may judge what that of the children is.  Scarcely have
+they learned by heart the rudiments, without in the least understanding
+them, before they are taught to utter a French discourse in Latin
+words; and, when further advanced, to string together in prose, phrases
+from Cicero and cantos from Virgil.  Then they imagine they are
+speaking Latin, and who is there to contradict them?[12]
+
+In any study, words that represent things are nothing without the ideas
+of the things they represent.  We, however, limit children to these
+signs, without ever being able to make them understand the things
+represented.  We think we are teaching a child the description of the
+earth, when he is merely learning maps.  We teach him the names of
+cities, countries, rivers; he has no idea that they exist anywhere but
+on the map we use in pointing them out to him.  I recollect seeing
+somewhere a text-book on geography which began thus:
+
+"What is the world?  A pasteboard globe."  Precisely such is the
+geography of children.  I will venture to say that after two years of
+globes and cosmography no child of ten, by rules they give him, could
+find the way from Paris to St. Denis.  I maintain that not one of them,
+from a plan of his father's garden, could trace out its windings
+without going astray.  And yet these are the knowing creatures who can
+tell you exactly where Pekin, Ispahan, Mexico, and all the countries of
+the world are.
+
+I hear it suggested that children ought to be engaged in studies in
+which only the eye is needed.  This might be true if there were studies
+in which their eyes were not needed; but I know of none such.
+
+A still more ridiculous method obliges children to study history,
+supposed to be within their comprehension because it is only a
+collection of facts.[13]  But what do we mean by facts?  Do we suppose
+that the relations out of which historic facts grow are so easily
+understood that the minds of children grasp such ideas without
+difficulty?  Do we imagine that the true understanding of events can be
+separated from that of their causes and effects? and that the historic
+and the moral are so far asunder that the one can be understood without
+the other?  If in men's actions you see only purely external and
+physical changes, what do you learn from history?  Absolutely nothing;
+and the subject, despoiled of all interest, no longer gives you either
+pleasure or instruction.  If you intend to estimate actions by their
+moral relations, try to make your pupils understand these relations,
+and you will discover whether history is adapted to their years.
+
+If there is no science in words, there is no study especially adapted
+to children.  If they have no real ideas, they have no real memory; for
+I do not call that memory which retains only impressions.  Of what use
+is it to write on their minds a catalogue of signs that represent
+nothing to them?  In learning the things represented, would they not
+also learn the signs?  Why do you give them the useless trouble of
+learning them twice?  Besides, you create dangerous prejudices by
+making them suppose that science consists of words meaningless to them.
+The first mere word with which the child satisfies himself, the first
+thing he learns on the authority of another person, ruins his judgment.
+Long must he shine in the eyes of unthinking persons before he can
+repair such an injury to himself.
+
+No; nature makes the child's brain so yielding that it receives all
+kinds of impressions; not that we may make his childhood a distressing
+burden to him by engraving on that brain dates, names of kings,
+technical terms in heraldry, mathematics, geography, and all such
+words, unmeaning to him and unnecessary to persons at any age in life.
+But all ideas that he can understand, and that are of use to him, all
+that conduce to his happiness and that will one day make his duties
+plain, should early write themselves there indelibly, to guide him
+through life as his condition and his intellect require.
+
+The memory of which a child is capable is far from inactive, even
+without the use of books.  All he sees and hears impresses him, and he
+remembers it.  He keeps a mental register of people's sayings and
+doings.  Everything around him is the book from which he is continually
+but unconsciously enriching his memory against the time his judgment
+can benefit by it.  If we intend rightly to cultivate this chief
+faculty of the mind, we must choose these objects carefully, constantly
+acquainting him with such as he ought to understand, and keeping back
+those he ought not to know.  In this way we should endeavor to make his
+mind a storehouse of knowledge, to aid in his education in youth, and
+to direct him at all times.  This method does not, it is true, produce
+phenomenal children, nor does it make the reputation of their teachers;
+but it produces judicious, robust men, sound in body and in mind, who,
+although not admired in youth, will make themselves respected in
+manhood.
+
+Émile shall never learn anything by heart, not even fables such as
+those of La Fontaine, simple and charming as they are.  For the words
+of fables are no more the fables themselves than the words of history
+are history itself.  How can we be so blind as to call fables moral
+lessons for children?  We do not reflect that while these stories amuse
+they also mislead children, who, carried away by the fiction, miss the
+truth conveyed; so that what makes the lesson agreeable also makes it
+less profitable.  Men may learn from fables, but children must be told
+the bare truth; if it be veiled, they do not trouble themselves to lift
+the veil.[14]
+
+Since nothing ought to be required of children merely in proof of their
+obedience, it follows that they can learn nothing of which they cannot
+understand the actual and immediate advantage, whether it be pleasant
+or useful.  Otherwise, what motive will induce them to learn it?  The
+art of conversing with absent persons, and of hearing from them, of
+communicating to them at a distance, without the aid of another, our
+feelings, intentions, and wishes, is an art whose value may be
+explained to children of almost any age whatever.  By what astonishing
+process has this useful and agreeable art become so irksome to them?
+They have been forced to learn it in spite of themselves, and to use it
+in ways they cannot understand.  A child is not anxious to perfect the
+instrument used in tormenting him; but make the same thing minister to
+his pleasures, and you cannot prevent him from using it.
+
+Much attention is paid to finding out the best methods of teaching
+children to read.  We invent printing-offices and charts; we turn a
+child's room into a printer's establishment.[15]  Locke proposes
+teaching children to read by means of dice; a brilliant contrivance
+indeed, but a mistake as well.  A better thing than all these, a thing
+no one thinks of, is the desire to learn.  Give a child this desire,
+and you will not need dice or reading lotteries; any device will serve
+as well.  If, on the plan I have begun to lay down, you follow rules
+exactly contrary to those most in fashion, you will not attract and
+bewilder your pupil's attention by distant places, climates, and ages
+of the world, going to the ends of the earth and into the very heavens
+themselves, but will make a point of keeping it fixed upon himself and
+what immediately concerns him; and by this plan you will find him
+capable of perception, memory, and even reasoning; this is the order of
+nature.[16]  In proportion as a creature endowed with sensation becomes
+active, it acquires discernment suited to its powers, and the surplus
+of strength needed to preserve it is absolutely necessary in developing
+that speculative faculty which uses the same surplus for other ends.
+If, then, you mean to cultivate your pupil's understanding, cultivate
+the strength it is intended to govern.  Give him constant physical
+exercise; make his body sound and robust, that you may make him wise
+and reasonable.  Let him be at work doing something; let him run,
+shout, be always in motion; let him be a man in vigor, and he will the
+sooner become one in reason.
+
+You would indeed make a mere animal of him by this method if you are
+continually directing him, and saying, "Go; come; stay; do this; stop
+doing that."  If your head is always to guide his arm, his own head
+will be of no use to him.  But recollect our agreement; if you are a
+mere pedant, there is no use in your reading what I write.
+
+To imagine that physical exercise injures mental operations is a
+wretched mistake; the two should move in unison, and one ought to
+regulate the other.
+
+My pupil, or rather nature's pupil, trained from the first to depend as
+much as possible on himself, is not continually running to others for
+advice.  Still less does he make a display of his knowledge.  On the
+other hand, he judges, he foresees, he reasons, upon everything that
+immediately concerns him; he does not prate, but acts.  He is little
+informed as to what is going on in the world, but knows very well what
+he ought to do, and how to do it.  Incessantly in motion, he cannot
+avoid observing many things, and knowing many effects.  He early gains
+a wide experience, and takes his lessons from nature, not from men.  He
+instructs himself all the better for discovering nowhere any intention
+of instructing him.  Thus, at the same time, body and mind are
+exercised.  Always carrying out his own ideas, and not another
+person's, two processes are simultaneously going on within him.  As he
+grows robust and strong, he becomes intelligent and judicious.
+
+In this way he will one day have those two excellences,--thought
+incompatible indeed, but characteristic of nearly all great
+men,--strength of body and strength of mind, the reason of a sage and
+the vigor of an athlete.
+
+I am recommending a difficult art to you, young teacher,--the art of
+governing without rules, and of doing everything by doing nothing at
+all.  I grant, that at your age, this art is not to be expected of you.
+It will not enable you, at the outset, to exhibit your shining talents,
+or to make yourself prized by parents; but it is the only one that will
+succeed.  To be a sensible man, your pupil must first have been a
+little scapegrace.  The Spartans were educated in this way; not tied
+down to books, but obliged to steal their dinners;[17] and did this
+produce men inferior in understanding?  Who does not remember their
+forcible, pithy sayings?  Trained to conquer, they worsted their
+enemies in every kind of encounter; and the babbling Athenians dreaded
+their sharp speeches quite as much as their valor.
+
+In stricter systems of education, the teacher commands and thinks he is
+governing the child, who is, after all, the real master.  What you
+exact from him he employs as means to get from you what he wants.  By
+one hour of diligence he can buy a week's indulgence.  At every moment
+you have to make terms with him.  These bargains, which you propose in
+your way, and which he fulfils in his own way, always turn out to the
+advantage of his whims, especially when you are so careless as to make
+stipulations which will be to his advantage whether he carries out his
+share of the bargain or not.  Usually, the child reads the teacher's
+mind better than the teacher reads his.  This is natural; for all the
+sagacity the child at liberty would use in self-preservation he now
+uses to protect himself from a tyrant's chains; while the latter,
+having no immediate interest in knowing the child's mind, follows his
+own advantage by leaving vanity and indolence unrestrained.
+
+Do otherwise with your pupil.  Let him always suppose himself master,
+while you really are master.  No subjection is so perfect as that which
+retains the appearance of liberty; for thus the will itself is made
+captive.  Is not the helpless, unknowing child at your mercy?  Do you
+not, so far as he is concerned, control everything around him?  Have
+you not power to influence him as you please?  Are not his work, his
+play, his pleasure, his pain, in your hands, whether he knows it or not?
+
+Doubtless he ought to do only what he pleases; but your choice ought to
+control his wishes.  He ought to take no step that you have not
+directed; he ought not to open his lips without your knowing what he is
+about to say.
+
+In this case he may, without fear of debasing his mind, devote himself
+to exercises of the body.  Instead of sharpening his wits to escape an
+irksome subjection, you will observe him wholly occupied in finding out
+in everything around him that part best adapted to his present
+well-being.  You will be amazed at the subtilty of his contrivances for
+appropriating to himself all the objects within the reach of his
+understanding, and for enjoying everything without regard to other
+people's opinions.
+
+By thus leaving him free, you will not foster his caprices.  If he
+never does anything that does not suit him, he will soon do only what
+he ought to do.  And, although his body be never at rest, still, if he
+is caring for his present and perceptible interests, all the reason of
+which he is capable will develop far better and more appropriately than
+in studies purely speculative.
+
+As he does not find you bent on thwarting him, does not distrust you,
+has nothing to hide from you, he will not deceive you or tell you lies.
+He will fearlessly show himself to you just as he is.  You may study
+him entirely at your ease, and plan lessons for him which he will all
+unconsciously receive.
+
+He will not pry with suspicious curiosity into your affairs, and feel
+pleasure when he finds you in fault.  This is one of our most serious
+disadvantages.  As I have said, one of a child's first objects is to
+discover the weaknesses of those who have control of him.  This
+disposition may produce ill-nature, but does not arise from it, but
+from their desire to escape an irksome bondage.  Oppressed by the yoke
+laid upon them, children endeavor to shake it off; and the faults they
+find in their teachers yield them excellent means for doing this.  But
+they acquire the habit of observing faults in others, and of enjoying
+such discoveries.  This source of evil evidently does not exist in
+Émile.  Having no interest to serve by discovering my faults, he will
+not look for them in me, and will have little temptation to seek them
+in other people.
+
+This course of conduct seems difficult because we do not reflect upon
+it; but taking it altogether, it ought not to be so.  I am justified in
+supposing that you know enough to understand the business you have
+undertaken; that you know the natural progress of the human mind; that
+you understand studying mankind in general and in individual cases;
+that among all the objects interesting to his age that you mean to show
+your pupil, you know beforehand which of them will influence his will.
+
+Now if you have the appliances, and know just how to use them, are you
+not master of the operation?
+
+You object that children have caprices, but in this you are mistaken.
+These caprices result from faulty discipline, and are not natural.  The
+children have been accustomed either to obey or to command, and I have
+said a hundred times that neither of these two things is necessary.
+Your pupil will therefore have only such caprices as you give him, and
+it is just you should be punished for your own faults.  But do you ask
+how these are to be remedied?  It can still be done by means of better
+management and much patience.
+
+
+Physical Training.
+
+Man's first natural movements are for the purpose of comparing himself
+with whatever surrounds him and finding in each thing those sensible
+qualities likely to affect himself.  His first study is, therefore, a
+kind of experimental physics relating to his own preservation.  From
+this, before he has fully understood his place here on earth, he is
+turned aside to speculative studies.  While yet his delicate and
+pliable organs can adapt themselves to the objects upon which they are
+to act, while his senses, still pure, are free from illusion, it is
+time to exercise both in their peculiar functions, and to learn the
+perceptible relations between ourselves and outward things.  Since
+whatever enters the human understanding enters by the senses, man's
+primitive reason is a reason of the senses, serving as foundation for
+the reason of the intellect.  Our first teachers in philosophy are our
+own feet, hands, and eyes.  To substitute books for these is teaching
+us not to reason, but to use the reason of another; to believe a great
+deal, and to know nothing at all.
+
+In practising an art we must begin by procuring apparatus for it; and
+to use this apparatus to advantage, we must have it solid enough to
+bear use.  In learning to think, we must therefore employ our members,
+our senses, our organs, all which are the apparatus of our
+understanding.  And to use them to the best advantage, the body which
+furnishes them must be sound and robust.  Our reason is therefore so
+far from being independent of the body, that a good constitution
+renders mental operations easy and accurate.  In indicating how the
+long leisure of childhood ought to be employed, I am entering into
+particulars which maybe thought ridiculous.  "Pretty lessons," you will
+tell me, "which you yourself criticize for teaching only what there is
+no need of learning!  Why waste time in instructions which always come
+of their own accord, and cost neither care nor trouble?  What child of
+twelve does not know all you are going to teach yours, and all that his
+masters have taught him besides?"
+
+Gentlemen, you are mistaken.  I am teaching my pupil a very tedious and
+difficult art, which yours certainly have not acquired,--that of being
+ignorant.  For the knowledge of one who gives himself credit for
+knowing only what he really does know reduces itself to a very small
+compass.  You are teaching science: very good; I am dealing with the
+instrument by which science is acquired.  All who have reflected upon
+the mode of life among the ancients attribute to gymnastic exercises
+that vigor of body and mind which so notably distinguishes them from us
+moderns.  Montaigne's support of this opinion shows that he had fully
+adopted it; he returns to it again and again, in a thousand ways.
+Speaking of the education of a child, he says, "We must make his mind
+robust by hardening his muscles; inure him to pain by accustoming him
+to labor; break him by severe exercise to the keen pangs of
+dislocation, of colic, of other ailments."  The wise Locke,[18] the
+excellent Rollin,[19] the learned Fleury,[20] the pedantic de
+Crouzas,[21] so different in everything else, agree exactly on this
+point of abundant physical exercise for children.  It is the wisest
+lesson they ever taught, but the one that is and always will be most
+neglected.
+
+
+Clothing.
+
+As to clothing, the limbs of a growing body should be entirely free.
+Nothing should cramp their movements or their growth; nothing should
+fit too closely or bind the body; there should be no ligatures
+whatever.  The present French dress cramps and disables even a man, and
+is especially injurious to children.  It arrests the circulation of the
+humors; they stagnate from an inaction made worse by a sedentary life.
+This corruption of the humors brings on the scurvy, a disease becoming
+every day more common among us, but unknown to the ancients, protected
+from it by their dress and their mode of life.  The hussar dress does
+not remedy this inconvenience, but increases it, since, to save the
+child a few ligatures, it compresses the entire body.  It would be
+better to keep children in frocks as long as possible, and then put
+them into loosely fitting clothes, without trying to shape their
+figures and thereby spoil them.  Their defects of body and of mind
+nearly all spring from the same cause: we are trying to make men of
+them before their time.
+
+Of bright and dull colors, the former best please a child's taste; such
+colors are also most becoming to them; and I see no reason why we
+should not in such matters consult these natural coincidences.  But the
+moment a material is preferred because it is richer, the child's mind
+is corrupted by luxury, and by all sorts of whims.  Preferences like
+this do not spring up of their own accord.  It is impossible to say how
+much choice of dress and the motives of this choice influence
+education.  Not only do thoughtless mothers promise children fine
+clothes by way of reward, but foolish tutors threaten them with coarser
+and simpler dress as punishment.  "If you do not study your lessons, if
+you do not take better care of your clothes, you shall be dressed like
+that little rustic."  This is saying to him, "Rest assured that a man
+is nothing but what his clothes make him; your own worth depends on
+what you wear."  Is it surprising that sage lessons like this so
+influence young men that they care for nothing but ornament, and judge
+of merit by outward appearance only?
+
+Generally, children are too warmly clothed, especially in their earlier
+years.  They should be inured to cold rather than heat; severe cold
+never incommodes them when they encounter it early.  But the tissue of
+their skin, as yet yielding and tender, allows too free passage to
+perspiration, and exposure to great heat invariably weakens them.  It
+has been observed that more children die in August than in any other
+month.  Besides, if we compare northern and southern races, we find
+that excessive cold, rather than excessive heat, makes man robust.  In
+proportion as the child grows and his fibres are strengthened, accustom
+him gradually to withstand heat; and by degrees you will without risk
+train him to endure the glowing temperature of the torrid zone.
+
+
+Sleep.
+
+Children need a great deal of sleep because they take a great deal of
+exercise.  The one acts as corrective to the other, so that both are
+necessary.  As nature teaches us, night is the time for rest.  Constant
+observation shows that sleep is softer and more profound while the sun
+is below the horizon.  The heated air does not so perfectly
+tranquillize our tired senses.  For this reason the most salutary habit
+is to rise and to go to rest with the sun.  In our climate man, and
+animals generally, require more sleep in winter than in summer.  But
+our mode of life is not so simple, natural, and uniform that we can
+make this regular habit a necessity.  We must without doubt submit to
+regulations; but it is most important that we should be able to break
+them without risk when occasion requires.  Do not then imprudently
+soften your pupil by letting him lie peacefully asleep without ever
+being disturbed.  At first let him yield without restraint to the law
+of nature, but do not forget that in our day we must be superior to
+this law; we must be able to go late to rest and rise early, to be
+awakened suddenly, to be up all night, without discomfort.  By
+beginning early, and by always proceeding slowly, we form the
+constitution by the very practices which would ruin it if it were
+already established.
+
+It is important that your pupil should from the first be accustomed to
+a hard bed, so that he may find none uncomfortable.
+
+Generally, a life of hardship, when we are used to it, gives us a far
+greater number of agreeable sensations than does a life of ease, which
+creates an infinite number of unpleasant ones.  One too delicately
+reared can find sleep only upon a bed of down; one accustomed to bare
+boards can find it anywhere.  No bed is hard to him who falls asleep as
+soon as his head touches the pillow.  The best bed is the one which
+brings the best sleep.  Throughout the day no slaves from Persia, but
+Émile and I, will prepare our beds.  When we are tilling the ground we
+shall be making them soft for our slumber.
+
+
+Exercise of the Senses.
+
+A child has not a man's stature, strength, or reason; but he sees and
+hears almost or quite as well.  His sense of taste is as keen, though
+he does not enjoy it as a pleasure.
+
+Our senses are the first powers perfected in us.  They are the first
+that should be cultivated and the only ones forgotten, or at least, the
+most neglected.
+
+To exercise the senses is not merely to use them, but to learn how to
+judge correctly by means of them; we may say, to learn how to feel.
+For we cannot feel, or hear, or see, otherwise than as we have been
+taught.
+
+There is a kind of exercise, purely natural and mechanical, that
+renders the body robust without injuring the mind.  Of this description
+are swimming, running, leaping, spinning tops, and throwing stones.
+All these are well enough; but have we nothing but arms and legs?  Have
+we not eyes and ears as well? and are they of no use while the others
+are employed?  Use, then, not only your bodily strength, but all the
+senses which direct it.  Make as much of each as possible, and verify
+the impressions of one by those of another.  Measure, count, weigh, and
+compare.  Use no strength till after you have calculated the resistance
+it will meet.  Be careful to estimate the effect before you use the
+means.  Interest the child in never making any useless or inadequate
+trials of strength.  If you accustom him to forecast the effect of
+every movement, and to correct his errors by experience, is it not
+certain that the more he does the better his judgment will be?
+
+If the lever he uses in moving a heavy weight be too long, he will
+expend too much motion; if too short, he will not have power enough.
+Experience will teach him to choose one exactly suitable.  Such
+practical knowledge, then, is not beyond his years.  If he wishes to
+carry a burden exactly as heavy as his strength will bear, without the
+test of first lifting it, must he not estimate its weight by the eye?
+If he understands comparing masses of the same material but of
+different size, let him choose between masses of the same size but of
+different material.  This will oblige him to compare them as to
+specific gravity.  I have seen a well-educated young man who, until he
+had tried the experiment, would not believe that a pail full of large
+chips weighs less than it does when full of water.
+
+
+The Sense of Touch.
+
+We have not equal control of all our senses.  One of them, the sense of
+touch, is in continual action so long as we are awake.  Diffused over
+the entire surface of the body, it serves as a perpetual sentinel to
+warn us of what is likely to harm us.  By the constant use of this
+sense, voluntary or otherwise, we gain our earliest experience.  It
+therefore stands less in need of special cultivation.  We observe
+however, that the blind have a more delicate and accurate touch than
+we, because, not having sight to guide them, they depend upon touch for
+the judgments we form with the aid of sight.  Why then do we not train
+ourselves to walk, like them, in the dark, to recognize by the touch
+all bodies we can reach, to judge of objects around us, in short, to do
+by night and in the dark all they do in daytime without eyesight?  So
+long as the sun shines, we have the advantage of them; but they can
+guide us in darkness.  We are blind during half our life-time, with
+this difference, that the really blind can always guide themselves,
+whereas we dare not take a step in the dead of night.  You may remind
+me that we have artificial light.  What! must we always use machines?
+Who can insure their being always at hand when we need them?  For my
+part, I prefer that Émile, instead of keeping his eyes in a chandler's
+shop, should have them at the ends of his fingers.
+
+As much as possible, let him be accustomed to play about at night.
+This advice is more important than it would seem.  For men, and
+sometimes for animals, night has naturally its terrors.  Rarely do
+wisdom, or wit, or courage, free us from paying tribute to these
+terrors.  I have seen reasoners, free-thinkers, philosophers, soldiers,
+who were utterly fearless in broad daylight, tremble like women at the
+rustle of leaves by night.  Such terrors are supposed to be the result
+of nursery tales.  The real cause is the same thing which makes the
+deaf distrustful, and the lower classes superstitious; and that is,
+ignorance of objects and events around us.
+
+The cause of the evil, once found, suggests the remedy.  In everything,
+habit benumbs the imagination; new objects alone quicken it again.
+Every-day objects keep active not the imagination, but the memory;
+whence the saying "Ab assuetis non fit passio."[22]  For only the
+imagination can set on fire our passions.  If, therefore, you wish to
+cure any one of the fear of darkness, do not reason with him.  Take him
+into the dark often, and you may be sure that will do him more good
+than philosophical arguments.  When at work on the roofs of houses,
+slaters do not feel their heads swim; and those accustomed to darkness
+do not fear it at all.
+
+There will be one advantage of our plays in the dark.  But if you mean
+them to be successful, you must make them as gay as possible.  Darkness
+is of all things the most gloomy; so do not shut your child up in a
+dungeon.  When he goes into the dark make him laugh; when he leaves it
+make him laugh again; and all the time he is there, let the thought of
+what he is enjoying, and what he will find there when he returns,
+protect him from the shadowy terrors which might otherwise inhabit it.
+
+I have heard some propose to teach children not to be afraid at night,
+by surprising them.  This is a bad plan, and its effect is contrary to
+the one sought: it only makes them more timid than before.  Neither
+reason nor habit can accustom us to a present danger, the nature and
+extent of which we do not know, nor can they lessen our dread of
+unexpected things however often we meet with them.  But how can we
+guard our pupil against such accidents?  I think the following is the
+best plan.  I will tell my Émile, "If any one attacks you at night, you
+are justified in defending yourself; for your assailant gives you no
+notice whether he means to hurt you or only to frighten you.  As he has
+taken you at a disadvantage, seize him boldly, no matter what he may
+seem to be.  Hold him fast, and if he offers any resistance, hit him
+hard and often.  Whatever he may say or do, never let go until you know
+exactly who he is.  The explanation will probably show you that there
+is nothing to be afraid of; and if you treat a practical joker in this
+way, he will not be likely to try the same thing again."
+
+Although, of all our senses, touch is the one most constantly used,
+still, as I have said, its conclusions are the most rude and imperfect.
+This is because it is always used at the same time with sight; and
+because the eye attains its object sooner than the hand; the mind
+nearly always decides without appealing to touch.  On the other hand,
+the decisions of touch, just because they are so limited in their
+range, are the most accurate.  For as they extend no farther than our
+arm's length, they correct the errors of other senses, which deal with
+distant objects, and scarcely grasp these objects at all, whereas all
+that the touch perceives it perceives thoroughly.  Besides, if to
+nerve-force we add muscular action, we form a simultaneous impression,
+and judge of weight and solidity as well as of temperature, size, and
+shape.  Thus touch, which of all our senses best informs us concerning
+impressions made upon us by external things, is the one oftenest used,
+and gives us most directly the knowledge necessary to our preservation.
+
+
+The Sense of Sight.
+
+The sense of touch confines its operations to a very narrow sphere
+around us, but those of sight extend far beyond; this sense is
+therefore liable to be mistaken.  With a single glance a man takes in
+half his own horizon, and in these myriad impressions, and judgments
+resulting from them, how is it credible that there should be no
+mistakes?  Sight, therefore, is the most defective of all our senses,
+precisely because it is most far-reaching, and because its operations,
+by far preceding all others, are too immediate and too vast to receive
+correction from them.  Besides, the very illusions of perspective are
+needed to make us understand extension, and to help us in comparing its
+parts.  If there were no false appearances, we could see nothing at a
+distance; if there were no gradations in size, we could form no
+estimate of distance, or rather there would be no distance at all.  If
+of two trees the one a hundred paces away seemed as large and distinct
+as the other, ten paces distant, we should place them side by side.  If
+we saw all objects in their true dimensions, we should see no space
+whatever; everything would appear to be directly beneath our eye.
+
+For judging of the size and distance of objects, sight has only one
+measure, and that is the angle they form with our eye.  As this is the
+simple effect of a compound cause, the judgment we form from it leaves
+each particular case undecided or is necessarily imperfect.  For how
+can I by the sight alone tell whether the angle which makes one object
+appear smaller than another is caused by the really lesser magnitude of
+the object or by its greater distance from me?
+
+An opposite method must therefore be pursued.  Instead of relying on
+one sensation only, we must repeat it, verify it by others, subordinate
+sight to touch, repressing the impetuosity of the first by the steady,
+even pace of the second.  For lack of this caution we measure very
+inaccurately by the eye, in determining height, length, depth, and
+distance.  That this is not due to organic defect, but to careless use,
+is proved by the fact that engineers, surveyors, architects, masons,
+and painters generally have a far more accurate eye than we, and
+estimate measures of extension more correctly.  Their business gives
+them experience that we neglect to acquire, and thus they correct the
+ambiguity of the angle by means of appearances associated with it,
+which enable them to determine more exactly the relation of the two
+things producing the angle.
+
+Children are easily led into anything that allows unconstrained
+movement of the body.  There are a thousand ways of interesting them in
+measuring, discovering, and estimating distances.  "Yonder is a very
+tall cherry-tree; how can we manage to get some cherries?  Will the
+ladder in the barn do?  There is a very wide brook; how can we cross
+it?  Would one of the planks in the yard be long enough?  We want to
+throw a line from our windows and catch some fish in the moat around
+the house; how many fathoms long ought the line to be?  I want to put
+up a swing between those two trees; would four yards of rope be enough
+for it?  They say that in the other house our room will be twenty-five
+feet square; do you think that will suit us?  Will it be larger than
+this?  We are very hungry; which of those two villages yonder can we
+reach soonest, and have our dinner?"
+
+As the sense of sight is the one least easily separated from the
+judgments of the mind, we need a great deal of time for learning how to
+see.  We must for a long time compare sight with touch, if we would
+accustom our eye to report forms and distances accurately.
+
+Without touch and without progressive movement, the keenest eye-sight
+in the world could give us no idea of extent.  To an oyster the entire
+universe must be only a single point.  Only by walking, feeling,
+counting, and measuring, do we learn to estimate distances.
+
+If we always measure them, however, our eye, depending on this, will
+never gain accuracy.  Yet the child ought not to pass too soon from
+measuring to estimating.  It will be better for him, after comparing by
+parts what he cannot compare as wholes, finally to substitute for
+measured aliquot parts others, obtained by the eye alone.  He should
+train himself in this manner of measuring instead of always measuring
+with the hand.  I prefer that the very first operations of this kind
+should be verified by actual measurements, so that he may correct the
+mistakes arising from false appearances by a better judgment.  There
+are natural measures, nearly the same everywhere, such as a man's pace,
+the length of his arm, or his height.  When the child is calculating
+the height of the story of a house, his tutor may serve as a unit of
+measure.  In estimating the altitude of a steeple, he may compare it
+with that of the neighboring houses.  If he wants to know how many
+leagues there are in a given journey, let him reckon the number of
+hours spent in making it on foot.  And by all means do none of this
+work for him; let him do it himself.
+
+We cannot learn to judge correctly of the extent and size of bodies
+without also learning to recognize their forms, and even to imitate
+them.  For such imitation is absolutely dependent on the laws of
+perspective, and we cannot estimate extent from appearances without
+some appreciation of these laws.
+
+
+Drawing.
+
+All children, being natural imitators, try to draw.  I would have my
+pupil cultivate this art, not exactly for the sake of the art itself,
+but to render the eye true and the hand flexible.  In general, it
+matters little whether he understands this or that exercise, provided
+he acquires the mental insight, and the manual skill furnished by the
+exercise.  I should take care, therefore, not to give him a
+drawing-master, who would give him only copies to imitate, and would
+make him draw from drawings only.  He shall have no teacher but nature,
+no models but real things.  He shall have before his eyes the
+originals, and not the paper which represents them.  He shall draw a
+house from a real house, a tree from a tree, a human figure from the
+man himself.  In this way he will accustom himself to observe bodies
+and their appearances, and not mistake for accurate mutations those
+that are false and conventional.  I should even object to his drawing
+anything from memory, until by frequent observations the exact forms of
+the objects had clearly imprinted themselves on his imagination, lest,
+substituting odd and fantastic shapes for the real things, he might
+lose the knowledge of proportion and a taste for the beauties of
+nature.  I know very well that he will go on daubing for a long time
+without making anything worth noticing, and will be long in mastering
+elegance of outline, and in acquiring the deft stroke of a skilled
+draughtsman.  He may never learn to discern picturesque effects, or
+draw with superior skill.  On the other hand, he will have a more
+correct eye, a truer hand, a knowledge of the real relations of size
+and shape in animals, plants, and natural bodies, and practical
+experience of the illusions of perspective.  This is precisely what I
+intend; not so much that he shall imitate objects as that he shall know
+them.  I would rather have him show me an acanthus than a finished
+drawing of the foliation of a capital.
+
+Yet I would not allow my pupil to have the enjoyment of this or any
+other exercise all to himself.  By sharing it with him I will make him
+enjoy it still more.  He shall have no competitor but myself; but I
+will be that competitor continually, and without risk of jealousy
+between us.  It will only interest him more deeply in his studies.
+Like him I will take up the pencil, and at first I will be as awkward
+as he.  If I were an Apelles, even, I will make myself a mere dauber.
+
+I will begin by sketching a man just as a boy would sketch one on a
+wall, with a dash for each arm, and with fingers larger than the arms.
+By and by one or the other of us will discover this disproportion.  We
+shall observe that a leg has thickness, and that this thickness is not
+the same everywhere; that the length of the arm is determined by its
+proportion to the body; and so on.  As we go on I will do no more than
+keep even step with him, or will excel him by so little that he can
+always easily overtake and even surpass me.  We will get colors and
+brushes; we will try to imitate not only the outline but the coloring
+and all the other details of objects.  We will color; we will paint; we
+will daub; but in all our daubing we shall be continually peering into
+nature, and all we do shall be done under the eye of that great teacher.
+
+If we had difficulty in finding decorations for our room, we have now
+all we could desire.  I will have our drawings framed, so that we can
+give them no finishing touches; and this will make us both careful to
+do no negligent work.  I will arrange them in order around our room,
+each drawing repeated twenty or thirty times, and each repetition
+showing the author's progress, from the representation of a house by an
+almost shapeless attempt at a square, to the accurate copy of its front
+elevation, profile, proportions, and shading.  The drawings thus graded
+must be interesting to ourselves, curious to others, and likely to
+stimulate further effort.  I will inclose the first and rudest of these
+in showy gilded frames, to set them off well; but as the imitation
+improves, and when the drawing is really good, I will add only a very
+simple black frame.  The picture needs no ornament but itself, and it
+would be a pity that the bordering should receive half the attention.
+
+Both of us will aspire to the honor of a plain frame, and if either
+wishes to condemn the other's drawing, he will say it ought to have a
+gilt frame.  Perhaps some day these gilded frames will pass into a
+proverb with us, and we shall be interested to observe how many men do
+justice to themselves by framing themselves in the very same way.
+
+
+Geometry.
+
+I have said that geometry is not intelligible to children; but it is
+our own fault.  We do not observe that their method is different from
+ours, and that what is to us the art of reasoning should be to them
+only the art of seeing.  Instead of giving them our method, we should
+do better to take theirs.  For in our way of learning geometry,
+imagination really does as much as reason.  When a proposition is
+stated, we have to imagine the demonstration; that is, we have to find
+upon what proposition already known the new one depends, and from all
+the consequences of this known principle select just the one required.
+According to this method the most exact reasoner, if not naturally
+inventive, must be at fault.  And the result is that the teacher,
+instead of making us discover demonstrations, dictates them to us;
+instead of teaching us to reason, he reasons for us, and exercises only
+our memory.
+
+Make the diagrams accurate; combine them, place them one upon another,
+examine their relations, and you will discover the whole of elementary
+geometry by proceeding from one observation to another, without using
+either definitions or problems, or any form of demonstration than
+simple superposition.  For my part, I do not even pretend to teach
+Émile geometry; he shall teach it to me.  I will look for relations,
+and he shall discover them.  I will look for them in a way that will
+lead him to discover them.  In drawing a circle, for instance, I will
+not use a compass, but a point at the end of a cord which turns on a
+pivot.  Afterward, when I want to compare the radii of a semi-circle,
+Émile will laugh at me and tell me that the same cord, held with the
+same tension, cannot describe unequal distances.
+
+When I want to measure an angle of sixty degrees, I will describe from
+the apex of the angle not an arc only, but an entire circle; for with
+children nothing must be taken for granted.  I find that the portion
+intercepted by the two sides of the angle is one-sixth of the whole
+circumference.  Afterward, from the same centre, I describe another and
+a larger circle, and find that this second arc is one-sixth of the new
+circumference.  Describing a third concentric circle, I test it in the
+same way, and continue the process with other concentric circles, until
+Émile, vexed at my stupidity, informs me that every arc, great or
+small, intercepted by the sides of this angle, will be one-sixth of the
+circumference to which it belongs.  You see we are almost ready to use
+the instruments intelligently.
+
+In order to prove the angles of a triangle equal to two right angles, a
+circle is usually drawn.  I, on the contrary, will call Émile's
+attention to this in the circle, and then ask him, "Now, if the circle
+were taken away, and the straight lines were left, would the size of
+the angles be changed?"
+
+It is not customary to pay much attention to the accuracy of figures in
+geometry; the accuracy is taken for granted, and the demonstration
+alone is regarded.  Émile and I will pay no heed to the demonstration,
+but aim to draw exactly straight and even lines; to make a square
+perfect and a circle round.  To test the exactness of the figure we
+will examine it in all its visible properties, and this will give us
+daily opportunity of finding out others.  We will fold the two halves
+of a circle on the line of the diameter, and the halves of a square on
+its diagonal, and then examine our two figures to see which has its
+bounding lines most nearly coincident, and is therefore best
+constructed.  We will debate as to whether this equality of parts
+exists in all parallelograms, trapeziums, and like figures.  Sometimes
+we will endeavor to guess at the result of the experiment before we
+make it, and sometimes to find out the reasons why it should result as
+it does.
+
+Geometry for my pupil is only the art of using the rule and compass
+well.  It should not be confounded with drawing, which uses neither of
+these instruments.  The rule and compass are to be kept under lock and
+key, and he shall be allowed to use them only occasionally, and for a
+short time, lest he fall into the habit of daubing.  But sometimes,
+when we go for a walk, we will take our diagrams with us, and talk
+about what we have done or would like to do.
+
+
+Hearing.
+
+What has been said as to the two senses most continually employed and
+most important may illustrate the way in which I should exercise the
+other senses.  Sight and touch deal alike with bodies at rest and
+bodies in motion.  But as only the vibration of the air can arouse the
+sense of hearing, noise or sound can be made only by a body in motion.
+If everything were at rest, we could not hear at all.  At night, when
+we move only as we choose, we have nothing to fear except from other
+bodies in motion.  We therefore need quick ears to judge from our
+sensations whether the body causing them is large or small, distant or
+near, and whether its motion is violent or slight.  The air, when in
+agitation, is subject to reverberations which reflect it back, produce
+echoes, and repeat the sensation, making the sonorous body heard
+elsewhere than where it really is.  In a plain or valley, if you put
+your ear to the ground, you can hear the voices of men and the sound of
+horses' hoofs much farther than when standing upright.  As we have
+compared sight with touch, let us also compare it with hearing, and
+consider which of the two impressions, leaving the same body at the
+same time, soonest reaches its organ.  When we see the flash of a
+cannon there is still time to avoid the shot; but as soon as we hear
+the sound there is not time; the ball has struck.  We can estimate the
+distance of thunder by the interval between the flash and the
+thunderbolt.  Make the child understand such experiments; try those
+that are within his own power, and discover others by inference.  But
+it would be better he should know nothing about these things than that
+you should tell him all he is to know about them.
+
+We have an organ that corresponds to that of hearing, that is, the
+voice.  Sight has nothing like this, for though we can produce sounds,
+we cannot give off colors.  We have therefore fuller means of
+cultivating hearing, by exercising its active and passive organs upon
+one another.
+
+
+The Voice.
+
+Man has three kinds of voice: the speaking or articulate voice, the
+singing or melodious voice, and the pathetic or accented voice, which
+gives language to passion and animates song and speech.  A child has
+these three kinds of voice as well as a man, but he does not know how
+to blend them in the same way.  Like his elders he can laugh, cry,
+complain, exclaim, and groan.  But he does not know how to blend these
+inflections with the two other voices.  Perfect music best accomplishes
+this blending; but children are incapable of such music, and there is
+never much feeling in their singing.  In speaking, their voice has
+little energy, and little or no accent.
+
+Our pupil will have even a simpler and more uniform mode of speaking,
+because his passions, not yet aroused, will not mingle their language
+with his.  Do not, therefore, give him dramatic parts to recite, nor
+teach him to declaim.  He will have too much sense to emphasize words
+he cannot understand, and to express feelings he has never known.
+
+Teach him to speak evenly, clearly, articulately, to pronounce
+correctly and without affectation, to understand and use the accent
+demanded by grammar and prosody.  Train him to avoid a common fault
+acquired in colleges, of speaking louder than is necessary; have him
+speak loud enough to be understood; let there be no exaggeration in
+anything.
+
+Aim, also, to render his voice in singing, even, flexible, and
+sonorous.  Let his ear be sensitive to time and harmony, but to nothing
+more.  Do not expect of him, at his age, imitative and theatrical
+music.  It would be better if he did not even sing words.  If he wished
+to sing them, I should try to invent songs especially for him, such as
+would interest him, as simple as his own ideas.
+
+
+The Sense of Taste.
+
+Of our different sensations, those of taste generally affect us most.
+We are more interested in judging correctly of substances that are to
+form part of our own bodies than of those which merely surround us.  We
+are indifferent to a thousand things, as objects of touch, of hearing,
+or of sight; but there is almost nothing to which our sense of taste is
+indifferent.  Besides, the action of this sense is entirely physical
+and material.  Imagination and imitation often give a tinge of moral
+character to the impressions of all the other senses; but to this it
+appeals least of all, if at all.  Generally, also, persons of
+passionate and really sensitive temperament, easily moved by the other
+senses, are rather indifferent in regard to this.  This very fact,
+which seems in some measure to degrade the sense of taste, and to make
+excess in its indulgence more contemptible, leads me, however, to
+conclude that the surest way to influence children is by means of their
+appetite.  Gluttony, as a motive, is far better than vanity; for
+gluttony is a natural appetite depending directly on the senses, and
+vanity is the result of opinion, is subject to human caprice and to
+abuse of all kinds.  Gluttony is the passion of childhood, and cannot
+hold its own against any other; it disappears on the slightest occasion.
+
+Believe me, the child will only too soon leave off thinking of his
+appetite; for when his heart is occupied, his palate will give him
+little concern.  When he is a man, a thousand impulsive feelings will
+divert his mind from gluttony to vanity; for this last passion alone
+takes advantage of all others, and ends by absorbing them all.  I have
+sometimes watched closely those who are especially fond of dainties;
+who, as soon as they awoke, were thinking of what they should eat
+during the day, and could describe a dinner with more minuteness than
+Polybius uses in describing a battle; and I have always found that
+these supposed men were nothing but children forty years old, without
+any force or steadiness of character.  Gluttony is the vice of men who
+have no stamina.  The soul of a gourmand has its seat in his palate
+alone; formed only for eating, stupid, incapable, he is in his true
+place only at the table; his judgment is worthless except in the matter
+of dishes.  As he values these far more highly than others in which we
+are interested, as well as he, let us without regret leave this
+business of the palate to him.
+
+It is weak precaution to fear that gluttony may take root in a child
+capable of anything else.  As children, we think only of eating; but in
+youth, we think of it no more.  Everything tastes good to us, and we
+have many other things to occupy us.
+
+Yet I would not use so low a motive injudiciously, or reward a good
+action with a sugar-plum.  Since childhood is or should be altogether
+made up of play and frolic, I see no reason why exercise purely
+physical should not have a material and tangible reward.  If a young
+Majorcan, seeing a basket in the top of a tree, brings it down with a
+stone from his sling, why should he not have the recompense of a good
+breakfast, to repair the strength used in earning it?
+
+A young Spartan, braving the risk of a hundred lashes, stole into a
+kitchen, and carried off a live fox-cub, which concealed under his
+coat, scratched and bit him till the blood came.  To avoid the disgrace
+of detection, the child allowed the creature to gnaw his entrails, and
+did not lift an eyelash or utter a cry.[23]  Was it not just that, as a
+reward, he was allowed to devour the beast that had done its best to
+devour him?
+
+A good meal ought never to be given as a reward; but why should it not
+sometimes be the result of the pains taken to secure it?  Émile will
+not consider the cake I put upon a stone as a reward for running well;
+he only knows that he cannot have the cake unless he reaches it before
+some other person does.
+
+This does not contradict the principle before laid down as to
+simplicity in diet.  For to please a child's appetite we need not
+arouse it, but merely satisfy it; and this may be done with the most
+ordinary things in the world, if we do not take pains to refine his
+taste.  His continual appetite, arising from his rapid growth, is an
+unfailing sauce, which supplies the place of many others.  With a
+little fruit, or some of the dainties made from milk, or a bit of
+pastry rather more of a rarity than the every-day bread, and, more than
+all, with some tact in bestowing, you may lead an army of children to
+the world's end without giving them any taste for highly spiced food,
+or running any risk of cloying their palate.
+
+Besides, whatever kind of diet you give children, provided they are
+used only to simple and common articles of food, let them eat, run, and
+play as much as they please, and you may rest assured they will never
+eat too much, or be troubled with indigestion.  But if you starve them
+half the time, and they can find a way to escape your vigilance, they
+will injure themselves with all their might, and eat until they are
+entirely surfeited.
+
+Unless we dictate to our appetite other rules than those of nature, it
+will never be inordinate.  Always regulating, prescribing, adding,
+retrenching, we do everything with scales in hand.  But the scales
+measure our own whims, and not our digestive organs.
+
+To return to my illustrations; among country folk the larder and the
+orchard are always open, and nobody, young or old, knows what
+indigestion means.
+
+
+Result.  The Pupil at the Age of Ten or Twelve.
+
+Supposing that my method is indeed that of nature itself, and that I
+have made no mistakes in applying it, I have now conducted my pupil
+through the region of sensations to the boundaries of childish reason.
+The first step beyond should be that of a man.  But before beginning
+this new career, let us for a moment cast our eyes over what we have
+just traversed.  Every age and station in life has a perfection, a
+maturity, all its own.  We often hear of a full-grown man; in
+contemplating a full-grown child we shall find more novelty, and
+perhaps no less pleasure.
+
+The existence of finite beings is so barren and so limited that when we
+see only what is, it never stirs us to emotion.  Real objects are
+adorned by the creations of fancy, and without this charm yield us but
+a barren satisfaction, tending no farther than to the organ that
+perceives them, and the heart is left cold.  The earth, clad in the
+glories of autumn, displays a wealth which the wondering eye enjoys,
+but which arouses no feeling within us; it springs less from sentiment
+than from reflection.  In spring the landscape is still almost bare;
+the forests yield no shade; the verdure is only beginning to bud; and
+yet the heart is deeply moved at the sight.  We feel within us a new
+life, when we see nature thus revive; delightful images surround us;
+the companions of pleasure, gentle tears, ever ready to spring at the
+touch of tender feelings, brim our eyes.  But upon the panorama of the
+vintage season, animated and pleasant though it be, we have no tears to
+bestow.  Why is there this difference?  It is because imagination joins
+to the sight of spring-time that of following seasons.  To the tender
+buds the eye adds the flowers, the fruit, the shade, sometimes also the
+mysteries that may lie hid in them.  Into a single point of time our
+fancy gathers all the year's seasons yet to be, and sees things less as
+they really will be than as it would choose to have them.  In autumn,
+on the contrary, there is nothing but bare reality.  If we think of
+spring then, the thought of winter checks us, and beneath snow and
+hoar-frost the chilled imagination dies.
+
+The charm we feel in looking upon a lovely childhood rather than upon
+the perfection of mature age, arises from the same source.  If the
+sight of a man in his prime gives us like pleasure, it is when the
+memory of what he has done leads us to review his past life and bring
+up his younger days.  If we think of him as he is, or as he will be in
+old age, the idea of declining nature destroys all our pleasure.  There
+can be none in seeing a man rapidly drawing near the grave; the image
+of death is a blight upon everything.
+
+But when I imagine a child of ten or twelve, sound, vigorous, well
+developed for his age, it gives me pleasure, whether on account of the
+present or of the future.  I see him impetuous, sprightly, animated,
+free from anxiety or corroding care, living wholly in his own present,
+and enjoying a life full to overflowing.  I foresee what he will be in
+later years, using the senses, the intellect, the bodily vigor, every
+day unfolding within him.  When I think of him as a child, he delights
+me; when I think of him as a man, he delights me still more.  His
+glowing pulses seem to warm my own; I feel his life within myself, and
+his sprightliness renews my youth.  His form, his bearing, his
+countenance, manifest self-confidence and happiness.  Health glows in
+his face; his firm step is a sign of bodily vigor.  His complexion,
+still delicate, but not insipid, has in it no effeminate softness, for
+air and sun have already given him the honorable stamp of his sex.  His
+still rounded muscles are beginning to show signs of growing
+expressiveness.  His eyes, not yet lighted with the fire of feeling,
+have all their natural serenity.  Years of sorrow have never made them
+dim, nor have his cheeks been furrowed by unceasing tears.  His quick
+but decided movements show the sprightliness of his age, and his sturdy
+independence; they bear testimony to the abundant physical exercise he
+has enjoyed.  His bearing is frank and open, but not insolent or vain.
+His face, never glued to his books, is never downcast; you need not
+tell him to raise his head, for neither fear nor shame has ever made it
+droop.
+
+Make room for him among you, and examine him, gentlemen.  Question him
+with all confidence, without fear of his troubling you with idle
+chatter or impertinent queries.  Do not be afraid of his taking up all
+your time, or making it impossible for you to get rid of him.  You need
+not expect brilliant speeches that I have taught him, but only the
+frank and simple truth without preparation, ornament, or vanity.  When
+he tells you what he has been thinking or doing, he will speak of the
+evil as freely as of the good, not in the least embarrassed by its
+effect upon those who hear him.  He will use words in all the
+simplicity of their original meaning.
+
+We like to prophesy good of children, and are always sorry when a
+stream of nonsense comes to disappoint hopes aroused by some chance
+repartee.  My pupil seldom awakens such hopes, and will never cause
+such regrets: for he never utters an unnecessary word, or wastes breath
+in babble to which he knows nobody will listen.  If his ideas have a
+limited range, they are nevertheless clear.  If he knows nothing by
+heart, he knows a great deal from experience.  If he does not read
+ordinary books so well as other children, he reads the book of nature
+far better.  His mind is in his brain, and not at his tongue's end.  He
+has less memory than judgment.  He can speak only one language, but he
+understands what he says: and if he does not say it as well as another,
+he can do things far better than they can.
+
+He does not know the meaning of custom or routine.  What he did
+yesterday does not in any wise affect his actions of to-day.  He never
+follows a rigid formula, or gives way in the least to authority or to
+example.  Everything he does and says is after the natural fashion of
+his age.  Expect of him, therefore, no formal speeches or studied
+manners, but always the faithful expression of his own ideas, and a
+conduct arising from his own inclinations.
+
+You will find he has a few moral ideas in relation to his own concerns,
+but in regard to men in general, none at all.  Of what use would these
+last be to him, since a child is not yet an active member of society?
+Speak to him of liberty, of property, even of things done by common
+consent, and he may understand you.  He knows why his own things belong
+to him and those of another person do not, and beyond this he knows
+nothing.  Speak to him of duty and obedience, and he will not know what
+you mean.  Command him to do a thing, and he will not understand you.
+But tell him that if he will do you such and such a favor, you will do
+the same for him whenever you can, and he will readily oblige you; for
+he likes nothing better than to increase his power, and to lay you
+under obligations he knows to be inviolable.  Perhaps, too, he enjoys
+being recognized as somebody and accounted worth something.  But if
+this last be his motive, he has already left the path of nature, and
+you have not effectually closed the approaches to vanity.
+
+If he needs help, he will ask it of the very first person he meets, be
+he monarch or man-servant; to him one man is as good as another.
+
+By his manner of asking, you can see that he feels you do not owe him
+anything; he knows that what he asks is really a favor to him, which
+humanity will induce you to grant.  His expressions are simple and
+laconic.  His voice, his look, his gesture, are those of one equally
+accustomed to consent or to refusal.  They show neither the cringing
+submission of a slave, nor the imperious tone of a master; but modest
+confidence in his fellow-creatures, and the noble and touching
+gentleness of one who is free, but sensitive and feeble, asking aid of
+another, also free, but powerful and kind.  If you do what he asks, he
+does not thank you, but feels that he has laid himself under
+obligation.  If you refuse, he will not complain or insist; he knows it
+would be of no use.  He will not say, "I was refused," but "It was
+impossible."  And, as has been already said, we do not often rebel
+against an acknowledged necessity.
+
+Leave him at liberty and by himself, and without saying a word, watch
+what he does, and how he does it.  Knowing perfectly well that he is
+free, he will do nothing from mere thoughtlessness, or just to show
+that he can do it; for is he not aware that he is always his own
+master?  He is alert, nimble, and active; his movements have all the
+agility of his years; but you will not see one that has not some
+definite aim.  No matter what he may wish to do, he will never
+undertake what he cannot do, for he has tested his own strength, and
+knows exactly what it is.  The means he uses are always adapted to the
+end sought, and he rarely does anything without being assured he will
+succeed in it.  His eye will be attentive and critical, and he will not
+ask foolish questions about everything he sees.  Before making any
+inquiries he will tire himself trying to find a thing out for himself.
+If he meets with unexpected difficulties, he will be less disturbed by
+them than another child, and less frightened if there is danger.  As
+nothing has been done to arouse his still dormant imagination, he sees
+things only as they are, estimates danger accurately, and is always
+self-possessed.  He has so often had to give way to necessity that he
+no longer rebels against it.  Having borne its yoke ever since he was
+born, he is accustomed to it, and is ready for whatever may come.
+
+Work and play are alike to him; his plays are his occupations, and he
+sees no difference between the two.  He throws himself into everything
+with charming earnestness and freedom, which shows the bent of his mind
+and the range of his knowledge.  Who does not enjoy seeing a pretty
+child of this age, with his bright expression of serene content, and
+laughing, open countenance, playing at the most serious things, or
+deeply occupied with the most frivolous amusements?  He has reached the
+maturity of childhood, has lived a child's life, not gaining perfection
+at the cost of his happiness, but developing the one by means of the
+other.
+
+While acquiring all the reasoning power possible to his age, he has
+been as happy and as free as his nature allowed.  If the fatal scythe
+is to cut down in him the flower of our hopes, we shall not be obliged
+to lament at the same time his life and his death.  Our grief will not
+be embittered by the recollection of the sorrows we have made him feel.
+We shall be able to say, "At least, he enjoyed his childhood; we robbed
+him of nothing that nature gave him."
+
+In regard to this early education, the chief difficulty is, that only
+far-seeing men can understand it, and that a child so carefully
+educated seems to an ordinary observer only a young scapegrace.
+
+A tutor usually considers his own interests rather than those of his
+pupil.  He devotes himself to proving that he loses no time and earns
+his salary.  He teaches the child such accomplishments as can be
+readily exhibited when required, without regard to their usefulness or
+worthlessness, so long as they are showy.  Without selecting or
+discerning, he charges the child's memory with a vast amount of
+rubbish.  When the child is to be examined, the tutor makes him display
+his wares; and, after thus giving satisfaction, folds up his pack
+again, and goes his way.
+
+My pupil is not so rich; he has no pack at all to display; he has
+nothing but himself.  Now a child, like a man, cannot be seen all at
+once.  What observer can at the first glance seize upon the child's
+peculiar traits?  Such observers there are, but they are uncommon; and
+among a hundred thousand fathers you will not find one such.
+
+
+
+[1] _Puer_, child; _infans_, one who does not speak.
+
+[2] Reading these lines, we are reminded of the admirable works of
+Dickens, the celebrated English novelist, who so touchingly depicts the
+sufferings of children made unhappy by the inhumanity of teachers, or
+neglected as to their need of free air, of liberty, of affection: David
+Copperfield, Hard Times, Nicholas Nickleby, Dombey and Son, Oliver
+Twist, Little Dorrit, and the like.
+
+[3] Here he means Xerxes, King of Persia, who had built an immense
+bridge of boats over the Hellespont to transport his army from Asia
+into Europe.  A storm having destroyed this bridge, the all-powerful
+monarch, furious at the insubordination of the elements, ordered chains
+to be cast into the sea, and had the rebellious waves beaten with rods.
+
+[4] The feeling of a republican, of the "citizen of Geneva," justly
+shocked by monarchial superstitions.  Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had had,
+in fact, from the days of their first playthings, the degrading
+spectacle of a universal servility prostrated before their cradle.  The
+sentiment here uttered was still uncommon and almost unknown when
+Rousseau wrote it.  He did much toward creating it and making it
+popular.
+
+[5] Civil bondage, as understood by Rousseau, consists in the laws and
+obligations of civilized life itself.  He extols the state of nature as
+the ideal condition, the condition of perfect freedom, without seeing
+that, on the contrary, true liberty cannot exist without the protection
+of laws, while the state of nature is only the enslavement of the weak
+by the strong--the triumph of brute force.
+
+[6] In this unconditional form the principle is inadmissible.  Any one
+who has the rearing of children knows this.  But the idea underlying
+the paradox ought to be recognized, for it is a just one.  We ought not
+to command merely for the pleasure of commanding, but solely to
+interpret to the child the requirements of the case in hand.  To
+command him for the sake of commanding is an abuse of power: it is a
+baseness which will end in disaster.  On the other hand, we cannot
+leave it to circumstances to forbid what ought not to be done.  Only,
+the command should be intelligible, reasonable, and unyielding.  This
+is really what Rousseau means.
+
+[7] This is not strictly true.  The child early has the consciousness
+of right and wrong; and if it be true that neither chastisement nor
+reproof is to be abused, it is no less certain that conscience is early
+awake within him, and that it ought not to be neglected in a work so
+delicate as that of education: on condition, be it understood, that we
+act with simplicity, without pedantry, and that we employ example more
+than lectures.  Rousseau says this admirably a few pages farther on.
+
+[8] Nothing is more injudicious than such a question, especially when
+the child is in fault.  In that case, if he thinks you know what he has
+done, he will see that you are laying a snare for him, and this opinion
+cannot fail to set him against you.  If he thinks you do not know he
+will say to himself, "Why should I disclose my fault?"  And thus the
+first temptation to falsehood is the result of your imprudent
+question.--[Note by J. J. ROUSSEAU.]
+
+[9] He refers to Cato, surnamed of Utica, from the African city in
+which he ended his own life.  When a child, he was often invited by his
+brother to the house of the all-powerful Sulla.  The cruelties of the
+tyrant roused the boy to indignation, and it was necessary to watch him
+lest he should attempt to kill Sulla.  It was in the latter's
+antechamber that the scene described by Plutarch occurred.
+
+[10] While writing this I have reflected a hundred times that in an
+extended work it is impossible always to use the same words in the same
+sense.  No language is rich enough to furnish terms and expressions to
+keep pace with the possible modifications of our ideas.  The method
+which defines all the terms, and substitutes the definition for the
+term, is fine, but impracticable; for how shall we then avoid
+travelling in a circle?  If definitions could be given without using
+words, they might be useful.  Nevertheless, I am convinced that, poor
+as our language is, we can make ourselves understood, not by always
+attaching the same meaning to the same words, but by so using each word
+that its meaning shall be sufficiently determined by the ideas nearly
+related to it, and so that each sentence in which a word is used shall
+serve to define the word.  Sometimes I say that children are incapable
+of reasoning, and sometimes I make them reason extremely well; I think
+that my ideas do not contradict each other, though I cannot escape the
+inconvenient contradictions of my mode of expression.
+
+[11] Another exaggeration: the idea is not to teach children to speak
+another language as perfectly as their own.  There are three different
+objects to be attained in studying languages.  First, this study is
+meant to render easy by comparison and practice the knowledge and free
+use of the mother tongue.  Second, it is useful as intellectual
+gymnastics, developing attention, reflection, reasoning, and taste.
+This result is to be expected particularly from the study of the
+ancient languages.  Third, it lowers the barriers separating nations,
+and furnishes valuable means of intercourse which science, industries,
+and commerce cannot afford to do without.  The French have not always
+shown wisdom in ignoring the language of their neighbors or their
+rivals.
+
+[12] From this passage, it is plain that the objections lately raised
+by intelligent persons against the abuse of Latin conversations and
+verses are not of recent date, after all.
+
+[13] There is indeed a faulty method of teaching history, by giving
+children a dry list of facts, names, and dates.  On the other hand, to
+offer them theories upon the philosophy of history is quite as
+unprofitable.  Yet it is not an absurd error, but a duty, to teach them
+the broad outlines of history, to tell them of deeds of renown, of
+mighty works accomplished, of men celebrated for the good or the evil
+they have done; to interest them in the past of humanity, be it
+melancholy or glorious.  By abuse of logic Rousseau, in protesting
+against one excess, falls into another.
+
+[14] Rousseau here analyzes several of La Fontaine's fables, to show
+the immorality and the danger of their "ethics."  He dwells
+particularly upon the fable of the Fox and the Crow.  In this he is
+right; the morality of the greater part of these fables leaves much to
+be desired.  But there is nothing to prevent the teacher from making
+the application.  The memory of a child is pliable and vigorous; not to
+cultivate it would be doing him great injustice.  We need not say that
+a true teacher not only chooses, but by his instructions explains and
+rectifies everything he requires his pupil to read or to learn by
+heart.  With this reservation one cannot but admire this aversion of
+Rousseau's for parrot-learning, word-worship, and exclusive cultivation
+of the memory.  In a few pages may here be found a complete philosophy
+of teaching, adapted to the regeneration of a people.
+
+[15] Rousseau here alludes to the typographical lottery invented by
+Louis Dumas, a French author of the eighteenth century.  It was an
+imitation of a printing-office, and was intended to teach, in an
+agreeable way, not only reading, but even grammar and spelling.  There
+may be good features in all these systems, but we certainly cannot save
+the child all trouble; we ought to let him understand that work must be
+in earnest.  Besides, as moralists and teachers, we ought not to
+neglect giving children some kinds of work demanding application.  They
+will be in better spirits for recreation hours after study.
+
+[16] It is well to combine the two methods; to keep the child occupied
+with what immediately concerns him, and to interest him also in what is
+more remote, whether in space or in time.  He ought not to become too
+positive, nor yet should he be chimerical.  The "order of nature"
+itself has provided for this, by making the child inquisitive about
+things around him, and at the same time about things far away.
+
+[17] This expresses rather too vehemently a true idea.  Do not try to
+impart a rigid education whose apparent correctness hides grave
+defects.  Allow free course to the child's instinctive activity and
+turbulence; let nature speak; do not crave reserve and fastidiousness
+at the expense of frankness and vigor of mind.  This is what the writer
+really means.
+
+[18] An English philosopher, who died in 1701.  He wrote a very
+celebrated "Treatise on the Education of Children."
+
+[19] A celebrated professor, Rector of the University of Paris, who
+died in 1741.  He left a number of works on education.
+
+[20] An abbé of the seventeenth century who wrote a much valued
+"History of the Church," and a "Treatise on the Method and Choice of
+Studies."  He was tutor to Count Vermandois, natural son to Louis XIV.
+
+[21] A professor of mathematics, born at Lausanne, tutor to Prince
+Fredrick of Hesse Cassel.
+
+[22] "Passion is not born of familiar things."
+
+[23] Recorded as illustrating Spartan education.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THIRD.
+
+
+The third book has to do with the youth as he is between the ages of
+twelve and fifteen.  At this time his strength is proportionately
+greatest, and this is the most important period in his life.  It is the
+time for labor and study; not indeed for studies of all kinds, but for
+those whose necessity the student himself feels.  The principle that
+ought to guide him now is that of utility.  All the master's talent
+consists in leading him to discover what is really useful to him.
+Language and history offer him little that is interesting.  He applies
+himself to studying natural phenomena, because they arouse his
+curiosity and afford him means of overcoming his difficulties.  He
+makes his own instruments, and invents what apparatus he needs.
+
+He does not depend upon another to direct him, but follows where his
+own good sense points the way.  Robinson Crusoe on his island is his
+ideal, and this book furnishes the reading best suited to his age.  He
+should have some manual occupation, as much on account of the uncertain
+future as for the sake of satisfying his own constant activity.
+
+Side by side with the body the mind is developed by a taste for
+reflection, and is finally prepared for studies of a higher order.
+With this period childhood ends and youth begins.
+
+
+
+The Age of Study.
+
+Although up to the beginning of youth life is, on the whole, a period
+of weakness, there is a time during this earlier age when our strength
+increases beyond what our wants require, and the growing animal, still
+absolutely weak, becomes relatively strong.  His wants being as yet
+partly undeveloped, his present strength is more than sufficient to
+provide for those of the present.  As a man, he would be very weak; as
+child, he is very strong.
+
+Whence arises this weakness of ours but from the inequality between our
+desires and the strength we have for fulfilling them?  Our passions
+weaken us, because the gratification of them requires more than our
+natural strength.
+
+If we have fewer desires, we are so much the stronger.  Whoever can do
+more than his wishes demand has strength to spare; he is strong indeed.
+Of this, the third stage of childhood, I have now to speak.  I still
+call it childhood for want of a better term to express the idea; for
+this age, not yet that of puberty, approaches youth.
+
+At the age of twelve or thirteen the child's physical strength develops
+much faster than his wants.  He braves without inconvenience the
+inclemency of climate and seasons, scarcely feeling it at all.  Natural
+heat serves him instead of clothing, appetite instead of sauce.  When
+he is drowsy, he lies down on the ground and falls asleep.  Thus he
+finds around him everything he needs; not governed by caprices, his
+desires extend no farther than his own arms can reach.  Not only is he
+sufficient for himself, but, at this one time in all his life, he has
+more strength than he really requires.
+
+What then shall he do with this superabundance of mental and physical
+strength, which he will hereafter need, but endeavor to employ it in
+ways which will at some time be of use to him, and thus throw this
+surplus vitality forward into the future?  The robust child shall make
+provision for his weaker manhood.  But he will not garner it in barns,
+or lay it up in coffers that can be plundered.  To be real owner of
+this treasure, he must store it up in his arms, in his brain, in
+himself.  The present, then, is the time to labor, to receive
+instruction, and to study; nature so ordains, not I.
+
+Human intelligence has its limits.  We can neither know everything, nor
+be thoroughly acquainted with the little that other men know.  Since
+the reverse of every false proposition is a truth, the number of
+truths, like the number of errors, is inexhaustible.  We have to select
+what is to be taught as well as the time for learning it.  Of the kinds
+of knowledge within our power some are false, some useless, some serve
+only to foster pride.  Only the few that really conduce to our
+well-being are worthy of study by a wise man, or by a youth intended to
+be a wise man.  The question is, not what may be known, but what will
+be of the most use when it is known.  From these few we must again
+deduct such as require a ripeness of understanding and a knowledge of
+human relations which a child cannot possibly acquire; such as, though
+true in themselves, incline an inexperienced mind to judge wrongly of
+other things.
+
+This reduces us to a circle small indeed in relation to existing
+things, but immense when we consider the capacity of the child's mind.
+How daring was the hand that first ventured to lift the veil of
+darkness from our human understanding!  What abysses, due to our unwise
+learning, yawn around the unfortunate youth!  Tremble, you who are to
+conduct him by these perilous ways, and to lift for him the sacred veil
+of nature.  Be sure of your own brain and of his, lest either, or
+perhaps both, grow dizzy at the sight.  Beware of the glamour of
+falsehood and of the intoxicating fumes of pride.  Always bear in mind
+that ignorance has never been harmful, that error alone is fatal, and
+that our errors arise, not from what we do not know, but from what we
+think we do know.[1]
+
+
+The Incentive of Curiosity.
+
+The same instinct animates all the different faculties of man.  To the
+activity of the body, striving to develop itself, succeeds the activity
+of the mind, endeavoring to instruct itself.  Children are at first
+only restless; afterwards they are inquisitive.  Their curiosity,
+rightly trained, is the incentive of the age we are now considering.
+We must always distinguish natural inclinations from those that have
+their source in opinion.
+
+There is a thirst for knowledge which is founded only upon a desire to
+be thought learned, and another, springing from our natural curiosity
+concerning anything which nearly or remotely interests us.  Our desire
+for happiness is inborn, and as it can never be fully satisfied, we are
+always seeking ways to increase what we have.  This first principle of
+curiosity is natural to the heart of man, but is developed only in
+proportion to our passions and to our advance in knowledge.  Call your
+pupil's attention to the phenomena of nature, and you will soon render
+him inquisitive.  But if you would keep this curiosity alive, do not be
+in haste to satisfy it.  Ask him questions that he can comprehend, and
+let him solve them.  Let him know a thing because he has found it out
+for himself, and not because you have told him of it.  Let him not
+learn science, but discover it for himself.  If once you substitute
+authority for reason, he will not reason any more; he will only be the
+sport of other people's opinions.
+
+When you are ready to teach this child geography, you get together your
+globes and your maps; and what machines they are!  Why, instead of
+using all these representations, do you not begin by showing him the
+object itself, so as to let him know what you are talking of?
+
+On some beautiful evening take the child to walk with you, in a place
+suitable for your purpose, where in the unobstructed horizon the
+setting sun can be plainly seen.  Take a careful observation of all the
+objects marking the spot at which it goes down.  When you go for an
+airing next day, return to this same place before the sun rises.  You
+can see it announce itself by arrows of fire.  The brightness
+increases; the east seems all aflame; from its glow you anticipate long
+beforehand the coming of day.  Every moment you imagine you see it.  At
+last it really does appear, a brilliant point which rises like a flash
+of lightning, and instantly fills all space.  The veil of shadows is
+cast down and disappears.  We know our dwelling-place once more, and
+find it more beautiful than ever.  The verdure has taken on fresh vigor
+during the night; it is revealed with its brilliant net-work of
+dew-drops, reflecting light and color to the eye, in the first golden
+rays of the new-born day.  The full choir of birds, none silent, salute
+in concert the Father of life.  Their warbling, still faint with the
+languor of a peaceful awakening, is now more lingering and sweet than
+at other hours of the day.  All this fills the senses with a charm and
+freshness which seems to touch our inmost soul.  No one can resist this
+enchanting hour, or behold with indifference a spectacle so grand, so
+beautiful, so full of all delight.
+
+Carried away by such a sight, the teacher is eager to impart to the
+child his own enthusiasm, and thinks to arouse it by calling attention
+to what he himself feels.  What folly!  The drama of nature lives only
+in the heart; to see it, one must feel it.  The child sees the objects,
+but not the relations that bind them together; he can make nothing of
+their harmony.  The complex and momentary impression of all these
+sensations requires an experience he has never gained, and feelings he
+has never known.  If he has never crossed the desert and felt its
+burning sands scorch his feet, the stifling reflection of the sun from
+its rocks oppress him, how can he fully enjoy the coolness of a
+beautiful morning?  How can the perfume of flowers, the cooling vapor
+of the dew, the sinking of his footstep in the soft and pleasant turf,
+enchant his senses?  How can the singing of birds delight him, while
+the accents of love and pleasure are yet unknown?  How can he see with
+transport the rise of so beautiful a day, unless imagination can paint
+all the transports with which it may be filled?  And lastly, how can he
+be moved by the beautiful panorama of nature, if he does not know by
+whose tender care it has been adorned?
+
+Do not talk to the child about things he cannot understand.  Let him
+hear from you no descriptions, no eloquence, no figurative language, no
+poetry.  Sentiment and taste are just now out of the question.
+Continue to be clear, unaffected, and dispassionate; the time for using
+another language will come only too soon.
+
+Educated in the spirit of our principles, accustomed to look for
+resources within himself, and to have recourse to others only when he
+finds himself really helpless, he will examine every new object for a
+long time without saying a word.  He is thoughtful, and not disposed to
+ask questions.  Be satisfied, therefore, with presenting objects at
+appropriate times and in appropriate ways.  When you see his curiosity
+fairly at work, ask him some laconic question which will suggest its
+own answer.
+
+On this occasion, having watched the sunrise from beginning to end with
+him, having made him notice the mountains and other neighboring objects
+on the same side, and allowed him to talk about them just as he
+pleases, be silent for a few minutes, as if in deep thought, and then
+say to him, "I think the sun set over there, and now it has risen over
+here.  How can that be so?"  Say no more; if he asks questions, do not
+answer them: speak of something else.  Leave him to himself, and he
+will be certain to think the matter over.
+
+To give the child the habit of attention and to impress him deeply with
+any truth affecting the senses, let him pass several restless days
+before he discovers that truth.  If the one in question does not thus
+impress him, you may make him see it more clearly by reversing the
+problem.  If he does not know how the sun passes from its setting to
+its rising, he at least does know how it travels from its rising to its
+setting; his eyes alone teach him this.  Explain your first question by
+the second.  If your pupil be not absolutely stupid, the analogy is so
+plain that he cannot escape it.  This is his first lesson in
+cosmography.
+
+As we pass slowly from one sensible idea to another, familiarize
+ourselves for a long time with each before considering the next, and do
+not force our pupil's attention; it will be a long way from this point
+to a knowledge of the sun's course and of the shape of the earth.  But
+as all the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies are upon the same
+principle, and the first observation prepares the way for all the rest,
+less effort, if more time, is required to pass from the daily rotation
+of the earth to the calculation of eclipses than to understand clearly
+the phenomena of day and night.
+
+Since the sun (apparently) revolves about the earth, it describes a
+circle, and we already know that every circle must have a centre.  This
+centre, being in the heart of the earth, cannot be seen; but we may
+mark upon the surface two opposite points that correspond to it.  A rod
+passing through these three points, and extending from one side of the
+heavens to the other, shall be the axis of the earth, and of the sun's
+apparent daily motion.  A spherical top, turning on its point, shall
+represent the heavens revolving on their axis; the two extremities of
+the top are the two poles.  The child will be interested in knowing one
+of them, which I will show him near the tail of Ursa Minor.
+
+This will serve to amuse us for one night.  By degrees we shall grow
+familiar with the stars, and this will awaken a desire to know the
+planets and to watch the constellations.
+
+We have seen the sun rise at midsummer; we will also watch its rising
+at Christmas or some other fine day in winter.  For be it known that we
+are not at all idle, and that we make a joke of braving the cold.  I
+take care to make this second observation in the same place as the
+first; and after some conversation to pave the way for it.  One or the
+other of us will be sure to exclaim, "How queer that is! the sun does
+not rise where it used to rise!  Here are our old landmarks, and now it
+is rising over yonder.  Then there must be one east for summer, and
+another for winter."  Now, young teacher, your way is plain.  These
+examples ought to suffice you for teaching the sphere very
+understandingly, by taking the world for your globe, and the real sun
+instead of your artificial sun.
+
+
+Things Rather than their Signs.
+
+In general, never show the representation of a thing unless it be
+impossible to show the thing itself; for the sign absorbs the child's
+attention, and makes him lose sight of the thing signified.
+
+The armillary sphere[2] seems to me poorly designed and in bad
+proportion.  Its confused circles and odd figures, giving it the look
+of a conjurer's apparatus, are enough to frighten a child.  The earth
+is too small; the circles are too many and too large.  Some of them,
+the colures,[3] for instance, are entirely useless.  Every circle is
+larger than the earth.  The pasteboard gives them an appearance of
+solidity which creates the mistaken impression that they are circular
+masses which really exist.  When you tell the child that these are
+imaginary circles, he understands neither what he sees nor what you
+mean.
+
+Shall we never learn to put ourselves in the child's place?  We do not
+enter into his thoughts, but suppose them exactly like our own.
+Constantly following our own method of reasoning, we cram his mind not
+only with a concatenation of truths, but also with extravagant notions
+and errors.
+
+In the study of the sciences it is an open question whether we ought to
+use synthesis or analysis.  It is not always necessary to choose
+either.  In the same process of investigation we can sometimes both
+resolve and compound, and while the child thinks he is only analyzing,
+we can direct him by the methods teachers usually employ.  By thus
+using both we make each prove the other.  Starting at the same moment
+from two opposite points and never imagining that one road connects
+them, he will be agreeably surprised to find that what he supposed to
+be two paths finally meet as one.
+
+I would, for example, take geography at these two extremes, and add to
+the study of the earth's motions the measurement of its parts,
+beginning with our own dwelling-place.  While the child, studying the
+sphere, is transported into the heavens, bring him back to the
+measurement of the earth, and first show him his own home.
+
+The two starting-points in his geography shall be the town in which he
+lives, and his father's house in the country.  Afterward shall come the
+places lying between these two; then the neighboring rivers; lastly,
+the aspect of the sun, and the manner of finding out where the east is.
+This last is the point of union.  Let him make himself a map of all
+these details; a very simple map, including at first only two objects,
+then by degrees the others, as he learns their distance and position.
+You see now what an advantage we have gained beforehand, by making his
+eyes serve him instead of a compass.
+
+Even with this it may be necessary to direct him a little, but very
+little, and without appearing to do so at all.  When he makes mistakes,
+let him make them; do not correct them.  Wait in silence until he can
+see and correct them himself.  Or, at most, take a good opportunity to
+set in motion some thing which will direct his attention to them.  If
+he were never to make mistakes, he could not learn half so well.
+Besides, the important thing is, not that he should know the exact
+topography of the country, but that he should learn how to find it out
+by himself.  It matters little whether he has maps in his mind or not,
+so that he understands what they represent, and has a clear idea of how
+they are made.
+
+Mark the difference between the learning of your pupils and the
+ignorance of mine.  They know all about maps, and he can make them.
+Our maps will serve as new decorations for our room.
+
+
+Imparting a Taste for Science.
+
+Bear in mind always that the life and soul of my system is, not to
+teach the child many things, but to allow only correct and clear ideas
+to enter his mind.  I do not care if he knows nothing, so long as he is
+not mistaken.  To guard him from errors he might learn, I furnish his
+mind with truths only.  Reason and judgment enter slowly; prejudices
+crowd in; and he must be preserved from these last.  Yet if you
+consider science in itself, you launch upon an unfathomable and
+boundless sea, full of unavoidable dangers.  When I see a man carried
+away by his love for knowledge, hastening from one alluring science to
+another, without knowing where to stop, I think I see a child gathering
+shells upon the seashore.  At first he loads himself with them; then,
+tempted by others, he throws these away, and gathers more.  At last,
+weighed down by so many, and no longer knowing which to choose, he ends
+by throwing all away, and returning empty-handed.
+
+In our early years time passed slowly; we endeavored to lose it, for
+fear of misusing it.  The case is reversed; now we have not time enough
+for doing all that we find useful.  Bear in mind that the passions are
+drawing nearer, and that as soon as they knock at the door, your pupil
+will have eyes and ears for them alone.  The tranquil period of
+intelligence is so brief, and has so many other necessary uses, that
+only folly imagines it long enough to make the child a learned man.
+The thing is, not to teach him knowledge, but to give him a love for
+it, and a good method of acquiring it when this love has grown
+stronger.  Certainly this is a fundamental principle in all good
+education.
+
+Now, also, is the time to accustom him gradually to concentrate
+attention on a single object.  This attention, however, should never
+result from constraint, but from desire and pleasure.  Be careful that
+it shall not grow irksome, or approach the point of weariness.  Leave
+any subject just before he grows tired of it; for the learning it
+matters less to him than the never being obliged to learn anything
+against his will.  If he himself questions you, answer so as to keep
+alive his curiosity, not to satisfy it altogether.  Above all, when you
+find that he makes inquiries, not for the sake of learning something,
+but to talk at random and annoy you with silly questions, pause at
+once, assured that he cares nothing about the matter, but only to
+occupy your time with himself.  Less regard should be paid to what he
+says than to the motive which leads him to speak.  This caution,
+heretofore unnecessary, is of the utmost importance as soon as a child
+begins to reason.
+
+There is a chain of general truths by which all sciences are linked to
+common principles and successively unfolded.  This chain is the method
+of philosophers, with which, for the present, we have nothing to do.
+There is another, altogether different, which shows each object as the
+cause of another, and always points out the one following.  This order,
+which, by a perpetual curiosity, keeps alive the attention demanded by
+all, is the one followed by most men, and of all others necessary with
+children.  When, in making our maps, we found out the place of the
+east, we were obliged to draw meridians.  The two points of
+intersection between the equal shadows of night and morning furnish an
+excellent meridian for an astronomer thirteen years old.  But these
+meridians disappear; it takes time to draw them; they oblige us to work
+always in the same place; so much care, so much annoyance, will tire
+him out at last.  We have seen and provided for this beforehand.
+
+I have again begun upon tedious and minute details.  Readers, I hear
+your murmurs, and disregard them.  I will not sacrifice to your
+impatience the most useful part of this book.  Do what you please with
+my tediousness, as I have done as I pleased in regard to your
+complaints.
+
+
+The Juggler.
+
+For some time my pupil and I had observed that different bodies, such
+as amber, glass, and wax, when rubbed, attract straws, and that others
+do not attract them.  By accident we discovered one that has a virtue
+more extraordinary still,--that of attracting at a distance, and
+without being rubbed, iron filings and other bits of iron.  This
+peculiarity amused us for some time before we saw any use in it.  At
+last we found out that it may be communicated to iron itself, when
+magnetized to a certain degree.  One day we went to a fair, where a
+juggler, with a piece of bread, attracted a duck made of wax, and
+floating on a bowl of water.  Much surprised, we did not however say,
+"He is a conjurer," for we knew nothing about conjurers.  Continually
+struck by effects whose causes we do not know, we were not in haste to
+decide the matter, and remained in ignorance until we found a way out
+of it.
+
+When we reached home we had talked so much of the duck at the fair that
+we thought we would endeavor to copy it.  Taking a perfect needle, well
+magnetized, we inclosed it in white wax, modelled as well as we could
+do it into the shape of a duck, so that the needle passed entirely
+through the body, and with its larger end formed the duck's bill.  We
+placed the duck upon the water, applied to the beak the handle of a
+key, and saw, with a delight easy to imagine, that our duck would
+follow the key precisely as the one at the fair had followed the piece
+of bread.  We saw that some time or other we might observe the
+direction in which the duck turned when left to itself upon the water.
+But absorbed at that time by another object, we wanted nothing more.
+
+That evening, having in our pockets bread prepared for the occasion, we
+returned to the fair.  As soon as the mountebank had performed his
+feat, my little philosopher, scarcely able to contain himself, told him
+that the thing was not hard to do, and that he could do it himself.  He
+was taken at his word.  Instantly he took from his pocket the bread in
+which he had hidden the bit of iron.  Approaching the table his heart
+beat fast; almost tremblingly, he presented the bread.  The duck came
+toward it and followed it; the child shouted and danced for joy.  At
+the clapping of hands, and the acclamations of all present, his head
+swam, and he was almost beside himself.  The juggler was astonished,
+but embraced and congratulated him, begging that we would honor him
+again by our presence on the following day, adding that he would take
+care to have a larger company present to applaud our skill.  My little
+naturalist, filled with pride, began to prattle; but I silenced him,
+and led him away loaded with praises.  The child counted the minutes
+until the morrow with impatience that made me smile.  He invited
+everybody he met; gladly would he have had all mankind as witnesses of
+his triumph.  He could scarcely wait for the hour agreed upon, and,
+long before it came, flew to the place appointed.  The hall was already
+full, and on entering, his little heart beat fast.  Other feats were to
+come first; the juggler outdid himself, and there were some really
+wonderful performances.  The child paid no attention to these.  His
+excitement had thrown him into a perspiration; he was almost
+breathless, and fingered the bread in his pocket with a hand trembling
+with impatience.
+
+At last his turn came, and the master pompously announced the fact.
+Rather bashfully the boy drew near and held forth his bread.  Alas for
+the changes in human affairs!  The duck, yesterday so tame, had grown
+wild.  Instead of presenting its bill, it turned about and swam away,
+avoiding the bread and the hand which presented it, as carefully as it
+had before followed them.  After many fruitless attempts, each received
+with derision, the child complained that a trick was played on him, and
+defied the juggler to attract the duck.
+
+The man, without a word, took a piece of bread and presented it to the
+duck, which instantly followed it, and came towards his hand.  The
+child took the same bit of bread; but far from having better success,
+he saw the duck make sport of him by whirling round and round as it
+swam about the edge of the basin.  At last he retired in great
+confusion, no longer daring to encounter the hisses which followed.
+
+Then the juggler took the bit of bread the child had brought, and
+succeeded as well with it as with his own.  In the presence of the
+entire company he drew out the needle, making another joke at our
+expense; then, with the bread thus disarmed, he attracted the duck as
+before.  He did the same thing with a piece of bread which a third
+person cut off in the presence of all; again, with his glove, and with
+the tip of his finger.  At last, going to the middle of the room, he
+declared in the emphatic tone peculiar to his sort, that the duck would
+obey his voice quite as well as his gesture.  He spoke, and the duck
+obeyed him; commanded it to go to the right, and it went to the right;
+to return, and it did so; to turn, and it turned itself about.  Each
+movement was as prompt as the command.  The redoubled applause was a
+repeated affront to us.  We stole away unmolested, and shut ourselves
+up in our room, without proclaiming our success far and wide as we had
+meant to do.
+
+There was a knock at our door next morning; I opened it, and there
+stood the mountebank, who modestly complained of our conduct.  What had
+he done to us that we should try to throw discredit on his performances
+and take away his livelihood?  What is so wonderful in the art of
+attracting a wax duck, that the honor should be worth the price of an
+honest man's living?  "Faith, gentlemen, if I had any other way of
+earning my bread, I should boast very little of this way.  You may well
+believe that a man who has spent his life in practising this pitiful
+trade understands it much better than you, who devote only a few
+minutes to it.  If I did not show you my best performances the first
+time, it was because a man ought not to be such a fool as to parade
+everything he knows.  I always take care to keep my best things for a
+fit occasion; and I have others, too, to rebuke young and thoughtless
+people.  Besides, gentlemen, I am going to teach you, in the goodness
+of my heart, the secret which puzzled you so much, begging that you
+will not abuse your knowledge of it to injure me, and that another time
+you will use more discretion."
+
+Then he showed us his apparatus, and we saw, to our surprise, that it
+consisted only of a powerful magnet moved by a child concealed beneath
+the table.  The man put up his machine again; and after thanking him
+and making due apologies, we offered him a present.  He refused,
+saying, "No, gentlemen, I am not so well pleased with you as to accept
+presents from you.  You cannot help being under an obligation to me,
+and that is revenge enough.  But, you see, generosity is to be found in
+every station in life; I take pay for my performances, not for my
+lessons."
+
+As he was going out, he reprimanded me pointedly and aloud.  "I
+willingly pardon this child," said he; "he has offended only through
+ignorance.  But you, sir, must have known the nature of his fault; why
+did you allow him to commit such a fault?  Since you live together,
+you, who are older, ought to have taken the trouble of advising him;
+the authority of your experience should have guided him.  When he is
+old enough to reproach you for his childish errors, he will certainly
+blame you for those of which you did not warn him."[4]
+
+He went away, leaving us greatly abashed.  I took upon myself the blame
+of my easy compliance, and promised the child that, another time, I
+would sacrifice it to his interest, and warn him of his faults before
+they were committed.  For a time was coming when our relations would be
+changed, and the severity of the tutor must succeed to the complaisance
+of an equal.  This change should be gradual; everything must be
+foreseen, and that long beforehand.
+
+The following day we returned to the fair, to see once more the trick
+whose secret we had learned.  We approached our juggling Socrates with
+deep respect, hardly venturing to look at him.  He overwhelmed us with
+civilities, and seated us with a marked attention which added to our
+humiliation.  He performed his tricks as usual, but took pains to amuse
+himself for a long time with the duck trick, often looking at us with a
+rather defiant air.  We understood it perfectly, and did not breathe a
+syllable.  If my pupil had even dared to open his mouth, he would have
+deserved to be annihilated.
+
+All the details of this illustration are far more important than they
+appear.  How many lessons are here combined in one!  How many
+mortifying effects does the first feeling of vanity bring upon us!
+Young teachers, watch carefully its first manifestation.  If you can
+thus turn it into humiliation and disgrace, be assured that a second
+lesson will not soon be necessary.
+
+"What an amount of preparation!" you will say.  True; and all to make
+us a compass to use instead of a meridian line!
+
+Having learned that a magnet acts through other bodies, we were all
+impatience until we had made an apparatus like the one we had seen,--a
+hollow table-top with a very shallow basin adjusted upon it and filled
+with water, a duck rather more carefully made, and so on.  Watching
+this apparatus attentively and often, we finally observed that the
+duck, when at rest, nearly always turned in the same direction.
+Following up the experiment by examining this direction, we found it to
+be from south to north.  Nothing more was necessary; our compass was
+invented, or might as well have been.  We had begun to study physics.
+
+
+Experimental Physics.
+
+The earth has different climates, and these have different
+temperatures.  As we approach the poles the variation of seasons is
+more perceptible,--all bodies contract with cold and expand with heat.
+This effect is more readily measured in liquids, and is particularly
+noticeable in spirituous liquors.  This fact suggested the idea of the
+thermometer.  The wind strikes our faces; air is therefore a body, a
+fluid; we feel it though we cannot see it.  Turn a glass vessel upside
+down in water, and the water will not fill it unless you leave a vent
+for the air; therefore air is capable of resistance.  Sink the glass
+lower, and the water rises in the air-filled region of the glass,
+although it does not entirely fill that space.  Air is therefore to
+some extent compressible.  A ball filled with compressed air bounds
+much better than when filled with anything else: air is therefore
+elastic.  When lying at full length in the bath, raise the arm
+horizontally out of the water, and you feel it burdened by a great
+weight; air is therefore heavy.  Put air in equilibrium with other
+bodies, and you can measure its weight.  From these observations were
+constructed the barometer, the siphon, the air-gun, and the air-pump.
+All the laws of statics and hydrostatics were discovered by experiments
+as simple as these.  I would not have my pupil study them in a
+laboratory of experimental physics.  I dislike all that array of
+machines and instruments.  The parade of science is fatal to science
+itself.  All those machines frighten the child; or else their singular
+forms divide and distract the attention he ought to give to their
+effects.
+
+I would make all our own machines, and not begin by making the
+instrument before the experiment has been tried.  But after apparently
+lighting by chance on the experiment, I should by degrees invent
+instruments for verifying it.  These instruments should not be so
+perfect and exact as our ideas of what they should be and of the
+operations resulting from them.
+
+For the first lesson in statics, instead of using balances, I put a
+stick across the back of a chair, and when evenly balanced, measure its
+two portions.  I add weights to each part, sometimes equal, sometimes
+unequal.  Pushing it to or fro as may be necessary, I finally discover
+that equilibrium results from a reciprocal proportion between the
+amount of weight and the length of the levers.  Thus my little student
+of physics can rectify balances without having ever seen them.
+
+When we thus learn by ourselves instead of learning from others, our
+ideas are far more definite and clear.  Besides, if our reason is not
+accustomed to slavish submission to authority, this discovering
+relations, linking one idea to another, and inventing apparatus,
+renders us much more ingenious.  If, instead, we take everything just
+as it is given to us, we allow our minds to sink down into
+indifference; just as a man who always lets his servants dress him and
+wait on him, and his horses carry him about, loses finally not only the
+vigor but even the use of his limbs.  Boileau boasted that he had
+taught Racine to rhyme with difficulty.  There are many excellent
+labor-saving methods for studying science; but we are in sore need of
+one to teach us how to learn them with more effort of our own.
+
+The most manifest value of these slow and laborious researches is, that
+amid speculative studies they maintain the activity and suppleness of
+the body, by training the hands to labor, and creating habits useful to
+any man.  So many instruments are invented to aid in our experiments
+and to supplement the action of our senses, that we neglect to use the
+senses themselves.  If the graphometer measures the size of an angle
+for us, we need not estimate it ourselves.  The eye which measured
+distances with precision intrusts this work to the chain; the steelyard
+saves me the trouble of measuring weights by the hand.  The more
+ingenious our apparatus, the more clumsy and awkward do our organs
+become.  If we surround ourselves with instruments, we shall no longer
+find them within ourselves.
+
+But when, in making the apparatus, we employ the skill and sagacity
+required in doing without them, we do not lose, but gain.  By adding
+art to nature, we become more ingenious and no less skilful.  If,
+instead of keeping a child at his books, I keep him busy in a workshop,
+his hands labor to his mind's advantage: while he regards himself only
+as a workman he is growing into a philosopher.  This kind of exercise
+has other uses, of which I will speak hereafter; and we shall see how
+philosophic amusements prepare us for the true functions of manhood.
+
+I have already remarked that purely speculative studies are rarely
+adapted to children, even when approaching the period of youth; but
+without making them enter very deeply into systematic physics, let all
+the experiments be connected by some kind of dependence by which the
+child can arrange them in his mind and recall them at need.  For we
+cannot without something of this sort retain isolated facts or even
+reasonings long in memory.
+
+In investigating the laws of nature, always begin with the most common
+and most easily observed phenomena, and accustom your pupil not to
+consider these phenomena as reasons, but as facts.  Taking a stone, I
+pretend to lay it upon the air; opening my hand, the stone falls.
+Looking at Émile, who is watching my motions, I say to him, "Why did
+the stone fall?"
+
+No child will hesitate in answering such a question, not even Émile,
+unless I have taken great care that he shall not know how.  Any child
+will say that the stone falls because it is heavy.  "And what does
+heavy mean?"  "Whatever falls is heavy."  Here my little philosopher is
+really at a stand.  Whether this first lesson in experimental physics
+aids him in understanding that subject or not, it will always be a
+practical lesson.
+
+
+Nothing to be Taken upon Authority.  Learning from the Pupil's own
+Necessities.
+
+As the child's understanding matures, other important considerations
+demand that we choose his occupations with more care.  As soon as he
+understands himself and all that relates to him well enough and broadly
+enough to discern what is to his advantage and what is becoming in him,
+he can appreciate the difference between work and play, and to regard
+the one solely as relaxation from the other.  Objects really useful may
+then be included among his studies, and he will pay more attention to
+them than if amusement alone were concerned.  The ever-present law of
+necessity early teaches us to do what we dislike, to escape evils we
+should dislike even more.  Such is the use of foresight from which,
+judicious or injudicious, springs all the wisdom or all the unhappiness
+of mankind.
+
+We all long for happiness, but to acquire it we ought first to know
+what it is.  To the natural man it is as simple as his mode of life; it
+means health, liberty, and the necessaries of life, and freedom from
+suffering.  The happiness of man as a moral being is another thing,
+foreign to the present question.  I cannot too often repeat that only
+objects purely physical can interest children, especially those who
+have not had their vanity aroused and their nature corrupted by the
+poison of opinion.
+
+When they provide beforehand for their own wants, their understanding
+is somewhat developed, and they are beginning to learn the value of
+time.  We ought then by all means to accustom and to direct them to its
+employment to useful ends, these being such as are useful at their age
+and readily understood by them.  The subject of moral order and the
+usages of society should not yet be presented, because children are not
+in a condition to understand such things.  To force their attention
+upon things which, as we vaguely tell them, will be for their good,
+when they do not know what this good means, is foolish.  It is no less
+foolish to assure them that such things will benefit them when grown;
+for they take no interest in this supposed benefit, which they cannot
+understand.
+
+Let the child take nothing for granted because some one says it is so.
+Nothing is good to him but what he feels to be good.  You think it far
+sighted to push him beyond his understanding of things, but you are
+mistaken.  For the sake of arming him with weapons he does not know how
+to use, you take from him one universal among men, common sense: you
+teach him to allow himself always to be led, never to be more than a
+machine in the hands of others.  If you will have him docile while he
+is young, you will make him a credulous dupe when he is a man.  You are
+continually saying to him, "All I require of you is for your own good,
+but you cannot understand it yet.  What does it matter to me whether
+you do what I require or not?  You are doing it entirely for your own
+sake."  With such fine speeches you are paving the way for some kind of
+trickster or fool,--some visionary babbler or charlatan,--who will
+entrap him or persuade him to adopt his own folly.
+
+A man may be well acquainted with things whose utility a child cannot
+comprehend; but is it right, or even possible, for a child to learn
+what a man ought to know?  Try to teach the child all that is useful to
+him now, and you will keep him busy all the time.  Why would you injure
+the studies suitable to him at his age by giving him those of an age he
+may never attain?  "But," you say, "will there be time for learning
+what he ought to know when the time to use it has already come?"  I do
+not know; but I am sure that he cannot learn it sooner.  For experience
+and feeling are our real teachers, and we never understand thoroughly
+what is best for us except from the circumstances of our case.  A child
+knows that he will one day be a man.  All the ideas of manhood that he
+can understand give us opportunities of teaching him; but of those he
+cannot understand he should remain in absolute ignorance.  This entire
+book is only a continued demonstration of this principle of education.
+
+
+Finding out the East.  The Forest of Montmorency.
+
+I do not like explanatory lectures; young people pay very little
+attention to them, and seldom remember them.  Things! things!  I cannot
+repeat often enough that we attach too much importance to words.  Our
+babbling education produces nothing but babblers.
+
+Suppose that while we are studying the course of the sun, and the
+manner of finding where the east is, Émile all at once interrupts me,
+to ask, "What is the use of all this?"  What an opportunity for a fine
+discourse!  How many things I could tell him of in answering this
+question, especially if anybody were by to listen!  I could mention the
+advantages of travel and of commerce; the peculiar products of each
+climate; the manners of different nations; the use of the calendar; the
+calculation of seasons in agriculture; the art of navigation, and the
+manner of travelling by sea, following the true course without knowing
+where we are.  I might take up politics, natural history, astronomy,
+even ethics and international law, by way of giving my pupil an exalted
+idea of all these sciences, and a strong desire to learn them.  When I
+have done, the boy will not have understood a single idea out of all my
+pedantic display.  He would like to ask again, "What is the use of
+finding out where the east is?" but dares not, lest I might be angry.
+He finds it more to his interest to pretend to understand what he has
+been compelled to hear.  This is not at all an uncommon case in
+superior education, so-called.
+
+But our Émile, brought up more like a rustic, and carefully taught to
+think very slowly, will not listen to all this.  He will run away at
+the first word he does not understand, and play about the room, leaving
+me to harangue all by myself.  Let us find a simpler way; this
+scientific display does him no good.
+
+We were noticing the position of the forest north of Montmorency, when
+he interrupted me with the eager question, "What is the use of knowing
+that?"  "You may be right," said I; "we must take time to think about
+it; and if there is really no use in it, we will not try it again, for
+we have enough to do that is of use."  We went at something else, and
+there was no more geography that day.
+
+The next morning I proposed a walk before breakfast.  Nothing could
+have pleased him better; children are always ready to run about, and
+this boy had sturdy legs of his own.  We went into the forest, and
+wandered over the fields; we lost ourselves, having no idea where we
+were; and when we intended to go home, could not find our way.  Time
+passed; the heat of the day came on; we were hungry.  In vain did we
+hurry about from place to place; we found everywhere nothing but woods,
+quarries, plains, and not a landmark that we knew.  Heated, worn out
+with fatigue, and very hungry, our running about only led us more and
+more astray.  At last we sat down to rest and to think the matter over.
+Émile, like any other child, did not think about it; he cried.  He did
+not know that we were near the gate of Montmorency, and that only a
+narrow strip of woodland hid it from us.  But to him this narrow strip
+of woodland was a whole forest; one of his stature would be lost to
+sight among bushes.
+
+After some moments of silence I said to him, with a troubled air,
+
+"My dear Émile, what shall we do to get away from here?"
+
+ÉMILE.  [_In a profuse perspiration, and crying bitterly._] I don't
+know.  I'm tired.  I'm hungry.  I'm thirsty.  I can't do anything.
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  Do you think I am better off than you, or that I would
+mind crying too, if crying would do for my breakfast?  There is no use
+in crying; the thing is, to find our way.  Let me see your watch; what
+time is it?
+
+ÉMILE.  It is twelve o'clock, and I haven't had my breakfast.
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  That is true.  It is twelve o'clock, and I haven't had
+my breakfast, either.
+
+ÉMILE.  Oh, how hungry you must be!
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  The worst of it is that my dinner will not come here to
+find me.  Twelve o'clock?  it was just this time yesterday that we
+noticed where Montmorency is.  Could we see where it is just as well
+from this forest?
+
+ÉMILE.  Yea; but yesterday we saw the forest, and we cannot see the
+town from this place.
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  That is a pity.  I wonder if we could find out where it
+is without seeing it?
+
+ÉMILE.  Oh, my dear friend!
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  Did not we say that this forest is--
+
+ÉMILE.  North of Montmorency.
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  If that is true, Montmorency must be--
+
+ÉMILE.  South of the forest.
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  There is a way of finding out the north at noon.
+
+ÉMILE.  Yes; by the direction of our shadows.
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  But the south?
+
+ÉMILE.  How can we find that?
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  The south is opposite the north.
+
+ÉMILE.  That is true; all we have to do is to find the side opposite
+the shadows.  Oh, there's the south! there's the south!  Montmorency
+must surely be on that side; let us look on that side.
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  Perhaps you are right.  Let us take this path through
+the forest.
+
+ÉMILE.  [_Clapping his hands, with a joyful shout._] Oh, I see
+Montmorency; there it is, just before us, in plain sight.  Let us go to
+our breakfast, our dinner; let us run fast.  Astronomy is good for
+something!
+
+Observe that even if he does not utter these last words, they will be
+in his mind.  It matters little so long as it is not I who utter them.
+Rest assured that he will never in his life forget this day's lesson.
+Now if I had only made him imagine it all indoors, my lecture would
+have been entirely forgotten by the next day.  We should teach as much
+as possible by actions, and say only what we cannot do.
+
+
+Robinson Crusoe.
+
+In his legitimate preference for teaching by the eye and hand and by
+real things, and in his aversion to the barren and erroneous method of
+teaching from books alone, Rousseau, constantly carried away by the
+passionate ardor of his nature, rushes into an opposite extreme, and
+exclaims, "I hate books; they only teach us to talk about what we do
+not understand."  Then, checked in the full tide of this declamation by
+his own good sense, he adds:--
+
+
+Since we must have books, there is one which, to my mind, furnishes the
+finest of treatises on education according to nature.  My Émile shall
+read this book before any other; it shall for a long time be his entire
+library, and shall always hold an honorable place.  It shall be the
+text on which all our discussions of natural science shall be only
+commentaries.  It shall be a test for all we meet during our progress
+toward a ripened judgment, and so long as our taste is unspoiled, we
+shall enjoy reading it.  What wonderful book is this?  Aristotle?
+Pliny?  Buffon?  No; it is "Robinson Crusoe."
+
+The story of this man, alone on his island, unaided by his fellow-men,
+without any art or its implements, and yet providing for his own
+preservation and subsistence, even contriving to live in what might be
+called comfort, is interesting to persons of all ages.  It may be made
+delightful to children in a thousand ways.  Thus we make the desert
+island, which I used at the outset for a comparison, a reality.
+
+This condition is not, I grant, that of man in society; and to all
+appearance Émile will never occupy it; but from it he ought to judge of
+all others.  The surest way to rise above prejudice, and to judge of
+things in their true relations, is to put ourselves in the place of an
+isolated man, and decide as he must concerning their real utility.
+
+Disencumbered of its less profitable portions, this romance from its
+beginning, the shipwreck of Crusoe on the island, to its end, the
+arrival of the vessel which takes him away, will yield amusement and
+instruction to Émile during the period now in question.  I would have
+him completely carried away by it, continually thinking of Crusoe's
+fort, his goats, and his plantations.  I would have him learn, not from
+books, but from real things, all he would need to know under the same
+circumstances.  He should be encouraged to play Robinson Crusoe; to
+imagine himself clad in skins, wearing a great cap and sword, and all
+the array of that grotesque figure, down to the umbrella, of which he
+would have no need.  If he happens to be in want of anything, I hope he
+will contrive something to supply its place.  Let him look carefully
+into all that his hero did, and decide whether any of it was
+unnecessary, or might have been done in a better way.  Let him notice
+Crusoe's mistakes and avoid them under like circumstances.  He will
+very likely plan for himself surroundings like Crusoe's,--a real castle
+in the air, natural at his happy age when we think ourselves rich if we
+are free and have the necessaries of life.  How useful this hobby might
+be made if some man of sense would only suggest it and turn it to good
+account!  The child, eager to build a storehouse for his island, would
+be more desirous to learn than his master would be to teach him.  He
+would be anxious to know everything he could make use of, and nothing
+besides.  You would not need to guide, but to restrain him.
+
+
+Here Rousseau insists upon giving a child some trade, no matter what
+his station in life may be; and in 1762 he uttered these prophetic
+words, remarkable indeed, when we call to mind the disorders at the
+close of that century:--
+
+
+You trust to the present condition of society, without reflecting that
+it is subject to unavoidable revolutions, and that you can neither
+foresee nor prevent what is to affect the fate of your own children.
+The great are brought low, the poor are made rich, the king becomes a
+subject.  Are the blows of fate so uncommon that you can expect to
+escape them?  We are approaching a crisis, the age of revolutions.  Who
+can tell what will become of you then?  All that man has done man may
+destroy.  No characters but those stamped by nature are ineffaceable;
+and nature did not make princes, or rich men, or nobles.
+
+
+This advice was followed.  In the highest grades of society it became
+the fashion to learn some handicraft.  It is well known that Louis XVI.
+was proud of his skill as a locksmith.  Among the exiles of a later
+period, many owed their living to the trade they had thus learned.
+
+To return to Émile: Rousseau selects for him the trade of a joiner, and
+goes so far as to employ him and his tutor in that kind of labor for
+one or more days of every week under a master who pays them actual
+wages for their work.
+
+
+Judging from Appearances.  The Broken Stick.
+
+If I have thus far made myself understood, you may see how, with
+regular physical exercise and manual labor, I am at the same time
+giving my pupil a taste for reflection and meditation.  This will
+counterbalance the indolence which might result from his indifference
+to other men and from the dormant state of his passions.  He must work
+like a peasant and think like a philosopher, or he will be as idle as a
+savage.  The great secret of education is to make physical and mental
+exercises serve as relaxation for each other.  At first our pupil had
+nothing but sensations, and now he has ideas.  Then he only perceived,
+but now he judges.  For from comparison of many successive or
+simultaneous sensations, with the judgments based on them, arises a
+kind of mixed or complex sensation which I call an idea.
+
+The different manner in which ideas are formed gives each mind its
+peculiar character.  A mind is solid if it shape its ideas according to
+the true relations of things; superficial, if content with their
+apparent relations; accurate, if it behold things as they really are;
+unsound, if it understand them incorrectly; disordered, if it fabricate
+imaginary relations, neither apparent nor real; imbecile, if it do not
+compare ideas at all.  Greater or less mental power in different men
+consists in their greater or less readiness in comparing ideas and
+discovering their relations.
+
+From simple as well as complex sensations, we form judgments which I
+will call simple ideas.  In a sensation the judgment is wholly passive,
+only affirming that we feel what we feel.  In a preception or idea, the
+judgment is active; it brings together, compares, and determines
+relations not determined by the senses.  This is the only point of
+difference, but it is important.  Nature never deceives us; it is
+always we who deceive ourselves.
+
+I see a child eight years old helped to some frozen custard.  Without
+knowing what it is, he puts a spoonful in his mouth, and feeling the
+cold sensation, exclaims, "Ah, that burns!"  He feels a keen sensation;
+he knows of none more so than heat, and thinks that is what he now
+feels.  He is of course mistaken; the chill is painful, but does not
+burn him; and the two sensations are not alike, since, after
+encountering both, we never mistake one for the other.  It is not,
+therefore, the sensation which misleads him, but the judgment based on
+it.
+
+It is the same when any one sees for the first time a mirror or optical
+apparatus; or enters a deep cellar in mid-winter or midsummer; or
+plunges his hand, either very warm or very cold, into tepid water; or
+rolls a little ball between two of his fingers held crosswise.  If he
+is satisfied with describing what he perceives or feels, keeping his
+judgment in abeyance, he cannot be mistaken.  But when he decides upon
+appearances, his judgment is active; it compares, and infers relations
+it does not perceive; and it may then be mistaken.  He will need
+experience to prevent or correct such mistakes.  Show your pupil clouds
+passing over the moon at night, and he will think that the moon is
+moving in an opposite direction, and that the clouds are at rest.  He
+will the more readily infer that this is the case, because he usually
+sees small objects, not large ones, in motion, and because the clouds
+seem to him larger than the moon, of whose distance he has no idea.
+When from a moving boat he sees the shore at a little distance, he
+makes the contrary mistake of thinking that the earth moves.  For,
+unconscious of his own motion, the boat, the water, and the entire
+horizon seem to him one immovable whole of which the moving shore is
+only one part.
+
+The first time a child sees a stick half immersed in water, it seems to
+be broken.  The sensation is a true one, and would be, even if we did
+not know the reason for this appearance.  If therefore you ask him what
+he sees, he answers truly, "A broken stick," because he is fully
+conscious of the sensation of a broken stick.  But when, deceived by
+his judgment, he goes farther, and after saying that he sees a broken
+stick, he says again that the stick really is broken, he says what is
+not true; and why?  Because his judgment becomes active; he decides no
+longer from observation, but from inference, when he declares as a fact
+what he does not actually perceive; namely, that touch would confirm
+the judgment based upon sight alone.
+
+The best way of learning to judge correctly is the one which tends to
+simplify our experience, and enables us to make no mistakes even when
+we dispense with experience altogether.  It follows from this that
+after having long verified the testimony of one sense by that of
+another, we must further learn to verify the testimony of each sense by
+itself without appeal to any other.  Then each sensation at once
+becomes an idea, and an idea in accordance with the truth.  With such
+acquisitions I have endeavored to store this third period of human life.
+
+To follow this plan requires a patience and a circumspection of which
+few teachers are capable, and without which a pupil will never learn to
+judge correctly.  For example: if, when he is misled by the appearance
+of a broken stick, you endeavor to show him his mistake by taking the
+stick quickly out of the water, you may perhaps undeceive him, but what
+will you teach him?  Nothing he might not have learned for himself.
+You ought not thus to teach him one detached truth, instead of showing
+him how he may always discover for himself any truth.  If you really
+mean to teach him, do not at once undeceive him.  Let Émile and myself
+serve you for example.
+
+In the first place, any child educated in the ordinary way would, to
+the second of the two questions above mentioned, answer, "Of course the
+stick is broken."  I doubt whether Émile would give this answer.
+Seeing no need of being learned or of appearing learned, he never
+judges hastily, but only from evidence.  Knowing how easily appearances
+deceive us, as in the case of perspective, he is far from finding the
+evidence in the present case sufficient.  Besides, knowing from
+experience that my most trivial question always has an object which he
+does not at once discover, he is not in the habit of giving heedless
+answers.  On the contrary, he is on his guard and attentive; he looks
+into the matter very carefully before replying.  He never gives me an
+answer with which he is not himself satisfied, and he is not easily
+satisfied.  Moreover, he and I do not pride ourselves on knowing facts
+exactly, but only on making few mistakes.  We should be much more
+disconcerted if we found ourselves satisfied with an insufficient
+reason than if we had discovered none at all.  The confession, "I do
+not know," suits us both so well, and we repeat it so often, that it
+costs neither of us anything.  But whether for this once he is
+careless, or avoids the difficulty by a convenient "I do not know," my
+answer is the same: "Let us see; let us find out."
+
+The stick, half-way in the water, is fixed in a vertical position.  To
+find out whether it is broken, as it appears to be, how much we must do
+before we take it out of the water, or even touch it!  First, we go
+entirely round it, and observe that the fracture goes around with us.
+It is our eye alone, then, that changes it; and a glance cannot move
+things from place to place.
+
+Secondly, we look directly down the stick, from the end outside of the
+water; then the stick is no longer bent, because the end next our eye
+exactly hides the other end from us.  Has our eye straightened the
+stick?
+
+Thirdly, we stir the surface of the water, and see the stick bend
+itself into several curves, move in a zig-zag direction, and follow the
+undulations of the water.  Has the motion we gave the water been enough
+thus to break, to soften, and to melt the stick?
+
+Fourth, we draw off the water and see the stick straighten itself as
+fast as the water is lowered.  Is not this more than enough to
+illustrate the fact and to find out the refraction?  It is not then
+true that the eye deceives us, since by its aid alone we can correct
+the mistakes we ascribe to it.
+
+Suppose the child so dull as not to understand the result of these
+experiments.  Then we must call touch to the aid of sight.  Instead of
+taking the stick out of the water, leave it there, and let him pass his
+hand from one end of it to the other.  He will feel no angle; the
+stick, therefore, is not broken.
+
+You will tell me that these are not only judgments but formal
+reasonings.  True; but do you not see that, as soon as the mind has
+attained to ideas, all judgment is reasoning?  The consciousness of any
+sensation is a proposition, a judgment.  As soon, therefore, as we
+compare one sensation with another, we reason.  The art of judging and
+the art of reasoning are precisely the same.
+
+If, from the lesson of this stick, Émile does not understand the idea
+of refraction, he will never understand it at all.  He shall never
+dissect insects, or count the spots on the sun; he shall not even know
+what a microscope or a telescope is.
+
+Your learned pupils will laugh at his ignorance, and will not be very
+far wrong.  For before he uses these instruments, I intend he shall
+invent them; and you may well suppose that this will not be soon done.
+
+This shall be the spirit of all my methods of teaching during this
+period.  If the child rolls a bullet between two crossed fingers, I
+will not let him look at it till he is otherwise convinced that there
+is only one bullet there.
+
+
+Result.  The Pupil at the Age of Fifteen.
+
+I think these explanations will suffice to mark distinctly the advance
+my pupil's mind has hitherto made, and the route by which he has
+advanced.  You are probably alarmed at the number of subjects I have
+brought to his notice.  You are afraid I will overwhelm his mind with
+all this knowledge.  But I teach him rather not to know them than to
+know them.  I am showing him a path to knowledge not indeed difficult,
+but without limit, slowly measured, long, or rather endless, and
+tedious to follow.  I am showing him how to take the first steps, so
+that he may know its beginning, but allow him to go no farther.
+
+Obliged to learn by his own effort, he employs his own reason, not that
+of another.  Most of our mistakes arise less within ourselves than from
+others; so that if he is not to be ruled by opinion, he must receive
+nothing upon authority.  Such continual exercise must invigorate the
+mind as labor and fatigue strengthen the body.
+
+The mind as well as the body can bear only what its strength will
+allow.  When the understanding fully masters a thing before intrusting
+it to the memory, what it afterward draws therefrom is in reality its
+own.  But if instead we load the memory with matters the understanding
+has not mastered, we run the risk of never finding there anything that
+belongs to it.
+
+Émile has little knowledge, but it is really his own; he knows nothing
+by halves; and the most important fact is that he does not now know
+things he will one day know; that many things known to other people he
+never will know; and that there is an infinity of things which neither
+he nor any one else ever will know.  He is prepared for knowledge of
+every kind; not because he has so much, but because he knows how to
+acquire it; his mind is open to it, and, as Montaigne says, if not
+taught, he is at least teachable.  I shall be satisfied if he knows how
+to find out the "wherefore" of everything he knows and the "why" of
+everything he believes.  I repeat that my object is not to give him
+knowledge, but to teach him how to acquire it at need; to estimate it
+at its true value, and above all things, to love the truth.  By this
+method we advance slowly, but take no useless steps, and are not
+obliged to retrace a single one.
+
+Émile understands only the natural and purely physical sciences.  He
+does not even know the name of history, or the meaning of metaphysics
+and ethics.  He knows the essential relations between men and things,
+but nothing of the moral relations between man and man.  He does not
+readily generalize or conceive of abstractions.  He observes the
+qualities common to certain bodies without reasoning about the
+qualities themselves.  With the aid of geometric figures and algebraic
+signs, he knows something of extension and quantity.  Upon these
+figures and signs his senses rest their knowledge of the abstractions
+just named.  He makes no attempt to learn the nature of things, but
+only such of their relations as concern himself.  He estimates external
+things only by their relation to him; but this estimate is exact and
+positive, and in it fancies and conventionalities have no share.  He
+values most those things that are most useful to him; and never
+deviating from this standard, is not influenced by general opinion.
+
+Émile is industrious, temperate, patient, steadfast, and full of
+courage.  His imagination, never aroused, does not exaggerate dangers.
+He feels few discomforts, and can bear pain with fortitude, because he
+has never learned to contend with fate.  He does not yet know exactly
+what death is, but, accustomed to yield to the law of necessity, he
+will die when he must, without a groan or a struggle.  Nature can do no
+more at that moment abhorred by all.  To live free and to have little
+to do with human affairs is the best way of learning how to die.
+
+In a word, Émile has every virtue which affects himself.  To have the
+social virtues as well, he only needs to know the relations which make
+them necessary; and this knowledge his mind is ready to receive.  He
+considers himself independently of others, and is satisfied when others
+do not think of him at all.  He exacts nothing from others, and never
+thinks of owing anything to them.  He is alone in human society, and
+depends solely upon himself.  He has the best right of all to be
+independent, for he is all that any one can be at his age.  He has no
+errors but such as a human being must have; no vices but those from
+which no one can warrant himself exempt.  He has a sound constitution,
+active limbs, a fair and unprejudiced mind, a heart free and without
+passions.  Self-love, the first and most natural of all, has scarcely
+manifested itself at all.  Without disturbing any one's peace of mind
+he has led a happy, contented life, as free as nature will allow.  Do
+you think a youth who has thus attained his fifteenth year has lost the
+years that have gone before?
+
+
+
+[1] This might be carried too far, and is to be admitted with some
+reservations.  Ignorance is never alone; its companions are always
+error and presumption.  No one is so certain that he knows, as he who
+knows nothing; and prejudice of all kinds is the form in which our
+ignorance is clothed.
+
+[2] The armillary sphere is a group of pasteboard or copper circles, to
+illustrate the orbits of the planets, and their position in relation to
+the earth, which is represented by a small wooden ball.
+
+[3] The imaginary circles traced on the celestial sphere, and figured
+in the armillary sphere by metallic circles, are called _culures_.
+
+[4] Rousseau here informs his readers that even these reproaches are
+expected, he having dictated them beforehand to the mountebank; all
+this scene has been arranged to deceive the child.  What a refinement
+of artifice in this passionate lover of the natural!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Émile, by Jean Jacques Rousseau
+
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+The Project Gutenberg E-text of Émile: or, Concerning Education,
+by Jean Jacques Rousseau
+</TITLE>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Émile, by Jean Jacques Rousseau
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Émile
+       or, Concerning Education; Extracts
+
+Author: Jean Jacques Rousseau
+
+Editor: Jules Steeg
+
+Translator: Eleanor Worthington
+
+Release Date: November 9, 2009 [EBook #30433]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ÉMILE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Heath's Pedagogical Library&mdash;4
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+ÉMILE:
+</H1>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+OR, CONCERNING EDUCATION
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+BY
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+EXTRACTS
+</H2>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+<I>CONTAINING THE PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS OF PEDAGOGY<BR>
+FOUND IN THE FIRST THREE BOOKS; WITH AN<BR>
+INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY</I>
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+JULES STEEG, DÉPUTÉ, PARIS, FRANCE
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+TRANSLATED BY
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+ELEANOR WORTHINGTON
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+FORMERLY OF THE COOK COUNTY (ILL.) NORMAL SCHOOL
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+D. C. HEATH &amp; CO., PUBLISHERS
+<BR>
+BOSTON &mdash; NEW YORK &mdash; CHICAGO
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1888, by
+<BR>
+GINN, HEATH, &amp; CO.,
+<BR>
+In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+<BR><BR>
+Printed in U. S. A.
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+M. Jules Steeg has rendered a real service to French and American
+teachers by his judicious selections from Rousseau's Émile.  For the
+three-volume novel of a hundred years ago, with its long disquisitions
+and digressions, so dear to the heart of our patient ancestors, is now
+distasteful to all but lovers of the curious in books.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Émile" is like an antique mirror of brass; it reflects the features of
+educational humanity no less faithfully than one of more modern
+construction.  In these few pages will be found the germ of all that is
+useful in present systems of education, as well as most of the
+ever-recurring mistakes of well-meaning zealots.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The eighteenth century translations of this wonderful book have for
+many readers the disadvantage of an English style long disused.  It is
+hoped that this attempt at a new translation may, with all its defects,
+have the one merit of being in the dialect of the nineteenth century,
+and may thus reach a wider circle of readers.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap00a"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+INTRODUCTION.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Jean Jacques Rousseau's book on education has had a powerful influence
+throughout Europe, and even in the New World.  It was in its day a kind
+of gospel.  It had its share in bringing about the Revolution which
+renovated the entire aspect of our country.  Many of the reforms so
+lauded by it have since then been carried into effect, and at this day
+seem every-day affairs.  In the eighteenth century they were unheard-of
+daring; they were mere dreams.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Long before that time the immortal satirist Rabelais, and, after him,
+Michael Montaigne, had already divined the truth, had pointed out
+serious defects in education, and the way to reform.  No one followed
+out their suggestions, or even gave them a hearing.  Routine went on
+its way.  Exercises of memory,&mdash;the science that consists of mere
+words,&mdash;pedantry, barren and vain-glorious,&mdash;held fast their "bad
+eminence."  The child was treated as a machine, or as a man in
+miniature, no account being taken of his nature or of his real needs;
+without any greater solicitude about reasonable method&mdash;the hygiene of
+mind&mdash;than about the hygiene of the body.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rousseau, who had educated himself, and very badly at that, was
+impressed with the dangers of the education of his day.  A mother
+having asked his advice, he took up the pen to write it; and, little by
+little, his counsels grew into a book, a large work, a pedagogic
+romance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This romance, when it appeared in 1762, created a great noise and a
+great scandal.  The Archbishop of Paris, Christophe de Beaumont, saw in
+it a dangerous, mischievous work, and gave himself the trouble of
+writing a long encyclical letter in order to point out the book to the
+reprobation of the faithful.  This document of twenty-seven chapters is
+a formal refutation of the theories advanced in "Émile."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The archbishop declares that the plan of education proposed by the
+author, "far from being in accordance with Christianity, is not fitted
+to form citizens, or even men."  He accuses Rousseau of irreligion and
+of bad faith; he denounces him to the temporal power as animated "by a
+spirit of insubordination and of revolt."  He sums up by solemnly
+condemning the book "as containing an abominable doctrine, calculated
+to overthrow natural law, and to destroy the foundations of the
+Christian religion; establishing maxims contrary to Gospel morality;
+having a tendency to disturb the peace of empires, to stir up subjects
+to revolt against their sovereign; as containing a great number of
+propositions respectively false, scandalous, full of hatred toward the
+Church and its ministers, derogating from the respect due to Holy
+Scripture and the traditions of the Church, erroneous, impious,
+blasphemous, and heretical."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In those days, such a condemnation was a serious matter; its
+consequences to an author might be terrible.  Rousseau had barely time
+to flee.  His arrest was decreed by the parliament of Paris, and his
+book was burned by the executioner.  A few years before this, the
+author would have run the risk of being burned with his book.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As a fugitive, Rousseau did not find a safe retreat even in his own
+country.  He was obliged to leave Geneva, where his book was also
+condemned, and Berne, where he had sought refuge, but whence he was
+driven by intolerance.  He owed it to the protection of Lord Keith,
+governor of Neufchâtel, a principality belonging to the King of
+Prussia, that he lived for some time in peace in the little town of
+Motiers in the Val de Travera.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was from this place that he replied to the archbishop of Paris by an
+apology, a long-winded work in which he repels, one after another, the
+imputations of his accuser, and sets forth anew with greater urgency
+his philosophical and religious principles.  This work, written on a
+rather confused plan but with impassioned eloquence, manifests a lofty
+and sincere spirit.  It is said that the archbishop was deeply touched
+by it, and never afterward spoke of the author of "Émile" without
+extreme reserve, sometimes even eulogizing his character and his
+virtues.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The renown of the book, condemned by so high an authority, was immense.
+Scandal, by attracting public attention to it, did it good service.
+What was most serious and most suggestive in it was not, perhaps,
+seized upon; but the "craze" of which it was the object had,
+notwithstanding, good results.  Mothers were won over, and resolved to
+nurse their own infants; great lords began to learn handicrafts, like
+Rousseau's imaginary pupil; physical exercises came into fashion; the
+spirit of innovation was forcing itself a way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was not among ourselves, however, that the theories of Rousseau were
+most eagerly experimented upon; it was among foreigners, in Germany, in
+Switzerland, that they found more resolute partisans, and a field more
+ready to receive them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Three men above all the rest are noted for having popularized the
+pedagogic method of Rousseau, and for having been inspired in their
+labors by "Émile."  These were Basedow, Pestalozzi, and Froebel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Basedow, a German theologian, had devoted himself entirely to dogmatic
+controversy, until the reading of "Émile" had the effect of enlarging
+his mental horizon, and of revealing to him his true vocation.  He
+wrote important books to show how Rousseau's method could be applied in
+different departments of instruction, and founded at Dessau, in 1774,
+an institution to bring that method within the domain of experience.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This institution, to which he gave the name of "Philanthropinum," was
+secular in the true sense of the word; and at that time this was in
+itself a novelty.  It was open to pupils of every belief and every
+nationality, and proposed to render study easy, pleasant, and
+expeditious to them, by following the directions of nature itself.  In
+the first rank of his disciples may be placed Campe, who succeeded him
+in the management of the Philanthropinum.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pestalozzi of Zürich, one of the foremost educators of modern times,
+also found his whole life transformed by the reading of "Émile," which
+awoke in him the genius of a reformer.  He himself also, in 1775,
+founded a school, in order to put in practice there his progressive and
+professional method of teaching, which was a fruitful development of
+seeds sown by Rousseau in his book.  Pestalozzi left numerous
+writings,&mdash;romances, treatises, reviews,&mdash;all having for sole object
+the popularization of his ideas and processes of education.  The most
+distinguished among his disciples and continuators is Froebel, the
+founder of those primary schools or asylums known by the name of
+"kindergartens," and the author of highly esteemed pedagogic works.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These various attempts, these new and ingenious processes which, step
+by step, have made their way among us, and are beginning to make their
+workings felt, even in institutions most stoutly opposed to progress,
+are all traceable to Rousseau's "Émile."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is therefore not too much for Frenchmen, for teachers, for parents,
+for every one in our country who is interested in what concerns
+teaching, to go back to the source of so great a movement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is true that "Émile" contains pages that have outlived their day,
+many odd precepts, many false ideas, many disputable and destructive
+theories; but at the same time we find in it so many sagacious
+observations, such upright counsels, suitable even to modern times, so
+lofty an ideal, that, in spite of everything, we cannot read and study
+it without profit.  There is no one who does not know the book by name
+and by reputation; but how many parents, and even teachers, have never
+read it!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This is because a large part of the book is no longer in accordance
+with the actual condition of things; because its very plan, its
+fundamental idea, are outside of the truth.  We are obliged to exercise
+judgment, to make selections.  Some of it must be taken, some left
+untouched.  This is what we have done in the present edition.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We have not, indeed, the presumption to correct Rousseau, or to
+substitute an expurgated "Émile" for the authentic "Émile."  We have
+simply wished to draw the attention of the teachers of childhood to
+those pages of this book which have least grown old, which can still be
+of service, can hasten the downfall of the old systems, can emphasize,
+by their energy and beauty of language, methods already inaugurated and
+reforms already undertaken.  These methods and reforms cannot be too
+often recommended and set in a clear light.  We have desired to call to
+the rescue this powerful and impassioned writer, who brings to bear
+upon every subject he approaches the magical attractiveness of his
+style.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There is absolutely nothing practicable in his system.  It consists in
+isolating a child from the rest of the world; in creating expressly for
+him a tutor, who is a phoenix among his kind; in depriving him of
+father, mother, brothers, and sisters, his companions in study; in
+surrounding him with a perpetual charlatanism, under the pretext of
+following nature; and in showing him only through the veil of a
+factitious atmosphere the society in which he is to live.  And,
+nevertheless, at each step it is sound reason by which we are met; by
+an astonishing paradox, this whimsicality is full of good sense; this
+dream overflows with realities; this improbable and chimerical romance
+contains the substance and the marrow of a rational and truly modern
+treatise on pedagogy.  Sometimes we must read between the lines, add
+what experience has taught us since that day, transpose into an
+atmosphere of open democracy these pages, written under the old order
+of things, but even then quivering with the new world which they were
+bringing to light, and for which they prepared the way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Reading "Émile" in the light of modern prejudices, we can see in it
+more than the author wittingly put into it; but not more than logic and
+the instinct of genius set down there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To unfold the powers of children in due proportion to their age; not to
+transcend their ability; to arouse in them the sense of the observer
+and of the pioneer; to make them discoverers rather than imitators; to
+teach them accountability to themselves and not slavish dependence upon
+the words of others; to address ourselves more to the will than to
+custom, to the reason rather than to the memory; to substitute for
+verbal recitations lessons about things; to lead to theory by way of
+art; to assign to physical movements and exercises a prominent place,
+from the earliest hours of life up to perfect maturity; such are the
+principles scattered broadcast in this book, and forming a happy
+counterpoise to the oddities of which Rousseau was perhaps most proud.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He takes the child in its cradle, almost before its birth; he desires
+that mothers should fulfil the sacred duty of nursing them at the
+breast.  If there must be a nurse, he knows how to choose her, how she
+ought to be treated, how she should be fed.  He watches over the
+movements of the new-born child, over its first playthings.  All these
+counsels bear the stamp of good sense and of experience; or, rather,
+they result from a power of divination singular enough in a man who was
+not willing to take care of his own children.  In this way, day by day,
+he follows up the physical and moral development of the little being,
+all whose ideas and feelings he analyzes, whom he guides with wisdom
+and with tact throughout the mazes of a life made up of convention and
+artifice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We have carefully avoided suppressing the fictions of the gardener and
+of the mountebank; because they are characteristic of his manner, and
+because, after all, these pre-arranged scenes which, as they stand, are
+anything in the world rather than real teaching, contain, nevertheless,
+right notions, and opinions which may suggest to intelligent teachers
+processes in prudent education.  Such teachers will not copy the form;
+they will not imitate the awkward clap-trap; but, yielding to the
+inspiration of the dominant idea, they will, in a way more in
+accordance with nature, manage to thrill with life the teaching of
+facts, and will aid the mind in giving birth to its ideas.  This is the
+old method of Socrates, the eternal method of reason, the only method
+which really educates.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We have brought this volume to an end with the third book of "Émile."
+The fourth and fifth books which follow are not within the domain of
+pedagogy.  They contain admirable pages, which ought to be read; which
+occupy one of the foremost places in our literature; which deal with
+philosophy, with ethics, with theology; but they concern themselves
+with the manner of directing young men and women, and no longer with
+childhood.  The author conducts his Émile even as far as to his
+betrothal; he devotes an entire book to the betrothed herself, Sophie,
+and closes his volume only after he has united them in marriage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We will not go so far.  We will leave Émile upon the confines of youth,
+at the time when he escapes from school, and when he is about beginning
+to feel that he is a man.  At this difficult and critical period the
+teacher no longer suffices.  Then, above all things, is needed all the
+influence of the family; the father's example, the mother's
+clear-sighted tenderness, worthy friendships, an environment of
+meritorious people, of upright minds animated by lofty ideas, who
+attract within their orbit this ardent and inquisitive being, eager for
+novelty, for action, and for independence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Artifices and stratagems are then no longer good for anything; they are
+very soon laid open to the light.  All that can be required of a
+teacher is that he shall have furnished his pupils with a sound and
+strong education, drawn from the sources of reason, experience, and
+nature; that he shall have prepared them to learn to form judgments, to
+make use of their faculties, to enter valiantly upon study and upon
+life.  It seems to us that the pages of Rousseau here published may be
+a useful guide in the pursuit of such a result.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+JULES STEEG.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+BOOK FIRST.
+</H2>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+The first book, after some general remarks upon education, treats
+especially of early infancy; of the first years of life; of the care to
+be bestowed upon very young children; of the nursing of them, of the
+laws of health.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+He makes education begin at birth; expresses himself on the subject of
+the habits to be given or to be avoided; discusses the use and meaning
+of tears, outcries, gestures, also the language that should be used
+with young children, so that, from their tenderest years, the
+inculcating of false ideas and the giving a wrong bent of mind may be
+avoided.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+GENERAL REMARKS.
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+The Object of Education.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Coming from the hand of the Author of all things, everything is good;
+in the hands of man, everything degenerates.  Man obliges one soil to
+nourish the productions of another, one tree to bear the fruits of
+another; he mingles and confounds climates, elements, seasons; he
+mutilates his dog, his horse, his slave.  He overturns everything,
+disfigures everything; he loves deformity, monsters; he desires that
+nothing should be as nature made it, not even man himself.  To please
+him, man must be broken in like a horse; man must be adapted to man's
+own fashion, like a tree in his garden.[<A NAME="chap01fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn1">1</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Were it not for all this, matters would be still worse.  No one wishes
+to be a half-developed being; and in the present condition of things, a
+man left to himself among others from his birth would be the most
+deformed among them all.  Prejudices, authority, necessities, example,
+all the social institutions in which we are submerged, would stifle
+nature in him, and would put nothing in its place.  In such a man
+nature would be like a shrub sprung up by chance in the midst of a
+highway, and jostled from all sides, bent in every direction, by the
+passers-by.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Plants are improved by cultivation, and men by education.  If man were
+born large and strong, his size and strength would be useless to him
+until he had learned to use them.  They would be prejudicial to him, by
+preventing others from thinking of assisting him; and left to himself
+he would die of wretchedness before he had known his own necessities.
+We pity the state of infancy; we do not perceive that the human race
+would have perished if man had not begun by being a child.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We are born weak, we need strength; we are born destitute of all
+things, we need assistance; we are born stupid, we need judgment.  All
+that we have not at our birth, and that we need when grown up, is given
+us by education.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This education comes to us from nature itself, or from other men, or
+from circumstances.  The internal development of our faculties and of
+our organs is the education nature gives us; the use we are taught to
+make of this development is the education we get from other men; and
+what we learn, by our own experience, about things that interest as, is
+the education of circumstances.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Each of us is therefore formed by three kinds of teachers.  The pupil
+in whom their different lessons contradict one another is badly
+educated, and will never be in harmony with himself; the one in whom
+they all touch upon the same points and tend toward the same object
+advances toward that goal only, and lives accordingly.  He alone is
+well educated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now of these three different educations, that of nature does not depend
+upon us; that of circumstances depends upon us only in certain
+respects; that of men is the only one of which we are really masters,
+and that solely because we think we are.  For who can hope to direct
+entirely the speech and conduct of all who surround a child?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As soon, therefore, as education becomes an art, its success is almost
+impossible, since the agreement of circumstances necessary to this
+success is independent of personal effort.  All that the utmost care
+can do is to approach more or less nearly our object; but, for
+attaining it, special good fortune is needed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What is this object?  That of nature itself, as has just been proved.
+Since the agreement of the three educations is necessary to their
+perfection, it is toward the one for which we ourselves can do nothing
+that we must direct both the others.  But perhaps this word "nature"
+has too vague a meaning; we must here try to define it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the natural order of things, all men being equal, the vocation
+common to all is the state of manhood; and whoever is well trained for
+that, cannot fulfil badly any vocation which depends upon it.  Whether
+my pupil be destined for the army, the church, or the bar, matters
+little to me.  Before he can think of adopting the vocation of his
+parents, nature calls upon him to be a man.  How to live is the
+business I wish to teach him.  On leaving my hands he will not, I
+admit, be a magistrate, a soldier, or a priest; first of all he will be
+a man.  All that a man ought to be he can be, at need, as well as any
+one else can.  Fortune will in vain alter his position, for he will
+always occupy his own.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Our real study is that of the state of man.  He among us who best knows
+how to bear the good and evil fortunes of this life is, in my opinion,
+the best educated; whence it follows that true education consists less
+in precept than in practice.  We begin to instruct ourselves when we
+begin to live; our education commences with the commencement of our
+life; our first teacher is our nurse.  For this reason the word
+"education" had among the ancients another meaning which we no longer
+attach to it; it signified nutriment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We must then take a broader view of things, and consider in our pupil
+man in the abstract, man exposed to all the accidents of human life.
+If man were born attached to the soil of a country, if the same season
+continued throughout the year, if every one held his fortune by such a
+tenure that he could never change it, the established customs of to-day
+would be in certain respects good.  The child educated for his
+position, and never leaving it, could not be exposed to the
+inconveniences of another.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But seeing that human affairs are changeable, seeing the restless and
+disturbing spirit of this century, which overturns everything once in a
+generation, can a more senseless method be imagined than to educate a
+child as if he were never to leave his room, as if he were obliged to
+be constantly surrounded by his servants?  If the poor creature takes
+but one step on the earth, if he comes down so much as one stair, he is
+ruined.  This is not teaching him to endure pain; it is training him to
+feel it more keenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We think only of preserving the child: this is not enough.  We ought to
+teach him to preserve himself when he is a man; to bear the blows of
+fate; to brave both wealth and wretchedness; to live, if need be, among
+the snows of Iceland or upon the burning rock of Malta.  In vain you
+take precautions against his dying,&mdash;he must die after all; and if his
+death be not indeed the result of those very precautions, they are none
+the less mistaken.  It is less important to keep him from dying than it
+is to teach him how to live.  To live is not merely to breathe, it is
+to act.  It is to make use of our organs, of our senses, of our
+faculties, of all the powers which bear witness to us of our own
+existence.  He who has lived most is not he who has numbered the most
+years, but he who has been most truly conscious of what life is.  A man
+may have himself buried at the age of a hundred years, who died from
+the hour of his birth.  He would have gained something by going to his
+grave in youth, if up to that time he had only lived.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+The New-born Child.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+The new-born child needs to stretch and to move his limbs so as to draw
+them out of the torpor in which, rolled into a ball, they have so long
+remained.  We do stretch his limbs, it is true, but we prevent him from
+moving them.  We even constrain his head into a baby's cap.  It seems
+as if we were afraid he might appear to be alive.  The inaction, the
+constraint in which we keep his limbs, cannot fail to interfere with
+the circulation of the blood and of the secretions, to prevent the
+child from growing strong and sturdy, and to change his constitution.
+In regions where these extravagant precautions are not taken, the men
+are all large, strong, and well proportioned.  Countries in which
+children are swaddled swarm with hunchbacks, with cripples, with
+persons crook-kneed, stunted, rickety, deformed in all kinds of ways.
+For fear that the bodies of children may be deformed by free movements,
+we hasten to deform them by putting them into a press.  Of our own
+accord we cripple them to prevent their laming themselves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Must not such a cruel constraint have an influence upon their temper as
+well as upon their constitution?  Their first feeling is a feeling of
+constraint and of suffering.  To all their necessary movements they
+find only obstacles.  More unfortunate than chained criminals, they
+make fruitless efforts, they fret themselves, they cry.  Do you tell me
+that the first sounds they make are cries?  I can well believe it; you
+thwart them from the time they are born.  The first gifts they receive
+from you are chains, the first treatment they undergo is torment.
+Having nothing free but the voice, why should they not use it in
+complaints?  They cry on account of the suffering you cause them; if
+you were pinioned in the same way, your own cries would be louder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whence arises this unreasonable custom of swaddling children?  From an
+unnatural custom.  Since the time when mothers, despising their first
+duty, no longer wish to nurse their own children at the breast, it has
+been necessary to intrust the little ones to hired women.  These,
+finding themselves in this way the mothers of strange children,
+concerning whom the voice of nature is silent to them, seek only to
+spare themselves annoyance.  A child at liberty would require incessant
+watching; but after he is well swaddled, they throw him into a corner
+without troubling themselves at all on account of his cries.  Provided
+there are no proofs of the nurse's carelessness, provided that the
+nursling does not break his legs or his arms, what does it matter,
+after all, that he is pining away, or that he continues feeble for the
+rest of his life?  His limbs are preserved at the expense of his life,
+and whatever happens, the nurse is held free from blame.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is pretended that children, when left free, may put themselves into
+bad positions, and make movements liable to injure the proper
+conformation of their limbs.  This is one of the weak arguments of our
+false wisdom, which no experience has ever confirmed.  Of that
+multitude of children who, among nations more sensible than ourselves,
+are brought up in the full freedom of their limbs, not one is seen to
+wound or lame himself.  They cannot give their movements force enough
+to make them dangerous; and when they assume a hurtful position, pain
+soon warns them to change it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We have not yet brought ourselves to the point of swaddling puppies or
+kittens; do we see that any inconvenience results to them from this
+negligence?  Children are heavier, indeed; but in proportion they are
+weaker.  They can scarcely move themselves at all; how can they lame
+themselves?  If laid upon the back they would die in that position,
+like the tortoise, without being able ever to turn themselves again.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="block">
+[This want of intelligence In the care bestowed upon young children is
+seen particularly in those mothers who give themselves no concern about
+their own, do not themselves nurse them, intrust them to hireling
+nurses.  This custom is fatal to all; first to the children and finally
+to families, where barrenness becomes the rule, where woman sacrifices
+to her own convenience the joys and the duties of motherhood.]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Would you recall every one to his highest duties?  Begin with the
+mothers; you will be astonished at the changes you will effect.  From
+this first depravity all others come in succession.  The entire moral
+order is changed; natural feeling is extinguished in all hearts.
+Within our homes there is less cheerfulness; the touching sight of a
+growing family no longer attaches the husband or attracts the attention
+of strangers.  The mother whose children are not seen is less
+respected.  There is no such thing as a family living together; habit
+no longer strengthens the ties of blood.  There are no longer fathers
+and mothers and children and brothers and sisters.  They all scarcely
+know one another; how then should they love one another?  Each one
+thinks only of himself.  When home is a melancholy, lonely place, we
+must indeed go elsewhere to enjoy ourselves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But let mothers only vouchsafe to nourish their children,[<A NAME="chap01fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn2">2</A>] and our
+manners will reform themselves; the feelings of nature will re-awaken
+in all hearts.  The State will be repeopled; this chief thing, this one
+thing will bring all the rest into order again.  The attractions of
+home life present the best antidote to bad morals.  The bustling life
+of little children, considered so tiresome, becomes pleasant; it makes
+the father and the mother more necessary to one another, more dear to
+one another; it draws closer between them the conjugal tie.  When the
+family is sprightly and animated, domestic cares form the dearest
+occupation of the wife and the sweetest recreation of the husband.
+Thus the correction of this one abuse would soon result in a general
+reform; nature would resume all her rights.  When women are once more
+true mothers, men will become true fathers and husbands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If mothers are not real mothers, children are not real children toward
+them.  Their duties to one another are reciprocal, and if these be
+badly fulfilled on the one side, they will be neglected on the other
+side.  The child ought to love his mother before he knows that it is
+his duty to love her.  If the voice of natural affection be not
+strengthened by habit and by care, it will grow dumb even in childhood;
+and thus the heart dies, so to speak, before it is born.  Thus from the
+outset we are beyond the pale of nature.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There is an opposite way by which a woman goes beyond it; that is,
+when, instead of neglecting a mother's cares, she carries them to
+excess; when she makes her child her idol.  She increases and fosters
+his weakness to prevent him from feeling it.  Hoping to shelter him
+from the laws of nature, she wards from him shocks of pain.  She does
+not consider how, for the sake of preserving him for a moment from some
+inconveniences, she is heaping upon his head future accidents and
+perils; nor how cruel is the caution which prolongs the weakness of
+childhood in one who must bear the fatigues of a grown-up man.  The
+fable says that, to render her son invulnerable, Thetis plunged him
+into the Styx.  This allegory is beautiful and clear.  The cruel
+mothers of whom I am speaking do far otherwise; by plunging their
+children into effeminacy they open their pores to ills of every kind,
+to which, when grown up, they fall a certain prey.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Watch nature carefully, and follow the paths she traces out for you.
+She gives children continual exercise; she strengthens their
+constitution by ordeals of every kind; she teaches them early what pain
+and trouble mean.  The cutting of their teeth gives them fever, sharp
+fits of colic throw them into convulsions, long coughing chokes them,
+worms torment them, repletion corrupts their blood, different leavens
+fermenting there cause dangerous eruptions.  Nearly the whole of
+infancy is sickness and danger; half the children born into the world
+die before their eighth year.  These trials past, the child has gained
+strength, and as soon as he can use life, its principle becomes more
+assured.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This is the law of nature.  Why do you oppose her?  Do you not see that
+in thinking to correct her you destroy her work and counteract the
+effect of all her cares?  In your opinion, to do without what she is
+doing within is to redouble the danger.  On the contrary, it is really
+to avert, to mitigate that danger.  Experience teaches that more
+children who are delicately reared die than others.  Provided we do not
+exceed the measure of their strength, it is better to employ it than to
+hoard it.  Give them practice, then, in the trials they will one day
+have to endure.  Inure their bodies to the inclemencies of the seasons,
+of climates, of elements; to hunger, thirst, fatigue; plunge them into
+the water of the Styx.  Before the habits of the body are acquired we
+can give it such as we please without risk.  But when once it has
+reached its full vigor, any alteration is perilous to its well-being.
+A child will endure changes which a man could not bear.  The fibres of
+the former, soft and pliable, take without effort the bent we give
+them; those of man, more hardened, do not without violence change those
+they have received.  We may therefore make a child robust without
+exposing his life or his health; and even if there were some risk we
+still ought not to hesitate.  Since there are risks inseparable from
+human life, can we do better than to throw them back upon that period
+of life when they are least disadvantageous?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A child becomes more precious as he advances in age.  To the value of
+his person is added that of the cares he has cost us; if we lose his
+life, his own consciousness of death is added to our sense of loss.
+Above all things, then, in watching over his preservation we must think
+of the future.  We must arm him against the misfortunes of youth before
+he has reached them.  For, if the value of life increases up to the age
+when life becomes useful, what folly it is to spare the child some
+troubles, and to heap them upon the age of reason!  Are these the
+counsels of a master?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In all ages suffering is the lot of man.  Even to the cares of
+self-preservation pain is joined.  Happy are we, who in childhood are
+acquainted with only physical misfortunes&mdash;misfortunes far less cruel,
+less painful than others; misfortunes which far more rarely make us
+renounce life.  We do not kill ourselves on account of the pains of
+gout; seldom do any but those of the mind produce despair.[<A NAME="chap01fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn3">3</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We pity the lot of infancy, and it is our own lot that we ought to
+pity.  Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At birth a child cries; his earliest infancy is spent in crying.
+Sometimes he is tossed, he is petted, to appease him; sometimes he is
+threatened, beaten, to make him keep quiet.  We either do as he
+pleases, or else we exact from him what we please; we either submit to
+his whims, or make him submit to ours.  There is no middle course; he
+must either give or receive orders.  Thus his first ideas are those of
+absolute rule and of slavery.  Before he knows how to speak, he
+commands; before he is able to act, he obeys; and sometimes he is
+punished before he knows what his faults are, or rather, before he is
+capable of committing them.  Thus do we early pour into his young heart
+the passions that are afterward imputed to nature; and, after having
+taken pains to make him wicked, we complain of finding him wicked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A child passes six or seven years of his life in this manner in the
+hands of women, the victim of his own caprice and of theirs.  After
+having made him learn this and that,&mdash;after having loaded his memory
+either with words he cannot understand, or with facts which are of no
+use to him,&mdash;after having stifled his natural disposition by the
+passions we have created, we put this artificial creature into the
+hands of a tutor who finishes the development of the artificial germs
+he finds already formed, and teaches him everything except to know
+himself, everything except to know how to live and how to make himself
+happy.  Finally, when this enslaved child, this little tyrant, full of
+learning and devoid of sense, enfeebled alike in mind and body, is cast
+upon the world, he there by his unfitness, by his pride, and by all his
+vices, makes us deplore human wretchedness and perversity.  We deceive
+ourselves; this is the man our whims have created.  Nature makes men by
+a different process.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Do you then wish him to preserve his original form?  Preserve it from
+the moment he enters the world.  As soon as he is born take possession
+of him, and do not leave him until he is a man.  Without this you will
+never succeed.  As the mother is the true nurse, the father is the true
+teacher.  Let them be of one mind as to the order in which their
+functions are fulfilled, as well as in regard to their plan; let the
+child pass from the hands of the one into the hands of the other.  He
+will be better educated by a father who is judicious, even though of
+moderate attainments, than by the most skilful master in the world.
+For zeal will supplement talent better than talent can supply what only
+zeal can give.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A father, when he brings his children into existence and supports them,
+has, in so doing, fulfilled only a third part of his task.  To the
+human race he owes men; to society, men fitted for society; to the
+State, citizens.  Every man who can pay this triple debt, and does not
+pay it is a guilty man; and if he pays it by halves, he is perhaps more
+guilty still.  He who cannot fulfil the duties of a father has no right
+to be a father.  Not poverty, nor severe labor, nor human respect can
+release him from the duty of supporting his children and of educating
+them himself.  Readers, you may believe my words.  I prophesy to any
+one who has natural feeling and neglects these sacred duties,&mdash;that he
+will long shed bitter tears over this fault, and that for those tears
+he will find no consolation.[<A NAME="chap01fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn4">4</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="block">
+[It being supposed that the father is unable or unwilling to charge
+himself personally with the education of his son, he must charge a
+third person with it, must seek out a master, a teacher for the child.]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The qualifications of a good tutor are very freely discussed.  The
+first qualification I should require in him, and this one presupposes
+many others, is, that he shall not be capable of selling himself.
+There are employments so noble that we cannot fulfil them for money
+without showing ourselves unworthy to fulfil them.  Such an employment
+is that of a soldier; such a one is that of a teacher.  Who, then,
+shall educate my child?  I have told you already,&mdash;yourself.  I cannot!
+Then make for yourself a friend who can.  I see no other alternative.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A teacher! what a great soul he ought to be!  Truly, to form a man, one
+must be either himself a father, or else something more than human.
+And this is the office you calmly entrust to hirelings![<A NAME="chap01fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn5">5</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+The Earliest Education.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Children's first impressions are purely those of feeling; they perceive
+only pleasure and pain.  Unable either to move about, or to grasp
+anything with their hands, they need a great deal of time to form
+sensations which represent, and so make them aware of objects outside
+of themselves.  But, during all this time, while these objects are
+extending, and, as it were, receding from their eyes, assuming, to
+them, form and dimension, the constantly recurring sensations begin to
+subject the little creatures to the sway of habit.  We see their eyes
+incessantly turning toward the light; and, if it comes to them from one
+side, unwittingly taking the direction of that side; so that their
+faces ought to be carefully turned toward the light, lest they become
+squint-eyed, or accustom themselves to look awry.  They should, also,
+early accustom themselves to darkness, or else they will cry and scream
+as soon as they are left in the dark.  Food and sleep, if too exactly
+proportioned, become necessary to them after the lapse of the same
+intervals; and soon the desire arises not from necessity, but from
+habit.  Or rather, habit adds a new want to those of nature, and this
+must be prevented.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The only habit a child should be allowed to form is to contract no
+habits whatever.  Let him not be carried upon one arm more than upon
+another; let him not be accustomed to put forth one hand rather than
+the other, or to use it oftener; nor to desire to eat, to sleep, to act
+in any way, at regular hours; nor to be unable to stay alone either by
+night or by day.  Prepare long beforehand for the time when he shall
+freely use all his strength.  Do this by leaving his body under the
+control of its natural bent, by fitting him to be always master of
+himself, and to carry out his own will in everything as soon as he has
+a will of his own.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Since the only kinds of objects presented to him are likely to make him
+either timid or courageous, why should not his education begin before
+he speaks or understands?  I would habituate him to seeing new objects,
+though they be ugly, repulsive, or singular.  But let this be by
+degrees, and from a distance, until he has become accustomed to them,
+and, from seeing them handled by others, shall at last handle them
+himself.  If during his infancy he has seen without fear frogs,
+serpents, crawfishes, he will, when grown up, see without shrinking any
+animal that may be shown him.  For one who daily sees frightful
+objects, there are none such.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All children are afraid of masks.  I begin by showing Émile the mask of
+a pleasant face.  By and by some one puts the mask upon his own face,
+so that the child can see it.  I begin to laugh; every one else laughs,
+and the child with the rest.  By degrees I familiarize him with less
+comely masks, and finally with really hideous ones.  If I have managed
+the process well, he will, far from being frightened at the last mask,
+laugh at it as he laughed at the first.  After that, I shall not fear
+his being frightened by any one with a mask.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When, in the farewell scene between Hector and Andromache, the little
+Astyanax, terrified at the plume floating from a helmet, fails to
+recognize his father, throws himself, crying, upon his nurse's breast,
+and wins from his mother a smile bright with tears, what ought to be
+done to soothe his fear?  Precisely what Hector does.  He places the
+helmet on the ground, and then caresses his child.  At a more tranquil
+moment, this should not have been all.  They should have drawn near the
+helmet, played with its plumes, caused the child to handle them.  At
+last the nurse should have lifted the helmet and laughingly set it on
+her own head&mdash;if, indeed, the hand of a woman dared touch the armor of
+Hector.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If I wish to familiarize Émile with the noise of fire-arms, I first
+burn some powder in a pistol.  The quickly vanishing flame, the new
+kind of lightning, greatly pleases him.  I repeat the process, using
+more powder.  By degrees I put into the pistol a small charge, without
+ramming it down; then a larger charge; finally, I accustom him to the
+noise of a gun, to bombs, to cannon-shots, to the most terrific noises.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I have noticed that children are rarely afraid of thunder, unless,
+indeed, the thunder-claps are so frightful as actually to wound the
+organ of hearing.  Otherwise, they fear it only when they have been
+taught that thunder sometimes wounds or kills.  When reason begins to
+affright them, let habit reassure them.  By a slow and well conducted
+process the man or the child is rendered fearless of everything.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In this outset of life, while memory and imagination are still
+inactive, the child pays attention only to what actually affects his
+senses.  The first materials of his knowledge are his sensations.  If,
+therefore, these are presented to him in suitable order, his memory can
+hereafter present them to his understanding in the same order.  But as
+he attends to his sensations only, it will at first suffice to show him
+very clearly the connection between these sensations, and the objects
+which give rise to them.  He is eager to touch everything, to handle
+everything.  Do not thwart this restless desire; it suggests to him a
+very necessary apprenticeship.  It is thus he learns to feel the heat
+and coldness, hardness and softness, heaviness and lightness of bodies;
+to judge of their size, their shape, and all their sensible qualities,
+by looking, by touching, by listening; above all, by comparing the
+results of sight with those of touch, estimating with the eye the
+sensation a thing produces upon the fingers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By movement alone we learn the existence of things which are not
+ourselves; and it is by our own movements alone that we gain the idea
+of extension.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Because the child has not this idea, he stretches out his hand
+indifferently to seize an object which touches him, or one which is a
+hundred paces distant from him.  The effort he makes in doing this
+appears to you a sign of domination, an order he gives the object to
+come nearer, or to you to bring it to him.  It is nothing of the kind.
+It means only that the object seen first within the brain, then upon
+the eye, is now seen at arm's length, and that he does not conceive of
+any distance beyond his reach.  Be careful, then, to walk often with
+him, to transport him from one place to another, to let him feel the
+change of position, and, in this way to teach him how to judge of
+distances.  When he begins to know them, change the plan; carry him
+only where it is convenient for you to do so, and not wherever it
+pleases him.  For as soon as he is no longer deceived by the senses,
+his attempts arise from another cause.  This change is remarkable and
+demands explanation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The uneasiness arising from our wants expresses itself by signs
+whenever help in supplying these wants is needed; hence the cries of
+children.  They cry a great deal, and this is natural.  Since all their
+sensations are those of feeling, children enjoy them in silence, when
+the sensations are pleasant; otherwise they express them in their own
+language, and ask relief.  Now as long as children are awake they
+cannot be in a state of indifference; they either sleep or are moved by
+pleasure and pain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All our languages are the result of art.  Whether there is a natural
+language, common to all mankind, has long been a matter of
+investigation.  Without doubt there is such a language, and it is the
+one that children utter before they know how to talk.  This language is
+not articulate, but it is accentuated, sonorous, intelligible.  The
+using of our own language has led us to neglect this, even so far as to
+forget it altogether.  Let us study children, and we shall soon acquire
+it again from them.  Nurses are our teachers in this language.  They
+understand all their nurslings say, they answer them, they hold really
+connected dialogues with them.  And, although they pronounce words,
+these words are entirely useless; the child understands, not the
+meaning of the words, but the accent which accompanies them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To the language of the voice is added the no less forcible language of
+gesture.  This gesture is not that of children's feeble hands; it is
+that seen in their faces.  It is astonishing to see how much expression
+these immature countenances already have.  From moment to moment, their
+features change with inconceivable quickness.  On them you see the
+smile, the wish, the fear, spring into life, and pass away, like so
+many lightning flashes.  Each time you seem to see a different
+countenance.  They certainly have much more flexible facial muscles
+than ours.  On the other hand, their dull eyes tell us almost nothing
+at all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such is naturally the character of their expression when all their
+wants are physical.  Sensations are made known by grimaces, sentiments
+by looks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the first state of man is wretchedness and weakness, so his first
+utterances are complaints and tears.  The child feels his need and
+cannot satisfy it; he implores aid from others by crying.  If he is
+hungry or thirsty, he cries; if he is too cold or too warm, he cries;
+if he wishes to move or to be kept at rest, he cries; if he wishes to
+sleep or to be moved about, he cries.  The less control he has of his
+own mode of living, the oftener he asks those about him to change it.
+He has but one language, because he feels, so to speak, but one sort of
+discomfort.  In the imperfect condition of his organs, he does not
+distinguish their different impressions; all ills produce in him only a
+sensation of pain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From this crying, regarded as so little worthy of attention, arises the
+first relation of man to all that surrounds him; just here is forged
+the first link of that long chain which constitutes social order.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the child cries, he is ill at ease; he has some want that he
+cannot satisfy.  We examine into it, we search for the want, find it,
+and relieve it.  When we cannot find it, or relieve it, the crying
+continues.  We are annoyed by it; we caress the child to make him keep
+quiet, we rock him and sing to him, to lull him asleep.  If he
+persists, we grow impatient; we threaten him; brutal nurses sometimes
+strike him.  These are strange lessons for him upon his entrance into
+life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The first crying of children is a prayer.  If we do not heed it well,
+this crying soon becomes a command.  They begin by asking our aid; they
+end by compelling us to serve them.  Thus from their very weakness,
+whence comes, at first, their feeling of dependence, springs afterward
+the idea of empire, and of commanding others.  But as this idea is
+awakened less by their own wants, than by the fact that we are serving
+them, those moral results whose immediate cause is not in nature, are
+here perceived.  We therefore see why, even at this early age, it is
+important to discern the hidden purpose which dictates the gesture or
+the cry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the child stretches forth his hand with an effort, but without a
+sound, he thinks he can reach some object, because he does not properly
+estimate its distance; he is mistaken.  But if, while stretching out
+his hand, he complains and cries, he is no longer deceived as to the
+distance.  He is commanding the object to come to him, or is directing
+you to bring it to him.  In the first case, carry him to the object
+slowly, and with short steps; in the second case, do not even appear to
+understand him.  It is worth while to habituate him early not to
+command people, for he is not their master; nor things, for they cannot
+understand him.  So, when a child wants something he sees, and we mean
+to give it to him, it is better to carry him to the object than to
+fetch the object to him.  From this practice of ours he will learn a
+lesson suited to his age, and there is no better way of suggesting this
+lesson to him.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Maxims to Keep us True to Nature.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Reason alone teaches us to know good and evil.  Conscience, which makes
+us love the one and hate the other, is independent of reason, but
+cannot grow strong without its aid.  Before reaching years of reason,
+we do good and evil unconsciously.  There is no moral character in our
+actions, although there sometimes is in our feeling toward those
+actions of others which relate to us.  A child likes to disturb
+everything he sees; he breaks, he shatters everything within his reach;
+he lays hold of a bird just as he would lay hold of a stone, and
+strangles it without knowing what he is doing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Why is this?  At first view, philosophy would account for it on the
+ground of vices natural to us&mdash;pride, the spirit of domination,
+self-love, the wickedness of mankind.  It would perhaps add, that the
+sense of his own weakness makes the child eager to do things requiring
+strength, and so prove to himself his own power.  But see that old man,
+infirm and broken down, whom the cycle of human life brings back to the
+weakness of childhood.  Not only does he remain immovable and quiet,
+but he wishes everything about him to be in the same condition.  The
+slightest change disturbs and disquiets him; he would like to see
+stillness reigning everywhere.  How could the same powerlessness,
+joined to the same passions, produce such different effects in the two
+ages, if the primary cause were not changed?  And where can we seek for
+this difference of cause, unless it be in the physical condition of the
+two individuals?  The active principle common to the two is developing
+in the one, and dying out in the other; the one is growing, and the
+other is wearing itself out; the one is tending toward life, and the
+other toward death.  Failing activity concentrates itself in the heart
+of the old man; in the child it is superabounding, and reaches outward;
+he seems to feel within him life enough to animate all that surrounds
+him.  Whether he makes or unmakes matters little to him.  It is enough
+that he changes the condition of things, and that every change is an
+action.  If he seems more inclined to destroy things, it is not out of
+perverseness, but because the action which creates is always slow; and
+that which destroys, being more rapid, better suits his natural
+sprightliness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While the Author of nature gives children this active principle, he
+takes care that it shall do little harm; for he leaves them little
+power to indulge it.  But no sooner do they look upon those about them
+as instruments which it is their business to set in motion, than they
+make use of them in following their own inclinations and in making up
+for their own want of strength.  In this way they become disagreeable,
+tyrannical, imperious, perverse, unruly; a development not arising from
+a natural spirit of domination, but creating such a spirit.  For no
+very long experience is requisite in teaching how pleasant it is to act
+through others, and to need only move one's tongue to set the world in
+motion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As we grow up, we gain strength, we become less uneasy and restless, we
+shut ourselves more within ourselves.  The soul and the body put
+themselves in equilibrium, as it were, and nature requires no more
+motion than is necessary for out preservation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the wish to command outlives the necessity from which, it sprang;
+power to control others awakens and gratifies self-love, and habit
+makes it strong.  Thus need gives place to whim; thus do prejudices and
+opinions first root themselves within us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The principle once understood, we see clearly the point at which we
+leave the path of nature.  Let us discover what we ought to do, to keep
+within it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Far from having too much strength, children have not even enough for
+all that nature demands of them.  We ought, then, to leave them the
+free use of all natural strength which they cannot misuse.  First maxim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We must aid them, supplying whatever they lack in intelligence, in
+strength, in all that belongs to physical necessity.  Second maxim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In helping them, we must confine ourselves to what is really of use to
+them, yielding nothing to their whims or unreasonable wishes.  For
+their own caprice will not trouble them unless we ourselves create it;
+it is not a natural thing.  Third maxim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We must study carefully their language and their signs, so that, at an
+age when they cannot dissemble, we may judge which of their desires
+spring from nature itself, and which of them from opinion.  Fourth
+maxim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The meaning of these rules is, to allow children more personal freedom
+and less authority; to let them do more for themselves, and exact less
+from others.  Thus accustomed betimes to desire only what they can
+obtain or do for themselves, they will feel less keenly the want of
+whatever is not within their own power.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here there is another and very important reason for leaving children
+absolutely free as to body and limbs, with the sole precaution of
+keeping them from the danger of falling, and of putting out of their
+reach everything that can injure them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doubtless a child whose body and arms are free will cry less than one
+bound fast in swaddling clothes.  He who feels only physical wants
+cries only when he suffers, and this is a great advantage.  For then we
+know exactly when he requires help, and we ought not to delay one
+moment in giving him help, if possible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But if you cannot relieve him, keep quiet; do not try to soothe him by
+petting him.  Your caresses will not cure his colic; but he will
+remember what he has to do in order to be petted.  And if he once
+discovers that he can, at will, busy you about him, he will have become
+your master; the mischief is done.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If children were not so much thwarted in their movements, they would
+not cry so much; if we were less annoyed by their crying, we would take
+less pains to hush them; if they were not so often threatened or
+caressed, they would be less timid or less stubborn, and more truly
+themselves as nature made them.  It is not so often by letting children
+cry, as by hastening to quiet them, that we make them rupture
+themselves.  The proof of this is that the children most neglected are
+less subject than others to this infirmity.  I am far from wishing them
+to be neglected, however.  On the contrary, we ought to anticipate
+their wants, and not wait to be notified of these by the children's
+crying.  Yet I would not have them misunderstand the cares we bestow on
+them.  Why should they consider crying a fault, when they find that it
+avails so much?  Knowing the value of their silence, they will be
+careful not to be lavish of it.  They will, at last, make it so costly
+that we can no longer pay for it; and then it is that by crying without
+success they strain, weaken, and kill themselves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The long crying fits of a child who is not compressed or ill, or
+allowed to want for anything, are from habit and obstinacy.  They are
+by no means the work of nature, but of the nurse, who, because she
+cannot endure the annoyance, multiplies it, without reflecting that by
+stilling the child to-day, he is induced to cry the more to-morrow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The only way to cure or prevent this habit is to pay no attention to
+it.  No one, not even a child, likes to take unnecessary trouble.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They are stubborn in their attempts; but if you have more firmness than
+they have obstinacy, they are discouraged, and do not repeat the
+attempt.  Thus we spare them some tears, and accustom them to cry only
+when pain forces them to it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nevertheless when they do cry from caprice or stubbornness, a sure way
+to prevent their continuing is, to turn their attention to some
+agreeable and striking object, and so make them forget their desire to
+cry.  In this art most nurses excel, and when skilfully employed, it is
+very effective.  But it is highly important that the child should not
+know of our intention to divert him, and that he should amuse himself
+without at all thinking we have him in mind.  In this all nurses are
+unskilful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All children are weaned too early.  The proper time is indicated by
+their teething.  This process is usually painful and distressing.  By a
+mechanical instinct the child, at that time, carries to his mouth and
+chews everything he holds.  We think we make the operation easier by
+giving him for a plaything some hard substance, such as ivory or coral.
+I think we are mistaken.  Far from softening the gums, these hard
+bodies, when applied, render them hard and callous, and prepare the way
+for a more painful and distressing laceration.  Let us always take
+instinct for guide.  We never see puppies try their growing teeth upon
+flints, or iron, or bones, but upon wood, or leather, or rags,&mdash;upon
+soft materials, which give way, and on which the tooth impresses itself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We no longer aim at simplicity, even where children are concerned.
+Golden and silver bells, corals, crystals, toys of every price, of
+every sort.  What useless and mischievous affectations they are!  Let
+there be none of them,&mdash;no bells, no toys.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A little twig covered with its own leaves and fruit,&mdash;a poppy-head, in
+which the seeds can be heard rattling,&mdash;a stick of liquorice he can
+suck and chew, these will amuse a child quite as well as the splendid
+baubles, and will not disadvantage him by accustoming him to luxury
+from his very birth.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Language.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+From the time they are born, children hear people speak.  They are
+spoken to not only before they understand what is said to them, but
+before they can repeat the sounds they hear.  Their organs, still
+benumbed, adapt themselves only by degrees to imitating the sounds
+dictated to them, and it is not even certain that these sounds are
+borne to their ears at first as distinctly as to ours.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I do not disapprove of a nurse's amusing the child with songs, and with
+blithe and varied tones.  But I do disapprove of her perpetually
+deafening him with a multitude of useless words, of which he
+understands only the tone she gives them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I would like the first articulate sounds he must hear to be few in
+number, easy, distinct, often repeated.  The words they form should
+represent only material objects which can be shown him.  Our
+unfortunate readiness to content ourselves with words that have no
+meaning to us whatever, begins earlier than we suppose.  Even as in his
+swaddling-clothes the child hears his nurse's babble, he hears in class
+the verbiage of his teacher.  It strikes me that if he were to be so
+brought up that he could not understand it at all, he would be very
+well instructed.[<A NAME="chap01fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn6">6</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Reflections crowd upon us when we set about discussing the formation of
+children's language, and their baby talk itself.  In spite of us, they
+always learn to speak by the same process, and all our philosophical
+speculations about it are entirely useless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They seem, at first, to have a grammar adapted to their own age,
+although its rules of syntax are more general than ours.  And if we
+were to pay close attention to them, we should be astonished at the
+exactness with which they follow certain analogies, very faulty if you
+will, but very regular, that are displeasing only because harsh, or
+because usage does not recognize them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is unbearable pedantry, and a most useless labor, to attempt
+correcting in children every little fault against usage; they never
+fail themselves to correct these faults in time.  Always speak
+correctly in their presence; order it so that they are never so happy
+with any one as with you; and rest assured their language will
+insensibly be purified by your own, without your having ever reproved
+them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But another error, which has an entirely different bearing on the
+matter, and is no less easy to prevent, is our being over-anxious to
+make them speak, as if we feared they might not of their own accord
+learn to do so.  Our injudicious haste has an effect exactly contrary
+to what we wish.  On account of it they learn more slowly and speak
+more indistinctly.  The marked attention paid to everything they utter
+makes it unnecessary for them to articulate distinctly.  As they hardly
+condescend to open their lips, many retain throughout life an imperfect
+pronunciation and a confused manner of speaking, which makes them
+nearly unintelligible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Children who are too much urged to speak have not time sufficient for
+learning either to pronounce carefully or to understand thoroughly what
+they are made to say.  If, instead, they are left to themselves, they
+at first practise using the syllables they can most readily utter; and
+gradually attaching to these some meaning that can be gathered from
+their gestures, they give you their own words before acquiring yours.
+Thus they receive yours only after they understand them.  Not being
+urged to use them, they notice carefully what meaning you give them;
+and, when they are sure of this, they adopt it as their own.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The greatest evil arising from our haste to make children speak before
+they are old enough is not that our first talks with them, and the
+first words they use, have no meaning to them, but that they have a
+meaning different from ours, without our being able to perceive it.
+Thus, while they seem to be answering us very correctly, they are
+really addressing us without understanding us, and without our
+understanding them.  To such ambiguous discourse is due the surprise we
+sometimes feel at their sayings, to which we attach ideas the children
+themselves have not dreamed of.  This inattention of ours to the true
+meaning words have for children seems to me the cause of their first
+mistakes, and these errors, even after children are cured of them,
+influence their turn of mind for the remainder of their life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The first developments of childhood occur almost all at once.  The
+child learns to speak, to eat, to walk, nearly at the same time.  This
+is, properly, the first epoch of his life.  Before then he is nothing
+more than he was before he was born; he has not a sentiment, not an
+idea; he scarcely has sensations; he does not feel even his own
+existence.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01fn1"></A>
+<A NAME="chap01fn2"></A>
+<A NAME="chap01fn3"></A>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn1text">1</A>] It is useless to enlarge upon the absurdity of this theory, and
+upon the flagrant contradiction into which Rousseau allows himself to
+fall.  If he is right, man ought to be left without education, and the
+earth without cultivation.  This would not be even the savage state.
+But want of space forbids us to pause at each like statement of our
+author, who at once busies himself in nullifying it.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn2text">2</A>] The voice of Rousseau was heard.  The nursing of children by their
+own mothers, which had gone into disuse as vulgar and troublesome,
+became a fashion.  Great ladies prided themselves upon returning to the
+usage of nature, and infants were brought in with the dessert to give
+an exhibition of maternal tenderness.  This affectation died out, but
+in most families the good and wholesome custom of motherhood was
+retained.  This page of Rousseau's contributed its share to the happy
+result.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn3text">3</A>] This remark is not a just one.  How often have we seen unhappy
+creatures disgusted with life because of some dreadful and incurable
+malady?  It is true that suicide, being an act of madness, is more
+frequently caused by those troubles which imagination delights itself
+in magnifying up to the point of insanity.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="chap01fn4"></A>
+<A NAME="chap01fn5"></A>
+<A NAME="chap01fn6"></A>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn4text">4</A>] This is an allusion to one of the most unfortunate episodes in the
+life of Rousseau,&mdash;his abandoning of the children whom Thérèse
+Levasseur bore him, and whom he sent to a foundling hospital because he
+felt within him neither courage to labor for their support, nor
+capacity to educate them.  Sad practical defect in this teacher of
+theories of education!
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn5text">5</A>] For the particular example of education which he supposes, Rousseau
+creates a tutor whom he consecrates absolutely, exclusively, to the
+work.  He desires one so perfect that he calls him a prodigy.  Let us
+not blame him for this.  The ideal of those who assume the noble and
+difficult office of a teacher of childhood cannot be placed too high.
+As to the pupil, Rousseau imagines a child of average ability, in easy
+circumstances, and of robust health.  He makes him an only son and an
+orphan, so that no family vicissitudes may disturb the logic of his
+plan.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+All this may be summed up by saying that he considers the child in
+himself with regard to his individual development, and without regard
+to his relations to ordinary life.  This at the same time renders his
+task easy, and deprives him of an important element of education.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn6text">6</A>] No doubt this sarcasm is applicable to those teachers who talk so
+as to say nothing.  A teacher ought, on the contrary, to speak only so
+as to be understood by the child.  He ought to adapt himself to the
+child's capacity; to employ no useless or conventional expressions; his
+language ought to arouse curiosity and to impart light.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+BOOK SECOND.
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+The second book takes the child at about the fifth year, and conducts
+him to about the twelfth year.  He is no longer the little child; he is
+the young boy.  His education becomes more important.  It consists not
+in studies, in reading or writing, or in duties, but in well-chosen
+plays, in ingenious recreations, in well-directed experiments.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+There should be no exaggerated precautions, and, on the other hand, no
+harshness, no punishments.  We must love the child, and encourage his
+playing.  To make him realize his weakness and the narrow limits within
+which it can work, to keep the child dependent only on circumstances,
+will suffice, without ever making him feel the yoke of the master.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+The best education is accomplished in the country.  Teaching by means
+of things.  Criticism of the ordinary method.  Education of the senses
+by continually exercising them.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Avoid taking too many Precautions.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+This is the second period of life, and the one at which, properly
+speaking, infancy ends; for the words <I>infans</I> and <I>puer</I> are not
+synonymous.[<A NAME="chap02fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn1">1</A>]  The first is included in the second, and means <I>one who
+cannot speak</I>: thus in Valerius Maximus we find the expression <I>puerum
+infantem</I>.  But I shall continue to employ the word according to the
+usage of the French language, until I am describing the age for which
+there are other names.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When children begin to speak, they cry less often.  This step in
+advance is natural; one language is substituted for another.  As soon
+as they can utter their complaints in words, why should they cry,
+unless the suffering is too keen to be expressed by words?  If they
+then continue to cry, it is the fault of those around them.  After
+Émile has once said, "It hurts me," only acute suffering can force him
+to cry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If the child is physically so delicate and sensitive that he naturally
+cries about nothing, I will soon exhaust the fountain of his tears, by
+making them ineffectual.  So long as he cries, I will not go to him; as
+soon as he stops, I will run to him.  Very soon his method of calling
+me will be to keep quiet, or at the utmost, to utter a single cry.
+Children judge of the meaning of signs by their palpable effect; they
+have no other rule.  Whatever harm a child may do himself, he very
+rarely cries when alone, unless with the hope of being heard.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If he fall, if he bruise his head, if his nose bleed, if he cut his
+finger, I should, instead of bustling about him with a look of alarm,
+remain quiet, at least for a little while.  The mischief is done; he
+must endure it; all my anxiety will only serve to frighten him more,
+and to increase his sensitiveness.  After all, when we hurt ourselves,
+it is less the shock which pains us than the fright.  I will spare him
+at least this last pang; for he will certainly estimate his hurt as he
+sees me estimate it.  If he sees me run anxiously to comfort and to
+pity him, he will think himself seriously hurt; but if he sees me keep
+my presence of mind, he will soon recover his own, and will think the
+pain cured when he no longer feels it.  At his age we learn our first
+lessons in courage; and by fearlessly enduring lighter sufferings, we
+gradually learn to bear the heavier ones.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Far from taking care that Émile does not hurt himself, I shall be
+dissatisfied if he never does, and so grows up unacquainted with pain.
+To suffer is the first and most necessary thing for him to learn.
+Children are little and weak, apparently that they may learn these
+important lessons.  If a child fall his whole length, he will not break
+his leg; if he strike himself with a stick, he will not break his arm;
+if he lay hold of an edged tool, he does not grasp it tightly, and will
+not cut himself very badly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Our pedantic mania for instructing constantly leads us to teach
+children what they can learn far better for themselves, and to lose
+sight of what we alone can teach them.  Is there anything more absurd
+than the pains we take in teaching them to walk?  As if we had ever
+seen one, who, through his nurse's negligence, did not know how to walk
+when grown!  On the contrary, how many people do we see moving
+awkwardly all their lives because they have been badly taught how to
+walk!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Émile shall have no head-protectors, nor carriages, nor go-carts, nor
+leading-strings.  Or at least from the time when he begins to be able
+to put one foot before the other, he shall not be supported, except
+over paved places; and he shall be hurried over these.  Instead of
+letting him suffocate in the exhausted air indoors, let him be taken
+every day, far out into the fields.  There let him run about, play,
+fall down a hundred times a day; the oftener the better, as he will the
+sooner learn to get up again by himself.  The boon of freedom is worth
+many scars.  My pupil will have many bruises, but to make amends for
+that, he will be always light-hearted.  Though your pupils are less
+often hurt, they are continually thwarted, fettered; they are always
+unhappy.  I doubt whether the advantage be on their side.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The development of their physical strength makes complaint less
+necessary to children.  When able to help themselves, they have less
+need of the help of others.  Knowledge to direct their strength grows
+with that strength.  At this second stage the life of the individual
+properly begins; he now becomes conscious of his own being.  Memory
+extends this feeling of personal identity to every moment of his
+existence; he becomes really one, the same one, and consequently
+capable of happiness or of misery.  We must therefore, from this
+moment, begin to regard him as a moral being.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Childhood is to be Loved.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Although the longest term of human life, and the probability, at any
+given age, of reaching this term, have been computed, nothing is more
+uncertain than the continuance of each individual life: very few attain
+the maximum.  The greatest risks in life are at its beginning; the less
+one has lived, the less prospect he has of living.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of all children born, only about half reach youth; and it is probable
+that your pupil may never attain to manhood.  What, then, must be
+thought of that barbarous education which sacrifices the present to an
+uncertain future, loads the child with every description of fetters,
+and begins, by making him wretched, to prepare for him some far-away
+indefinite happiness he may never enjoy!  Even supposing the object of
+such an education reasonable, how can we without indignation see the
+unfortunate creatures bowed under an insupportable yoke, doomed to
+constant labor like so many galley-slaves, without any certainty that
+all this toil will ever be of use to them!  The years that ought to be
+bright and cheerful are passed in tears amid punishments, threats, and
+slavery.  For his own good, the unhappy child is tortured; and the
+death thus summoned will seize on him unperceived amidst all this
+melancholy preparation.  Who knows how many children die on account of
+the extravagant prudence of a father or of a teacher?  Happy in
+escaping his cruelty, it gives them one advantage; they leave without
+regret a life which they know only from its darker side.[<A NAME="chap02fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn2">2</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O men, be humane! it is your highest duty; be humane to all conditions
+of men, to every age, to everything not alien to mankind.  What higher
+wisdom is there for you than humanity?  Love childhood; encourage its
+sports, its pleasures, its lovable instincts.  Who among us has not at
+times looked back with regret to the age when a smile was continually
+on our lips, when the soul was always at peace?  Why should we rob
+these little innocent creatures of the enjoyment of a time so brief, so
+transient, of a boon so precious, which they cannot misuse?  Why will
+you fill with bitterness and sorrow these fleeting years which can no
+more return to them than to you?  Do you know, you fathers, the moment
+when death awaits your children?  Do not store up for yourselves
+remorse, by taking from them the brief moments nature has given them.
+As soon as they can appreciate the delights of existence, let them
+enjoy it.  At whatever hour God may call them, let them not die without
+having tasted life at all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You answer, "It is the time to correct the evil tendencies of the human
+heart.  In childhood, when sufferings are less keenly felt, they ought
+to be multiplied, so that fewer of them will have to be encountered
+during the age of reason."  But who has told you that it is your
+province to make this arrangement, and that all these fine
+instructions, with which you burden the tender mind of a child, will
+not one day be more pernicious than useful to him?  Who assures you
+that you spare him anything when you deal him afflictions with so
+lavish a hand?  Why do you cause him more unhappiness than he can bear,
+when you are not sure that the future will compensate him for these
+present evils?  And how can you prove that the evil tendencies of which
+you pretend to cure him will not arise from your mistaken care rather
+than from nature itself!  Unhappy foresight, which renders a creature
+actually miserable, in the hope, well or ill founded, of one day making
+him happy!  If these vulgar reasoners confound license with liberty,
+and mistake a spoiled child for a child who is made happy, let us teach
+them to distinguish the two.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To avoid being misled, let us remember what really accords with our
+present abilities.  Humanity has its place in the general order of
+things; childhood has its place in the order of human life.  Mankind
+must be considered in the individual man, and childhood in the
+individual child.  To assign each his place, and to establish him in
+it&mdash;to direct human passions as human nature will permit&mdash;is all we can
+do for his welfare.  The rest depends on outside influences not under
+our control.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Neither Slaves nor Tyrants.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+He alone has his own way who, to compass it, does not need the arm of
+another to lengthen his own.  Consequently freedom, and not authority,
+is the greatest good.  A man who desires only what he can do for
+himself is really free to do whatever he pleases.  From this axiom, if
+it be applied to the case of childhood, all the rules of education will
+follow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A wise man understands how to remain in his own place; but a child, who
+does not know his, cannot preserve it.  As matters stand, there are a
+thousand ways of leaving it.  Those who govern him are to keep him in
+it, and this is not an easy task.  He ought to be neither an animal nor
+a man, but a child.  He should feel his weakness, and yet not suffer
+from it.  He should depend, not obey; he should demand, not command.
+He is subject to others only by reason of his needs, and because others
+see better than he what is useful to him, what will contribute to his
+well-being or will impair it.  No one, not even his father, has a right
+to command a child to do what is of no use to him whatever.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Accustom the child to depend only on circumstances, and as his
+education goes on, you will follow the order of nature.  Never oppose
+to his imprudent wishes anything but physical obstacles, or punishments
+which arise from the actions themselves, and which he will remember
+when the occasion comes.  It is enough to prevent his doing harm,
+without forbidding it.  With him only experience, or want of power,
+should take the place of law.  Do not give him anything because he asks
+for it, but because he needs it.  When he acts, do not let him know
+that it is from obedience; and when another acts for him, let him not
+feel that he is exercising authority.  Let him feel his liberty as much
+in your actions as in his own.  Add to the power he lacks exactly
+enough to make him free and not imperious, so that, accepting your aid
+with a kind of humiliation, he may aspire to the moment when he can
+dispense with it, and have the honor of serving himself.  For
+strengthening the body and promoting its growth, nature has means which
+ought never to be thwarted.  A child ought not to be constrained to
+stay anywhere when he wishes to go away, or to go away when he wishes
+to stay.  When their will is not spoiled by our own fault, children do
+not wish for anything without good reason.  They ought to leap, to run,
+to shout, whenever they will.  All their movements are necessities of
+nature, which is endeavoring to strengthen itself.  But we must take
+heed of those wishes they cannot themselves accomplish, but must fulfil
+by the hand of another.  Therefore care should be taken to distinguish
+the real wants, the wants of nature, from those which arise from fancy
+or from the redundant life just mentioned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I have already suggested what should be done when a child cries for
+anything.  I will only add that, as soon as he can ask in words for
+what he wants, and, to obtain it sooner, or to overcome a refusal,
+reinforces his request by crying, it should never be granted him.  If
+necessity has made him speak, you ought to know it, and at once to
+grant what he demands.  But yielding to his tears is encouraging him to
+shed them: it teaches him to doubt your good will, and to believe that
+importunity has more influence over you than your own kindness of heart
+has.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If he does not believe you good, he will soon be bad; if he believes
+you weak, he will soon be stubborn.  It is of great importance that you
+at once consent to what you do not intend to refuse him.  Do not refuse
+often, but never revoke a refusal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Above all things, beware of teaching the child empty formulas of
+politeness which shall serve him instead of magic words to subject to
+his own wishes all who surround him, and to obtain instantly what he
+likes.  In the artificial education of the rich they are infallibly
+made politely imperious, by having prescribed to them what terms to use
+so that no one shall dare resist them.  Such children have neither the
+tones nor the speech of suppliants; they are as arrogant when they
+request as when they command, and even more so, for in the former case
+they are more sure of being obeyed.  From the first it is readily seen
+that, coming from them, "If you please" means "It pleases me"; and that
+"I beg" signifies "I order you."  Singular politeness this, by which
+they only change the meaning of words, and so never speak but with
+authority!  For myself, I dread far less Émile's being rude than his
+being arrogant.  I would rather have him say "Do this" as if requesting
+than "I beg you" as if commanding.  I attach far less importance to the
+term he uses than to the meaning he associates with it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Over-strictness and over-indulgence are equally to be avoided.  If you
+let children suffer, you endanger their health and their life; you make
+them actually wretched.  If you carefully spare them every kind of
+annoyance, you are storing up for them much unhappiness; you are making
+them delicate and sensitive to pain; you are removing them from the
+common lot of man, into which, in spite of all your care, they will one
+day return.  To save them some natural discomforts, you contrive for
+them others which nature has not inflicted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You will charge me with falling into the mistake of those fathers I
+have reproached for sacrificing their children's happiness to
+considerations of a far-away future that may never be.  Not so; for the
+freedom I give my pupil will amply supply him with the slight
+discomforts to which I leave him exposed.  I see the little rogues
+playing in the snow, blue with cold, and scarcely able to move their
+fingers.  They have only to go and warm themselves, but they do nothing
+of the kind.  If they are compelled to do so, they feel the constraint
+a hundred times more than they do the cold.  Why then do you complain?
+Shall I make your child unhappy if I expose him only to those
+inconveniences he is perfectly willing to endure?  By leaving him at
+liberty, I do him service now; by arming him against the ills he must
+encounter, I do him service for the time to come.  If he could choose
+between being my pupil or yours, do you think he would hesitate a
+moment?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Can we conceive of any creature's being truly happy outside of what
+belongs to its own peculiar nature?  And if we would have a man exempt
+from all human misfortunes, would it not estrange him from humanity?
+Undoubtedly it would; for we are so constituted that to appreciate
+great good fortune we must be acquainted with slight misfortunes.  If
+the body be too much at ease the moral nature becomes corrupted.  The
+man unacquainted with suffering would not know the tender feelings of
+humanity or the sweetness of compassion; he would not be a social
+being; he would be a monster among his kind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The surest way to make a child unhappy is to accustom him to obtain
+everything he wants to have.  For, since his wishes multiply in
+proportion to the ease with which they are gratified, your inability to
+fulfil them will sooner or later oblige you to refuse in spite of
+yourself, and this unwonted refusal will pain him more than withholding
+from him what he demands.  At first he will want the cane you hold;
+soon he will want your watch; afterward he will want the bird he sees
+flying, or the star he sees shining.  He will want everything he sees,
+and without being God himself how can you content him?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Man is naturally disposed to regard as his own whatever is within his
+power.  In this sense the principle of Hobbes is correct up to a
+certain point; multiply with our desires the means of satisfying them,
+and each of us will make himself master of everything.  Hence the child
+who has only to wish in order to obtain his wish, thinks himself the
+owner of the universe.  He regards all men as his slaves, and when at
+last he must be denied something, he, believing everything possible
+when he commands it, takes refusal for an act of rebellion.  At his
+age, incapable of reasoning, all reasons given seem to him only
+pretexts.  He sees ill-will in everything; the feeling of imagined
+injustice embitters his temper; he begins to hate everybody, and
+without ever being thankful for kindness, is angry at any opposition
+whatever.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Who supposes that a child thus ruled by anger, a prey to furious
+passions, can ever be happy?  He happy?  He is a tyrant; that is, the
+vilest of slaves, and at the same time the most miserable of beings.  I
+have seen children thus reared who wanted those about them to push the
+house down, to give them the weathercock they saw on a steeple, to stop
+the march of a regiment so that they could enjoy the drum-beat a little
+longer; and as soon as obedience to these demands was delayed they rent
+the air with their screams, and would listen to no one.  In vain
+everybody tried eagerly to gratify them.  The ease with which they
+found their wishes obeyed stimulated them to desire more, and to be
+stubborn about impossibilities.  Everywhere they found only
+contradictions, impediments, suffering, and sorrow.  Always
+complaining, always refractory, always angry, they spent the time in
+crying and fretting; were these creatures happy?  Authority and
+weakness conjoined produce only madness and wretchedness.  One of two
+spoiled children beats the table, and the other has the sea lashed.[<A NAME="chap02fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn3">3</A>]
+They will have much to beat and to lash before they are satisfied with
+life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If these ideas of authority and of tyranny make them unhappy from their
+very childhood, how will it be with them when they are grown, and when
+their relations with others begin to be extended and multiplied?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Accustomed to seeing everything give way before them, how surprised
+they will be on entering the world to find themselves crushed beneath
+the weight of that universe they have expected to move at their own
+pleasure!  Their insolent airs and childish vanity will only bring upon
+them mortification, contempt, and ridicule; they must swallow affront
+after affront; cruel trials will teach them that they understand
+neither their own position nor their own strength.  Unable to do
+everything, they will think themselves unable to do anything.  So many
+unusual obstacles dishearten them, so much contempt degrades them.
+They become base, cowardly, cringing, and sink as far below their real
+self as they had imagined themselves above it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Let us return to the original order of things.  Nature has made
+children to be loved and helped; has she made them to be obeyed and
+feared?  Has she given them an imposing air, a stern eye, a harsh and
+threatening voice, so that they may inspire fear?  I can understand why
+the roar of a lion fills other creatures with dread, and why they
+tremble at sight of his terrible countenance.  But if ever there were
+an unbecoming, hateful, ridiculous spectacle, it is that of a body of
+magistrates in their robes of ceremony, and headed by their chief,
+prostrate before an infant in long clothes, who to their pompous
+harangue replies only by screams or by childish drivel![<A NAME="chap02fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn4">4</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Considering infancy in itself, is there a creature on earth more
+helpless, more unhappy, more at the mercy of everything around him,
+more in need of compassion, of care, of protection, than a child?  Does
+it not seem as if his sweet face and touching aspect were intended to
+interest every one who comes near him, and to urge them to assist his
+weakness?  What then is more outrageous, more contrary to the fitness
+of things, than to see an imperious and headstrong child ordering about
+those around him, impudently taking the tone of a master toward those
+who, to destroy him, need only leave him to himself!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the other hand, who does not see that since the weakness of infancy
+fetters children in so many ways, we are barbarous if we add to this
+natural subjection a bondage to our own caprices by taking from them
+the limited freedom they have, a freedom they are so little able to
+misuse, and from the loss of which we and they have so little to gain?
+As nothing is more ridiculous than a haughty child, so nothing is more
+pitiable than a cowardly child.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Since with years of reason civil bondage[<A NAME="chap02fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn5">5</A>] begins, why anticipate it
+by slavery at home?  Let us leave one moment of life exempt from a yoke
+nature has not laid upon us, and allow childhood the exercise of that
+natural liberty which keeps it safe, at least for a time, from the
+vices taught by slavery.  Let the over-strict teacher and the
+over-indulgent parent both come with their empty cavils, and before
+they boast of their own methods let them learn the method of Nature
+herself.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Reasoning should not begin too soon.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Locke's great maxim was that we ought to reason with children, and just
+now this maxim is much in fashion.  I think, however, that its success
+does not warrant its reputation, and I find nothing more stupid than
+children who have been so much reasoned with.  Reason, apparently a
+compound of all other faculties, the one latest developed, and with
+most difficulty, is the one proposed as agent in unfolding the
+faculties earliest used!  The noblest work of education is to make a
+reasoning man, and we expect to train a young child by making him
+reason!  This is beginning at the end; this is making an instrument of
+a result.  If children understood how to reason they would not need to
+be educated.  But by addressing them from their tenderest years in a
+language they cannot understand, you accustom them to be satisfied with
+words, to find fault with whatever is said to them, to think themselves
+as wise as their teachers, to wrangle and rebel.  And what we mean they
+shall do from reasonable motives we are forced to obtain from them by
+adding the motive of avarice, or of fear, or of vanity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nature intends that children shall be children before they are men.  If
+we insist on reversing this order we shall have fruit early indeed, but
+unripe and tasteless, and liable to early decay; we shall have young
+savants and old children.  Childhood has its own methods of seeing,
+thinking, and feeling.  Nothing shows less sense than to try to
+substitute our own methods for these.  I would rather require a child
+ten years old to be five feet tall than to be judicious.  Indeed, what
+use would he have at that age for the power to reason?  It is a check
+upon physical strength, and the child needs none.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In attempting to persuade your pupils to obedience you add to this
+alleged persuasion force and threats, or worse still, flattery and
+promises.  Bought over in this way by interest, or constrained by
+force, they pretend to be convinced by reason.  They see plainly that
+as soon as you discover obedience or disobedience in their conduct, the
+former is an advantage and the latter a disadvantage to them.  But you
+ask of them only what is distasteful to them; it is always irksome to
+carry out the wishes of another, so by stealth they carry out their
+own.  They are sure that if their disobedience is not known they are
+doing well; but they are ready, for fear of greater evils, to
+acknowledge, if found out, that they are doing wrong.  As the reason
+for the duty required is beyond their capacity, no one can make them
+really understand it.  But the fear of punishment, the hope of
+forgiveness, your importunity, their difficulty in answering you,
+extort from them the confession required of them.  You think you have
+convinced them, when you have only wearied them out or intimidated them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What results from this?  First of all that, by imposing upon them a
+duty they do not feel as such, you set them against your tyranny, and
+dissuade them from loving you; you teach them to be dissemblers,
+deceitful, willfully untrue, for the sake of extorting rewards or of
+escaping punishments.  Finally, by habituating them to cover a secret
+motive by an apparent motive, you give them the means of constantly
+misleading you, of concealing their true character from you, and of
+satisfying yourself and others with empty words when their occasion
+demands.  You may say that the law, although binding on the conscience,
+uses constraint in dealing with grown men.  I grant it; but what are
+these men but children spoiled by their education?  This is precisely
+what ought to be prevented.  With children use force, with men reason;
+such is the natural order of things.  The wise man requires no laws.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Well-Regulated Liberty.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Treat your pupil as his age demands.  From the first, assign him to his
+true place, and keep him there so effectually that he will not try to
+leave it.  Then, without knowing what wisdom is, he will practise its
+most important lesson.  Never, absolutely never, command him to do a
+thing, whatever it may be.[<A NAME="chap02fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn6">6</A>]  Do not let him even imagine that you
+claim any authority over him.  Let him know only that he is weak and
+you are strong: that from his condition and yours he is necessarily at
+your mercy.  Let him know this&mdash;learn it and feel it.  Let him early
+know that upon his haughty neck is the stern yoke nature imposes upon
+man, the heavy yoke of necessity, under which every finite being must
+toil.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Let him discover this necessity in the nature of things; never in human
+caprice.  Let the rein that holds him back be power, not authority.  Do
+not forbid, but prevent, his doing what he ought not; and in thus
+preventing him use no explanations, give no reasons.  What you grant
+him, grant at the first asking without any urging, any entreaty from
+him, and above all without conditions.  Consent with pleasure and
+refuse unwillingly, but let every refusal be irrevocable.  Let no
+importunity move you.  Let the "No" once uttered be a wall of brass
+against which the child will have to exhaust his strength only five or
+six times before he ceases trying to overturn it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In this way you will make him patient, even-tempered, resigned, gentle,
+even when he has not what he wants.  For it is in our nature to endure
+patiently the decrees of fate, but not the ill-will of others.  "There
+is no more," is an answer against which no child ever rebelled unless
+he believed it untrue.  Besides, there is no other way; either nothing
+at all is to be required of him, or he must from the first be
+accustomed to perfect obedience.  The worst training of all is to leave
+him wavering between his own will and yours, and to dispute incessantly
+with him as to which shall be master.  I should a hundred times prefer
+his being master in every case.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is marvellous that in undertaking to educate a child no other means
+of guiding him should have been devised than emulation, jealousy, envy,
+vanity, greed, vile fear,&mdash;all of them passions most dangerous,
+readiest to ferment, fittest to corrupt a soul, even before the body is
+full-grown.  For each instruction too early put into a child's head, a
+vice is deeply implanted in his heart.  Foolish teachers think they are
+doing wonders when they make a child wicked, in order to teach him what
+goodness is; and then they gravely tell us, "Such is man."  Yes; such
+is the man you have made.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All means have been tried save one, and that the very one which insures
+success, namely, well-regulated freedom.  We ought not to undertake a
+child's education unless we know how to lead him wherever we please
+solely by the laws of the possible and the impossible.  The sphere of
+both being alike unknown to him, we may extend or contract it around
+him as we will.  We may bind him down, incite him to action, restrain
+him by the leash of necessity alone, and he will not murmur.  We may
+render him pliant and teachable by the force of circumstances alone,
+without giving any vice an opportunity to take root within him.  For
+the passions never awake to life, so long as they are of no avail.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Do not give your pupil any sort of lesson verbally: he ought to receive
+none except from experience.  Inflict upon him no kind of punishment,
+for he does not know what being in fault means; never oblige him to ask
+pardon, for he does not know what it is to offend you.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His actions being without moral quality, he can do nothing which is
+morally bad, or which deserves either punishment or reproof.[<A NAME="chap02fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn7">7</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Already I see the startled reader judging of this child by those around
+us; but he is mistaken.  The perpetual constraint under which you keep
+your pupils increases their liveliness.  The more cramped they are
+while under your eye the more unruly they are the moment they escape
+it.  They must, in fact, make themselves amends for the severe
+restraint you put upon them.  Two school-boys from a city will do more
+mischief in a community than the young people of a whole village.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Shut up in the same room a little gentleman and a little peasant; the
+former will have everything upset and broken before the latter has
+moved from his place.  Why is this?  Because the one hastens to misuse
+a moment of liberty, and the other, always sure of his freedom, is
+never in a hurry to use it.  And yet the children of villagers, often
+petted or thwarted, are still very far from the condition in which I
+should wish to keep them.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Proceed Slowly.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+May I venture to state here the greatest, the most important, the most
+useful rule in all education?  It is, not to gain time, but to lose it.
+Forgive the paradox, O my ordinary reader!  It must be uttered by any
+one who reflects, and whatever you may say, I prefer paradoxes to
+prejudices.  The most perilous interval of human life is that between
+birth and the age of twelve years.  At that time errors and vices take
+root without our having any means of destroying them; and when the
+instrument is found, the time for uprooting them is past.  If children
+could spring at one bound from the mother's breast to the age of
+reason, the education given them now-a-days would be suitable; but in
+the due order of nature they need one entirely different.  They should
+not use the mind at all, until it has all its faculties.  For while it
+is blind it cannot see the torch you present to it; nor can it follow
+on the immense plain of ideas a path which, even for the keenest
+eyesight, reason traces so faintly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The earliest education ought, then, to be purely negative.  It consists
+not in teaching truth or virtue, but in shielding the heart from vice
+and the mind from error.  If you could do nothing at all, and allow
+nothing to be done; if you could bring up your pupil sound and robust
+to the age of twelve years, without his knowing how to distinguish his
+right hand from his left, the eyes of his understanding would from the
+very first open to reason.  Without a prejudice or a habit, there would
+be in him nothing to counteract the effect of your care.  Before long
+he would become in your hands the wisest of men; and beginning by doing
+nothing, you would have accomplished a marvel in education.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Reverse the common practice, and you will nearly always do well.
+Parents and teachers desiring to make of a child not a child, but a
+learned man, have never begun early enough to chide, to correct, to
+reprimand, to flatter, to promise, to instruct, to discourse reason to
+him.  Do better than this: be reasonable yourself, and do not argue
+with your pupil, least of all, to make him approve what he dislikes.
+For if you persist in reasoning about disagreeable things, you make
+reasoning disagreeable to him, and weaken its influence beforehand in a
+mind as yet unfitted to understand it.  Keep his organs, his senses,
+his physical strength, busy; but, as long as possible, keep his mind
+inactive.  Guard against all sensations arising in advance of judgment,
+which estimates their true value.  Keep back and check unfamiliar
+impressions, and be in no haste to do good for the sake of preventing
+evil.  For the good is not real unless enlightened by reason.  Regard
+every delay as an advantage; for much is gained if the critical period
+be approached without losing anything.  Let childhood have its full
+growth.  If indeed a lesson must be given, avoid it to-day, if you can
+without danger delay it until to-morrow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another consideration which proves this method useful is the peculiar
+bent of the child's mind.  This ought to be well understood if we would
+know what moral government is best adapted to him.  Each has his own
+cast of mind, in accordance with which he must be directed; and if we
+would succeed, he must be ruled according to this natural bent and no
+other.  Be judicious: watch nature long, and observe your pupil
+carefully before you say a word to him.  At first leave the germ of his
+character free to disclose itself.  Repress it as little as possible,
+so that you may the better see all there is of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Do you think this season of free action will be time lost to him?  On
+the contrary, it will be employed in the best way possible.  For by
+this means you will learn not to lose a single moment when time is more
+precious; whereas, if you begin to act before you know what ought to be
+done, you act at random.  Liable to deceive yourself, you will have to
+retrace your steps, and will be farther from your object than if you
+had been less in haste to reach it.  Do not then act like a miser, who,
+in order to lose nothing, loses a great deal.  At the earlier age
+sacrifice time which you will recover with interest later on.  The wise
+physician does not give directions at first sight of his patient, but
+studies the sick man's temperament, before prescribing.  He begins late
+with his treatment, but cures the man: the over-hasty physician kills
+him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Remember that, before you venture undertaking to form a man, you must
+have made yourself a man; you must find in yourself the example you
+ought to offer him.  While the child is yet without knowledge there is
+time to prepare everything about him so that his first glance shall
+discover only what he ought to see.  Make everybody respect you; begin
+by making yourself beloved, so that everybody will try to please you.
+You will not be the child's master unless you are master of everything
+around him, and this authority will not suffice unless founded on
+esteem for virtue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There is no use in exhausting your purse by lavishing money: I have
+never observed that money made any one beloved.  You must not be
+miserly or unfeeling, or lament the distress you can relieve; but you
+will open your coffers in vain if you do not open your heart; the
+hearts of others will be forever closed to you.  You must give your
+time, your care, your affection, yourself.  For whatever you may do,
+your money certainly is not yourself.  Tokens of interest and of
+kindness go farther and are of more use than any gifts whatever.  How
+many unhappy persons, how many sufferers, need consolation far more
+than alms!  How many who are oppressed are aided rather by protection
+than by money!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Reconcile those who are at variance; prevent lawsuits; persuade
+children to filial duty and parents to gentleness.  Encourage happy
+marriages; hinder disturbances; use freely the interest of your pupil's
+family on behalf of the weak who are denied justice and oppressed by
+the powerful.  Boldly declare yourself the champion of the unfortunate.
+Be just, humane, beneficent.  Be not content with giving alms; be
+charitable.  Kindness relieves more distress than money can reach.
+Love others, and they will love you; serve them, and they will serve
+you; be their brother, and they will be your children.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Blame others no longer for the mischief you yourself are doing.
+Children are less corrupted by the harm they see than by that you teach
+them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Always preaching, always moralizing, always acting the pedant, you give
+them twenty worthless ideas when you think you are giving them one good
+one.  Full of what is passing in your own mind, you do not see the
+effect you are producing upon theirs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the prolonged torrent of words with which you incessantly weary
+them, do you think there are none they may misunderstand?  Do you
+imagine that they will not comment in their own way upon your wordy
+explanations, and find in them a system adapted to their own capacity,
+which, if need be, they can use against you?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Listen to a little fellow who has just been under instruction.  Let him
+prattle, question, blunder, just as he pleases, and you will be
+surprised at the turn your reasonings have taken in his mind.  He
+confounds one thing with another; he reverses everything; he tires you,
+sometimes worries you, by unexpected objections.  He forces you to hold
+your peace, or to make him hold his.  And what must he think of this
+silence, in one so fond of talking?  If ever he wins this advantage and
+knows the fact, farewell to his education.  He will no longer try to
+learn, but to refute what you say.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Be plain, discreet, reticent, you who are zealous teachers.  Be in no
+haste to act, except to prevent others from acting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again and again I say, postpone even a good lesson if you can, for fear
+of conveying a bad one.  On this earth, meant by nature to be man's
+first paradise, beware lest you act the tempter by giving to innocence
+the knowledge of good and evil.  Since you cannot prevent the child's
+learning from outside examples, restrict your care to the task of
+impressing these examples on his mind in suitable forms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Violent passions make a striking impression on the child who notices
+them, because their manifestations are well-defined, and forcibly
+attract his attention.  Anger especially has such stormy indications
+that its approach is unmistakable.  Do not ask, "Is not this a fine
+opportunity for the pedagogue's moral discourse?"  Spare the discourse:
+say not a word: let the child alone.  Amazed at what he sees, he will
+not fail to question you.  It will not be hard to answer him, on
+account of the very things that strike his senses.  He sees an inflamed
+countenance, flashing eyes, threatening gestures, he hears unusually
+excited tones of voice; all sure signs that the body is not in its
+usual condition.  Say to him calmly, unaffectedly, without any mystery,
+"This poor man is sick; he has a high fever."  You may take this
+occasion to give him, in few words, an idea of maladies and of their
+effects; for these, being natural, are trammels of that necessity to
+which he has to feel himself subject.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From this, the true idea, will he not early feel repugnance at giving
+way to excessive passion, which he regards as a disease?  And do you
+not think that such an idea, given at the appropriate time, will have
+as good an effect as the most tiresome sermon on morals?  Note also the
+future consequences of this idea; it will authorize you, if ever
+necessity arises, to treat a rebellious child as a sick child, to
+confine him to his room, and even to his bed, to make him undergo a
+course of medical treatment; to make his growing vices alarming and
+hateful to himself.  He cannot consider as a punishment the severity
+you are forced to use in curing him.  So that if you yourself, in some
+hasty moment, are perhaps stirred out of the coolness and moderation it
+should be your study to preserve, do not try to disguise your fault,
+but say to him frankly, in tender reproach, "My boy, you have hurt me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I do not intend to enter fully into details, but to lay down some
+general maxims and to illustrate difficult cases.  I believe it
+impossible, in the very heart of social surroundings, to educate a
+child up to the age of twelve years, without giving him some ideas of
+the relations of man to man, and of morality in human actions.  It will
+suffice if we put off as long as possible the necessity for these
+ideas, and when they must be given, limit them to such as are
+immediately applicable.  We must do this only lest he consider himself
+master of everything, and so injure others without scruple, because
+unknowingly.  There are gentle, quiet characters who, in their early
+innocence, may be led a long way without danger of this kind.  But
+others, naturally violent, whose wildness is precocious, must be
+trained into men as early as may be, that you may not be obliged to
+fetter them outright.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+The Idea of Property.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Our first duties are to ourselves; our first feelings are concentrated
+upon ourselves; our first natural movements have reference to our own
+preservation and well-being.  Thus our first idea of justice is not as
+due from us, but to us.  One error in the education of to-day is, that
+by speaking to children first of their duties and never of their
+rights, we commence at the wrong end, and tell them of what they cannot
+understand, and what cannot interest them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If therefore I had to teach one of these I have mentioned, I should
+reflect that a child never attacks persons, but things; he soon learns
+from experience to respect his superiors in age and strength.  But
+things do not defend themselves.  The first idea to be given him,
+therefore, is rather that of property than that of liberty; and in
+order to understand this idea he must have something of his own.  To
+speak to him of his clothes, his furniture, his playthings, is to tell
+him nothing at all; for though he makes use of these things, he knows
+neither how nor why he has them.  To tell him they are his because they
+have been given to him is not much better, for in order to give, we
+must have.  This is an ownership dating farther back than his own, and
+we wish him to understand the principle of ownership itself.  Besides,
+a gift is a conventional thing, and the child cannot as yet understand
+what a conventional thing is.  You who read this, observe how in this
+instance, as in a hundred thousand others, a child's head is crammed
+with words which from the start have no meaning to him, but which we
+imagine we have taught him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We must go back, then, to the origin of ownership, for thence our first
+ideas of it should arise.  The child living in the country will have
+gained some notion of what field labor is, having needed only to use
+his eyes and his abundant leisure.  Every age in life, and especially
+his own, desires to create, to imitate, to produce, to manifest power
+and activity.  Only twice will it be necessary for him to see a garden
+cultivated, seed sown, plants reared, beans sprouting, before he will
+desire to work in a garden himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In accordance with principles already laid down I do not at all oppose
+this desire, but encourage it.  I share his taste; I work with him, not
+for his pleasure, but for my own: at least he thinks so.  I become his
+assistant gardener; until his arms are strong enough I work the ground
+for him.  By planting a bean in it, he takes possession of it; and
+surely this possession is more sacred and more to be respected than
+that assumed by Nuñez de Balboa of South America in the name of the
+king of Spain, by planting his standard on the shores of the Pacific
+Ocean.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He comes every day to water the beans, and rejoices to see them
+thriving.  I add to his delight by telling him "This belongs to you."
+In explaining to him what I mean by "belongs," I make him feel that he
+has put into this plot of ground his time, his labor, his care, his
+bodily self; that in it is a part of himself which he may claim back
+from any one whatever, just as he may draw his own arm back if another
+tries to hold it against his will.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One fine morning he comes as usual, running, watering-pot in hand.  But
+oh, what a sight!  What a misfortune!  The beans are uprooted, the
+garden bed is all in disorder: the place actually no longer knows
+itself.  What has become of my labor, the sweet reward of all my care
+and toil?  Who has robbed me of my own?  Who has taken my beans away
+from me?  The little heart swells with the bitterness of its first
+feeling of injustice.  His eyes overflow with tears; his distress rends
+the air with moans and cries.  We compassionate his troubles, share his
+indignation, make inquiries, sift the matter thoroughly.  At last we
+find that the gardener has done the deed: we send for him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But we find that we have reckoned without our host.  When the gardener
+hears what we are complaining of, he complains more than we.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What!  So it was you, gentlemen, who ruined all my labor!  I had
+planted some Maltese melons, from seed given me as a great rarity: I
+hoped to give you a grand treat with them when they were ripe.  But for
+the sake of planting your miserable beans there, you killed my melons
+after they had actually sprouted; and there are no more to be had.  You
+have done me more harm than you can remedy, and you have lost the
+pleasure of tasting some delicious melons."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+JEAN JACQUES.  "Excuse us, my good Robert.  You put into them your
+labor, your care.  I see plainly that we did wrong to spoil your work:
+but we will get you some more Maltese seed, and we will not till any
+more ground without finding out whether some one else has put his hand
+to it before us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ROBERT.  "Oh well, gentlemen, you may as well end the business; for
+there's no waste land.  What I work was improved by my father, and it's
+the same with everybody hereabout.  All the fields you see were taken
+up long ago."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ÉMILE.  "Mr. Robert, do you often lose your melon-seed?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ROBERT.  "Pardon, my young master: we don't often have young gentlemen
+about that are careless like you.  Nobody touches his neighbor's
+garden; everybody respects other people's work, to make sure of his
+own."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ÉMILE.  "But I haven't any garden."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ROBERT.  "What's that to me?  If you spoil mine, I won't let you walk
+in it any more; for you are to understand that I'm not going to have
+all my pains for nothing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+JEAN JACQUES.  "Can't we arrange this matter with honest Robert?  Just
+let my little friend and me have one corner of your garden to
+cultivate, on condition that you have half the produce."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ROBERT.  "I will let you have it without that condition; but remember,
+I will root up your beans if you meddle with my melons."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In this essay on the manner of teaching fundamental notions to children
+it may be seen how the idea of property naturally goes back to the
+right which the first occupant acquired by labor.  This is clear,
+concise, simple, and always within the comprehension of the child.
+From this to the right of holding property, and of transferring it,
+there is but one step, and beyond this we are to stop short.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It will also be evident that the explanation I have included in two
+pages may, in actual practice, be the work of an entire year.  For in
+the development of moral ideas, we cannot advance too slowly, or
+establish them too firmly at every step.  I entreat you, young
+teachers, to think of the example I have given, and to remember that
+your lessons upon every subject ought to be rather in actions than in
+words; for children readily forget what is said or done to them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As I have said, such lessons ought to be given earlier or later, as the
+disposition of the child, gentle or turbulent, hastens or retards the
+necessity for giving them.  In employing them, we call in an evidence
+that cannot be misunderstood.  But that in difficult cases nothing
+important may be omitted, let us give another illustration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Your little meddler spoils everything he touches; do not be vexed, but
+put out of his reach whatever he can spoil.  He breaks the furniture he
+uses.  Be in no hurry to give him any more; let him feel the
+disadvantages of doing without it.  He breaks the windows in his room;
+let the wind blow on him night and day.  Have no fear of his taking
+cold; he had better take cold than be a fool.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Do not fret at the inconvenience he causes you, but make him feel it
+first of all.  Finally, without saying anything about it, have the
+panes of glass mended.  He breaks them again.  Change your method: say
+to him coolly and without anger, "Those windows are mine; I took pains
+to have them put there, and I am going to make sure that they shall not
+be broken again."  Then shut him up in some dark place where there are
+no windows.  At this novel proceeding, he begins to cry and storm: but
+nobody listens to him.  He soon grows tired of this, and changes his
+tone; he complains and groans.  A servant is sent, whom the rebel
+entreats to set him free.  Without trying to find any excuse for utter
+refusal, the servant answers, "I have windows to take care of, too,"
+and goes away.  At last, after the child has been in durance for
+several hours, long enough to tire him and to make him remember it,
+some one suggests an arrangement by which you shall agree to release
+him, and he to break no more windows.  He sends to beseech you to come
+and see him; you come; he makes his proposal.  You accept it
+immediately, saying, "Well thought of; that will be a good thing for
+both of us.  Why didn't you think of this capital plan before?"  Then,
+without requiring any protestations, or confirmation of his promise,
+you gladly caress him and take him to his room at once, regarding this
+compact as sacred and inviolable as if ratified by an oath.  What an
+idea of the obligation, and the usefulness, of an engagement will he
+not gain from this transaction!  I am greatly mistaken if there is an
+unspoiled child on earth who would be proof against it, or who would
+ever after think of breaking a window purposely.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Falsehood.  The Force of Example.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+We are now within the domain of morals, and the door is open to vice.
+Side by side with conventionalities and duties spring up deceit and
+falsehood.  As soon as there are things we ought not to do, we desire
+to hide what we ought not to have done.  As soon as one interest leads
+us to promise, a stronger one may urge us to break the promise.  Our
+chief concern is how to break it and still go unscathed.  It is natural
+to find expedients; we dissemble and we utter falsehood.  Unable to
+prevent this evil, we must nevertheless punish it.  Thus the miseries
+of our life arise from our mistakes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I have said enough to show that punishment, as such, should not be
+inflicted upon children, but should always happen to them as the
+natural result of their own wrong-doing.  Do not, then, preach to them
+against falsehood, or punish them confessedly on account of a
+falsehood.  But if they are guilty of one, let all its consequences
+fall heavily on their heads.  Let them know what it is to be
+disbelieved even when they speak the truth, and to be accused of faults
+in spite of their earnest denial.  But let us inquire what falsehood
+is, in children.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There are two kinds of falsehood; that of fact, which refers to things
+already past, and that of right, which has to do with the future.  The
+first occurs when we deny doing what we have done, and in general, when
+we knowingly utter what is not true.  The other occurs when we promise
+what we do not mean to perform, and, in general, when we express an
+intention contrary to the one we really have.  These two sorts of
+untruth may sometimes meet in the same case; but let us here discuss
+their points of difference.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One who realizes his need of help from others, and constantly receives
+kindness from them, has nothing to gain by deceiving them.  On the
+contrary, it is evidently his interest that they should see things as
+they are, lest they make mistakes to his disadvantage.  It is clear,
+then, that the falsehood of fact is not natural to children.  But the
+law of obedience makes falsehood necessary; because, obedience being
+irksome, we secretly avoid it whenever we can, and just in proportion
+as the immediate advantage of escaping reproof or punishment outweighs
+the remoter advantage to be gained by revealing the truth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Why should a child educated naturally and in perfect freedom, tell a
+falsehood?  What has he to hide from you?  You are not going to reprove
+or punish him, or exact anything from him.  Why should he not tell you
+everything as frankly as to his little playmate?  He sees no more
+danger in the one case than in the other.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The falsehood of right is still less natural to children, because
+promises to do or not to do are conventional acts, foreign to our
+nature and infringements of our liberty.  Besides, all the engagements
+of children are in themselves void, because, as their limited vision
+does not stretch beyond the present, they know not what they do when
+they bind themselves.  It is hardly possible for a child to tell a lie
+in making a promise.  For, considering only how to overcome a present
+difficulty, all devices that have no immediate effect become alike to
+him.  In promising for a time to come he actually does not promise at
+all, as his still dormant imagination cannot extend itself over two
+different periods of time.  If he could escape a whipping or earn some
+sugar-plums by promising to throw himself out of the window to-morrow,
+he would at once promise it.  Therefore the laws pay no regard to
+engagements made by children; and when some fathers and teachers, more
+strict than this, require the fulfilling of such engagements, it is
+only in things the child ought to do without promising.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the child in making a promise is not aware what he is doing, he
+cannot be guilty of falsehood in so doing: but this is not the case
+when he breaks a promise.  For he well remembers having made the
+promise; what he cannot understand is, the importance of keeping it.
+Unable to read the future, he does not foresee the consequences of his
+actions; and when he violates engagements he does nothing contrary to
+what might be expected of his years.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It follows from this that all the untruths spoken by children are the
+fault of those who instruct them; and that endeavoring to teach them
+how to be truthful is only teaching them how to tell falsehoods.  We
+are so eager to regulate, to govern, to instruct them, that we never
+find means enough to reach our object.  We want to win new victories
+over their minds by maxims not based upon fact, by unreasonable
+precepts; we would rather they should know their lessons and tell lies
+than to remain ignorant and speak the truth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As for us, who give our pupils none but practical teaching, and would
+rather have them good than knowing, we shall not exact the truth from
+them at all, lest they disguise it; we will require of them no promises
+they may be tempted to break.  If in my absence some anonymous mischief
+has been done, I will beware of accusing Émile, or of asking "Was it
+you?"[<A NAME="chap02fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn8">8</A>]  For what would that be but teaching him to deny it?  If his
+naturally troublesome disposition obliges me to make some agreement
+with him, I will plan so well that any such proposal shall come from
+him and never from me.  Thus, whenever he is bound by an engagement he
+shall have an immediate and tangible interest in fulfilling it.  And if
+he ever fails in this, the falsehood shall bring upon him evil results
+which he sees must arise from the very nature of things, and never from
+the vengeance of his tutor.  Far from needing recourse to such severe
+measures, however, I am almost sure that Émile will be long in learning
+what a lie is, and upon finding it out will be greatly amazed, not
+understanding what is to be gained by it.  It is very plain that the
+more I make his welfare independent of either the will or the judgment
+of others, the more I uproot within him all interest in telling
+falsehoods.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When we are less eager to instruct we are also less eager to exact
+requirements from our pupil, and can take time to require only what is
+to the purpose.  In that case, the child will be developed, just
+because he is not spoiled.  But when some blockhead teacher, not
+understanding what he is about, continually forces the child to promise
+things, making no distinctions, allowing no choice, knowing no limit,
+the little fellow, worried and weighed down with all these obligations,
+neglects them, forgets them, at last despises them; and considering
+them mere empty formulas, turns the giving and the breaking of them
+into ridicule.  If then you want to make him faithful to his word, be
+discreet in requiring him to give it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The details just entered upon in regard to falsehood may apply in many
+respects to all duties which, when enjoined upon children, become to
+them not only hateful but impracticable.  In order to seem to preach
+virtue we make vices attractive, and actually impart them by forbidding
+them.  If we would have the children religious, we tire them out taking
+them to church.  By making them mumble prayers incessantly we make them
+sigh for the happiness of never praying at all.  To inspire charity in
+them, we make them give alms, as if we disdained doing it ourselves.
+It is not the child, but his teacher, who ought to do the giving.
+However much you love your pupil, this is an honor you ought to dispute
+with him, leading him to feel that he is not yet old enough to deserve
+it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Giving alms is the act of one who knows the worth of his gift, and his
+fellow-creature's need of the gift.  A child who knows nothing of
+either can have no merit in bestowing.  He gives without charity or
+benevolence: he is almost ashamed to give at all, as, judging from your
+example and his own, only children give alms, and leave it off when
+grown up.  Observe, that we make the child bestow only things whose
+value be does not know: pieces of metal, which he carries in his
+pocket, and which are good for nothing else.  A child would rather give
+away a hundred gold pieces than a single cake.  But suggest to this
+free-handed giver the idea of parting with what he really prizes&mdash;his
+playthings, his sugar-plums, or his luncheon; you will soon find out
+whether you have made him really generous.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To accomplish the same end, resort is had to another expedient, that of
+instantly returning to the child what he has given away, so that he
+habitually gives whatever he knows will be restored to him.  I have
+rarely met with other than these two kinds of generosity in children,
+namely, the giving either of what is no use to themselves, or else of
+what they are certain will come back to them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do this," says Locke, "that they may be convinced by experience that
+he who gives most generously has always the better portion."  This is
+making him liberal in appearance and miserly in reality.  He adds, that
+children will thus acquire the habit of generosity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yes; a miser's generosity, giving an egg to gain an ox.  But when
+called upon to be generous in earnest, good-bye to the habit; they soon
+cease giving when the gift no longer comes back to them.  We ought to
+keep in view the habit of mind rather than that of the hands.  Like
+this virtue are all others taught to children; and their early years
+are spent in sadness, that we may preach these sterling virtues to
+them!  Excellent training this!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lay aside all affectation, you teachers; be yourselves good and
+virtuous, so that your example may be deeply graven on your pupils'
+memory until such time as it finds lodgment in their heart.  Instead of
+early requiring acts of charity from my pupil I would rather do them in
+his presence, taking from him all means of imitating me, as if I
+considered it an honor not due to his age.  For he should by no means
+be in the habit of thinking a man's duties the same as a child's.
+Seeing me assist the poor, he questions me about it and, if occasion
+serve, I answer, "My boy, it is because, since poor people are willing
+there should be rich people, the rich have promised to take care of
+those who have no money or cannot earn a living by their labor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And have you promised it too?" inquires he.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course; the money that comes into my hands is mine to use only upon
+this condition, which its owner has to carry out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After this conversation, and we have seen how a child may be prepared
+to understand it, other children besides Émile would be tempted to
+imitate me by acting like a rich man.  In this case I would at least
+see that it should not be done ostentatiously.  I would rather have him
+rob me of my right, and conceal the fact of his generosity.  It would
+be a stratagem natural at his age, and the only one I would pardon in
+him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The only moral lesson suited to childhood and the most important at any
+age is, never to injure any one.  Even the principle of doing good, if
+not subordinated to this, is dangerous, false, and contradictory.  For
+who does not do good?  Everybody does, even a wicked man who makes one
+happy at the expense of making a hundred miserable: and thence arise
+all our calamities.  The most exalted virtues are negative: they are
+hardest to attain, too, because they are unostentatious, and rise above
+even that gratification dear to the heart of man,&mdash;sending another
+person away pleased with us.  If there be a man who never injures one
+of his fellow-creatures, what good must he achieve for them!  What
+fearlessness, what vigor of mind he requires for it!  Not by reasoning
+about this principle, but by attempting to carry it into practice, do
+we find out how great it is, how hard to fulfil.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The foregoing conveys some faint idea of the precautions I would have
+you employ in giving children the instructions we sometimes cannot
+withhold without risk of their injuring themselves or others, and
+especially of contracting bad habits of which it will by and by be
+difficult to break them.  But we may rest assured that in children
+rightly educated the necessity will seldom arise; for it is impossible
+that they should become intractable, vicious, deceitful, greedy, unless
+the vices which make them so are sowed in their hearts.  For this
+reason what has been said on this point applies rather to exceptional
+than to ordinary cases.  But such exceptional cases become common in
+proportion as children have more frequent opportunity to depart from
+their natural state and to acquire the vices of their seniors.  Those
+brought up among men of the world absolutely require earlier teaching
+in these matters than those educated apart from such surroundings.
+Hence this private education is to be preferred, even if it do no more
+than allow childhood leisure to grow to perfection.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Negative or Temporizing Education.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Exactly contrary to the cases just described are those whom a happy
+temperament exalts above their years.  As there are some men who never
+outgrow childhood, so there are others who never pass through it, but
+are men almost from their birth.  The difficulty is that these
+exceptional cases are rare and not easily distinguished; besides, all
+mothers capable of understanding that a child can be a prodigy, have no
+doubt that their own are such.  They go even farther than this: they
+take for extraordinary indications the sprightliness, the bright
+childish pranks and sayings, the shrewd simplicity of ordinary cases,
+characteristic of that time of life, and showing plainly that a child
+is only a child.  Is it surprising that, allowed to speak so much and
+so freely, unrestrained by any consideration of propriety, a child
+should occasionally make happy replies?  If he did not, it would be
+even more surprising; just as if an astrologer, among a hundred false
+predictions, should never hit upon a single true one.  "They lie so
+often," said Henry IV., "that they end by telling the truth."  To be a
+wit, one need only utter a great many foolish speeches.  Heaven help
+men of fashion, whose reputation rests upon just this foundation!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The most brilliant thoughts may enter a child's head, or rather, the
+most brilliant sayings may fall from his lips, just as the most
+valuable diamonds may fall into his hands, without his having any right
+either to the thoughts or to the diamonds.  At his age, he has no real
+property of any kind.  A child's utterances are not the same to him as
+to us; he does not attach to them the same ideas.  If he has any ideas
+at all on the subject, they have neither order nor coherence in his
+mind; in all his thoughts nothing is certain or stable.  If you watch
+your supposed prodigy attentively, you will sometimes find him a
+well-spring of energy, clear-sighted, penetrating the very marrow of
+things.  Much oftener the same mind appears commonplace, dull, and as
+if enveloped in a dense fog.  Sometimes he outruns you, and sometimes
+he stands still.  At one moment you feel like saying, "He is a genius,"
+and at another, "He is a fool."  You are mistaken in either case: he is
+a child; he is an eaglet that one moment beats the air with its wings,
+and the next moment falls back into the nest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In spite of appearances, then, treat him as his age demands, and beware
+lest you exhaust his powers by attempting to use them too freely.  If
+this young brain grows warm, if you see it beginning to seethe, leave
+it free to ferment, but do not excite it, lest it melt altogether into
+air.  When the first flow of spirits has evaporated, repress and keep
+within bounds the rest, until, as time goes on, the whole is
+transformed into life-giving warmth and real power.  Otherwise you will
+lose both time and pains; you will destroy your own handiwork, and
+after having thoughtlessly intoxicated yourself with all these
+inflammable vapors, you will have nothing left but the dregs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nothing has been more generally or certainly observed than that dull
+children make commonplace men.  In childhood it is very difficult to
+distinguish real dullness from that misleading apparent dullness which
+indicates a strong character.  At first it seems strange that the two
+extremes should meet in indications so much alike; and yet such is the
+case.  For at an age when man has no real ideas at all, the difference
+between one who has genius and one who has not is, that the latter
+entertains only mistaken ideas, and the former, encountering only such,
+admits none at all.  The two are therefore alike in this, that the
+dullard is capable of nothing, and the other finds nothing to suit him.
+The only means of distinguishing them is chance, which may bring to the
+genius some ideas he can comprehend, while the dull mind is always the
+same.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During his childhood the younger Cato was at home considered an idiot.
+No one said anything of him beyond that he was silent and headstrong.
+It was only in the antechamber of Sulla that his uncle learned to know
+him.  If he had never crossed its threshold, he might have been thought
+a fool until he was grown.  If there had been no such person as Caesar,
+this very Cato, who read the secret of Caesar's fatal genius, and from
+afar foresaw his ambitious designs, would always have been treated as a
+visionary.[<A NAME="chap02fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn9">9</A>]  Those who judge of children so hastily are very liable
+to be mistaken.  They are often more childish than the children
+themselves.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Concerning the Memory.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Respect children, and be in no haste to judge their actions, good or
+evil.  Let the exceptional cases show themselves such for some time
+before you adopt special methods of dealing with them.  Let nature be
+long at work before you attempt to supplant her, lest you thwart her
+work.  You say you know how precious time is, and do not wish to lose
+it.  Do you not know that to employ it badly is to waste it still more,
+and that a child badly taught is farther from being wise than one not
+taught at all?  You are troubled at seeing him spend his early years in
+doing nothing.  What! is it nothing to be happy?  Is it nothing to
+skip, to play, to run about all day long?  Never in all his life will
+he be so busy as now.  Plato, in that work of his considered so severe,
+the "Republic," would have children accustomed to festivals, games,
+songs, and pastimes; one would think he was satisfied with having
+carefully taught them how to enjoy themselves.  And Seneca, speaking of
+the Roman youth of old, says, "They were always standing; nothing was
+taught them that they had to learn when seated."  Were they of less
+account when they reached manhood?  Have no fear, then, of this
+supposed idleness.  What would you think of a man who, in order to use
+his whole life to the best advantage, would not sleep?  You would say,
+"The man has no sense; he does not enjoy life, but robs himself of it.
+To avoid sleep, he rushes on his death."  The two cases are parallel,
+for childhood is the slumber of reason.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Apparent quickness in learning is the ruin of children.  We do not
+consider that this very quickness proves that they are learning
+nothing.  Their smooth and polished brain reflects like a mirror the
+objects presented to it, but nothing abides there, nothing penetrates
+it.  The child retains the words; the ideas are reflected; they who
+hear understand them, but he himself does not understand them at all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Although memory and reason are two essentially different faculties, the
+one is never really developed without the other.  Before the age of
+reason, the child receives not ideas, but images.  There is this
+difference between the two, that images are only absolute
+representations of objects of sense, and ideas are notions of objects
+determined by their relations.  An image may exist alone in the mind
+that represents it, but every idea supposes other ideas.  When we
+imagine, we only see; when we conceive of things, we compare them.  Our
+sensations are entirely passive, whereas all our perceptions or ideas
+spring from an active principle which judges.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I say then that children, incapable of judging, really have no memory.
+They retain sounds, shapes, sensations; but rarely ideas, and still
+more rarely the relations of ideas to one another.  If this statement
+is apparently refuted by the objection that they learn some elements of
+geometry, it is not really true; that very fact confirms my statement.
+It shows that, far from knowing how to reason themselves, they cannot
+even keep in mind the reasonings of others.  For if you investigate the
+method of these little geometricians, you discover at once that they
+have retained only the exact impression of the diagram and the words of
+the demonstration.  Upon the least new objection they are puzzled.
+Their knowledge is only of the sensation; nothing has become the
+property of their understanding.  Even their memory is rarely more
+perfect than their other faculties: for when grown they have nearly
+always to learn again as realities things whose names they learned in
+childhood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+However, I am far from thinking that children have no power of
+reasoning whatever.[<A NAME="chap02fn10text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn10">10</A>]  I observe, on the contrary, that in things
+they understand, things relating to their present and manifest
+interests, they reason extremely well.  We are, however, liable to be
+misled as to their knowledge, attributing to them what they do not
+have, and making them reason about what they do not understand.  Again,
+we make the mistake of calling their attention to considerations by
+which they are in no wise affected, such as their future interests, the
+happiness of their coming manhood, the opinion people will have of them
+when they are grown up.  Such speeches, addressed to minds entirely
+without foresight, are absolutely unmeaning.  Now all the studies
+forced upon these poor unfortunates deal with things like this, utterly
+foreign to their minds.  You may judge what attention such subjects are
+likely to receive.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+On the Study of Words.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Pedagogues, who make such an imposing display of what they teach, are
+paid to talk in another strain than mine, but their conduct shows that
+they think as I do.  For after all, what do they teach their pupils?
+Words, words, words.  Among all their boasted subjects, none are
+selected because they are useful; such would be the sciences of things,
+in which these professors are unskilful.  But they prefer sciences we
+seem to know when we know their nomenclature, such as heraldry,
+geography, chronology, languages; studies so far removed from human
+interests, and particularly from the child, that it would be wonderful
+if any of them could be of the least use at any time in life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It may cause surprise that I account the study of languages one of the
+useless things in education.  But remember I am speaking of the studies
+of earlier years, and whatever may be said, I do not believe that any
+child except a prodigy, will ever learn two languages by the time he is
+twelve or fifteen.[<A NAME="chap02fn11text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn11">11</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I admit that if the study of languages were only that of words, that
+is, of forms, and of the sounds which express them, it might be
+suitable for children.  But languages, by changing their signs, modify
+also the ideas they represent.  Minds are formed upon languages;
+thoughts take coloring from idioms.  Reason alone is common to all.  In
+each language the mind has its peculiar conformation, and this may be
+in part the cause or the effect of national character.  The fact that
+every nation's language follows the vicissitudes of that nation's
+morals, and is preserved or altered with them, seems to confirm this
+theory.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of these different forms, custom gives one to the child, and it is the
+only one he retains until the age of reason.  In order to have two, he
+must be able to compare ideas; and how can he do this when he is
+scarcely able to grasp them?  Each object may for him have a thousand
+different signs, but each idea can have but one form; he can therefore
+learn to speak only one language.  It is nevertheless maintained that
+he learns several; this I deny.  I have seen little prodigies who
+thought they could speak six or seven: I have heard them speak German
+in Latin, French, and Italian idioms successively.  They did indeed use
+five or six vocabularies, but they never spoke anything but German.  In
+short, you may give children as many synonyms as you please, and you
+will change only their words, and not their language; they will never
+know more than one.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To hide this inability we, by preference, give them practice in the
+dead languages, of which there are no longer any unexceptionable
+judges.  The familiar use of these tongues having long been lost, we
+content ourselves with imitating what we find of them in books, and
+call this speaking them.  If such be the Greek and Latin of the
+masters, you may judge what that of the children is.  Scarcely have
+they learned by heart the rudiments, without in the least understanding
+them, before they are taught to utter a French discourse in Latin
+words; and, when further advanced, to string together in prose, phrases
+from Cicero and cantos from Virgil.  Then they imagine they are
+speaking Latin, and who is there to contradict them?[<A NAME="chap02fn12text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn12">12</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In any study, words that represent things are nothing without the ideas
+of the things they represent.  We, however, limit children to these
+signs, without ever being able to make them understand the things
+represented.  We think we are teaching a child the description of the
+earth, when he is merely learning maps.  We teach him the names of
+cities, countries, rivers; he has no idea that they exist anywhere but
+on the map we use in pointing them out to him.  I recollect seeing
+somewhere a text-book on geography which began thus:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is the world?  A pasteboard globe."  Precisely such is the
+geography of children.  I will venture to say that after two years of
+globes and cosmography no child of ten, by rules they give him, could
+find the way from Paris to St. Denis.  I maintain that not one of them,
+from a plan of his father's garden, could trace out its windings
+without going astray.  And yet these are the knowing creatures who can
+tell you exactly where Pekin, Ispahan, Mexico, and all the countries of
+the world are.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I hear it suggested that children ought to be engaged in studies in
+which only the eye is needed.  This might be true if there were studies
+in which their eyes were not needed; but I know of none such.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A still more ridiculous method obliges children to study history,
+supposed to be within their comprehension because it is only a
+collection of facts.[<A NAME="chap02fn13text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn13">13</A>]  But what do we mean by facts?  Do we suppose
+that the relations out of which historic facts grow are so easily
+understood that the minds of children grasp such ideas without
+difficulty?  Do we imagine that the true understanding of events can be
+separated from that of their causes and effects? and that the historic
+and the moral are so far asunder that the one can be understood without
+the other?  If in men's actions you see only purely external and
+physical changes, what do you learn from history?  Absolutely nothing;
+and the subject, despoiled of all interest, no longer gives you either
+pleasure or instruction.  If you intend to estimate actions by their
+moral relations, try to make your pupils understand these relations,
+and you will discover whether history is adapted to their years.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If there is no science in words, there is no study especially adapted
+to children.  If they have no real ideas, they have no real memory; for
+I do not call that memory which retains only impressions.  Of what use
+is it to write on their minds a catalogue of signs that represent
+nothing to them?  In learning the things represented, would they not
+also learn the signs?  Why do you give them the useless trouble of
+learning them twice?  Besides, you create dangerous prejudices by
+making them suppose that science consists of words meaningless to them.
+The first mere word with which the child satisfies himself, the first
+thing he learns on the authority of another person, ruins his judgment.
+Long must he shine in the eyes of unthinking persons before he can
+repair such an injury to himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No; nature makes the child's brain so yielding that it receives all
+kinds of impressions; not that we may make his childhood a distressing
+burden to him by engraving on that brain dates, names of kings,
+technical terms in heraldry, mathematics, geography, and all such
+words, unmeaning to him and unnecessary to persons at any age in life.
+But all ideas that he can understand, and that are of use to him, all
+that conduce to his happiness and that will one day make his duties
+plain, should early write themselves there indelibly, to guide him
+through life as his condition and his intellect require.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The memory of which a child is capable is far from inactive, even
+without the use of books.  All he sees and hears impresses him, and he
+remembers it.  He keeps a mental register of people's sayings and
+doings.  Everything around him is the book from which he is continually
+but unconsciously enriching his memory against the time his judgment
+can benefit by it.  If we intend rightly to cultivate this chief
+faculty of the mind, we must choose these objects carefully, constantly
+acquainting him with such as he ought to understand, and keeping back
+those he ought not to know.  In this way we should endeavor to make his
+mind a storehouse of knowledge, to aid in his education in youth, and
+to direct him at all times.  This method does not, it is true, produce
+phenomenal children, nor does it make the reputation of their teachers;
+but it produces judicious, robust men, sound in body and in mind, who,
+although not admired in youth, will make themselves respected in
+manhood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Émile shall never learn anything by heart, not even fables such as
+those of La Fontaine, simple and charming as they are.  For the words
+of fables are no more the fables themselves than the words of history
+are history itself.  How can we be so blind as to call fables moral
+lessons for children?  We do not reflect that while these stories amuse
+they also mislead children, who, carried away by the fiction, miss the
+truth conveyed; so that what makes the lesson agreeable also makes it
+less profitable.  Men may learn from fables, but children must be told
+the bare truth; if it be veiled, they do not trouble themselves to lift
+the veil.[<A NAME="chap02fn14text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn14">14</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Since nothing ought to be required of children merely in proof of their
+obedience, it follows that they can learn nothing of which they cannot
+understand the actual and immediate advantage, whether it be pleasant
+or useful.  Otherwise, what motive will induce them to learn it?  The
+art of conversing with absent persons, and of hearing from them, of
+communicating to them at a distance, without the aid of another, our
+feelings, intentions, and wishes, is an art whose value may be
+explained to children of almost any age whatever.  By what astonishing
+process has this useful and agreeable art become so irksome to them?
+They have been forced to learn it in spite of themselves, and to use it
+in ways they cannot understand.  A child is not anxious to perfect the
+instrument used in tormenting him; but make the same thing minister to
+his pleasures, and you cannot prevent him from using it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Much attention is paid to finding out the best methods of teaching
+children to read.  We invent printing-offices and charts; we turn a
+child's room into a printer's establishment.[<A NAME="chap02fn15text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn15">15</A>]  Locke proposes
+teaching children to read by means of dice; a brilliant contrivance
+indeed, but a mistake as well.  A better thing than all these, a thing
+no one thinks of, is the desire to learn.  Give a child this desire,
+and you will not need dice or reading lotteries; any device will serve
+as well.  If, on the plan I have begun to lay down, you follow rules
+exactly contrary to those most in fashion, you will not attract and
+bewilder your pupil's attention by distant places, climates, and ages
+of the world, going to the ends of the earth and into the very heavens
+themselves, but will make a point of keeping it fixed upon himself and
+what immediately concerns him; and by this plan you will find him
+capable of perception, memory, and even reasoning; this is the order of
+nature.[<A NAME="chap02fn16text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn16">16</A>]  In proportion as a creature endowed with sensation becomes
+active, it acquires discernment suited to its powers, and the surplus
+of strength needed to preserve it is absolutely necessary in developing
+that speculative faculty which uses the same surplus for other ends.
+If, then, you mean to cultivate your pupil's understanding, cultivate
+the strength it is intended to govern.  Give him constant physical
+exercise; make his body sound and robust, that you may make him wise
+and reasonable.  Let him be at work doing something; let him run,
+shout, be always in motion; let him be a man in vigor, and he will the
+sooner become one in reason.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You would indeed make a mere animal of him by this method if you are
+continually directing him, and saying, "Go; come; stay; do this; stop
+doing that."  If your head is always to guide his arm, his own head
+will be of no use to him.  But recollect our agreement; if you are a
+mere pedant, there is no use in your reading what I write.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To imagine that physical exercise injures mental operations is a
+wretched mistake; the two should move in unison, and one ought to
+regulate the other.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My pupil, or rather nature's pupil, trained from the first to depend as
+much as possible on himself, is not continually running to others for
+advice.  Still less does he make a display of his knowledge.  On the
+other hand, he judges, he foresees, he reasons, upon everything that
+immediately concerns him; he does not prate, but acts.  He is little
+informed as to what is going on in the world, but knows very well what
+he ought to do, and how to do it.  Incessantly in motion, he cannot
+avoid observing many things, and knowing many effects.  He early gains
+a wide experience, and takes his lessons from nature, not from men.  He
+instructs himself all the better for discovering nowhere any intention
+of instructing him.  Thus, at the same time, body and mind are
+exercised.  Always carrying out his own ideas, and not another
+person's, two processes are simultaneously going on within him.  As he
+grows robust and strong, he becomes intelligent and judicious.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In this way he will one day have those two excellences,&mdash;thought
+incompatible indeed, but characteristic of nearly all great
+men,&mdash;strength of body and strength of mind, the reason of a sage and
+the vigor of an athlete.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I am recommending a difficult art to you, young teacher,&mdash;the art of
+governing without rules, and of doing everything by doing nothing at
+all.  I grant, that at your age, this art is not to be expected of you.
+It will not enable you, at the outset, to exhibit your shining talents,
+or to make yourself prized by parents; but it is the only one that will
+succeed.  To be a sensible man, your pupil must first have been a
+little scapegrace.  The Spartans were educated in this way; not tied
+down to books, but obliged to steal their dinners;[<A NAME="chap02fn17text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn17">17</A>] and did this
+produce men inferior in understanding?  Who does not remember their
+forcible, pithy sayings?  Trained to conquer, they worsted their
+enemies in every kind of encounter; and the babbling Athenians dreaded
+their sharp speeches quite as much as their valor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In stricter systems of education, the teacher commands and thinks he is
+governing the child, who is, after all, the real master.  What you
+exact from him he employs as means to get from you what he wants.  By
+one hour of diligence he can buy a week's indulgence.  At every moment
+you have to make terms with him.  These bargains, which you propose in
+your way, and which he fulfils in his own way, always turn out to the
+advantage of his whims, especially when you are so careless as to make
+stipulations which will be to his advantage whether he carries out his
+share of the bargain or not.  Usually, the child reads the teacher's
+mind better than the teacher reads his.  This is natural; for all the
+sagacity the child at liberty would use in self-preservation he now
+uses to protect himself from a tyrant's chains; while the latter,
+having no immediate interest in knowing the child's mind, follows his
+own advantage by leaving vanity and indolence unrestrained.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Do otherwise with your pupil.  Let him always suppose himself master,
+while you really are master.  No subjection is so perfect as that which
+retains the appearance of liberty; for thus the will itself is made
+captive.  Is not the helpless, unknowing child at your mercy?  Do you
+not, so far as he is concerned, control everything around him?  Have
+you not power to influence him as you please?  Are not his work, his
+play, his pleasure, his pain, in your hands, whether he knows it or not?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doubtless he ought to do only what he pleases; but your choice ought to
+control his wishes.  He ought to take no step that you have not
+directed; he ought not to open his lips without your knowing what he is
+about to say.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In this case he may, without fear of debasing his mind, devote himself
+to exercises of the body.  Instead of sharpening his wits to escape an
+irksome subjection, you will observe him wholly occupied in finding out
+in everything around him that part best adapted to his present
+well-being.  You will be amazed at the subtilty of his contrivances for
+appropriating to himself all the objects within the reach of his
+understanding, and for enjoying everything without regard to other
+people's opinions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By thus leaving him free, you will not foster his caprices.  If he
+never does anything that does not suit him, he will soon do only what
+he ought to do.  And, although his body be never at rest, still, if he
+is caring for his present and perceptible interests, all the reason of
+which he is capable will develop far better and more appropriately than
+in studies purely speculative.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As he does not find you bent on thwarting him, does not distrust you,
+has nothing to hide from you, he will not deceive you or tell you lies.
+He will fearlessly show himself to you just as he is.  You may study
+him entirely at your ease, and plan lessons for him which he will all
+unconsciously receive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He will not pry with suspicious curiosity into your affairs, and feel
+pleasure when he finds you in fault.  This is one of our most serious
+disadvantages.  As I have said, one of a child's first objects is to
+discover the weaknesses of those who have control of him.  This
+disposition may produce ill-nature, but does not arise from it, but
+from their desire to escape an irksome bondage.  Oppressed by the yoke
+laid upon them, children endeavor to shake it off; and the faults they
+find in their teachers yield them excellent means for doing this.  But
+they acquire the habit of observing faults in others, and of enjoying
+such discoveries.  This source of evil evidently does not exist in
+Émile.  Having no interest to serve by discovering my faults, he will
+not look for them in me, and will have little temptation to seek them
+in other people.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This course of conduct seems difficult because we do not reflect upon
+it; but taking it altogether, it ought not to be so.  I am justified in
+supposing that you know enough to understand the business you have
+undertaken; that you know the natural progress of the human mind; that
+you understand studying mankind in general and in individual cases;
+that among all the objects interesting to his age that you mean to show
+your pupil, you know beforehand which of them will influence his will.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now if you have the appliances, and know just how to use them, are you
+not master of the operation?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You object that children have caprices, but in this you are mistaken.
+These caprices result from faulty discipline, and are not natural.  The
+children have been accustomed either to obey or to command, and I have
+said a hundred times that neither of these two things is necessary.
+Your pupil will therefore have only such caprices as you give him, and
+it is just you should be punished for your own faults.  But do you ask
+how these are to be remedied?  It can still be done by means of better
+management and much patience.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Physical Training.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Man's first natural movements are for the purpose of comparing himself
+with whatever surrounds him and finding in each thing those sensible
+qualities likely to affect himself.  His first study is, therefore, a
+kind of experimental physics relating to his own preservation.  From
+this, before he has fully understood his place here on earth, he is
+turned aside to speculative studies.  While yet his delicate and
+pliable organs can adapt themselves to the objects upon which they are
+to act, while his senses, still pure, are free from illusion, it is
+time to exercise both in their peculiar functions, and to learn the
+perceptible relations between ourselves and outward things.  Since
+whatever enters the human understanding enters by the senses, man's
+primitive reason is a reason of the senses, serving as foundation for
+the reason of the intellect.  Our first teachers in philosophy are our
+own feet, hands, and eyes.  To substitute books for these is teaching
+us not to reason, but to use the reason of another; to believe a great
+deal, and to know nothing at all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In practising an art we must begin by procuring apparatus for it; and
+to use this apparatus to advantage, we must have it solid enough to
+bear use.  In learning to think, we must therefore employ our members,
+our senses, our organs, all which are the apparatus of our
+understanding.  And to use them to the best advantage, the body which
+furnishes them must be sound and robust.  Our reason is therefore so
+far from being independent of the body, that a good constitution
+renders mental operations easy and accurate.  In indicating how the
+long leisure of childhood ought to be employed, I am entering into
+particulars which maybe thought ridiculous.  "Pretty lessons," you will
+tell me, "which you yourself criticize for teaching only what there is
+no need of learning!  Why waste time in instructions which always come
+of their own accord, and cost neither care nor trouble?  What child of
+twelve does not know all you are going to teach yours, and all that his
+masters have taught him besides?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gentlemen, you are mistaken.  I am teaching my pupil a very tedious and
+difficult art, which yours certainly have not acquired,&mdash;that of being
+ignorant.  For the knowledge of one who gives himself credit for
+knowing only what he really does know reduces itself to a very small
+compass.  You are teaching science: very good; I am dealing with the
+instrument by which science is acquired.  All who have reflected upon
+the mode of life among the ancients attribute to gymnastic exercises
+that vigor of body and mind which so notably distinguishes them from us
+moderns.  Montaigne's support of this opinion shows that he had fully
+adopted it; he returns to it again and again, in a thousand ways.
+Speaking of the education of a child, he says, "We must make his mind
+robust by hardening his muscles; inure him to pain by accustoming him
+to labor; break him by severe exercise to the keen pangs of
+dislocation, of colic, of other ailments."  The wise Locke,[<A NAME="chap02fn18text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn18">18</A>] the
+excellent Rollin,[<A NAME="chap02fn19text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn19">19</A>] the learned Fleury,[<A NAME="chap02fn20text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn20">20</A>] the pedantic de
+Crouzas,[<A NAME="chap02fn21text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn21">21</A>] so different in everything else, agree exactly on this
+point of abundant physical exercise for children.  It is the wisest
+lesson they ever taught, but the one that is and always will be most
+neglected.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Clothing.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+As to clothing, the limbs of a growing body should be entirely free.
+Nothing should cramp their movements or their growth; nothing should
+fit too closely or bind the body; there should be no ligatures
+whatever.  The present French dress cramps and disables even a man, and
+is especially injurious to children.  It arrests the circulation of the
+humors; they stagnate from an inaction made worse by a sedentary life.
+This corruption of the humors brings on the scurvy, a disease becoming
+every day more common among us, but unknown to the ancients, protected
+from it by their dress and their mode of life.  The hussar dress does
+not remedy this inconvenience, but increases it, since, to save the
+child a few ligatures, it compresses the entire body.  It would be
+better to keep children in frocks as long as possible, and then put
+them into loosely fitting clothes, without trying to shape their
+figures and thereby spoil them.  Their defects of body and of mind
+nearly all spring from the same cause: we are trying to make men of
+them before their time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of bright and dull colors, the former best please a child's taste; such
+colors are also most becoming to them; and I see no reason why we
+should not in such matters consult these natural coincidences.  But the
+moment a material is preferred because it is richer, the child's mind
+is corrupted by luxury, and by all sorts of whims.  Preferences like
+this do not spring up of their own accord.  It is impossible to say how
+much choice of dress and the motives of this choice influence
+education.  Not only do thoughtless mothers promise children fine
+clothes by way of reward, but foolish tutors threaten them with coarser
+and simpler dress as punishment.  "If you do not study your lessons, if
+you do not take better care of your clothes, you shall be dressed like
+that little rustic."  This is saying to him, "Rest assured that a man
+is nothing but what his clothes make him; your own worth depends on
+what you wear."  Is it surprising that sage lessons like this so
+influence young men that they care for nothing but ornament, and judge
+of merit by outward appearance only?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Generally, children are too warmly clothed, especially in their earlier
+years.  They should be inured to cold rather than heat; severe cold
+never incommodes them when they encounter it early.  But the tissue of
+their skin, as yet yielding and tender, allows too free passage to
+perspiration, and exposure to great heat invariably weakens them.  It
+has been observed that more children die in August than in any other
+month.  Besides, if we compare northern and southern races, we find
+that excessive cold, rather than excessive heat, makes man robust.  In
+proportion as the child grows and his fibres are strengthened, accustom
+him gradually to withstand heat; and by degrees you will without risk
+train him to endure the glowing temperature of the torrid zone.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Sleep.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Children need a great deal of sleep because they take a great deal of
+exercise.  The one acts as corrective to the other, so that both are
+necessary.  As nature teaches us, night is the time for rest.  Constant
+observation shows that sleep is softer and more profound while the sun
+is below the horizon.  The heated air does not so perfectly
+tranquillize our tired senses.  For this reason the most salutary habit
+is to rise and to go to rest with the sun.  In our climate man, and
+animals generally, require more sleep in winter than in summer.  But
+our mode of life is not so simple, natural, and uniform that we can
+make this regular habit a necessity.  We must without doubt submit to
+regulations; but it is most important that we should be able to break
+them without risk when occasion requires.  Do not then imprudently
+soften your pupil by letting him lie peacefully asleep without ever
+being disturbed.  At first let him yield without restraint to the law
+of nature, but do not forget that in our day we must be superior to
+this law; we must be able to go late to rest and rise early, to be
+awakened suddenly, to be up all night, without discomfort.  By
+beginning early, and by always proceeding slowly, we form the
+constitution by the very practices which would ruin it if it were
+already established.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is important that your pupil should from the first be accustomed to
+a hard bed, so that he may find none uncomfortable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Generally, a life of hardship, when we are used to it, gives us a far
+greater number of agreeable sensations than does a life of ease, which
+creates an infinite number of unpleasant ones.  One too delicately
+reared can find sleep only upon a bed of down; one accustomed to bare
+boards can find it anywhere.  No bed is hard to him who falls asleep as
+soon as his head touches the pillow.  The best bed is the one which
+brings the best sleep.  Throughout the day no slaves from Persia, but
+Émile and I, will prepare our beds.  When we are tilling the ground we
+shall be making them soft for our slumber.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Exercise of the Senses.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+A child has not a man's stature, strength, or reason; but he sees and
+hears almost or quite as well.  His sense of taste is as keen, though
+he does not enjoy it as a pleasure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Our senses are the first powers perfected in us.  They are the first
+that should be cultivated and the only ones forgotten, or at least, the
+most neglected.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To exercise the senses is not merely to use them, but to learn how to
+judge correctly by means of them; we may say, to learn how to feel.
+For we cannot feel, or hear, or see, otherwise than as we have been
+taught.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There is a kind of exercise, purely natural and mechanical, that
+renders the body robust without injuring the mind.  Of this description
+are swimming, running, leaping, spinning tops, and throwing stones.
+All these are well enough; but have we nothing but arms and legs?  Have
+we not eyes and ears as well? and are they of no use while the others
+are employed?  Use, then, not only your bodily strength, but all the
+senses which direct it.  Make as much of each as possible, and verify
+the impressions of one by those of another.  Measure, count, weigh, and
+compare.  Use no strength till after you have calculated the resistance
+it will meet.  Be careful to estimate the effect before you use the
+means.  Interest the child in never making any useless or inadequate
+trials of strength.  If you accustom him to forecast the effect of
+every movement, and to correct his errors by experience, is it not
+certain that the more he does the better his judgment will be?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If the lever he uses in moving a heavy weight be too long, he will
+expend too much motion; if too short, he will not have power enough.
+Experience will teach him to choose one exactly suitable.  Such
+practical knowledge, then, is not beyond his years.  If he wishes to
+carry a burden exactly as heavy as his strength will bear, without the
+test of first lifting it, must he not estimate its weight by the eye?
+If he understands comparing masses of the same material but of
+different size, let him choose between masses of the same size but of
+different material.  This will oblige him to compare them as to
+specific gravity.  I have seen a well-educated young man who, until he
+had tried the experiment, would not believe that a pail full of large
+chips weighs less than it does when full of water.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+The Sense of Touch.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+We have not equal control of all our senses.  One of them, the sense of
+touch, is in continual action so long as we are awake.  Diffused over
+the entire surface of the body, it serves as a perpetual sentinel to
+warn us of what is likely to harm us.  By the constant use of this
+sense, voluntary or otherwise, we gain our earliest experience.  It
+therefore stands less in need of special cultivation.  We observe
+however, that the blind have a more delicate and accurate touch than
+we, because, not having sight to guide them, they depend upon touch for
+the judgments we form with the aid of sight.  Why then do we not train
+ourselves to walk, like them, in the dark, to recognize by the touch
+all bodies we can reach, to judge of objects around us, in short, to do
+by night and in the dark all they do in daytime without eyesight?  So
+long as the sun shines, we have the advantage of them; but they can
+guide us in darkness.  We are blind during half our life-time, with
+this difference, that the really blind can always guide themselves,
+whereas we dare not take a step in the dead of night.  You may remind
+me that we have artificial light.  What! must we always use machines?
+Who can insure their being always at hand when we need them?  For my
+part, I prefer that Émile, instead of keeping his eyes in a chandler's
+shop, should have them at the ends of his fingers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As much as possible, let him be accustomed to play about at night.
+This advice is more important than it would seem.  For men, and
+sometimes for animals, night has naturally its terrors.  Rarely do
+wisdom, or wit, or courage, free us from paying tribute to these
+terrors.  I have seen reasoners, free-thinkers, philosophers, soldiers,
+who were utterly fearless in broad daylight, tremble like women at the
+rustle of leaves by night.  Such terrors are supposed to be the result
+of nursery tales.  The real cause is the same thing which makes the
+deaf distrustful, and the lower classes superstitious; and that is,
+ignorance of objects and events around us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The cause of the evil, once found, suggests the remedy.  In everything,
+habit benumbs the imagination; new objects alone quicken it again.
+Every-day objects keep active not the imagination, but the memory;
+whence the saying "Ab assuetis non fit passio."[<A NAME="chap02fn22text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn22">22</A>]  For only the
+imagination can set on fire our passions.  If, therefore, you wish to
+cure any one of the fear of darkness, do not reason with him.  Take him
+into the dark often, and you may be sure that will do him more good
+than philosophical arguments.  When at work on the roofs of houses,
+slaters do not feel their heads swim; and those accustomed to darkness
+do not fear it at all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There will be one advantage of our plays in the dark.  But if you mean
+them to be successful, you must make them as gay as possible.  Darkness
+is of all things the most gloomy; so do not shut your child up in a
+dungeon.  When he goes into the dark make him laugh; when he leaves it
+make him laugh again; and all the time he is there, let the thought of
+what he is enjoying, and what he will find there when he returns,
+protect him from the shadowy terrors which might otherwise inhabit it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I have heard some propose to teach children not to be afraid at night,
+by surprising them.  This is a bad plan, and its effect is contrary to
+the one sought: it only makes them more timid than before.  Neither
+reason nor habit can accustom us to a present danger, the nature and
+extent of which we do not know, nor can they lessen our dread of
+unexpected things however often we meet with them.  But how can we
+guard our pupil against such accidents?  I think the following is the
+best plan.  I will tell my Émile, "If any one attacks you at night, you
+are justified in defending yourself; for your assailant gives you no
+notice whether he means to hurt you or only to frighten you.  As he has
+taken you at a disadvantage, seize him boldly, no matter what he may
+seem to be.  Hold him fast, and if he offers any resistance, hit him
+hard and often.  Whatever he may say or do, never let go until you know
+exactly who he is.  The explanation will probably show you that there
+is nothing to be afraid of; and if you treat a practical joker in this
+way, he will not be likely to try the same thing again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Although, of all our senses, touch is the one most constantly used,
+still, as I have said, its conclusions are the most rude and imperfect.
+This is because it is always used at the same time with sight; and
+because the eye attains its object sooner than the hand; the mind
+nearly always decides without appealing to touch.  On the other hand,
+the decisions of touch, just because they are so limited in their
+range, are the most accurate.  For as they extend no farther than our
+arm's length, they correct the errors of other senses, which deal with
+distant objects, and scarcely grasp these objects at all, whereas all
+that the touch perceives it perceives thoroughly.  Besides, if to
+nerve-force we add muscular action, we form a simultaneous impression,
+and judge of weight and solidity as well as of temperature, size, and
+shape.  Thus touch, which of all our senses best informs us concerning
+impressions made upon us by external things, is the one oftenest used,
+and gives us most directly the knowledge necessary to our preservation.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+The Sense of Sight.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+The sense of touch confines its operations to a very narrow sphere
+around us, but those of sight extend far beyond; this sense is
+therefore liable to be mistaken.  With a single glance a man takes in
+half his own horizon, and in these myriad impressions, and judgments
+resulting from them, how is it credible that there should be no
+mistakes?  Sight, therefore, is the most defective of all our senses,
+precisely because it is most far-reaching, and because its operations,
+by far preceding all others, are too immediate and too vast to receive
+correction from them.  Besides, the very illusions of perspective are
+needed to make us understand extension, and to help us in comparing its
+parts.  If there were no false appearances, we could see nothing at a
+distance; if there were no gradations in size, we could form no
+estimate of distance, or rather there would be no distance at all.  If
+of two trees the one a hundred paces away seemed as large and distinct
+as the other, ten paces distant, we should place them side by side.  If
+we saw all objects in their true dimensions, we should see no space
+whatever; everything would appear to be directly beneath our eye.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For judging of the size and distance of objects, sight has only one
+measure, and that is the angle they form with our eye.  As this is the
+simple effect of a compound cause, the judgment we form from it leaves
+each particular case undecided or is necessarily imperfect.  For how
+can I by the sight alone tell whether the angle which makes one object
+appear smaller than another is caused by the really lesser magnitude of
+the object or by its greater distance from me?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An opposite method must therefore be pursued.  Instead of relying on
+one sensation only, we must repeat it, verify it by others, subordinate
+sight to touch, repressing the impetuosity of the first by the steady,
+even pace of the second.  For lack of this caution we measure very
+inaccurately by the eye, in determining height, length, depth, and
+distance.  That this is not due to organic defect, but to careless use,
+is proved by the fact that engineers, surveyors, architects, masons,
+and painters generally have a far more accurate eye than we, and
+estimate measures of extension more correctly.  Their business gives
+them experience that we neglect to acquire, and thus they correct the
+ambiguity of the angle by means of appearances associated with it,
+which enable them to determine more exactly the relation of the two
+things producing the angle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Children are easily led into anything that allows unconstrained
+movement of the body.  There are a thousand ways of interesting them in
+measuring, discovering, and estimating distances.  "Yonder is a very
+tall cherry-tree; how can we manage to get some cherries?  Will the
+ladder in the barn do?  There is a very wide brook; how can we cross
+it?  Would one of the planks in the yard be long enough?  We want to
+throw a line from our windows and catch some fish in the moat around
+the house; how many fathoms long ought the line to be?  I want to put
+up a swing between those two trees; would four yards of rope be enough
+for it?  They say that in the other house our room will be twenty-five
+feet square; do you think that will suit us?  Will it be larger than
+this?  We are very hungry; which of those two villages yonder can we
+reach soonest, and have our dinner?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the sense of sight is the one least easily separated from the
+judgments of the mind, we need a great deal of time for learning how to
+see.  We must for a long time compare sight with touch, if we would
+accustom our eye to report forms and distances accurately.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without touch and without progressive movement, the keenest eye-sight
+in the world could give us no idea of extent.  To an oyster the entire
+universe must be only a single point.  Only by walking, feeling,
+counting, and measuring, do we learn to estimate distances.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If we always measure them, however, our eye, depending on this, will
+never gain accuracy.  Yet the child ought not to pass too soon from
+measuring to estimating.  It will be better for him, after comparing by
+parts what he cannot compare as wholes, finally to substitute for
+measured aliquot parts others, obtained by the eye alone.  He should
+train himself in this manner of measuring instead of always measuring
+with the hand.  I prefer that the very first operations of this kind
+should be verified by actual measurements, so that he may correct the
+mistakes arising from false appearances by a better judgment.  There
+are natural measures, nearly the same everywhere, such as a man's pace,
+the length of his arm, or his height.  When the child is calculating
+the height of the story of a house, his tutor may serve as a unit of
+measure.  In estimating the altitude of a steeple, he may compare it
+with that of the neighboring houses.  If he wants to know how many
+leagues there are in a given journey, let him reckon the number of
+hours spent in making it on foot.  And by all means do none of this
+work for him; let him do it himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We cannot learn to judge correctly of the extent and size of bodies
+without also learning to recognize their forms, and even to imitate
+them.  For such imitation is absolutely dependent on the laws of
+perspective, and we cannot estimate extent from appearances without
+some appreciation of these laws.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Drawing.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+All children, being natural imitators, try to draw.  I would have my
+pupil cultivate this art, not exactly for the sake of the art itself,
+but to render the eye true and the hand flexible.  In general, it
+matters little whether he understands this or that exercise, provided
+he acquires the mental insight, and the manual skill furnished by the
+exercise.  I should take care, therefore, not to give him a
+drawing-master, who would give him only copies to imitate, and would
+make him draw from drawings only.  He shall have no teacher but nature,
+no models but real things.  He shall have before his eyes the
+originals, and not the paper which represents them.  He shall draw a
+house from a real house, a tree from a tree, a human figure from the
+man himself.  In this way he will accustom himself to observe bodies
+and their appearances, and not mistake for accurate mutations those
+that are false and conventional.  I should even object to his drawing
+anything from memory, until by frequent observations the exact forms of
+the objects had clearly imprinted themselves on his imagination, lest,
+substituting odd and fantastic shapes for the real things, he might
+lose the knowledge of proportion and a taste for the beauties of
+nature.  I know very well that he will go on daubing for a long time
+without making anything worth noticing, and will be long in mastering
+elegance of outline, and in acquiring the deft stroke of a skilled
+draughtsman.  He may never learn to discern picturesque effects, or
+draw with superior skill.  On the other hand, he will have a more
+correct eye, a truer hand, a knowledge of the real relations of size
+and shape in animals, plants, and natural bodies, and practical
+experience of the illusions of perspective.  This is precisely what I
+intend; not so much that he shall imitate objects as that he shall know
+them.  I would rather have him show me an acanthus than a finished
+drawing of the foliation of a capital.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet I would not allow my pupil to have the enjoyment of this or any
+other exercise all to himself.  By sharing it with him I will make him
+enjoy it still more.  He shall have no competitor but myself; but I
+will be that competitor continually, and without risk of jealousy
+between us.  It will only interest him more deeply in his studies.
+Like him I will take up the pencil, and at first I will be as awkward
+as he.  If I were an Apelles, even, I will make myself a mere dauber.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I will begin by sketching a man just as a boy would sketch one on a
+wall, with a dash for each arm, and with fingers larger than the arms.
+By and by one or the other of us will discover this disproportion.  We
+shall observe that a leg has thickness, and that this thickness is not
+the same everywhere; that the length of the arm is determined by its
+proportion to the body; and so on.  As we go on I will do no more than
+keep even step with him, or will excel him by so little that he can
+always easily overtake and even surpass me.  We will get colors and
+brushes; we will try to imitate not only the outline but the coloring
+and all the other details of objects.  We will color; we will paint; we
+will daub; but in all our daubing we shall be continually peering into
+nature, and all we do shall be done under the eye of that great teacher.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If we had difficulty in finding decorations for our room, we have now
+all we could desire.  I will have our drawings framed, so that we can
+give them no finishing touches; and this will make us both careful to
+do no negligent work.  I will arrange them in order around our room,
+each drawing repeated twenty or thirty times, and each repetition
+showing the author's progress, from the representation of a house by an
+almost shapeless attempt at a square, to the accurate copy of its front
+elevation, profile, proportions, and shading.  The drawings thus graded
+must be interesting to ourselves, curious to others, and likely to
+stimulate further effort.  I will inclose the first and rudest of these
+in showy gilded frames, to set them off well; but as the imitation
+improves, and when the drawing is really good, I will add only a very
+simple black frame.  The picture needs no ornament but itself, and it
+would be a pity that the bordering should receive half the attention.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Both of us will aspire to the honor of a plain frame, and if either
+wishes to condemn the other's drawing, he will say it ought to have a
+gilt frame.  Perhaps some day these gilded frames will pass into a
+proverb with us, and we shall be interested to observe how many men do
+justice to themselves by framing themselves in the very same way.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Geometry.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+I have said that geometry is not intelligible to children; but it is
+our own fault.  We do not observe that their method is different from
+ours, and that what is to us the art of reasoning should be to them
+only the art of seeing.  Instead of giving them our method, we should
+do better to take theirs.  For in our way of learning geometry,
+imagination really does as much as reason.  When a proposition is
+stated, we have to imagine the demonstration; that is, we have to find
+upon what proposition already known the new one depends, and from all
+the consequences of this known principle select just the one required.
+According to this method the most exact reasoner, if not naturally
+inventive, must be at fault.  And the result is that the teacher,
+instead of making us discover demonstrations, dictates them to us;
+instead of teaching us to reason, he reasons for us, and exercises only
+our memory.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Make the diagrams accurate; combine them, place them one upon another,
+examine their relations, and you will discover the whole of elementary
+geometry by proceeding from one observation to another, without using
+either definitions or problems, or any form of demonstration than
+simple superposition.  For my part, I do not even pretend to teach
+Émile geometry; he shall teach it to me.  I will look for relations,
+and he shall discover them.  I will look for them in a way that will
+lead him to discover them.  In drawing a circle, for instance, I will
+not use a compass, but a point at the end of a cord which turns on a
+pivot.  Afterward, when I want to compare the radii of a semi-circle,
+Émile will laugh at me and tell me that the same cord, held with the
+same tension, cannot describe unequal distances.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When I want to measure an angle of sixty degrees, I will describe from
+the apex of the angle not an arc only, but an entire circle; for with
+children nothing must be taken for granted.  I find that the portion
+intercepted by the two sides of the angle is one-sixth of the whole
+circumference.  Afterward, from the same centre, I describe another and
+a larger circle, and find that this second arc is one-sixth of the new
+circumference.  Describing a third concentric circle, I test it in the
+same way, and continue the process with other concentric circles, until
+Émile, vexed at my stupidity, informs me that every arc, great or
+small, intercepted by the sides of this angle, will be one-sixth of the
+circumference to which it belongs.  You see we are almost ready to use
+the instruments intelligently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In order to prove the angles of a triangle equal to two right angles, a
+circle is usually drawn.  I, on the contrary, will call Émile's
+attention to this in the circle, and then ask him, "Now, if the circle
+were taken away, and the straight lines were left, would the size of
+the angles be changed?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is not customary to pay much attention to the accuracy of figures in
+geometry; the accuracy is taken for granted, and the demonstration
+alone is regarded.  Émile and I will pay no heed to the demonstration,
+but aim to draw exactly straight and even lines; to make a square
+perfect and a circle round.  To test the exactness of the figure we
+will examine it in all its visible properties, and this will give us
+daily opportunity of finding out others.  We will fold the two halves
+of a circle on the line of the diameter, and the halves of a square on
+its diagonal, and then examine our two figures to see which has its
+bounding lines most nearly coincident, and is therefore best
+constructed.  We will debate as to whether this equality of parts
+exists in all parallelograms, trapeziums, and like figures.  Sometimes
+we will endeavor to guess at the result of the experiment before we
+make it, and sometimes to find out the reasons why it should result as
+it does.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Geometry for my pupil is only the art of using the rule and compass
+well.  It should not be confounded with drawing, which uses neither of
+these instruments.  The rule and compass are to be kept under lock and
+key, and he shall be allowed to use them only occasionally, and for a
+short time, lest he fall into the habit of daubing.  But sometimes,
+when we go for a walk, we will take our diagrams with us, and talk
+about what we have done or would like to do.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Hearing.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+What has been said as to the two senses most continually employed and
+most important may illustrate the way in which I should exercise the
+other senses.  Sight and touch deal alike with bodies at rest and
+bodies in motion.  But as only the vibration of the air can arouse the
+sense of hearing, noise or sound can be made only by a body in motion.
+If everything were at rest, we could not hear at all.  At night, when
+we move only as we choose, we have nothing to fear except from other
+bodies in motion.  We therefore need quick ears to judge from our
+sensations whether the body causing them is large or small, distant or
+near, and whether its motion is violent or slight.  The air, when in
+agitation, is subject to reverberations which reflect it back, produce
+echoes, and repeat the sensation, making the sonorous body heard
+elsewhere than where it really is.  In a plain or valley, if you put
+your ear to the ground, you can hear the voices of men and the sound of
+horses' hoofs much farther than when standing upright.  As we have
+compared sight with touch, let us also compare it with hearing, and
+consider which of the two impressions, leaving the same body at the
+same time, soonest reaches its organ.  When we see the flash of a
+cannon there is still time to avoid the shot; but as soon as we hear
+the sound there is not time; the ball has struck.  We can estimate the
+distance of thunder by the interval between the flash and the
+thunderbolt.  Make the child understand such experiments; try those
+that are within his own power, and discover others by inference.  But
+it would be better he should know nothing about these things than that
+you should tell him all he is to know about them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We have an organ that corresponds to that of hearing, that is, the
+voice.  Sight has nothing like this, for though we can produce sounds,
+we cannot give off colors.  We have therefore fuller means of
+cultivating hearing, by exercising its active and passive organs upon
+one another.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+The Voice.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Man has three kinds of voice: the speaking or articulate voice, the
+singing or melodious voice, and the pathetic or accented voice, which
+gives language to passion and animates song and speech.  A child has
+these three kinds of voice as well as a man, but he does not know how
+to blend them in the same way.  Like his elders he can laugh, cry,
+complain, exclaim, and groan.  But he does not know how to blend these
+inflections with the two other voices.  Perfect music best accomplishes
+this blending; but children are incapable of such music, and there is
+never much feeling in their singing.  In speaking, their voice has
+little energy, and little or no accent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Our pupil will have even a simpler and more uniform mode of speaking,
+because his passions, not yet aroused, will not mingle their language
+with his.  Do not, therefore, give him dramatic parts to recite, nor
+teach him to declaim.  He will have too much sense to emphasize words
+he cannot understand, and to express feelings he has never known.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Teach him to speak evenly, clearly, articulately, to pronounce
+correctly and without affectation, to understand and use the accent
+demanded by grammar and prosody.  Train him to avoid a common fault
+acquired in colleges, of speaking louder than is necessary; have him
+speak loud enough to be understood; let there be no exaggeration in
+anything.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Aim, also, to render his voice in singing, even, flexible, and
+sonorous.  Let his ear be sensitive to time and harmony, but to nothing
+more.  Do not expect of him, at his age, imitative and theatrical
+music.  It would be better if he did not even sing words.  If he wished
+to sing them, I should try to invent songs especially for him, such as
+would interest him, as simple as his own ideas.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+The Sense of Taste.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Of our different sensations, those of taste generally affect us most.
+We are more interested in judging correctly of substances that are to
+form part of our own bodies than of those which merely surround us.  We
+are indifferent to a thousand things, as objects of touch, of hearing,
+or of sight; but there is almost nothing to which our sense of taste is
+indifferent.  Besides, the action of this sense is entirely physical
+and material.  Imagination and imitation often give a tinge of moral
+character to the impressions of all the other senses; but to this it
+appeals least of all, if at all.  Generally, also, persons of
+passionate and really sensitive temperament, easily moved by the other
+senses, are rather indifferent in regard to this.  This very fact,
+which seems in some measure to degrade the sense of taste, and to make
+excess in its indulgence more contemptible, leads me, however, to
+conclude that the surest way to influence children is by means of their
+appetite.  Gluttony, as a motive, is far better than vanity; for
+gluttony is a natural appetite depending directly on the senses, and
+vanity is the result of opinion, is subject to human caprice and to
+abuse of all kinds.  Gluttony is the passion of childhood, and cannot
+hold its own against any other; it disappears on the slightest occasion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Believe me, the child will only too soon leave off thinking of his
+appetite; for when his heart is occupied, his palate will give him
+little concern.  When he is a man, a thousand impulsive feelings will
+divert his mind from gluttony to vanity; for this last passion alone
+takes advantage of all others, and ends by absorbing them all.  I have
+sometimes watched closely those who are especially fond of dainties;
+who, as soon as they awoke, were thinking of what they should eat
+during the day, and could describe a dinner with more minuteness than
+Polybius uses in describing a battle; and I have always found that
+these supposed men were nothing but children forty years old, without
+any force or steadiness of character.  Gluttony is the vice of men who
+have no stamina.  The soul of a gourmand has its seat in his palate
+alone; formed only for eating, stupid, incapable, he is in his true
+place only at the table; his judgment is worthless except in the matter
+of dishes.  As he values these far more highly than others in which we
+are interested, as well as he, let us without regret leave this
+business of the palate to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is weak precaution to fear that gluttony may take root in a child
+capable of anything else.  As children, we think only of eating; but in
+youth, we think of it no more.  Everything tastes good to us, and we
+have many other things to occupy us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet I would not use so low a motive injudiciously, or reward a good
+action with a sugar-plum.  Since childhood is or should be altogether
+made up of play and frolic, I see no reason why exercise purely
+physical should not have a material and tangible reward.  If a young
+Majorcan, seeing a basket in the top of a tree, brings it down with a
+stone from his sling, why should he not have the recompense of a good
+breakfast, to repair the strength used in earning it?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A young Spartan, braving the risk of a hundred lashes, stole into a
+kitchen, and carried off a live fox-cub, which concealed under his
+coat, scratched and bit him till the blood came.  To avoid the disgrace
+of detection, the child allowed the creature to gnaw his entrails, and
+did not lift an eyelash or utter a cry.[<A NAME="chap02fn23text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn23">23</A>]  Was it not just that, as a
+reward, he was allowed to devour the beast that had done its best to
+devour him?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A good meal ought never to be given as a reward; but why should it not
+sometimes be the result of the pains taken to secure it?  Émile will
+not consider the cake I put upon a stone as a reward for running well;
+he only knows that he cannot have the cake unless he reaches it before
+some other person does.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This does not contradict the principle before laid down as to
+simplicity in diet.  For to please a child's appetite we need not
+arouse it, but merely satisfy it; and this may be done with the most
+ordinary things in the world, if we do not take pains to refine his
+taste.  His continual appetite, arising from his rapid growth, is an
+unfailing sauce, which supplies the place of many others.  With a
+little fruit, or some of the dainties made from milk, or a bit of
+pastry rather more of a rarity than the every-day bread, and, more than
+all, with some tact in bestowing, you may lead an army of children to
+the world's end without giving them any taste for highly spiced food,
+or running any risk of cloying their palate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Besides, whatever kind of diet you give children, provided they are
+used only to simple and common articles of food, let them eat, run, and
+play as much as they please, and you may rest assured they will never
+eat too much, or be troubled with indigestion.  But if you starve them
+half the time, and they can find a way to escape your vigilance, they
+will injure themselves with all their might, and eat until they are
+entirely surfeited.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Unless we dictate to our appetite other rules than those of nature, it
+will never be inordinate.  Always regulating, prescribing, adding,
+retrenching, we do everything with scales in hand.  But the scales
+measure our own whims, and not our digestive organs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To return to my illustrations; among country folk the larder and the
+orchard are always open, and nobody, young or old, knows what
+indigestion means.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Result.  The Pupil at the Age of Ten or Twelve.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Supposing that my method is indeed that of nature itself, and that I
+have made no mistakes in applying it, I have now conducted my pupil
+through the region of sensations to the boundaries of childish reason.
+The first step beyond should be that of a man.  But before beginning
+this new career, let us for a moment cast our eyes over what we have
+just traversed.  Every age and station in life has a perfection, a
+maturity, all its own.  We often hear of a full-grown man; in
+contemplating a full-grown child we shall find more novelty, and
+perhaps no less pleasure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The existence of finite beings is so barren and so limited that when we
+see only what is, it never stirs us to emotion.  Real objects are
+adorned by the creations of fancy, and without this charm yield us but
+a barren satisfaction, tending no farther than to the organ that
+perceives them, and the heart is left cold.  The earth, clad in the
+glories of autumn, displays a wealth which the wondering eye enjoys,
+but which arouses no feeling within us; it springs less from sentiment
+than from reflection.  In spring the landscape is still almost bare;
+the forests yield no shade; the verdure is only beginning to bud; and
+yet the heart is deeply moved at the sight.  We feel within us a new
+life, when we see nature thus revive; delightful images surround us;
+the companions of pleasure, gentle tears, ever ready to spring at the
+touch of tender feelings, brim our eyes.  But upon the panorama of the
+vintage season, animated and pleasant though it be, we have no tears to
+bestow.  Why is there this difference?  It is because imagination joins
+to the sight of spring-time that of following seasons.  To the tender
+buds the eye adds the flowers, the fruit, the shade, sometimes also the
+mysteries that may lie hid in them.  Into a single point of time our
+fancy gathers all the year's seasons yet to be, and sees things less as
+they really will be than as it would choose to have them.  In autumn,
+on the contrary, there is nothing but bare reality.  If we think of
+spring then, the thought of winter checks us, and beneath snow and
+hoar-frost the chilled imagination dies.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The charm we feel in looking upon a lovely childhood rather than upon
+the perfection of mature age, arises from the same source.  If the
+sight of a man in his prime gives us like pleasure, it is when the
+memory of what he has done leads us to review his past life and bring
+up his younger days.  If we think of him as he is, or as he will be in
+old age, the idea of declining nature destroys all our pleasure.  There
+can be none in seeing a man rapidly drawing near the grave; the image
+of death is a blight upon everything.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But when I imagine a child of ten or twelve, sound, vigorous, well
+developed for his age, it gives me pleasure, whether on account of the
+present or of the future.  I see him impetuous, sprightly, animated,
+free from anxiety or corroding care, living wholly in his own present,
+and enjoying a life full to overflowing.  I foresee what he will be in
+later years, using the senses, the intellect, the bodily vigor, every
+day unfolding within him.  When I think of him as a child, he delights
+me; when I think of him as a man, he delights me still more.  His
+glowing pulses seem to warm my own; I feel his life within myself, and
+his sprightliness renews my youth.  His form, his bearing, his
+countenance, manifest self-confidence and happiness.  Health glows in
+his face; his firm step is a sign of bodily vigor.  His complexion,
+still delicate, but not insipid, has in it no effeminate softness, for
+air and sun have already given him the honorable stamp of his sex.  His
+still rounded muscles are beginning to show signs of growing
+expressiveness.  His eyes, not yet lighted with the fire of feeling,
+have all their natural serenity.  Years of sorrow have never made them
+dim, nor have his cheeks been furrowed by unceasing tears.  His quick
+but decided movements show the sprightliness of his age, and his sturdy
+independence; they bear testimony to the abundant physical exercise he
+has enjoyed.  His bearing is frank and open, but not insolent or vain.
+His face, never glued to his books, is never downcast; you need not
+tell him to raise his head, for neither fear nor shame has ever made it
+droop.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Make room for him among you, and examine him, gentlemen.  Question him
+with all confidence, without fear of his troubling you with idle
+chatter or impertinent queries.  Do not be afraid of his taking up all
+your time, or making it impossible for you to get rid of him.  You need
+not expect brilliant speeches that I have taught him, but only the
+frank and simple truth without preparation, ornament, or vanity.  When
+he tells you what he has been thinking or doing, he will speak of the
+evil as freely as of the good, not in the least embarrassed by its
+effect upon those who hear him.  He will use words in all the
+simplicity of their original meaning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We like to prophesy good of children, and are always sorry when a
+stream of nonsense comes to disappoint hopes aroused by some chance
+repartee.  My pupil seldom awakens such hopes, and will never cause
+such regrets: for he never utters an unnecessary word, or wastes breath
+in babble to which he knows nobody will listen.  If his ideas have a
+limited range, they are nevertheless clear.  If he knows nothing by
+heart, he knows a great deal from experience.  If he does not read
+ordinary books so well as other children, he reads the book of nature
+far better.  His mind is in his brain, and not at his tongue's end.  He
+has less memory than judgment.  He can speak only one language, but he
+understands what he says: and if he does not say it as well as another,
+he can do things far better than they can.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He does not know the meaning of custom or routine.  What he did
+yesterday does not in any wise affect his actions of to-day.  He never
+follows a rigid formula, or gives way in the least to authority or to
+example.  Everything he does and says is after the natural fashion of
+his age.  Expect of him, therefore, no formal speeches or studied
+manners, but always the faithful expression of his own ideas, and a
+conduct arising from his own inclinations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You will find he has a few moral ideas in relation to his own concerns,
+but in regard to men in general, none at all.  Of what use would these
+last be to him, since a child is not yet an active member of society?
+Speak to him of liberty, of property, even of things done by common
+consent, and he may understand you.  He knows why his own things belong
+to him and those of another person do not, and beyond this he knows
+nothing.  Speak to him of duty and obedience, and he will not know what
+you mean.  Command him to do a thing, and he will not understand you.
+But tell him that if he will do you such and such a favor, you will do
+the same for him whenever you can, and he will readily oblige you; for
+he likes nothing better than to increase his power, and to lay you
+under obligations he knows to be inviolable.  Perhaps, too, he enjoys
+being recognized as somebody and accounted worth something.  But if
+this last be his motive, he has already left the path of nature, and
+you have not effectually closed the approaches to vanity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If he needs help, he will ask it of the very first person he meets, be
+he monarch or man-servant; to him one man is as good as another.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By his manner of asking, you can see that he feels you do not owe him
+anything; he knows that what he asks is really a favor to him, which
+humanity will induce you to grant.  His expressions are simple and
+laconic.  His voice, his look, his gesture, are those of one equally
+accustomed to consent or to refusal.  They show neither the cringing
+submission of a slave, nor the imperious tone of a master; but modest
+confidence in his fellow-creatures, and the noble and touching
+gentleness of one who is free, but sensitive and feeble, asking aid of
+another, also free, but powerful and kind.  If you do what he asks, he
+does not thank you, but feels that he has laid himself under
+obligation.  If you refuse, he will not complain or insist; he knows it
+would be of no use.  He will not say, "I was refused," but "It was
+impossible."  And, as has been already said, we do not often rebel
+against an acknowledged necessity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leave him at liberty and by himself, and without saying a word, watch
+what he does, and how he does it.  Knowing perfectly well that he is
+free, he will do nothing from mere thoughtlessness, or just to show
+that he can do it; for is he not aware that he is always his own
+master?  He is alert, nimble, and active; his movements have all the
+agility of his years; but you will not see one that has not some
+definite aim.  No matter what he may wish to do, he will never
+undertake what he cannot do, for he has tested his own strength, and
+knows exactly what it is.  The means he uses are always adapted to the
+end sought, and he rarely does anything without being assured he will
+succeed in it.  His eye will be attentive and critical, and he will not
+ask foolish questions about everything he sees.  Before making any
+inquiries he will tire himself trying to find a thing out for himself.
+If he meets with unexpected difficulties, he will be less disturbed by
+them than another child, and less frightened if there is danger.  As
+nothing has been done to arouse his still dormant imagination, he sees
+things only as they are, estimates danger accurately, and is always
+self-possessed.  He has so often had to give way to necessity that he
+no longer rebels against it.  Having borne its yoke ever since he was
+born, he is accustomed to it, and is ready for whatever may come.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Work and play are alike to him; his plays are his occupations, and he
+sees no difference between the two.  He throws himself into everything
+with charming earnestness and freedom, which shows the bent of his mind
+and the range of his knowledge.  Who does not enjoy seeing a pretty
+child of this age, with his bright expression of serene content, and
+laughing, open countenance, playing at the most serious things, or
+deeply occupied with the most frivolous amusements?  He has reached the
+maturity of childhood, has lived a child's life, not gaining perfection
+at the cost of his happiness, but developing the one by means of the
+other.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While acquiring all the reasoning power possible to his age, he has
+been as happy and as free as his nature allowed.  If the fatal scythe
+is to cut down in him the flower of our hopes, we shall not be obliged
+to lament at the same time his life and his death.  Our grief will not
+be embittered by the recollection of the sorrows we have made him feel.
+We shall be able to say, "At least, he enjoyed his childhood; we robbed
+him of nothing that nature gave him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In regard to this early education, the chief difficulty is, that only
+far-seeing men can understand it, and that a child so carefully
+educated seems to an ordinary observer only a young scapegrace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A tutor usually considers his own interests rather than those of his
+pupil.  He devotes himself to proving that he loses no time and earns
+his salary.  He teaches the child such accomplishments as can be
+readily exhibited when required, without regard to their usefulness or
+worthlessness, so long as they are showy.  Without selecting or
+discerning, he charges the child's memory with a vast amount of
+rubbish.  When the child is to be examined, the tutor makes him display
+his wares; and, after thus giving satisfaction, folds up his pack
+again, and goes his way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My pupil is not so rich; he has no pack at all to display; he has
+nothing but himself.  Now a child, like a man, cannot be seen all at
+once.  What observer can at the first glance seize upon the child's
+peculiar traits?  Such observers there are, but they are uncommon; and
+among a hundred thousand fathers you will not find one such.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02fn1"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn2"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn3"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn4"></A>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn1text">1</A>] <I>Puer</I>, child; <I>infans</I>, one who does not speak.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn2text">2</A>] Reading these lines, we are reminded of the admirable works of
+Dickens, the celebrated English novelist, who so touchingly depicts the
+sufferings of children made unhappy by the inhumanity of teachers, or
+neglected as to their need of free air, of liberty, of affection: David
+Copperfield, Hard Times, Nicholas Nickleby, Dombey and Son, Oliver
+Twist, Little Dorrit, and the like.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn3text">3</A>] Here he means Xerxes, King of Persia, who had built an immense
+bridge of boats over the Hellespont to transport his army from Asia
+into Europe.  A storm having destroyed this bridge, the all-powerful
+monarch, furious at the insubordination of the elements, ordered chains
+to be cast into the sea, and had the rebellious waves beaten with rods.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn4text">4</A>] The feeling of a republican, of the "citizen of Geneva," justly
+shocked by monarchial superstitions.  Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had had,
+in fact, from the days of their first playthings, the degrading
+spectacle of a universal servility prostrated before their cradle.  The
+sentiment here uttered was still uncommon and almost unknown when
+Rousseau wrote it.  He did much toward creating it and making it
+popular.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="chap02fn5"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn6"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn7"></A>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn5text">5</A>] Civil bondage, as understood by Rousseau, consists in the laws and
+obligations of civilized life itself.  He extols the state of nature as
+the ideal condition, the condition of perfect freedom, without seeing
+that, on the contrary, true liberty cannot exist without the protection
+of laws, while the state of nature is only the enslavement of the weak
+by the strong&mdash;the triumph of brute force.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn6text">6</A>] In this unconditional form the principle is inadmissible.  Any one
+who has the rearing of children knows this.  But the idea underlying
+the paradox ought to be recognized, for it is a just one.  We ought not
+to command merely for the pleasure of commanding, but solely to
+interpret to the child the requirements of the case in hand.  To
+command him for the sake of commanding is an abuse of power: it is a
+baseness which will end in disaster.  On the other hand, we cannot
+leave it to circumstances to forbid what ought not to be done.  Only,
+the command should be intelligible, reasonable, and unyielding.  This
+is really what Rousseau means.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn7text">7</A>] This is not strictly true.  The child early has the consciousness
+of right and wrong; and if it be true that neither chastisement nor
+reproof is to be abused, it is no less certain that conscience is early
+awake within him, and that it ought not to be neglected in a work so
+delicate as that of education: on condition, be it understood, that we
+act with simplicity, without pedantry, and that we employ example more
+than lectures.  Rousseau says this admirably a few pages farther on.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="chap02fn8"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn9"></A>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn8text">8</A>] Nothing is more injudicious than such a question, especially when
+the child is in fault.  In that case, if he thinks you know what he has
+done, he will see that you are laying a snare for him, and this opinion
+cannot fail to set him against you.  If he thinks you do not know he
+will say to himself, "Why should I disclose my fault?"  And thus the
+first temptation to falsehood is the result of your imprudent
+question.&mdash;[Note by J. J. ROUSSEAU.]
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn9text">9</A>] He refers to Cato, surnamed of Utica, from the African city in
+which he ended his own life.  When a child, he was often invited by his
+brother to the house of the all-powerful Sulla.  The cruelties of the
+tyrant roused the boy to indignation, and it was necessary to watch him
+lest he should attempt to kill Sulla.  It was in the latter's
+antechamber that the scene described by Plutarch occurred.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="chap02fn10"></A>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn10text">10</A>] While writing this I have reflected a hundred times that in an
+extended work it is impossible always to use the same words in the same
+sense.  No language is rich enough to furnish terms and expressions to
+keep pace with the possible modifications of our ideas.  The method
+which defines all the terms, and substitutes the definition for the
+term, is fine, but impracticable; for how shall we then avoid
+travelling in a circle?  If definitions could be given without using
+words, they might be useful.  Nevertheless, I am convinced that, poor
+as our language is, we can make ourselves understood, not by always
+attaching the same meaning to the same words, but by so using each word
+that its meaning shall be sufficiently determined by the ideas nearly
+related to it, and so that each sentence in which a word is used shall
+serve to define the word.  Sometimes I say that children are incapable
+of reasoning, and sometimes I make them reason extremely well; I think
+that my ideas do not contradict each other, though I cannot escape the
+inconvenient contradictions of my mode of expression.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="chap02fn11"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn12"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn13"></A>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn11text">11</A>] Another exaggeration: the idea is not to teach children to speak
+another language as perfectly as their own.  There are three different
+objects to be attained in studying languages.  First, this study is
+meant to render easy by comparison and practice the knowledge and free
+use of the mother tongue.  Second, it is useful as intellectual
+gymnastics, developing attention, reflection, reasoning, and taste.
+This result is to be expected particularly from the study of the
+ancient languages.  Third, it lowers the barriers separating nations,
+and furnishes valuable means of intercourse which science, industries,
+and commerce cannot afford to do without.  The French have not always
+shown wisdom in ignoring the language of their neighbors or their
+rivals.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn12text">12</A>] From this passage, it is plain that the objections lately raised
+by intelligent persons against the abuse of Latin conversations and
+verses are not of recent date, after all.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn13text">13</A>] There is indeed a faulty method of teaching history, by giving
+children a dry list of facts, names, and dates.  On the other hand, to
+offer them theories upon the philosophy of history is quite as
+unprofitable.  Yet it is not an absurd error, but a duty, to teach them
+the broad outlines of history, to tell them of deeds of renown, of
+mighty works accomplished, of men celebrated for the good or the evil
+they have done; to interest them in the past of humanity, be it
+melancholy or glorious.  By abuse of logic Rousseau, in protesting
+against one excess, falls into another.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="chap02fn14"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn15"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn16"></A>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn14text">14</A>] Rousseau here analyzes several of La Fontaine's fables, to show
+the immorality and the danger of their "ethics."  He dwells
+particularly upon the fable of the Fox and the Crow.  In this he is
+right; the morality of the greater part of these fables leaves much to
+be desired.  But there is nothing to prevent the teacher from making
+the application.  The memory of a child is pliable and vigorous; not to
+cultivate it would be doing him great injustice.  We need not say that
+a true teacher not only chooses, but by his instructions explains and
+rectifies everything he requires his pupil to read or to learn by
+heart.  With this reservation one cannot but admire this aversion of
+Rousseau's for parrot-learning, word-worship, and exclusive cultivation
+of the memory.  In a few pages may here be found a complete philosophy
+of teaching, adapted to the regeneration of a people.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn15text">15</A>] Rousseau here alludes to the typographical lottery invented by
+Louis Dumas, a French author of the eighteenth century.  It was an
+imitation of a printing-office, and was intended to teach, in an
+agreeable way, not only reading, but even grammar and spelling.  There
+may be good features in all these systems, but we certainly cannot save
+the child all trouble; we ought to let him understand that work must be
+in earnest.  Besides, as moralists and teachers, we ought not to
+neglect giving children some kinds of work demanding application.  They
+will be in better spirits for recreation hours after study.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn16text">16</A>] It is well to combine the two methods; to keep the child occupied
+with what immediately concerns him, and to interest him also in what is
+more remote, whether in space or in time.  He ought not to become too
+positive, nor yet should he be chimerical.  The "order of nature"
+itself has provided for this, by making the child inquisitive about
+things around him, and at the same time about things far away.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="chap02fn17"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn18"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn19"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn20"></A>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn17text">17</A>] This expresses rather too vehemently a true idea.  Do not try to
+impart a rigid education whose apparent correctness hides grave
+defects.  Allow free course to the child's instinctive activity and
+turbulence; let nature speak; do not crave reserve and fastidiousness
+at the expense of frankness and vigor of mind.  This is what the writer
+really means.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn18text">18</A>] An English philosopher, who died in 1701.  He wrote a very
+celebrated "Treatise on the Education of Children."
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn19text">19</A>] A celebrated professor, Rector of the University of Paris, who
+died in 1741.  He left a number of works on education.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn20text">20</A>] An abbé of the seventeenth century who wrote a much valued
+"History of the Church," and a "Treatise on the Method and Choice of
+Studies."  He was tutor to Count Vermandois, natural son to Louis XIV.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="chap02fn21"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn22"></A>
+<A NAME="chap02fn23"></A>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn21text">21</A>] A professor of mathematics, born at Lausanne, tutor to Prince
+Fredrick of Hesse Cassel.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn22text">22</A>] "Passion is not born of familiar things."
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn23text">23</A>] Recorded as illustrating Spartan education.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+BOOK THIRD.
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+The third book has to do with the youth as he is between the ages of
+twelve and fifteen.  At this time his strength is proportionately
+greatest, and this is the most important period in his life.  It is the
+time for labor and study; not indeed for studies of all kinds, but for
+those whose necessity the student himself feels.  The principle that
+ought to guide him now is that of utility.  All the master's talent
+consists in leading him to discover what is really useful to him.
+Language and history offer him little that is interesting.  He applies
+himself to studying natural phenomena, because they arouse his
+curiosity and afford him means of overcoming his difficulties.  He
+makes his own instruments, and invents what apparatus he needs.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+He does not depend upon another to direct him, but follows where his
+own good sense points the way.  Robinson Crusoe on his island is his
+ideal, and this book furnishes the reading best suited to his age.  He
+should have some manual occupation, as much on account of the uncertain
+future as for the sake of satisfying his own constant activity.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+Side by side with the body the mind is developed by a taste for
+reflection, and is finally prepared for studies of a higher order.
+With this period childhood ends and youth begins.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+The Age of Study.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Although up to the beginning of youth life is, on the whole, a period
+of weakness, there is a time during this earlier age when our strength
+increases beyond what our wants require, and the growing animal, still
+absolutely weak, becomes relatively strong.  His wants being as yet
+partly undeveloped, his present strength is more than sufficient to
+provide for those of the present.  As a man, he would be very weak; as
+child, he is very strong.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whence arises this weakness of ours but from the inequality between our
+desires and the strength we have for fulfilling them?  Our passions
+weaken us, because the gratification of them requires more than our
+natural strength.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If we have fewer desires, we are so much the stronger.  Whoever can do
+more than his wishes demand has strength to spare; he is strong indeed.
+Of this, the third stage of childhood, I have now to speak.  I still
+call it childhood for want of a better term to express the idea; for
+this age, not yet that of puberty, approaches youth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the age of twelve or thirteen the child's physical strength develops
+much faster than his wants.  He braves without inconvenience the
+inclemency of climate and seasons, scarcely feeling it at all.  Natural
+heat serves him instead of clothing, appetite instead of sauce.  When
+he is drowsy, he lies down on the ground and falls asleep.  Thus he
+finds around him everything he needs; not governed by caprices, his
+desires extend no farther than his own arms can reach.  Not only is he
+sufficient for himself, but, at this one time in all his life, he has
+more strength than he really requires.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What then shall he do with this superabundance of mental and physical
+strength, which he will hereafter need, but endeavor to employ it in
+ways which will at some time be of use to him, and thus throw this
+surplus vitality forward into the future?  The robust child shall make
+provision for his weaker manhood.  But he will not garner it in barns,
+or lay it up in coffers that can be plundered.  To be real owner of
+this treasure, he must store it up in his arms, in his brain, in
+himself.  The present, then, is the time to labor, to receive
+instruction, and to study; nature so ordains, not I.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Human intelligence has its limits.  We can neither know everything, nor
+be thoroughly acquainted with the little that other men know.  Since
+the reverse of every false proposition is a truth, the number of
+truths, like the number of errors, is inexhaustible.  We have to select
+what is to be taught as well as the time for learning it.  Of the kinds
+of knowledge within our power some are false, some useless, some serve
+only to foster pride.  Only the few that really conduce to our
+well-being are worthy of study by a wise man, or by a youth intended to
+be a wise man.  The question is, not what may be known, but what will
+be of the most use when it is known.  From these few we must again
+deduct such as require a ripeness of understanding and a knowledge of
+human relations which a child cannot possibly acquire; such as, though
+true in themselves, incline an inexperienced mind to judge wrongly of
+other things.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This reduces us to a circle small indeed in relation to existing
+things, but immense when we consider the capacity of the child's mind.
+How daring was the hand that first ventured to lift the veil of
+darkness from our human understanding!  What abysses, due to our unwise
+learning, yawn around the unfortunate youth!  Tremble, you who are to
+conduct him by these perilous ways, and to lift for him the sacred veil
+of nature.  Be sure of your own brain and of his, lest either, or
+perhaps both, grow dizzy at the sight.  Beware of the glamour of
+falsehood and of the intoxicating fumes of pride.  Always bear in mind
+that ignorance has never been harmful, that error alone is fatal, and
+that our errors arise, not from what we do not know, but from what we
+think we do know.[<A NAME="chap03fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn1">1</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+The Incentive of Curiosity.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+The same instinct animates all the different faculties of man.  To the
+activity of the body, striving to develop itself, succeeds the activity
+of the mind, endeavoring to instruct itself.  Children are at first
+only restless; afterwards they are inquisitive.  Their curiosity,
+rightly trained, is the incentive of the age we are now considering.
+We must always distinguish natural inclinations from those that have
+their source in opinion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There is a thirst for knowledge which is founded only upon a desire to
+be thought learned, and another, springing from our natural curiosity
+concerning anything which nearly or remotely interests us.  Our desire
+for happiness is inborn, and as it can never be fully satisfied, we are
+always seeking ways to increase what we have.  This first principle of
+curiosity is natural to the heart of man, but is developed only in
+proportion to our passions and to our advance in knowledge.  Call your
+pupil's attention to the phenomena of nature, and you will soon render
+him inquisitive.  But if you would keep this curiosity alive, do not be
+in haste to satisfy it.  Ask him questions that he can comprehend, and
+let him solve them.  Let him know a thing because he has found it out
+for himself, and not because you have told him of it.  Let him not
+learn science, but discover it for himself.  If once you substitute
+authority for reason, he will not reason any more; he will only be the
+sport of other people's opinions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When you are ready to teach this child geography, you get together your
+globes and your maps; and what machines they are!  Why, instead of
+using all these representations, do you not begin by showing him the
+object itself, so as to let him know what you are talking of?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On some beautiful evening take the child to walk with you, in a place
+suitable for your purpose, where in the unobstructed horizon the
+setting sun can be plainly seen.  Take a careful observation of all the
+objects marking the spot at which it goes down.  When you go for an
+airing next day, return to this same place before the sun rises.  You
+can see it announce itself by arrows of fire.  The brightness
+increases; the east seems all aflame; from its glow you anticipate long
+beforehand the coming of day.  Every moment you imagine you see it.  At
+last it really does appear, a brilliant point which rises like a flash
+of lightning, and instantly fills all space.  The veil of shadows is
+cast down and disappears.  We know our dwelling-place once more, and
+find it more beautiful than ever.  The verdure has taken on fresh vigor
+during the night; it is revealed with its brilliant net-work of
+dew-drops, reflecting light and color to the eye, in the first golden
+rays of the new-born day.  The full choir of birds, none silent, salute
+in concert the Father of life.  Their warbling, still faint with the
+languor of a peaceful awakening, is now more lingering and sweet than
+at other hours of the day.  All this fills the senses with a charm and
+freshness which seems to touch our inmost soul.  No one can resist this
+enchanting hour, or behold with indifference a spectacle so grand, so
+beautiful, so full of all delight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Carried away by such a sight, the teacher is eager to impart to the
+child his own enthusiasm, and thinks to arouse it by calling attention
+to what he himself feels.  What folly!  The drama of nature lives only
+in the heart; to see it, one must feel it.  The child sees the objects,
+but not the relations that bind them together; he can make nothing of
+their harmony.  The complex and momentary impression of all these
+sensations requires an experience he has never gained, and feelings he
+has never known.  If he has never crossed the desert and felt its
+burning sands scorch his feet, the stifling reflection of the sun from
+its rocks oppress him, how can he fully enjoy the coolness of a
+beautiful morning?  How can the perfume of flowers, the cooling vapor
+of the dew, the sinking of his footstep in the soft and pleasant turf,
+enchant his senses?  How can the singing of birds delight him, while
+the accents of love and pleasure are yet unknown?  How can he see with
+transport the rise of so beautiful a day, unless imagination can paint
+all the transports with which it may be filled?  And lastly, how can he
+be moved by the beautiful panorama of nature, if he does not know by
+whose tender care it has been adorned?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Do not talk to the child about things he cannot understand.  Let him
+hear from you no descriptions, no eloquence, no figurative language, no
+poetry.  Sentiment and taste are just now out of the question.
+Continue to be clear, unaffected, and dispassionate; the time for using
+another language will come only too soon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Educated in the spirit of our principles, accustomed to look for
+resources within himself, and to have recourse to others only when he
+finds himself really helpless, he will examine every new object for a
+long time without saying a word.  He is thoughtful, and not disposed to
+ask questions.  Be satisfied, therefore, with presenting objects at
+appropriate times and in appropriate ways.  When you see his curiosity
+fairly at work, ask him some laconic question which will suggest its
+own answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On this occasion, having watched the sunrise from beginning to end with
+him, having made him notice the mountains and other neighboring objects
+on the same side, and allowed him to talk about them just as he
+pleases, be silent for a few minutes, as if in deep thought, and then
+say to him, "I think the sun set over there, and now it has risen over
+here.  How can that be so?"  Say no more; if he asks questions, do not
+answer them: speak of something else.  Leave him to himself, and he
+will be certain to think the matter over.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To give the child the habit of attention and to impress him deeply with
+any truth affecting the senses, let him pass several restless days
+before he discovers that truth.  If the one in question does not thus
+impress him, you may make him see it more clearly by reversing the
+problem.  If he does not know how the sun passes from its setting to
+its rising, he at least does know how it travels from its rising to its
+setting; his eyes alone teach him this.  Explain your first question by
+the second.  If your pupil be not absolutely stupid, the analogy is so
+plain that he cannot escape it.  This is his first lesson in
+cosmography.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As we pass slowly from one sensible idea to another, familiarize
+ourselves for a long time with each before considering the next, and do
+not force our pupil's attention; it will be a long way from this point
+to a knowledge of the sun's course and of the shape of the earth.  But
+as all the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies are upon the same
+principle, and the first observation prepares the way for all the rest,
+less effort, if more time, is required to pass from the daily rotation
+of the earth to the calculation of eclipses than to understand clearly
+the phenomena of day and night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Since the sun (apparently) revolves about the earth, it describes a
+circle, and we already know that every circle must have a centre.  This
+centre, being in the heart of the earth, cannot be seen; but we may
+mark upon the surface two opposite points that correspond to it.  A rod
+passing through these three points, and extending from one side of the
+heavens to the other, shall be the axis of the earth, and of the sun's
+apparent daily motion.  A spherical top, turning on its point, shall
+represent the heavens revolving on their axis; the two extremities of
+the top are the two poles.  The child will be interested in knowing one
+of them, which I will show him near the tail of Ursa Minor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This will serve to amuse us for one night.  By degrees we shall grow
+familiar with the stars, and this will awaken a desire to know the
+planets and to watch the constellations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We have seen the sun rise at midsummer; we will also watch its rising
+at Christmas or some other fine day in winter.  For be it known that we
+are not at all idle, and that we make a joke of braving the cold.  I
+take care to make this second observation in the same place as the
+first; and after some conversation to pave the way for it.  One or the
+other of us will be sure to exclaim, "How queer that is! the sun does
+not rise where it used to rise!  Here are our old landmarks, and now it
+is rising over yonder.  Then there must be one east for summer, and
+another for winter."  Now, young teacher, your way is plain.  These
+examples ought to suffice you for teaching the sphere very
+understandingly, by taking the world for your globe, and the real sun
+instead of your artificial sun.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Things Rather than their Signs.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+In general, never show the representation of a thing unless it be
+impossible to show the thing itself; for the sign absorbs the child's
+attention, and makes him lose sight of the thing signified.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The armillary sphere[<A NAME="chap03fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn2">2</A>] seems to me poorly designed and in bad
+proportion.  Its confused circles and odd figures, giving it the look
+of a conjurer's apparatus, are enough to frighten a child.  The earth
+is too small; the circles are too many and too large.  Some of them,
+the colures,[<A NAME="chap03fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn3">3</A>] for instance, are entirely useless.  Every circle is
+larger than the earth.  The pasteboard gives them an appearance of
+solidity which creates the mistaken impression that they are circular
+masses which really exist.  When you tell the child that these are
+imaginary circles, he understands neither what he sees nor what you
+mean.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Shall we never learn to put ourselves in the child's place?  We do not
+enter into his thoughts, but suppose them exactly like our own.
+Constantly following our own method of reasoning, we cram his mind not
+only with a concatenation of truths, but also with extravagant notions
+and errors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the study of the sciences it is an open question whether we ought to
+use synthesis or analysis.  It is not always necessary to choose
+either.  In the same process of investigation we can sometimes both
+resolve and compound, and while the child thinks he is only analyzing,
+we can direct him by the methods teachers usually employ.  By thus
+using both we make each prove the other.  Starting at the same moment
+from two opposite points and never imagining that one road connects
+them, he will be agreeably surprised to find that what he supposed to
+be two paths finally meet as one.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I would, for example, take geography at these two extremes, and add to
+the study of the earth's motions the measurement of its parts,
+beginning with our own dwelling-place.  While the child, studying the
+sphere, is transported into the heavens, bring him back to the
+measurement of the earth, and first show him his own home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The two starting-points in his geography shall be the town in which he
+lives, and his father's house in the country.  Afterward shall come the
+places lying between these two; then the neighboring rivers; lastly,
+the aspect of the sun, and the manner of finding out where the east is.
+This last is the point of union.  Let him make himself a map of all
+these details; a very simple map, including at first only two objects,
+then by degrees the others, as he learns their distance and position.
+You see now what an advantage we have gained beforehand, by making his
+eyes serve him instead of a compass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Even with this it may be necessary to direct him a little, but very
+little, and without appearing to do so at all.  When he makes mistakes,
+let him make them; do not correct them.  Wait in silence until he can
+see and correct them himself.  Or, at most, take a good opportunity to
+set in motion some thing which will direct his attention to them.  If
+he were never to make mistakes, he could not learn half so well.
+Besides, the important thing is, not that he should know the exact
+topography of the country, but that he should learn how to find it out
+by himself.  It matters little whether he has maps in his mind or not,
+so that he understands what they represent, and has a clear idea of how
+they are made.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mark the difference between the learning of your pupils and the
+ignorance of mine.  They know all about maps, and he can make them.
+Our maps will serve as new decorations for our room.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Imparting a Taste for Science.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Bear in mind always that the life and soul of my system is, not to
+teach the child many things, but to allow only correct and clear ideas
+to enter his mind.  I do not care if he knows nothing, so long as he is
+not mistaken.  To guard him from errors he might learn, I furnish his
+mind with truths only.  Reason and judgment enter slowly; prejudices
+crowd in; and he must be preserved from these last.  Yet if you
+consider science in itself, you launch upon an unfathomable and
+boundless sea, full of unavoidable dangers.  When I see a man carried
+away by his love for knowledge, hastening from one alluring science to
+another, without knowing where to stop, I think I see a child gathering
+shells upon the seashore.  At first he loads himself with them; then,
+tempted by others, he throws these away, and gathers more.  At last,
+weighed down by so many, and no longer knowing which to choose, he ends
+by throwing all away, and returning empty-handed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In our early years time passed slowly; we endeavored to lose it, for
+fear of misusing it.  The case is reversed; now we have not time enough
+for doing all that we find useful.  Bear in mind that the passions are
+drawing nearer, and that as soon as they knock at the door, your pupil
+will have eyes and ears for them alone.  The tranquil period of
+intelligence is so brief, and has so many other necessary uses, that
+only folly imagines it long enough to make the child a learned man.
+The thing is, not to teach him knowledge, but to give him a love for
+it, and a good method of acquiring it when this love has grown
+stronger.  Certainly this is a fundamental principle in all good
+education.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, also, is the time to accustom him gradually to concentrate
+attention on a single object.  This attention, however, should never
+result from constraint, but from desire and pleasure.  Be careful that
+it shall not grow irksome, or approach the point of weariness.  Leave
+any subject just before he grows tired of it; for the learning it
+matters less to him than the never being obliged to learn anything
+against his will.  If he himself questions you, answer so as to keep
+alive his curiosity, not to satisfy it altogether.  Above all, when you
+find that he makes inquiries, not for the sake of learning something,
+but to talk at random and annoy you with silly questions, pause at
+once, assured that he cares nothing about the matter, but only to
+occupy your time with himself.  Less regard should be paid to what he
+says than to the motive which leads him to speak.  This caution,
+heretofore unnecessary, is of the utmost importance as soon as a child
+begins to reason.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There is a chain of general truths by which all sciences are linked to
+common principles and successively unfolded.  This chain is the method
+of philosophers, with which, for the present, we have nothing to do.
+There is another, altogether different, which shows each object as the
+cause of another, and always points out the one following.  This order,
+which, by a perpetual curiosity, keeps alive the attention demanded by
+all, is the one followed by most men, and of all others necessary with
+children.  When, in making our maps, we found out the place of the
+east, we were obliged to draw meridians.  The two points of
+intersection between the equal shadows of night and morning furnish an
+excellent meridian for an astronomer thirteen years old.  But these
+meridians disappear; it takes time to draw them; they oblige us to work
+always in the same place; so much care, so much annoyance, will tire
+him out at last.  We have seen and provided for this beforehand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I have again begun upon tedious and minute details.  Readers, I hear
+your murmurs, and disregard them.  I will not sacrifice to your
+impatience the most useful part of this book.  Do what you please with
+my tediousness, as I have done as I pleased in regard to your
+complaints.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+The Juggler.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+For some time my pupil and I had observed that different bodies, such
+as amber, glass, and wax, when rubbed, attract straws, and that others
+do not attract them.  By accident we discovered one that has a virtue
+more extraordinary still,&mdash;that of attracting at a distance, and
+without being rubbed, iron filings and other bits of iron.  This
+peculiarity amused us for some time before we saw any use in it.  At
+last we found out that it may be communicated to iron itself, when
+magnetized to a certain degree.  One day we went to a fair, where a
+juggler, with a piece of bread, attracted a duck made of wax, and
+floating on a bowl of water.  Much surprised, we did not however say,
+"He is a conjurer," for we knew nothing about conjurers.  Continually
+struck by effects whose causes we do not know, we were not in haste to
+decide the matter, and remained in ignorance until we found a way out
+of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When we reached home we had talked so much of the duck at the fair that
+we thought we would endeavor to copy it.  Taking a perfect needle, well
+magnetized, we inclosed it in white wax, modelled as well as we could
+do it into the shape of a duck, so that the needle passed entirely
+through the body, and with its larger end formed the duck's bill.  We
+placed the duck upon the water, applied to the beak the handle of a
+key, and saw, with a delight easy to imagine, that our duck would
+follow the key precisely as the one at the fair had followed the piece
+of bread.  We saw that some time or other we might observe the
+direction in which the duck turned when left to itself upon the water.
+But absorbed at that time by another object, we wanted nothing more.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That evening, having in our pockets bread prepared for the occasion, we
+returned to the fair.  As soon as the mountebank had performed his
+feat, my little philosopher, scarcely able to contain himself, told him
+that the thing was not hard to do, and that he could do it himself.  He
+was taken at his word.  Instantly he took from his pocket the bread in
+which he had hidden the bit of iron.  Approaching the table his heart
+beat fast; almost tremblingly, he presented the bread.  The duck came
+toward it and followed it; the child shouted and danced for joy.  At
+the clapping of hands, and the acclamations of all present, his head
+swam, and he was almost beside himself.  The juggler was astonished,
+but embraced and congratulated him, begging that we would honor him
+again by our presence on the following day, adding that he would take
+care to have a larger company present to applaud our skill.  My little
+naturalist, filled with pride, began to prattle; but I silenced him,
+and led him away loaded with praises.  The child counted the minutes
+until the morrow with impatience that made me smile.  He invited
+everybody he met; gladly would he have had all mankind as witnesses of
+his triumph.  He could scarcely wait for the hour agreed upon, and,
+long before it came, flew to the place appointed.  The hall was already
+full, and on entering, his little heart beat fast.  Other feats were to
+come first; the juggler outdid himself, and there were some really
+wonderful performances.  The child paid no attention to these.  His
+excitement had thrown him into a perspiration; he was almost
+breathless, and fingered the bread in his pocket with a hand trembling
+with impatience.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last his turn came, and the master pompously announced the fact.
+Rather bashfully the boy drew near and held forth his bread.  Alas for
+the changes in human affairs!  The duck, yesterday so tame, had grown
+wild.  Instead of presenting its bill, it turned about and swam away,
+avoiding the bread and the hand which presented it, as carefully as it
+had before followed them.  After many fruitless attempts, each received
+with derision, the child complained that a trick was played on him, and
+defied the juggler to attract the duck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man, without a word, took a piece of bread and presented it to the
+duck, which instantly followed it, and came towards his hand.  The
+child took the same bit of bread; but far from having better success,
+he saw the duck make sport of him by whirling round and round as it
+swam about the edge of the basin.  At last he retired in great
+confusion, no longer daring to encounter the hisses which followed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the juggler took the bit of bread the child had brought, and
+succeeded as well with it as with his own.  In the presence of the
+entire company he drew out the needle, making another joke at our
+expense; then, with the bread thus disarmed, he attracted the duck as
+before.  He did the same thing with a piece of bread which a third
+person cut off in the presence of all; again, with his glove, and with
+the tip of his finger.  At last, going to the middle of the room, he
+declared in the emphatic tone peculiar to his sort, that the duck would
+obey his voice quite as well as his gesture.  He spoke, and the duck
+obeyed him; commanded it to go to the right, and it went to the right;
+to return, and it did so; to turn, and it turned itself about.  Each
+movement was as prompt as the command.  The redoubled applause was a
+repeated affront to us.  We stole away unmolested, and shut ourselves
+up in our room, without proclaiming our success far and wide as we had
+meant to do.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a knock at our door next morning; I opened it, and there
+stood the mountebank, who modestly complained of our conduct.  What had
+he done to us that we should try to throw discredit on his performances
+and take away his livelihood?  What is so wonderful in the art of
+attracting a wax duck, that the honor should be worth the price of an
+honest man's living?  "Faith, gentlemen, if I had any other way of
+earning my bread, I should boast very little of this way.  You may well
+believe that a man who has spent his life in practising this pitiful
+trade understands it much better than you, who devote only a few
+minutes to it.  If I did not show you my best performances the first
+time, it was because a man ought not to be such a fool as to parade
+everything he knows.  I always take care to keep my best things for a
+fit occasion; and I have others, too, to rebuke young and thoughtless
+people.  Besides, gentlemen, I am going to teach you, in the goodness
+of my heart, the secret which puzzled you so much, begging that you
+will not abuse your knowledge of it to injure me, and that another time
+you will use more discretion."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he showed us his apparatus, and we saw, to our surprise, that it
+consisted only of a powerful magnet moved by a child concealed beneath
+the table.  The man put up his machine again; and after thanking him
+and making due apologies, we offered him a present.  He refused,
+saying, "No, gentlemen, I am not so well pleased with you as to accept
+presents from you.  You cannot help being under an obligation to me,
+and that is revenge enough.  But, you see, generosity is to be found in
+every station in life; I take pay for my performances, not for my
+lessons."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As he was going out, he reprimanded me pointedly and aloud.  "I
+willingly pardon this child," said he; "he has offended only through
+ignorance.  But you, sir, must have known the nature of his fault; why
+did you allow him to commit such a fault?  Since you live together,
+you, who are older, ought to have taken the trouble of advising him;
+the authority of your experience should have guided him.  When he is
+old enough to reproach you for his childish errors, he will certainly
+blame you for those of which you did not warn him."[<A NAME="chap03fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn4">4</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He went away, leaving us greatly abashed.  I took upon myself the blame
+of my easy compliance, and promised the child that, another time, I
+would sacrifice it to his interest, and warn him of his faults before
+they were committed.  For a time was coming when our relations would be
+changed, and the severity of the tutor must succeed to the complaisance
+of an equal.  This change should be gradual; everything must be
+foreseen, and that long beforehand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The following day we returned to the fair, to see once more the trick
+whose secret we had learned.  We approached our juggling Socrates with
+deep respect, hardly venturing to look at him.  He overwhelmed us with
+civilities, and seated us with a marked attention which added to our
+humiliation.  He performed his tricks as usual, but took pains to amuse
+himself for a long time with the duck trick, often looking at us with a
+rather defiant air.  We understood it perfectly, and did not breathe a
+syllable.  If my pupil had even dared to open his mouth, he would have
+deserved to be annihilated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All the details of this illustration are far more important than they
+appear.  How many lessons are here combined in one!  How many
+mortifying effects does the first feeling of vanity bring upon us!
+Young teachers, watch carefully its first manifestation.  If you can
+thus turn it into humiliation and disgrace, be assured that a second
+lesson will not soon be necessary.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What an amount of preparation!" you will say.  True; and all to make
+us a compass to use instead of a meridian line!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Having learned that a magnet acts through other bodies, we were all
+impatience until we had made an apparatus like the one we had seen,&mdash;a
+hollow table-top with a very shallow basin adjusted upon it and filled
+with water, a duck rather more carefully made, and so on.  Watching
+this apparatus attentively and often, we finally observed that the
+duck, when at rest, nearly always turned in the same direction.
+Following up the experiment by examining this direction, we found it to
+be from south to north.  Nothing more was necessary; our compass was
+invented, or might as well have been.  We had begun to study physics.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Experimental Physics.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+The earth has different climates, and these have different
+temperatures.  As we approach the poles the variation of seasons is
+more perceptible,&mdash;all bodies contract with cold and expand with heat.
+This effect is more readily measured in liquids, and is particularly
+noticeable in spirituous liquors.  This fact suggested the idea of the
+thermometer.  The wind strikes our faces; air is therefore a body, a
+fluid; we feel it though we cannot see it.  Turn a glass vessel upside
+down in water, and the water will not fill it unless you leave a vent
+for the air; therefore air is capable of resistance.  Sink the glass
+lower, and the water rises in the air-filled region of the glass,
+although it does not entirely fill that space.  Air is therefore to
+some extent compressible.  A ball filled with compressed air bounds
+much better than when filled with anything else: air is therefore
+elastic.  When lying at full length in the bath, raise the arm
+horizontally out of the water, and you feel it burdened by a great
+weight; air is therefore heavy.  Put air in equilibrium with other
+bodies, and you can measure its weight.  From these observations were
+constructed the barometer, the siphon, the air-gun, and the air-pump.
+All the laws of statics and hydrostatics were discovered by experiments
+as simple as these.  I would not have my pupil study them in a
+laboratory of experimental physics.  I dislike all that array of
+machines and instruments.  The parade of science is fatal to science
+itself.  All those machines frighten the child; or else their singular
+forms divide and distract the attention he ought to give to their
+effects.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I would make all our own machines, and not begin by making the
+instrument before the experiment has been tried.  But after apparently
+lighting by chance on the experiment, I should by degrees invent
+instruments for verifying it.  These instruments should not be so
+perfect and exact as our ideas of what they should be and of the
+operations resulting from them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the first lesson in statics, instead of using balances, I put a
+stick across the back of a chair, and when evenly balanced, measure its
+two portions.  I add weights to each part, sometimes equal, sometimes
+unequal.  Pushing it to or fro as may be necessary, I finally discover
+that equilibrium results from a reciprocal proportion between the
+amount of weight and the length of the levers.  Thus my little student
+of physics can rectify balances without having ever seen them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When we thus learn by ourselves instead of learning from others, our
+ideas are far more definite and clear.  Besides, if our reason is not
+accustomed to slavish submission to authority, this discovering
+relations, linking one idea to another, and inventing apparatus,
+renders us much more ingenious.  If, instead, we take everything just
+as it is given to us, we allow our minds to sink down into
+indifference; just as a man who always lets his servants dress him and
+wait on him, and his horses carry him about, loses finally not only the
+vigor but even the use of his limbs.  Boileau boasted that he had
+taught Racine to rhyme with difficulty.  There are many excellent
+labor-saving methods for studying science; but we are in sore need of
+one to teach us how to learn them with more effort of our own.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The most manifest value of these slow and laborious researches is, that
+amid speculative studies they maintain the activity and suppleness of
+the body, by training the hands to labor, and creating habits useful to
+any man.  So many instruments are invented to aid in our experiments
+and to supplement the action of our senses, that we neglect to use the
+senses themselves.  If the graphometer measures the size of an angle
+for us, we need not estimate it ourselves.  The eye which measured
+distances with precision intrusts this work to the chain; the steelyard
+saves me the trouble of measuring weights by the hand.  The more
+ingenious our apparatus, the more clumsy and awkward do our organs
+become.  If we surround ourselves with instruments, we shall no longer
+find them within ourselves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But when, in making the apparatus, we employ the skill and sagacity
+required in doing without them, we do not lose, but gain.  By adding
+art to nature, we become more ingenious and no less skilful.  If,
+instead of keeping a child at his books, I keep him busy in a workshop,
+his hands labor to his mind's advantage: while he regards himself only
+as a workman he is growing into a philosopher.  This kind of exercise
+has other uses, of which I will speak hereafter; and we shall see how
+philosophic amusements prepare us for the true functions of manhood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I have already remarked that purely speculative studies are rarely
+adapted to children, even when approaching the period of youth; but
+without making them enter very deeply into systematic physics, let all
+the experiments be connected by some kind of dependence by which the
+child can arrange them in his mind and recall them at need.  For we
+cannot without something of this sort retain isolated facts or even
+reasonings long in memory.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In investigating the laws of nature, always begin with the most common
+and most easily observed phenomena, and accustom your pupil not to
+consider these phenomena as reasons, but as facts.  Taking a stone, I
+pretend to lay it upon the air; opening my hand, the stone falls.
+Looking at Émile, who is watching my motions, I say to him, "Why did
+the stone fall?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No child will hesitate in answering such a question, not even Émile,
+unless I have taken great care that he shall not know how.  Any child
+will say that the stone falls because it is heavy.  "And what does
+heavy mean?"  "Whatever falls is heavy."  Here my little philosopher is
+really at a stand.  Whether this first lesson in experimental physics
+aids him in understanding that subject or not, it will always be a
+practical lesson.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Nothing to be Taken upon Authority.  <BR>
+Learning from the Pupil's own Necessities.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+As the child's understanding matures, other important considerations
+demand that we choose his occupations with more care.  As soon as he
+understands himself and all that relates to him well enough and broadly
+enough to discern what is to his advantage and what is becoming in him,
+he can appreciate the difference between work and play, and to regard
+the one solely as relaxation from the other.  Objects really useful may
+then be included among his studies, and he will pay more attention to
+them than if amusement alone were concerned.  The ever-present law of
+necessity early teaches us to do what we dislike, to escape evils we
+should dislike even more.  Such is the use of foresight from which,
+judicious or injudicious, springs all the wisdom or all the unhappiness
+of mankind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We all long for happiness, but to acquire it we ought first to know
+what it is.  To the natural man it is as simple as his mode of life; it
+means health, liberty, and the necessaries of life, and freedom from
+suffering.  The happiness of man as a moral being is another thing,
+foreign to the present question.  I cannot too often repeat that only
+objects purely physical can interest children, especially those who
+have not had their vanity aroused and their nature corrupted by the
+poison of opinion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When they provide beforehand for their own wants, their understanding
+is somewhat developed, and they are beginning to learn the value of
+time.  We ought then by all means to accustom and to direct them to its
+employment to useful ends, these being such as are useful at their age
+and readily understood by them.  The subject of moral order and the
+usages of society should not yet be presented, because children are not
+in a condition to understand such things.  To force their attention
+upon things which, as we vaguely tell them, will be for their good,
+when they do not know what this good means, is foolish.  It is no less
+foolish to assure them that such things will benefit them when grown;
+for they take no interest in this supposed benefit, which they cannot
+understand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Let the child take nothing for granted because some one says it is so.
+Nothing is good to him but what he feels to be good.  You think it far
+sighted to push him beyond his understanding of things, but you are
+mistaken.  For the sake of arming him with weapons he does not know how
+to use, you take from him one universal among men, common sense: you
+teach him to allow himself always to be led, never to be more than a
+machine in the hands of others.  If you will have him docile while he
+is young, you will make him a credulous dupe when he is a man.  You are
+continually saying to him, "All I require of you is for your own good,
+but you cannot understand it yet.  What does it matter to me whether
+you do what I require or not?  You are doing it entirely for your own
+sake."  With such fine speeches you are paving the way for some kind of
+trickster or fool,&mdash;some visionary babbler or charlatan,&mdash;who will
+entrap him or persuade him to adopt his own folly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A man may be well acquainted with things whose utility a child cannot
+comprehend; but is it right, or even possible, for a child to learn
+what a man ought to know?  Try to teach the child all that is useful to
+him now, and you will keep him busy all the time.  Why would you injure
+the studies suitable to him at his age by giving him those of an age he
+may never attain?  "But," you say, "will there be time for learning
+what he ought to know when the time to use it has already come?"  I do
+not know; but I am sure that he cannot learn it sooner.  For experience
+and feeling are our real teachers, and we never understand thoroughly
+what is best for us except from the circumstances of our case.  A child
+knows that he will one day be a man.  All the ideas of manhood that he
+can understand give us opportunities of teaching him; but of those he
+cannot understand he should remain in absolute ignorance.  This entire
+book is only a continued demonstration of this principle of education.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Finding out the East.  The Forest of Montmorency.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+I do not like explanatory lectures; young people pay very little
+attention to them, and seldom remember them.  Things! things!  I cannot
+repeat often enough that we attach too much importance to words.  Our
+babbling education produces nothing but babblers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suppose that while we are studying the course of the sun, and the
+manner of finding where the east is, Émile all at once interrupts me,
+to ask, "What is the use of all this?"  What an opportunity for a fine
+discourse!  How many things I could tell him of in answering this
+question, especially if anybody were by to listen!  I could mention the
+advantages of travel and of commerce; the peculiar products of each
+climate; the manners of different nations; the use of the calendar; the
+calculation of seasons in agriculture; the art of navigation, and the
+manner of travelling by sea, following the true course without knowing
+where we are.  I might take up politics, natural history, astronomy,
+even ethics and international law, by way of giving my pupil an exalted
+idea of all these sciences, and a strong desire to learn them.  When I
+have done, the boy will not have understood a single idea out of all my
+pedantic display.  He would like to ask again, "What is the use of
+finding out where the east is?" but dares not, lest I might be angry.
+He finds it more to his interest to pretend to understand what he has
+been compelled to hear.  This is not at all an uncommon case in
+superior education, so-called.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But our Émile, brought up more like a rustic, and carefully taught to
+think very slowly, will not listen to all this.  He will run away at
+the first word he does not understand, and play about the room, leaving
+me to harangue all by myself.  Let us find a simpler way; this
+scientific display does him no good.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We were noticing the position of the forest north of Montmorency, when
+he interrupted me with the eager question, "What is the use of knowing
+that?"  "You may be right," said I; "we must take time to think about
+it; and if there is really no use in it, we will not try it again, for
+we have enough to do that is of use."  We went at something else, and
+there was no more geography that day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next morning I proposed a walk before breakfast.  Nothing could
+have pleased him better; children are always ready to run about, and
+this boy had sturdy legs of his own.  We went into the forest, and
+wandered over the fields; we lost ourselves, having no idea where we
+were; and when we intended to go home, could not find our way.  Time
+passed; the heat of the day came on; we were hungry.  In vain did we
+hurry about from place to place; we found everywhere nothing but woods,
+quarries, plains, and not a landmark that we knew.  Heated, worn out
+with fatigue, and very hungry, our running about only led us more and
+more astray.  At last we sat down to rest and to think the matter over.
+Émile, like any other child, did not think about it; he cried.  He did
+not know that we were near the gate of Montmorency, and that only a
+narrow strip of woodland hid it from us.  But to him this narrow strip
+of woodland was a whole forest; one of his stature would be lost to
+sight among bushes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After some moments of silence I said to him, with a troubled air,
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear Émile, what shall we do to get away from here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ÉMILE.  [<I>In a profuse perspiration, and crying bitterly.</I>] I don't
+know.  I'm tired.  I'm hungry.  I'm thirsty.  I can't do anything.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+JEAN JACQUES.  Do you think I am better off than you, or that I would
+mind crying too, if crying would do for my breakfast?  There is no use
+in crying; the thing is, to find our way.  Let me see your watch; what
+time is it?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ÉMILE.  It is twelve o'clock, and I haven't had my breakfast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+JEAN JACQUES.  That is true.  It is twelve o'clock, and I haven't had
+my breakfast, either.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ÉMILE.  Oh, how hungry you must be!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+JEAN JACQUES.  The worst of it is that my dinner will not come here to
+find me.  Twelve o'clock?  it was just this time yesterday that we
+noticed where Montmorency is.  Could we see where it is just as well
+from this forest?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ÉMILE.  Yea; but yesterday we saw the forest, and we cannot see the
+town from this place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+JEAN JACQUES.  That is a pity.  I wonder if we could find out where it
+is without seeing it?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ÉMILE.  Oh, my dear friend!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+JEAN JACQUES.  Did not we say that this forest is&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ÉMILE.  North of Montmorency.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+JEAN JACQUES.  If that is true, Montmorency must be&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ÉMILE.  South of the forest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+JEAN JACQUES.  There is a way of finding out the north at noon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ÉMILE.  Yes; by the direction of our shadows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+JEAN JACQUES.  But the south?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ÉMILE.  How can we find that?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+JEAN JACQUES.  The south is opposite the north.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ÉMILE.  That is true; all we have to do is to find the side opposite
+the shadows.  Oh, there's the south! there's the south!  Montmorency
+must surely be on that side; let us look on that side.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+JEAN JACQUES.  Perhaps you are right.  Let us take this path through
+the forest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ÉMILE.  [<I>Clapping his hands, with a joyful shout.</I>] Oh, I see
+Montmorency; there it is, just before us, in plain sight.  Let us go to
+our breakfast, our dinner; let us run fast.  Astronomy is good for
+something!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Observe that even if he does not utter these last words, they will be
+in his mind.  It matters little so long as it is not I who utter them.
+Rest assured that he will never in his life forget this day's lesson.
+Now if I had only made him imagine it all indoors, my lecture would
+have been entirely forgotten by the next day.  We should teach as much
+as possible by actions, and say only what we cannot do.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Robinson Crusoe.
+</H4>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+In his legitimate preference for teaching by the eye and hand and by
+real things, and in his aversion to the barren and erroneous method of
+teaching from books alone, Rousseau, constantly carried away by the
+passionate ardor of his nature, rushes into an opposite extreme, and
+exclaims, "I hate books; they only teach us to talk about what we do
+not understand."  Then, checked in the full tide of this declamation by
+his own good sense, he adds:&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Since we must have books, there is one which, to my mind, furnishes the
+finest of treatises on education according to nature.  My Émile shall
+read this book before any other; it shall for a long time be his entire
+library, and shall always hold an honorable place.  It shall be the
+text on which all our discussions of natural science shall be only
+commentaries.  It shall be a test for all we meet during our progress
+toward a ripened judgment, and so long as our taste is unspoiled, we
+shall enjoy reading it.  What wonderful book is this?  Aristotle?
+Pliny?  Buffon?  No; it is "Robinson Crusoe."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The story of this man, alone on his island, unaided by his fellow-men,
+without any art or its implements, and yet providing for his own
+preservation and subsistence, even contriving to live in what might be
+called comfort, is interesting to persons of all ages.  It may be made
+delightful to children in a thousand ways.  Thus we make the desert
+island, which I used at the outset for a comparison, a reality.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This condition is not, I grant, that of man in society; and to all
+appearance Émile will never occupy it; but from it he ought to judge of
+all others.  The surest way to rise above prejudice, and to judge of
+things in their true relations, is to put ourselves in the place of an
+isolated man, and decide as he must concerning their real utility.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Disencumbered of its less profitable portions, this romance from its
+beginning, the shipwreck of Crusoe on the island, to its end, the
+arrival of the vessel which takes him away, will yield amusement and
+instruction to Émile during the period now in question.  I would have
+him completely carried away by it, continually thinking of Crusoe's
+fort, his goats, and his plantations.  I would have him learn, not from
+books, but from real things, all he would need to know under the same
+circumstances.  He should be encouraged to play Robinson Crusoe; to
+imagine himself clad in skins, wearing a great cap and sword, and all
+the array of that grotesque figure, down to the umbrella, of which he
+would have no need.  If he happens to be in want of anything, I hope he
+will contrive something to supply its place.  Let him look carefully
+into all that his hero did, and decide whether any of it was
+unnecessary, or might have been done in a better way.  Let him notice
+Crusoe's mistakes and avoid them under like circumstances.  He will
+very likely plan for himself surroundings like Crusoe's,&mdash;a real castle
+in the air, natural at his happy age when we think ourselves rich if we
+are free and have the necessaries of life.  How useful this hobby might
+be made if some man of sense would only suggest it and turn it to good
+account!  The child, eager to build a storehouse for his island, would
+be more desirous to learn than his master would be to teach him.  He
+would be anxious to know everything he could make use of, and nothing
+besides.  You would not need to guide, but to restrain him.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+Here Rousseau insists upon giving a child some trade, no matter what
+his station in life may be; and in 1762 he uttered these prophetic
+words, remarkable indeed, when we call to mind the disorders at the
+close of that century:&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+You trust to the present condition of society, without reflecting that
+it is subject to unavoidable revolutions, and that you can neither
+foresee nor prevent what is to affect the fate of your own children.
+The great are brought low, the poor are made rich, the king becomes a
+subject.  Are the blows of fate so uncommon that you can expect to
+escape them?  We are approaching a crisis, the age of revolutions.  Who
+can tell what will become of you then?  All that man has done man may
+destroy.  No characters but those stamped by nature are ineffaceable;
+and nature did not make princes, or rich men, or nobles.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+This advice was followed.  In the highest grades of society it became
+the fashion to learn some handicraft.  It is well known that Louis XVI.
+was proud of his skill as a locksmith.  Among the exiles of a later
+period, many owed their living to the trade they had thus learned.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+To return to Émile: Rousseau selects for him the trade of a joiner, and
+goes so far as to employ him and his tutor in that kind of labor for
+one or more days of every week under a master who pays them actual
+wages for their work.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Judging from Appearances.  The Broken Stick.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+If I have thus far made myself understood, you may see how, with
+regular physical exercise and manual labor, I am at the same time
+giving my pupil a taste for reflection and meditation.  This will
+counterbalance the indolence which might result from his indifference
+to other men and from the dormant state of his passions.  He must work
+like a peasant and think like a philosopher, or he will be as idle as a
+savage.  The great secret of education is to make physical and mental
+exercises serve as relaxation for each other.  At first our pupil had
+nothing but sensations, and now he has ideas.  Then he only perceived,
+but now he judges.  For from comparison of many successive or
+simultaneous sensations, with the judgments based on them, arises a
+kind of mixed or complex sensation which I call an idea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The different manner in which ideas are formed gives each mind its
+peculiar character.  A mind is solid if it shape its ideas according to
+the true relations of things; superficial, if content with their
+apparent relations; accurate, if it behold things as they really are;
+unsound, if it understand them incorrectly; disordered, if it fabricate
+imaginary relations, neither apparent nor real; imbecile, if it do not
+compare ideas at all.  Greater or less mental power in different men
+consists in their greater or less readiness in comparing ideas and
+discovering their relations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From simple as well as complex sensations, we form judgments which I
+will call simple ideas.  In a sensation the judgment is wholly passive,
+only affirming that we feel what we feel.  In a preception or idea, the
+judgment is active; it brings together, compares, and determines
+relations not determined by the senses.  This is the only point of
+difference, but it is important.  Nature never deceives us; it is
+always we who deceive ourselves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I see a child eight years old helped to some frozen custard.  Without
+knowing what it is, he puts a spoonful in his mouth, and feeling the
+cold sensation, exclaims, "Ah, that burns!"  He feels a keen sensation;
+he knows of none more so than heat, and thinks that is what he now
+feels.  He is of course mistaken; the chill is painful, but does not
+burn him; and the two sensations are not alike, since, after
+encountering both, we never mistake one for the other.  It is not,
+therefore, the sensation which misleads him, but the judgment based on
+it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is the same when any one sees for the first time a mirror or optical
+apparatus; or enters a deep cellar in mid-winter or midsummer; or
+plunges his hand, either very warm or very cold, into tepid water; or
+rolls a little ball between two of his fingers held crosswise.  If he
+is satisfied with describing what he perceives or feels, keeping his
+judgment in abeyance, he cannot be mistaken.  But when he decides upon
+appearances, his judgment is active; it compares, and infers relations
+it does not perceive; and it may then be mistaken.  He will need
+experience to prevent or correct such mistakes.  Show your pupil clouds
+passing over the moon at night, and he will think that the moon is
+moving in an opposite direction, and that the clouds are at rest.  He
+will the more readily infer that this is the case, because he usually
+sees small objects, not large ones, in motion, and because the clouds
+seem to him larger than the moon, of whose distance he has no idea.
+When from a moving boat he sees the shore at a little distance, he
+makes the contrary mistake of thinking that the earth moves.  For,
+unconscious of his own motion, the boat, the water, and the entire
+horizon seem to him one immovable whole of which the moving shore is
+only one part.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The first time a child sees a stick half immersed in water, it seems to
+be broken.  The sensation is a true one, and would be, even if we did
+not know the reason for this appearance.  If therefore you ask him what
+he sees, he answers truly, "A broken stick," because he is fully
+conscious of the sensation of a broken stick.  But when, deceived by
+his judgment, he goes farther, and after saying that he sees a broken
+stick, he says again that the stick really is broken, he says what is
+not true; and why?  Because his judgment becomes active; he decides no
+longer from observation, but from inference, when he declares as a fact
+what he does not actually perceive; namely, that touch would confirm
+the judgment based upon sight alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The best way of learning to judge correctly is the one which tends to
+simplify our experience, and enables us to make no mistakes even when
+we dispense with experience altogether.  It follows from this that
+after having long verified the testimony of one sense by that of
+another, we must further learn to verify the testimony of each sense by
+itself without appeal to any other.  Then each sensation at once
+becomes an idea, and an idea in accordance with the truth.  With such
+acquisitions I have endeavored to store this third period of human life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To follow this plan requires a patience and a circumspection of which
+few teachers are capable, and without which a pupil will never learn to
+judge correctly.  For example: if, when he is misled by the appearance
+of a broken stick, you endeavor to show him his mistake by taking the
+stick quickly out of the water, you may perhaps undeceive him, but what
+will you teach him?  Nothing he might not have learned for himself.
+You ought not thus to teach him one detached truth, instead of showing
+him how he may always discover for himself any truth.  If you really
+mean to teach him, do not at once undeceive him.  Let Émile and myself
+serve you for example.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the first place, any child educated in the ordinary way would, to
+the second of the two questions above mentioned, answer, "Of course the
+stick is broken."  I doubt whether Émile would give this answer.
+Seeing no need of being learned or of appearing learned, he never
+judges hastily, but only from evidence.  Knowing how easily appearances
+deceive us, as in the case of perspective, he is far from finding the
+evidence in the present case sufficient.  Besides, knowing from
+experience that my most trivial question always has an object which he
+does not at once discover, he is not in the habit of giving heedless
+answers.  On the contrary, he is on his guard and attentive; he looks
+into the matter very carefully before replying.  He never gives me an
+answer with which he is not himself satisfied, and he is not easily
+satisfied.  Moreover, he and I do not pride ourselves on knowing facts
+exactly, but only on making few mistakes.  We should be much more
+disconcerted if we found ourselves satisfied with an insufficient
+reason than if we had discovered none at all.  The confession, "I do
+not know," suits us both so well, and we repeat it so often, that it
+costs neither of us anything.  But whether for this once he is
+careless, or avoids the difficulty by a convenient "I do not know," my
+answer is the same: "Let us see; let us find out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The stick, half-way in the water, is fixed in a vertical position.  To
+find out whether it is broken, as it appears to be, how much we must do
+before we take it out of the water, or even touch it!  First, we go
+entirely round it, and observe that the fracture goes around with us.
+It is our eye alone, then, that changes it; and a glance cannot move
+things from place to place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Secondly, we look directly down the stick, from the end outside of the
+water; then the stick is no longer bent, because the end next our eye
+exactly hides the other end from us.  Has our eye straightened the
+stick?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thirdly, we stir the surface of the water, and see the stick bend
+itself into several curves, move in a zig-zag direction, and follow the
+undulations of the water.  Has the motion we gave the water been enough
+thus to break, to soften, and to melt the stick?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fourth, we draw off the water and see the stick straighten itself as
+fast as the water is lowered.  Is not this more than enough to
+illustrate the fact and to find out the refraction?  It is not then
+true that the eye deceives us, since by its aid alone we can correct
+the mistakes we ascribe to it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suppose the child so dull as not to understand the result of these
+experiments.  Then we must call touch to the aid of sight.  Instead of
+taking the stick out of the water, leave it there, and let him pass his
+hand from one end of it to the other.  He will feel no angle; the
+stick, therefore, is not broken.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You will tell me that these are not only judgments but formal
+reasonings.  True; but do you not see that, as soon as the mind has
+attained to ideas, all judgment is reasoning?  The consciousness of any
+sensation is a proposition, a judgment.  As soon, therefore, as we
+compare one sensation with another, we reason.  The art of judging and
+the art of reasoning are precisely the same.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If, from the lesson of this stick, Émile does not understand the idea
+of refraction, he will never understand it at all.  He shall never
+dissect insects, or count the spots on the sun; he shall not even know
+what a microscope or a telescope is.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Your learned pupils will laugh at his ignorance, and will not be very
+far wrong.  For before he uses these instruments, I intend he shall
+invent them; and you may well suppose that this will not be soon done.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This shall be the spirit of all my methods of teaching during this
+period.  If the child rolls a bullet between two crossed fingers, I
+will not let him look at it till he is otherwise convinced that there
+is only one bullet there.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Result.  The Pupil at the Age of Fifteen.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+I think these explanations will suffice to mark distinctly the advance
+my pupil's mind has hitherto made, and the route by which he has
+advanced.  You are probably alarmed at the number of subjects I have
+brought to his notice.  You are afraid I will overwhelm his mind with
+all this knowledge.  But I teach him rather not to know them than to
+know them.  I am showing him a path to knowledge not indeed difficult,
+but without limit, slowly measured, long, or rather endless, and
+tedious to follow.  I am showing him how to take the first steps, so
+that he may know its beginning, but allow him to go no farther.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Obliged to learn by his own effort, he employs his own reason, not that
+of another.  Most of our mistakes arise less within ourselves than from
+others; so that if he is not to be ruled by opinion, he must receive
+nothing upon authority.  Such continual exercise must invigorate the
+mind as labor and fatigue strengthen the body.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The mind as well as the body can bear only what its strength will
+allow.  When the understanding fully masters a thing before intrusting
+it to the memory, what it afterward draws therefrom is in reality its
+own.  But if instead we load the memory with matters the understanding
+has not mastered, we run the risk of never finding there anything that
+belongs to it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Émile has little knowledge, but it is really his own; he knows nothing
+by halves; and the most important fact is that he does not now know
+things he will one day know; that many things known to other people he
+never will know; and that there is an infinity of things which neither
+he nor any one else ever will know.  He is prepared for knowledge of
+every kind; not because he has so much, but because he knows how to
+acquire it; his mind is open to it, and, as Montaigne says, if not
+taught, he is at least teachable.  I shall be satisfied if he knows how
+to find out the "wherefore" of everything he knows and the "why" of
+everything he believes.  I repeat that my object is not to give him
+knowledge, but to teach him how to acquire it at need; to estimate it
+at its true value, and above all things, to love the truth.  By this
+method we advance slowly, but take no useless steps, and are not
+obliged to retrace a single one.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Émile understands only the natural and purely physical sciences.  He
+does not even know the name of history, or the meaning of metaphysics
+and ethics.  He knows the essential relations between men and things,
+but nothing of the moral relations between man and man.  He does not
+readily generalize or conceive of abstractions.  He observes the
+qualities common to certain bodies without reasoning about the
+qualities themselves.  With the aid of geometric figures and algebraic
+signs, he knows something of extension and quantity.  Upon these
+figures and signs his senses rest their knowledge of the abstractions
+just named.  He makes no attempt to learn the nature of things, but
+only such of their relations as concern himself.  He estimates external
+things only by their relation to him; but this estimate is exact and
+positive, and in it fancies and conventionalities have no share.  He
+values most those things that are most useful to him; and never
+deviating from this standard, is not influenced by general opinion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Émile is industrious, temperate, patient, steadfast, and full of
+courage.  His imagination, never aroused, does not exaggerate dangers.
+He feels few discomforts, and can bear pain with fortitude, because he
+has never learned to contend with fate.  He does not yet know exactly
+what death is, but, accustomed to yield to the law of necessity, he
+will die when he must, without a groan or a struggle.  Nature can do no
+more at that moment abhorred by all.  To live free and to have little
+to do with human affairs is the best way of learning how to die.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a word, Émile has every virtue which affects himself.  To have the
+social virtues as well, he only needs to know the relations which make
+them necessary; and this knowledge his mind is ready to receive.  He
+considers himself independently of others, and is satisfied when others
+do not think of him at all.  He exacts nothing from others, and never
+thinks of owing anything to them.  He is alone in human society, and
+depends solely upon himself.  He has the best right of all to be
+independent, for he is all that any one can be at his age.  He has no
+errors but such as a human being must have; no vices but those from
+which no one can warrant himself exempt.  He has a sound constitution,
+active limbs, a fair and unprejudiced mind, a heart free and without
+passions.  Self-love, the first and most natural of all, has scarcely
+manifested itself at all.  Without disturbing any one's peace of mind
+he has led a happy, contented life, as free as nature will allow.  Do
+you think a youth who has thus attained his fifteenth year has lost the
+years that have gone before?
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03fn1"></A>
+<A NAME="chap03fn2"></A>
+<A NAME="chap03fn3"></A>
+<A NAME="chap03fn4"></A>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn1text">1</A>] This might be carried too far, and is to be admitted with some
+reservations.  Ignorance is never alone; its companions are always
+error and presumption.  No one is so certain that he knows, as he who
+knows nothing; and prejudice of all kinds is the form in which our
+ignorance is clothed.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn2text">2</A>] The armillary sphere is a group of pasteboard or copper circles, to
+illustrate the orbits of the planets, and their position in relation to
+the earth, which is represented by a small wooden ball.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn3text">3</A>] The imaginary circles traced on the celestial sphere, and figured
+in the armillary sphere by metallic circles, are called <I>culures</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn4text">4</A>] Rousseau here informs his readers that even these reproaches are
+expected, he having dictated them beforehand to the mountebank; all
+this scene has been arranged to deceive the child.  What a refinement
+of artifice in this passionate lover of the natural!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Émile, by Jean Jacques Rousseau
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Emile, by Jean Jacques Rousseau
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Emile
+       or, Concerning Education; Extracts
+
+Author: Jean Jacques Rousseau
+
+Editor: Jules Steeg
+
+Translator: Eleanor Worthington
+
+Release Date: November 9, 2009 [EBook #30433]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMILE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Heath's Pedagogical Library--4
+
+
+
+
+EMILE:
+
+OR, CONCERNING EDUCATION
+
+
+BY
+
+JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
+
+
+EXTRACTS
+
+_CONTAINING THE PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS OF PEDAGOGY FOUND IN THE FIRST THREE
+BOOKS; WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY_
+
+
+JULES STEEG, DEPUTE, PARIS, FRANCE
+
+
+
+TRANSLATED BY
+
+ELEANOR WORTHINGTON
+
+FORMERLY OF THE COOK COUNTY (ILL.) NORMAL SCHOOL
+
+
+
+
+D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS
+
+BOSTON -- NEW YORK -- CHICAGO
+
+
+
+
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1888, by
+
+GINN, HEATH, & CO.,
+
+In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+
+
+Printed in U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
+
+M. Jules Steeg has rendered a real service to French and American
+teachers by his judicious selections from Rousseau's Emile.  For the
+three-volume novel of a hundred years ago, with its long disquisitions
+and digressions, so dear to the heart of our patient ancestors, is now
+distasteful to all but lovers of the curious in books.
+
+"Emile" is like an antique mirror of brass; it reflects the features of
+educational humanity no less faithfully than one of more modern
+construction.  In these few pages will be found the germ of all that is
+useful in present systems of education, as well as most of the
+ever-recurring mistakes of well-meaning zealots.
+
+The eighteenth century translations of this wonderful book have for
+many readers the disadvantage of an English style long disused.  It is
+hoped that this attempt at a new translation may, with all its defects,
+have the one merit of being in the dialect of the nineteenth century,
+and may thus reach a wider circle of readers.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+Jean Jacques Rousseau's book on education has had a powerful influence
+throughout Europe, and even in the New World.  It was in its day a kind
+of gospel.  It had its share in bringing about the Revolution which
+renovated the entire aspect of our country.  Many of the reforms so
+lauded by it have since then been carried into effect, and at this day
+seem every-day affairs.  In the eighteenth century they were unheard-of
+daring; they were mere dreams.
+
+Long before that time the immortal satirist Rabelais, and, after him,
+Michael Montaigne, had already divined the truth, had pointed out
+serious defects in education, and the way to reform.  No one followed
+out their suggestions, or even gave them a hearing.  Routine went on
+its way.  Exercises of memory,--the science that consists of mere
+words,--pedantry, barren and vain-glorious,--held fast their "bad
+eminence."  The child was treated as a machine, or as a man in
+miniature, no account being taken of his nature or of his real needs;
+without any greater solicitude about reasonable method--the hygiene of
+mind--than about the hygiene of the body.
+
+Rousseau, who had educated himself, and very badly at that, was
+impressed with the dangers of the education of his day.  A mother
+having asked his advice, he took up the pen to write it; and, little by
+little, his counsels grew into a book, a large work, a pedagogic
+romance.
+
+This romance, when it appeared in 1762, created a great noise and a
+great scandal.  The Archbishop of Paris, Christophe de Beaumont, saw in
+it a dangerous, mischievous work, and gave himself the trouble of
+writing a long encyclical letter in order to point out the book to the
+reprobation of the faithful.  This document of twenty-seven chapters is
+a formal refutation of the theories advanced in "Emile."
+
+The archbishop declares that the plan of education proposed by the
+author, "far from being in accordance with Christianity, is not fitted
+to form citizens, or even men."  He accuses Rousseau of irreligion and
+of bad faith; he denounces him to the temporal power as animated "by a
+spirit of insubordination and of revolt."  He sums up by solemnly
+condemning the book "as containing an abominable doctrine, calculated
+to overthrow natural law, and to destroy the foundations of the
+Christian religion; establishing maxims contrary to Gospel morality;
+having a tendency to disturb the peace of empires, to stir up subjects
+to revolt against their sovereign; as containing a great number of
+propositions respectively false, scandalous, full of hatred toward the
+Church and its ministers, derogating from the respect due to Holy
+Scripture and the traditions of the Church, erroneous, impious,
+blasphemous, and heretical."
+
+In those days, such a condemnation was a serious matter; its
+consequences to an author might be terrible.  Rousseau had barely time
+to flee.  His arrest was decreed by the parliament of Paris, and his
+book was burned by the executioner.  A few years before this, the
+author would have run the risk of being burned with his book.
+
+As a fugitive, Rousseau did not find a safe retreat even in his own
+country.  He was obliged to leave Geneva, where his book was also
+condemned, and Berne, where he had sought refuge, but whence he was
+driven by intolerance.  He owed it to the protection of Lord Keith,
+governor of Neufchatel, a principality belonging to the King of
+Prussia, that he lived for some time in peace in the little town of
+Motiers in the Val de Travera.
+
+It was from this place that he replied to the archbishop of Paris by an
+apology, a long-winded work in which he repels, one after another, the
+imputations of his accuser, and sets forth anew with greater urgency
+his philosophical and religious principles.  This work, written on a
+rather confused plan but with impassioned eloquence, manifests a lofty
+and sincere spirit.  It is said that the archbishop was deeply touched
+by it, and never afterward spoke of the author of "Emile" without
+extreme reserve, sometimes even eulogizing his character and his
+virtues.
+
+The renown of the book, condemned by so high an authority, was immense.
+Scandal, by attracting public attention to it, did it good service.
+What was most serious and most suggestive in it was not, perhaps,
+seized upon; but the "craze" of which it was the object had,
+notwithstanding, good results.  Mothers were won over, and resolved to
+nurse their own infants; great lords began to learn handicrafts, like
+Rousseau's imaginary pupil; physical exercises came into fashion; the
+spirit of innovation was forcing itself a way.
+
+It was not among ourselves, however, that the theories of Rousseau were
+most eagerly experimented upon; it was among foreigners, in Germany, in
+Switzerland, that they found more resolute partisans, and a field more
+ready to receive them.
+
+Three men above all the rest are noted for having popularized the
+pedagogic method of Rousseau, and for having been inspired in their
+labors by "Emile."  These were Basedow, Pestalozzi, and Froebel.
+
+Basedow, a German theologian, had devoted himself entirely to dogmatic
+controversy, until the reading of "Emile" had the effect of enlarging
+his mental horizon, and of revealing to him his true vocation.  He
+wrote important books to show how Rousseau's method could be applied in
+different departments of instruction, and founded at Dessau, in 1774,
+an institution to bring that method within the domain of experience.
+
+This institution, to which he gave the name of "Philanthropinum," was
+secular in the true sense of the word; and at that time this was in
+itself a novelty.  It was open to pupils of every belief and every
+nationality, and proposed to render study easy, pleasant, and
+expeditious to them, by following the directions of nature itself.  In
+the first rank of his disciples may be placed Campe, who succeeded him
+in the management of the Philanthropinum.
+
+Pestalozzi of Zuerich, one of the foremost educators of modern times,
+also found his whole life transformed by the reading of "Emile," which
+awoke in him the genius of a reformer.  He himself also, in 1775,
+founded a school, in order to put in practice there his progressive and
+professional method of teaching, which was a fruitful development of
+seeds sown by Rousseau in his book.  Pestalozzi left numerous
+writings,--romances, treatises, reviews,--all having for sole object
+the popularization of his ideas and processes of education.  The most
+distinguished among his disciples and continuators is Froebel, the
+founder of those primary schools or asylums known by the name of
+"kindergartens," and the author of highly esteemed pedagogic works.
+
+These various attempts, these new and ingenious processes which, step
+by step, have made their way among us, and are beginning to make their
+workings felt, even in institutions most stoutly opposed to progress,
+are all traceable to Rousseau's "Emile."
+
+It is therefore not too much for Frenchmen, for teachers, for parents,
+for every one in our country who is interested in what concerns
+teaching, to go back to the source of so great a movement.
+
+It is true that "Emile" contains pages that have outlived their day,
+many odd precepts, many false ideas, many disputable and destructive
+theories; but at the same time we find in it so many sagacious
+observations, such upright counsels, suitable even to modern times, so
+lofty an ideal, that, in spite of everything, we cannot read and study
+it without profit.  There is no one who does not know the book by name
+and by reputation; but how many parents, and even teachers, have never
+read it!
+
+This is because a large part of the book is no longer in accordance
+with the actual condition of things; because its very plan, its
+fundamental idea, are outside of the truth.  We are obliged to exercise
+judgment, to make selections.  Some of it must be taken, some left
+untouched.  This is what we have done in the present edition.
+
+We have not, indeed, the presumption to correct Rousseau, or to
+substitute an expurgated "Emile" for the authentic "Emile."  We have
+simply wished to draw the attention of the teachers of childhood to
+those pages of this book which have least grown old, which can still be
+of service, can hasten the downfall of the old systems, can emphasize,
+by their energy and beauty of language, methods already inaugurated and
+reforms already undertaken.  These methods and reforms cannot be too
+often recommended and set in a clear light.  We have desired to call to
+the rescue this powerful and impassioned writer, who brings to bear
+upon every subject he approaches the magical attractiveness of his
+style.
+
+There is absolutely nothing practicable in his system.  It consists in
+isolating a child from the rest of the world; in creating expressly for
+him a tutor, who is a phoenix among his kind; in depriving him of
+father, mother, brothers, and sisters, his companions in study; in
+surrounding him with a perpetual charlatanism, under the pretext of
+following nature; and in showing him only through the veil of a
+factitious atmosphere the society in which he is to live.  And,
+nevertheless, at each step it is sound reason by which we are met; by
+an astonishing paradox, this whimsicality is full of good sense; this
+dream overflows with realities; this improbable and chimerical romance
+contains the substance and the marrow of a rational and truly modern
+treatise on pedagogy.  Sometimes we must read between the lines, add
+what experience has taught us since that day, transpose into an
+atmosphere of open democracy these pages, written under the old order
+of things, but even then quivering with the new world which they were
+bringing to light, and for which they prepared the way.
+
+Reading "Emile" in the light of modern prejudices, we can see in it
+more than the author wittingly put into it; but not more than logic and
+the instinct of genius set down there.
+
+To unfold the powers of children in due proportion to their age; not to
+transcend their ability; to arouse in them the sense of the observer
+and of the pioneer; to make them discoverers rather than imitators; to
+teach them accountability to themselves and not slavish dependence upon
+the words of others; to address ourselves more to the will than to
+custom, to the reason rather than to the memory; to substitute for
+verbal recitations lessons about things; to lead to theory by way of
+art; to assign to physical movements and exercises a prominent place,
+from the earliest hours of life up to perfect maturity; such are the
+principles scattered broadcast in this book, and forming a happy
+counterpoise to the oddities of which Rousseau was perhaps most proud.
+
+He takes the child in its cradle, almost before its birth; he desires
+that mothers should fulfil the sacred duty of nursing them at the
+breast.  If there must be a nurse, he knows how to choose her, how she
+ought to be treated, how she should be fed.  He watches over the
+movements of the new-born child, over its first playthings.  All these
+counsels bear the stamp of good sense and of experience; or, rather,
+they result from a power of divination singular enough in a man who was
+not willing to take care of his own children.  In this way, day by day,
+he follows up the physical and moral development of the little being,
+all whose ideas and feelings he analyzes, whom he guides with wisdom
+and with tact throughout the mazes of a life made up of convention and
+artifice.
+
+We have carefully avoided suppressing the fictions of the gardener and
+of the mountebank; because they are characteristic of his manner, and
+because, after all, these pre-arranged scenes which, as they stand, are
+anything in the world rather than real teaching, contain, nevertheless,
+right notions, and opinions which may suggest to intelligent teachers
+processes in prudent education.  Such teachers will not copy the form;
+they will not imitate the awkward clap-trap; but, yielding to the
+inspiration of the dominant idea, they will, in a way more in
+accordance with nature, manage to thrill with life the teaching of
+facts, and will aid the mind in giving birth to its ideas.  This is the
+old method of Socrates, the eternal method of reason, the only method
+which really educates.
+
+We have brought this volume to an end with the third book of "Emile."
+The fourth and fifth books which follow are not within the domain of
+pedagogy.  They contain admirable pages, which ought to be read; which
+occupy one of the foremost places in our literature; which deal with
+philosophy, with ethics, with theology; but they concern themselves
+with the manner of directing young men and women, and no longer with
+childhood.  The author conducts his Emile even as far as to his
+betrothal; he devotes an entire book to the betrothed herself, Sophie,
+and closes his volume only after he has united them in marriage.
+
+We will not go so far.  We will leave Emile upon the confines of youth,
+at the time when he escapes from school, and when he is about beginning
+to feel that he is a man.  At this difficult and critical period the
+teacher no longer suffices.  Then, above all things, is needed all the
+influence of the family; the father's example, the mother's
+clear-sighted tenderness, worthy friendships, an environment of
+meritorious people, of upright minds animated by lofty ideas, who
+attract within their orbit this ardent and inquisitive being, eager for
+novelty, for action, and for independence.
+
+Artifices and stratagems are then no longer good for anything; they are
+very soon laid open to the light.  All that can be required of a
+teacher is that he shall have furnished his pupils with a sound and
+strong education, drawn from the sources of reason, experience, and
+nature; that he shall have prepared them to learn to form judgments, to
+make use of their faculties, to enter valiantly upon study and upon
+life.  It seems to us that the pages of Rousseau here published may be
+a useful guide in the pursuit of such a result.
+
+JULES STEEG.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIRST.
+
+The first book, after some general remarks upon education, treats
+especially of early infancy; of the first years of life; of the care to
+be bestowed upon very young children; of the nursing of them, of the
+laws of health.
+
+He makes education begin at birth; expresses himself on the subject of
+the habits to be given or to be avoided; discusses the use and meaning
+of tears, outcries, gestures, also the language that should be used
+with young children, so that, from their tenderest years, the
+inculcating of false ideas and the giving a wrong bent of mind may be
+avoided.
+
+
+
+GENERAL REMARKS.
+
+The Object of Education.
+
+Coming from the hand of the Author of all things, everything is good;
+in the hands of man, everything degenerates.  Man obliges one soil to
+nourish the productions of another, one tree to bear the fruits of
+another; he mingles and confounds climates, elements, seasons; he
+mutilates his dog, his horse, his slave.  He overturns everything,
+disfigures everything; he loves deformity, monsters; he desires that
+nothing should be as nature made it, not even man himself.  To please
+him, man must be broken in like a horse; man must be adapted to man's
+own fashion, like a tree in his garden.[1]
+
+Were it not for all this, matters would be still worse.  No one wishes
+to be a half-developed being; and in the present condition of things, a
+man left to himself among others from his birth would be the most
+deformed among them all.  Prejudices, authority, necessities, example,
+all the social institutions in which we are submerged, would stifle
+nature in him, and would put nothing in its place.  In such a man
+nature would be like a shrub sprung up by chance in the midst of a
+highway, and jostled from all sides, bent in every direction, by the
+passers-by.
+
+Plants are improved by cultivation, and men by education.  If man were
+born large and strong, his size and strength would be useless to him
+until he had learned to use them.  They would be prejudicial to him, by
+preventing others from thinking of assisting him; and left to himself
+he would die of wretchedness before he had known his own necessities.
+We pity the state of infancy; we do not perceive that the human race
+would have perished if man had not begun by being a child.
+
+We are born weak, we need strength; we are born destitute of all
+things, we need assistance; we are born stupid, we need judgment.  All
+that we have not at our birth, and that we need when grown up, is given
+us by education.
+
+This education comes to us from nature itself, or from other men, or
+from circumstances.  The internal development of our faculties and of
+our organs is the education nature gives us; the use we are taught to
+make of this development is the education we get from other men; and
+what we learn, by our own experience, about things that interest as, is
+the education of circumstances.
+
+Each of us is therefore formed by three kinds of teachers.  The pupil
+in whom their different lessons contradict one another is badly
+educated, and will never be in harmony with himself; the one in whom
+they all touch upon the same points and tend toward the same object
+advances toward that goal only, and lives accordingly.  He alone is
+well educated.
+
+Now of these three different educations, that of nature does not depend
+upon us; that of circumstances depends upon us only in certain
+respects; that of men is the only one of which we are really masters,
+and that solely because we think we are.  For who can hope to direct
+entirely the speech and conduct of all who surround a child?
+
+As soon, therefore, as education becomes an art, its success is almost
+impossible, since the agreement of circumstances necessary to this
+success is independent of personal effort.  All that the utmost care
+can do is to approach more or less nearly our object; but, for
+attaining it, special good fortune is needed.
+
+What is this object?  That of nature itself, as has just been proved.
+Since the agreement of the three educations is necessary to their
+perfection, it is toward the one for which we ourselves can do nothing
+that we must direct both the others.  But perhaps this word "nature"
+has too vague a meaning; we must here try to define it.
+
+In the natural order of things, all men being equal, the vocation
+common to all is the state of manhood; and whoever is well trained for
+that, cannot fulfil badly any vocation which depends upon it.  Whether
+my pupil be destined for the army, the church, or the bar, matters
+little to me.  Before he can think of adopting the vocation of his
+parents, nature calls upon him to be a man.  How to live is the
+business I wish to teach him.  On leaving my hands he will not, I
+admit, be a magistrate, a soldier, or a priest; first of all he will be
+a man.  All that a man ought to be he can be, at need, as well as any
+one else can.  Fortune will in vain alter his position, for he will
+always occupy his own.
+
+Our real study is that of the state of man.  He among us who best knows
+how to bear the good and evil fortunes of this life is, in my opinion,
+the best educated; whence it follows that true education consists less
+in precept than in practice.  We begin to instruct ourselves when we
+begin to live; our education commences with the commencement of our
+life; our first teacher is our nurse.  For this reason the word
+"education" had among the ancients another meaning which we no longer
+attach to it; it signified nutriment.
+
+We must then take a broader view of things, and consider in our pupil
+man in the abstract, man exposed to all the accidents of human life.
+If man were born attached to the soil of a country, if the same season
+continued throughout the year, if every one held his fortune by such a
+tenure that he could never change it, the established customs of to-day
+would be in certain respects good.  The child educated for his
+position, and never leaving it, could not be exposed to the
+inconveniences of another.
+
+But seeing that human affairs are changeable, seeing the restless and
+disturbing spirit of this century, which overturns everything once in a
+generation, can a more senseless method be imagined than to educate a
+child as if he were never to leave his room, as if he were obliged to
+be constantly surrounded by his servants?  If the poor creature takes
+but one step on the earth, if he comes down so much as one stair, he is
+ruined.  This is not teaching him to endure pain; it is training him to
+feel it more keenly.
+
+We think only of preserving the child: this is not enough.  We ought to
+teach him to preserve himself when he is a man; to bear the blows of
+fate; to brave both wealth and wretchedness; to live, if need be, among
+the snows of Iceland or upon the burning rock of Malta.  In vain you
+take precautions against his dying,--he must die after all; and if his
+death be not indeed the result of those very precautions, they are none
+the less mistaken.  It is less important to keep him from dying than it
+is to teach him how to live.  To live is not merely to breathe, it is
+to act.  It is to make use of our organs, of our senses, of our
+faculties, of all the powers which bear witness to us of our own
+existence.  He who has lived most is not he who has numbered the most
+years, but he who has been most truly conscious of what life is.  A man
+may have himself buried at the age of a hundred years, who died from
+the hour of his birth.  He would have gained something by going to his
+grave in youth, if up to that time he had only lived.
+
+
+The New-born Child.
+
+The new-born child needs to stretch and to move his limbs so as to draw
+them out of the torpor in which, rolled into a ball, they have so long
+remained.  We do stretch his limbs, it is true, but we prevent him from
+moving them.  We even constrain his head into a baby's cap.  It seems
+as if we were afraid he might appear to be alive.  The inaction, the
+constraint in which we keep his limbs, cannot fail to interfere with
+the circulation of the blood and of the secretions, to prevent the
+child from growing strong and sturdy, and to change his constitution.
+In regions where these extravagant precautions are not taken, the men
+are all large, strong, and well proportioned.  Countries in which
+children are swaddled swarm with hunchbacks, with cripples, with
+persons crook-kneed, stunted, rickety, deformed in all kinds of ways.
+For fear that the bodies of children may be deformed by free movements,
+we hasten to deform them by putting them into a press.  Of our own
+accord we cripple them to prevent their laming themselves.
+
+Must not such a cruel constraint have an influence upon their temper as
+well as upon their constitution?  Their first feeling is a feeling of
+constraint and of suffering.  To all their necessary movements they
+find only obstacles.  More unfortunate than chained criminals, they
+make fruitless efforts, they fret themselves, they cry.  Do you tell me
+that the first sounds they make are cries?  I can well believe it; you
+thwart them from the time they are born.  The first gifts they receive
+from you are chains, the first treatment they undergo is torment.
+Having nothing free but the voice, why should they not use it in
+complaints?  They cry on account of the suffering you cause them; if
+you were pinioned in the same way, your own cries would be louder.
+
+Whence arises this unreasonable custom of swaddling children?  From an
+unnatural custom.  Since the time when mothers, despising their first
+duty, no longer wish to nurse their own children at the breast, it has
+been necessary to intrust the little ones to hired women.  These,
+finding themselves in this way the mothers of strange children,
+concerning whom the voice of nature is silent to them, seek only to
+spare themselves annoyance.  A child at liberty would require incessant
+watching; but after he is well swaddled, they throw him into a corner
+without troubling themselves at all on account of his cries.  Provided
+there are no proofs of the nurse's carelessness, provided that the
+nursling does not break his legs or his arms, what does it matter,
+after all, that he is pining away, or that he continues feeble for the
+rest of his life?  His limbs are preserved at the expense of his life,
+and whatever happens, the nurse is held free from blame.
+
+It is pretended that children, when left free, may put themselves into
+bad positions, and make movements liable to injure the proper
+conformation of their limbs.  This is one of the weak arguments of our
+false wisdom, which no experience has ever confirmed.  Of that
+multitude of children who, among nations more sensible than ourselves,
+are brought up in the full freedom of their limbs, not one is seen to
+wound or lame himself.  They cannot give their movements force enough
+to make them dangerous; and when they assume a hurtful position, pain
+soon warns them to change it.
+
+We have not yet brought ourselves to the point of swaddling puppies or
+kittens; do we see that any inconvenience results to them from this
+negligence?  Children are heavier, indeed; but in proportion they are
+weaker.  They can scarcely move themselves at all; how can they lame
+themselves?  If laid upon the back they would die in that position,
+like the tortoise, without being able ever to turn themselves again.
+
+
+[This want of intelligence In the care bestowed upon young children is
+seen particularly in those mothers who give themselves no concern about
+their own, do not themselves nurse them, intrust them to hireling
+nurses.  This custom is fatal to all; first to the children and finally
+to families, where barrenness becomes the rule, where woman sacrifices
+to her own convenience the joys and the duties of motherhood.]
+
+
+Would you recall every one to his highest duties?  Begin with the
+mothers; you will be astonished at the changes you will effect.  From
+this first depravity all others come in succession.  The entire moral
+order is changed; natural feeling is extinguished in all hearts.
+Within our homes there is less cheerfulness; the touching sight of a
+growing family no longer attaches the husband or attracts the attention
+of strangers.  The mother whose children are not seen is less
+respected.  There is no such thing as a family living together; habit
+no longer strengthens the ties of blood.  There are no longer fathers
+and mothers and children and brothers and sisters.  They all scarcely
+know one another; how then should they love one another?  Each one
+thinks only of himself.  When home is a melancholy, lonely place, we
+must indeed go elsewhere to enjoy ourselves.
+
+But let mothers only vouchsafe to nourish their children,[2] and our
+manners will reform themselves; the feelings of nature will re-awaken
+in all hearts.  The State will be repeopled; this chief thing, this one
+thing will bring all the rest into order again.  The attractions of
+home life present the best antidote to bad morals.  The bustling life
+of little children, considered so tiresome, becomes pleasant; it makes
+the father and the mother more necessary to one another, more dear to
+one another; it draws closer between them the conjugal tie.  When the
+family is sprightly and animated, domestic cares form the dearest
+occupation of the wife and the sweetest recreation of the husband.
+Thus the correction of this one abuse would soon result in a general
+reform; nature would resume all her rights.  When women are once more
+true mothers, men will become true fathers and husbands.
+
+If mothers are not real mothers, children are not real children toward
+them.  Their duties to one another are reciprocal, and if these be
+badly fulfilled on the one side, they will be neglected on the other
+side.  The child ought to love his mother before he knows that it is
+his duty to love her.  If the voice of natural affection be not
+strengthened by habit and by care, it will grow dumb even in childhood;
+and thus the heart dies, so to speak, before it is born.  Thus from the
+outset we are beyond the pale of nature.
+
+There is an opposite way by which a woman goes beyond it; that is,
+when, instead of neglecting a mother's cares, she carries them to
+excess; when she makes her child her idol.  She increases and fosters
+his weakness to prevent him from feeling it.  Hoping to shelter him
+from the laws of nature, she wards from him shocks of pain.  She does
+not consider how, for the sake of preserving him for a moment from some
+inconveniences, she is heaping upon his head future accidents and
+perils; nor how cruel is the caution which prolongs the weakness of
+childhood in one who must bear the fatigues of a grown-up man.  The
+fable says that, to render her son invulnerable, Thetis plunged him
+into the Styx.  This allegory is beautiful and clear.  The cruel
+mothers of whom I am speaking do far otherwise; by plunging their
+children into effeminacy they open their pores to ills of every kind,
+to which, when grown up, they fall a certain prey.
+
+Watch nature carefully, and follow the paths she traces out for you.
+She gives children continual exercise; she strengthens their
+constitution by ordeals of every kind; she teaches them early what pain
+and trouble mean.  The cutting of their teeth gives them fever, sharp
+fits of colic throw them into convulsions, long coughing chokes them,
+worms torment them, repletion corrupts their blood, different leavens
+fermenting there cause dangerous eruptions.  Nearly the whole of
+infancy is sickness and danger; half the children born into the world
+die before their eighth year.  These trials past, the child has gained
+strength, and as soon as he can use life, its principle becomes more
+assured.
+
+This is the law of nature.  Why do you oppose her?  Do you not see that
+in thinking to correct her you destroy her work and counteract the
+effect of all her cares?  In your opinion, to do without what she is
+doing within is to redouble the danger.  On the contrary, it is really
+to avert, to mitigate that danger.  Experience teaches that more
+children who are delicately reared die than others.  Provided we do not
+exceed the measure of their strength, it is better to employ it than to
+hoard it.  Give them practice, then, in the trials they will one day
+have to endure.  Inure their bodies to the inclemencies of the seasons,
+of climates, of elements; to hunger, thirst, fatigue; plunge them into
+the water of the Styx.  Before the habits of the body are acquired we
+can give it such as we please without risk.  But when once it has
+reached its full vigor, any alteration is perilous to its well-being.
+A child will endure changes which a man could not bear.  The fibres of
+the former, soft and pliable, take without effort the bent we give
+them; those of man, more hardened, do not without violence change those
+they have received.  We may therefore make a child robust without
+exposing his life or his health; and even if there were some risk we
+still ought not to hesitate.  Since there are risks inseparable from
+human life, can we do better than to throw them back upon that period
+of life when they are least disadvantageous?
+
+A child becomes more precious as he advances in age.  To the value of
+his person is added that of the cares he has cost us; if we lose his
+life, his own consciousness of death is added to our sense of loss.
+Above all things, then, in watching over his preservation we must think
+of the future.  We must arm him against the misfortunes of youth before
+he has reached them.  For, if the value of life increases up to the age
+when life becomes useful, what folly it is to spare the child some
+troubles, and to heap them upon the age of reason!  Are these the
+counsels of a master?
+
+In all ages suffering is the lot of man.  Even to the cares of
+self-preservation pain is joined.  Happy are we, who in childhood are
+acquainted with only physical misfortunes--misfortunes far less cruel,
+less painful than others; misfortunes which far more rarely make us
+renounce life.  We do not kill ourselves on account of the pains of
+gout; seldom do any but those of the mind produce despair.[3]
+
+We pity the lot of infancy, and it is our own lot that we ought to
+pity.  Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves.
+
+At birth a child cries; his earliest infancy is spent in crying.
+Sometimes he is tossed, he is petted, to appease him; sometimes he is
+threatened, beaten, to make him keep quiet.  We either do as he
+pleases, or else we exact from him what we please; we either submit to
+his whims, or make him submit to ours.  There is no middle course; he
+must either give or receive orders.  Thus his first ideas are those of
+absolute rule and of slavery.  Before he knows how to speak, he
+commands; before he is able to act, he obeys; and sometimes he is
+punished before he knows what his faults are, or rather, before he is
+capable of committing them.  Thus do we early pour into his young heart
+the passions that are afterward imputed to nature; and, after having
+taken pains to make him wicked, we complain of finding him wicked.
+
+A child passes six or seven years of his life in this manner in the
+hands of women, the victim of his own caprice and of theirs.  After
+having made him learn this and that,--after having loaded his memory
+either with words he cannot understand, or with facts which are of no
+use to him,--after having stifled his natural disposition by the
+passions we have created, we put this artificial creature into the
+hands of a tutor who finishes the development of the artificial germs
+he finds already formed, and teaches him everything except to know
+himself, everything except to know how to live and how to make himself
+happy.  Finally, when this enslaved child, this little tyrant, full of
+learning and devoid of sense, enfeebled alike in mind and body, is cast
+upon the world, he there by his unfitness, by his pride, and by all his
+vices, makes us deplore human wretchedness and perversity.  We deceive
+ourselves; this is the man our whims have created.  Nature makes men by
+a different process.
+
+Do you then wish him to preserve his original form?  Preserve it from
+the moment he enters the world.  As soon as he is born take possession
+of him, and do not leave him until he is a man.  Without this you will
+never succeed.  As the mother is the true nurse, the father is the true
+teacher.  Let them be of one mind as to the order in which their
+functions are fulfilled, as well as in regard to their plan; let the
+child pass from the hands of the one into the hands of the other.  He
+will be better educated by a father who is judicious, even though of
+moderate attainments, than by the most skilful master in the world.
+For zeal will supplement talent better than talent can supply what only
+zeal can give.
+
+A father, when he brings his children into existence and supports them,
+has, in so doing, fulfilled only a third part of his task.  To the
+human race he owes men; to society, men fitted for society; to the
+State, citizens.  Every man who can pay this triple debt, and does not
+pay it is a guilty man; and if he pays it by halves, he is perhaps more
+guilty still.  He who cannot fulfil the duties of a father has no right
+to be a father.  Not poverty, nor severe labor, nor human respect can
+release him from the duty of supporting his children and of educating
+them himself.  Readers, you may believe my words.  I prophesy to any
+one who has natural feeling and neglects these sacred duties,--that he
+will long shed bitter tears over this fault, and that for those tears
+he will find no consolation.[4]
+
+
+[It being supposed that the father is unable or unwilling to charge
+himself personally with the education of his son, he must charge a
+third person with it, must seek out a master, a teacher for the child.]
+
+
+The qualifications of a good tutor are very freely discussed.  The
+first qualification I should require in him, and this one presupposes
+many others, is, that he shall not be capable of selling himself.
+There are employments so noble that we cannot fulfil them for money
+without showing ourselves unworthy to fulfil them.  Such an employment
+is that of a soldier; such a one is that of a teacher.  Who, then,
+shall educate my child?  I have told you already,--yourself.  I cannot!
+Then make for yourself a friend who can.  I see no other alternative.
+
+A teacher! what a great soul he ought to be!  Truly, to form a man, one
+must be either himself a father, or else something more than human.
+And this is the office you calmly entrust to hirelings![5]
+
+
+The Earliest Education.
+
+Children's first impressions are purely those of feeling; they perceive
+only pleasure and pain.  Unable either to move about, or to grasp
+anything with their hands, they need a great deal of time to form
+sensations which represent, and so make them aware of objects outside
+of themselves.  But, during all this time, while these objects are
+extending, and, as it were, receding from their eyes, assuming, to
+them, form and dimension, the constantly recurring sensations begin to
+subject the little creatures to the sway of habit.  We see their eyes
+incessantly turning toward the light; and, if it comes to them from one
+side, unwittingly taking the direction of that side; so that their
+faces ought to be carefully turned toward the light, lest they become
+squint-eyed, or accustom themselves to look awry.  They should, also,
+early accustom themselves to darkness, or else they will cry and scream
+as soon as they are left in the dark.  Food and sleep, if too exactly
+proportioned, become necessary to them after the lapse of the same
+intervals; and soon the desire arises not from necessity, but from
+habit.  Or rather, habit adds a new want to those of nature, and this
+must be prevented.
+
+The only habit a child should be allowed to form is to contract no
+habits whatever.  Let him not be carried upon one arm more than upon
+another; let him not be accustomed to put forth one hand rather than
+the other, or to use it oftener; nor to desire to eat, to sleep, to act
+in any way, at regular hours; nor to be unable to stay alone either by
+night or by day.  Prepare long beforehand for the time when he shall
+freely use all his strength.  Do this by leaving his body under the
+control of its natural bent, by fitting him to be always master of
+himself, and to carry out his own will in everything as soon as he has
+a will of his own.
+
+Since the only kinds of objects presented to him are likely to make him
+either timid or courageous, why should not his education begin before
+he speaks or understands?  I would habituate him to seeing new objects,
+though they be ugly, repulsive, or singular.  But let this be by
+degrees, and from a distance, until he has become accustomed to them,
+and, from seeing them handled by others, shall at last handle them
+himself.  If during his infancy he has seen without fear frogs,
+serpents, crawfishes, he will, when grown up, see without shrinking any
+animal that may be shown him.  For one who daily sees frightful
+objects, there are none such.
+
+All children are afraid of masks.  I begin by showing Emile the mask of
+a pleasant face.  By and by some one puts the mask upon his own face,
+so that the child can see it.  I begin to laugh; every one else laughs,
+and the child with the rest.  By degrees I familiarize him with less
+comely masks, and finally with really hideous ones.  If I have managed
+the process well, he will, far from being frightened at the last mask,
+laugh at it as he laughed at the first.  After that, I shall not fear
+his being frightened by any one with a mask.
+
+When, in the farewell scene between Hector and Andromache, the little
+Astyanax, terrified at the plume floating from a helmet, fails to
+recognize his father, throws himself, crying, upon his nurse's breast,
+and wins from his mother a smile bright with tears, what ought to be
+done to soothe his fear?  Precisely what Hector does.  He places the
+helmet on the ground, and then caresses his child.  At a more tranquil
+moment, this should not have been all.  They should have drawn near the
+helmet, played with its plumes, caused the child to handle them.  At
+last the nurse should have lifted the helmet and laughingly set it on
+her own head--if, indeed, the hand of a woman dared touch the armor of
+Hector.
+
+If I wish to familiarize Emile with the noise of fire-arms, I first
+burn some powder in a pistol.  The quickly vanishing flame, the new
+kind of lightning, greatly pleases him.  I repeat the process, using
+more powder.  By degrees I put into the pistol a small charge, without
+ramming it down; then a larger charge; finally, I accustom him to the
+noise of a gun, to bombs, to cannon-shots, to the most terrific noises.
+
+I have noticed that children are rarely afraid of thunder, unless,
+indeed, the thunder-claps are so frightful as actually to wound the
+organ of hearing.  Otherwise, they fear it only when they have been
+taught that thunder sometimes wounds or kills.  When reason begins to
+affright them, let habit reassure them.  By a slow and well conducted
+process the man or the child is rendered fearless of everything.
+
+In this outset of life, while memory and imagination are still
+inactive, the child pays attention only to what actually affects his
+senses.  The first materials of his knowledge are his sensations.  If,
+therefore, these are presented to him in suitable order, his memory can
+hereafter present them to his understanding in the same order.  But as
+he attends to his sensations only, it will at first suffice to show him
+very clearly the connection between these sensations, and the objects
+which give rise to them.  He is eager to touch everything, to handle
+everything.  Do not thwart this restless desire; it suggests to him a
+very necessary apprenticeship.  It is thus he learns to feel the heat
+and coldness, hardness and softness, heaviness and lightness of bodies;
+to judge of their size, their shape, and all their sensible qualities,
+by looking, by touching, by listening; above all, by comparing the
+results of sight with those of touch, estimating with the eye the
+sensation a thing produces upon the fingers.
+
+By movement alone we learn the existence of things which are not
+ourselves; and it is by our own movements alone that we gain the idea
+of extension.
+
+Because the child has not this idea, he stretches out his hand
+indifferently to seize an object which touches him, or one which is a
+hundred paces distant from him.  The effort he makes in doing this
+appears to you a sign of domination, an order he gives the object to
+come nearer, or to you to bring it to him.  It is nothing of the kind.
+It means only that the object seen first within the brain, then upon
+the eye, is now seen at arm's length, and that he does not conceive of
+any distance beyond his reach.  Be careful, then, to walk often with
+him, to transport him from one place to another, to let him feel the
+change of position, and, in this way to teach him how to judge of
+distances.  When he begins to know them, change the plan; carry him
+only where it is convenient for you to do so, and not wherever it
+pleases him.  For as soon as he is no longer deceived by the senses,
+his attempts arise from another cause.  This change is remarkable and
+demands explanation.
+
+The uneasiness arising from our wants expresses itself by signs
+whenever help in supplying these wants is needed; hence the cries of
+children.  They cry a great deal, and this is natural.  Since all their
+sensations are those of feeling, children enjoy them in silence, when
+the sensations are pleasant; otherwise they express them in their own
+language, and ask relief.  Now as long as children are awake they
+cannot be in a state of indifference; they either sleep or are moved by
+pleasure and pain.
+
+All our languages are the result of art.  Whether there is a natural
+language, common to all mankind, has long been a matter of
+investigation.  Without doubt there is such a language, and it is the
+one that children utter before they know how to talk.  This language is
+not articulate, but it is accentuated, sonorous, intelligible.  The
+using of our own language has led us to neglect this, even so far as to
+forget it altogether.  Let us study children, and we shall soon acquire
+it again from them.  Nurses are our teachers in this language.  They
+understand all their nurslings say, they answer them, they hold really
+connected dialogues with them.  And, although they pronounce words,
+these words are entirely useless; the child understands, not the
+meaning of the words, but the accent which accompanies them.
+
+To the language of the voice is added the no less forcible language of
+gesture.  This gesture is not that of children's feeble hands; it is
+that seen in their faces.  It is astonishing to see how much expression
+these immature countenances already have.  From moment to moment, their
+features change with inconceivable quickness.  On them you see the
+smile, the wish, the fear, spring into life, and pass away, like so
+many lightning flashes.  Each time you seem to see a different
+countenance.  They certainly have much more flexible facial muscles
+than ours.  On the other hand, their dull eyes tell us almost nothing
+at all.
+
+Such is naturally the character of their expression when all their
+wants are physical.  Sensations are made known by grimaces, sentiments
+by looks.
+
+As the first state of man is wretchedness and weakness, so his first
+utterances are complaints and tears.  The child feels his need and
+cannot satisfy it; he implores aid from others by crying.  If he is
+hungry or thirsty, he cries; if he is too cold or too warm, he cries;
+if he wishes to move or to be kept at rest, he cries; if he wishes to
+sleep or to be moved about, he cries.  The less control he has of his
+own mode of living, the oftener he asks those about him to change it.
+He has but one language, because he feels, so to speak, but one sort of
+discomfort.  In the imperfect condition of his organs, he does not
+distinguish their different impressions; all ills produce in him only a
+sensation of pain.
+
+From this crying, regarded as so little worthy of attention, arises the
+first relation of man to all that surrounds him; just here is forged
+the first link of that long chain which constitutes social order.
+
+When the child cries, he is ill at ease; he has some want that he
+cannot satisfy.  We examine into it, we search for the want, find it,
+and relieve it.  When we cannot find it, or relieve it, the crying
+continues.  We are annoyed by it; we caress the child to make him keep
+quiet, we rock him and sing to him, to lull him asleep.  If he
+persists, we grow impatient; we threaten him; brutal nurses sometimes
+strike him.  These are strange lessons for him upon his entrance into
+life.
+
+The first crying of children is a prayer.  If we do not heed it well,
+this crying soon becomes a command.  They begin by asking our aid; they
+end by compelling us to serve them.  Thus from their very weakness,
+whence comes, at first, their feeling of dependence, springs afterward
+the idea of empire, and of commanding others.  But as this idea is
+awakened less by their own wants, than by the fact that we are serving
+them, those moral results whose immediate cause is not in nature, are
+here perceived.  We therefore see why, even at this early age, it is
+important to discern the hidden purpose which dictates the gesture or
+the cry.
+
+When the child stretches forth his hand with an effort, but without a
+sound, he thinks he can reach some object, because he does not properly
+estimate its distance; he is mistaken.  But if, while stretching out
+his hand, he complains and cries, he is no longer deceived as to the
+distance.  He is commanding the object to come to him, or is directing
+you to bring it to him.  In the first case, carry him to the object
+slowly, and with short steps; in the second case, do not even appear to
+understand him.  It is worth while to habituate him early not to
+command people, for he is not their master; nor things, for they cannot
+understand him.  So, when a child wants something he sees, and we mean
+to give it to him, it is better to carry him to the object than to
+fetch the object to him.  From this practice of ours he will learn a
+lesson suited to his age, and there is no better way of suggesting this
+lesson to him.
+
+
+Maxims to Keep us True to Nature.
+
+Reason alone teaches us to know good and evil.  Conscience, which makes
+us love the one and hate the other, is independent of reason, but
+cannot grow strong without its aid.  Before reaching years of reason,
+we do good and evil unconsciously.  There is no moral character in our
+actions, although there sometimes is in our feeling toward those
+actions of others which relate to us.  A child likes to disturb
+everything he sees; he breaks, he shatters everything within his reach;
+he lays hold of a bird just as he would lay hold of a stone, and
+strangles it without knowing what he is doing.
+
+Why is this?  At first view, philosophy would account for it on the
+ground of vices natural to us--pride, the spirit of domination,
+self-love, the wickedness of mankind.  It would perhaps add, that the
+sense of his own weakness makes the child eager to do things requiring
+strength, and so prove to himself his own power.  But see that old man,
+infirm and broken down, whom the cycle of human life brings back to the
+weakness of childhood.  Not only does he remain immovable and quiet,
+but he wishes everything about him to be in the same condition.  The
+slightest change disturbs and disquiets him; he would like to see
+stillness reigning everywhere.  How could the same powerlessness,
+joined to the same passions, produce such different effects in the two
+ages, if the primary cause were not changed?  And where can we seek for
+this difference of cause, unless it be in the physical condition of the
+two individuals?  The active principle common to the two is developing
+in the one, and dying out in the other; the one is growing, and the
+other is wearing itself out; the one is tending toward life, and the
+other toward death.  Failing activity concentrates itself in the heart
+of the old man; in the child it is superabounding, and reaches outward;
+he seems to feel within him life enough to animate all that surrounds
+him.  Whether he makes or unmakes matters little to him.  It is enough
+that he changes the condition of things, and that every change is an
+action.  If he seems more inclined to destroy things, it is not out of
+perverseness, but because the action which creates is always slow; and
+that which destroys, being more rapid, better suits his natural
+sprightliness.
+
+While the Author of nature gives children this active principle, he
+takes care that it shall do little harm; for he leaves them little
+power to indulge it.  But no sooner do they look upon those about them
+as instruments which it is their business to set in motion, than they
+make use of them in following their own inclinations and in making up
+for their own want of strength.  In this way they become disagreeable,
+tyrannical, imperious, perverse, unruly; a development not arising from
+a natural spirit of domination, but creating such a spirit.  For no
+very long experience is requisite in teaching how pleasant it is to act
+through others, and to need only move one's tongue to set the world in
+motion.
+
+As we grow up, we gain strength, we become less uneasy and restless, we
+shut ourselves more within ourselves.  The soul and the body put
+themselves in equilibrium, as it were, and nature requires no more
+motion than is necessary for out preservation.
+
+But the wish to command outlives the necessity from which, it sprang;
+power to control others awakens and gratifies self-love, and habit
+makes it strong.  Thus need gives place to whim; thus do prejudices and
+opinions first root themselves within us.
+
+The principle once understood, we see clearly the point at which we
+leave the path of nature.  Let us discover what we ought to do, to keep
+within it.
+
+Far from having too much strength, children have not even enough for
+all that nature demands of them.  We ought, then, to leave them the
+free use of all natural strength which they cannot misuse.  First maxim.
+
+We must aid them, supplying whatever they lack in intelligence, in
+strength, in all that belongs to physical necessity.  Second maxim.
+
+In helping them, we must confine ourselves to what is really of use to
+them, yielding nothing to their whims or unreasonable wishes.  For
+their own caprice will not trouble them unless we ourselves create it;
+it is not a natural thing.  Third maxim.
+
+We must study carefully their language and their signs, so that, at an
+age when they cannot dissemble, we may judge which of their desires
+spring from nature itself, and which of them from opinion.  Fourth
+maxim.
+
+The meaning of these rules is, to allow children more personal freedom
+and less authority; to let them do more for themselves, and exact less
+from others.  Thus accustomed betimes to desire only what they can
+obtain or do for themselves, they will feel less keenly the want of
+whatever is not within their own power.
+
+Here there is another and very important reason for leaving children
+absolutely free as to body and limbs, with the sole precaution of
+keeping them from the danger of falling, and of putting out of their
+reach everything that can injure them.
+
+Doubtless a child whose body and arms are free will cry less than one
+bound fast in swaddling clothes.  He who feels only physical wants
+cries only when he suffers, and this is a great advantage.  For then we
+know exactly when he requires help, and we ought not to delay one
+moment in giving him help, if possible.
+
+But if you cannot relieve him, keep quiet; do not try to soothe him by
+petting him.  Your caresses will not cure his colic; but he will
+remember what he has to do in order to be petted.  And if he once
+discovers that he can, at will, busy you about him, he will have become
+your master; the mischief is done.
+
+If children were not so much thwarted in their movements, they would
+not cry so much; if we were less annoyed by their crying, we would take
+less pains to hush them; if they were not so often threatened or
+caressed, they would be less timid or less stubborn, and more truly
+themselves as nature made them.  It is not so often by letting children
+cry, as by hastening to quiet them, that we make them rupture
+themselves.  The proof of this is that the children most neglected are
+less subject than others to this infirmity.  I am far from wishing them
+to be neglected, however.  On the contrary, we ought to anticipate
+their wants, and not wait to be notified of these by the children's
+crying.  Yet I would not have them misunderstand the cares we bestow on
+them.  Why should they consider crying a fault, when they find that it
+avails so much?  Knowing the value of their silence, they will be
+careful not to be lavish of it.  They will, at last, make it so costly
+that we can no longer pay for it; and then it is that by crying without
+success they strain, weaken, and kill themselves.
+
+The long crying fits of a child who is not compressed or ill, or
+allowed to want for anything, are from habit and obstinacy.  They are
+by no means the work of nature, but of the nurse, who, because she
+cannot endure the annoyance, multiplies it, without reflecting that by
+stilling the child to-day, he is induced to cry the more to-morrow.
+
+The only way to cure or prevent this habit is to pay no attention to
+it.  No one, not even a child, likes to take unnecessary trouble.
+
+They are stubborn in their attempts; but if you have more firmness than
+they have obstinacy, they are discouraged, and do not repeat the
+attempt.  Thus we spare them some tears, and accustom them to cry only
+when pain forces them to it.
+
+Nevertheless when they do cry from caprice or stubbornness, a sure way
+to prevent their continuing is, to turn their attention to some
+agreeable and striking object, and so make them forget their desire to
+cry.  In this art most nurses excel, and when skilfully employed, it is
+very effective.  But it is highly important that the child should not
+know of our intention to divert him, and that he should amuse himself
+without at all thinking we have him in mind.  In this all nurses are
+unskilful.
+
+All children are weaned too early.  The proper time is indicated by
+their teething.  This process is usually painful and distressing.  By a
+mechanical instinct the child, at that time, carries to his mouth and
+chews everything he holds.  We think we make the operation easier by
+giving him for a plaything some hard substance, such as ivory or coral.
+I think we are mistaken.  Far from softening the gums, these hard
+bodies, when applied, render them hard and callous, and prepare the way
+for a more painful and distressing laceration.  Let us always take
+instinct for guide.  We never see puppies try their growing teeth upon
+flints, or iron, or bones, but upon wood, or leather, or rags,--upon
+soft materials, which give way, and on which the tooth impresses itself.
+
+We no longer aim at simplicity, even where children are concerned.
+Golden and silver bells, corals, crystals, toys of every price, of
+every sort.  What useless and mischievous affectations they are!  Let
+there be none of them,--no bells, no toys.
+
+A little twig covered with its own leaves and fruit,--a poppy-head, in
+which the seeds can be heard rattling,--a stick of liquorice he can
+suck and chew, these will amuse a child quite as well as the splendid
+baubles, and will not disadvantage him by accustoming him to luxury
+from his very birth.
+
+
+Language.
+
+From the time they are born, children hear people speak.  They are
+spoken to not only before they understand what is said to them, but
+before they can repeat the sounds they hear.  Their organs, still
+benumbed, adapt themselves only by degrees to imitating the sounds
+dictated to them, and it is not even certain that these sounds are
+borne to their ears at first as distinctly as to ours.
+
+I do not disapprove of a nurse's amusing the child with songs, and with
+blithe and varied tones.  But I do disapprove of her perpetually
+deafening him with a multitude of useless words, of which he
+understands only the tone she gives them.
+
+I would like the first articulate sounds he must hear to be few in
+number, easy, distinct, often repeated.  The words they form should
+represent only material objects which can be shown him.  Our
+unfortunate readiness to content ourselves with words that have no
+meaning to us whatever, begins earlier than we suppose.  Even as in his
+swaddling-clothes the child hears his nurse's babble, he hears in class
+the verbiage of his teacher.  It strikes me that if he were to be so
+brought up that he could not understand it at all, he would be very
+well instructed.[6]
+
+Reflections crowd upon us when we set about discussing the formation of
+children's language, and their baby talk itself.  In spite of us, they
+always learn to speak by the same process, and all our philosophical
+speculations about it are entirely useless.
+
+They seem, at first, to have a grammar adapted to their own age,
+although its rules of syntax are more general than ours.  And if we
+were to pay close attention to them, we should be astonished at the
+exactness with which they follow certain analogies, very faulty if you
+will, but very regular, that are displeasing only because harsh, or
+because usage does not recognize them.
+
+It is unbearable pedantry, and a most useless labor, to attempt
+correcting in children every little fault against usage; they never
+fail themselves to correct these faults in time.  Always speak
+correctly in their presence; order it so that they are never so happy
+with any one as with you; and rest assured their language will
+insensibly be purified by your own, without your having ever reproved
+them.
+
+But another error, which has an entirely different bearing on the
+matter, and is no less easy to prevent, is our being over-anxious to
+make them speak, as if we feared they might not of their own accord
+learn to do so.  Our injudicious haste has an effect exactly contrary
+to what we wish.  On account of it they learn more slowly and speak
+more indistinctly.  The marked attention paid to everything they utter
+makes it unnecessary for them to articulate distinctly.  As they hardly
+condescend to open their lips, many retain throughout life an imperfect
+pronunciation and a confused manner of speaking, which makes them
+nearly unintelligible.
+
+Children who are too much urged to speak have not time sufficient for
+learning either to pronounce carefully or to understand thoroughly what
+they are made to say.  If, instead, they are left to themselves, they
+at first practise using the syllables they can most readily utter; and
+gradually attaching to these some meaning that can be gathered from
+their gestures, they give you their own words before acquiring yours.
+Thus they receive yours only after they understand them.  Not being
+urged to use them, they notice carefully what meaning you give them;
+and, when they are sure of this, they adopt it as their own.
+
+The greatest evil arising from our haste to make children speak before
+they are old enough is not that our first talks with them, and the
+first words they use, have no meaning to them, but that they have a
+meaning different from ours, without our being able to perceive it.
+Thus, while they seem to be answering us very correctly, they are
+really addressing us without understanding us, and without our
+understanding them.  To such ambiguous discourse is due the surprise we
+sometimes feel at their sayings, to which we attach ideas the children
+themselves have not dreamed of.  This inattention of ours to the true
+meaning words have for children seems to me the cause of their first
+mistakes, and these errors, even after children are cured of them,
+influence their turn of mind for the remainder of their life.
+
+The first developments of childhood occur almost all at once.  The
+child learns to speak, to eat, to walk, nearly at the same time.  This
+is, properly, the first epoch of his life.  Before then he is nothing
+more than he was before he was born; he has not a sentiment, not an
+idea; he scarcely has sensations; he does not feel even his own
+existence.
+
+
+
+[1] It is useless to enlarge upon the absurdity of this theory, and
+upon the flagrant contradiction into which Rousseau allows himself to
+fall.  If he is right, man ought to be left without education, and the
+earth without cultivation.  This would not be even the savage state.
+But want of space forbids us to pause at each like statement of our
+author, who at once busies himself in nullifying it.
+
+[2] The voice of Rousseau was heard.  The nursing of children by their
+own mothers, which had gone into disuse as vulgar and troublesome,
+became a fashion.  Great ladies prided themselves upon returning to the
+usage of nature, and infants were brought in with the dessert to give
+an exhibition of maternal tenderness.  This affectation died out, but
+in most families the good and wholesome custom of motherhood was
+retained.  This page of Rousseau's contributed its share to the happy
+result.
+
+[3] This remark is not a just one.  How often have we seen unhappy
+creatures disgusted with life because of some dreadful and incurable
+malady?  It is true that suicide, being an act of madness, is more
+frequently caused by those troubles which imagination delights itself
+in magnifying up to the point of insanity.
+
+[4] This is an allusion to one of the most unfortunate episodes in the
+life of Rousseau,--his abandoning of the children whom Therese
+Levasseur bore him, and whom he sent to a foundling hospital because he
+felt within him neither courage to labor for their support, nor
+capacity to educate them.  Sad practical defect in this teacher of
+theories of education!
+
+[5] For the particular example of education which he supposes, Rousseau
+creates a tutor whom he consecrates absolutely, exclusively, to the
+work.  He desires one so perfect that he calls him a prodigy.  Let us
+not blame him for this.  The ideal of those who assume the noble and
+difficult office of a teacher of childhood cannot be placed too high.
+As to the pupil, Rousseau imagines a child of average ability, in easy
+circumstances, and of robust health.  He makes him an only son and an
+orphan, so that no family vicissitudes may disturb the logic of his
+plan.
+
+All this may be summed up by saying that he considers the child in
+himself with regard to his individual development, and without regard
+to his relations to ordinary life.  This at the same time renders his
+task easy, and deprives him of an important element of education.
+
+[6] No doubt this sarcasm is applicable to those teachers who talk so
+as to say nothing.  A teacher ought, on the contrary, to speak only so
+as to be understood by the child.  He ought to adapt himself to the
+child's capacity; to employ no useless or conventional expressions; his
+language ought to arouse curiosity and to impart light.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SECOND.
+
+
+The second book takes the child at about the fifth year, and conducts
+him to about the twelfth year.  He is no longer the little child; he is
+the young boy.  His education becomes more important.  It consists not
+in studies, in reading or writing, or in duties, but in well-chosen
+plays, in ingenious recreations, in well-directed experiments.
+
+There should be no exaggerated precautions, and, on the other hand, no
+harshness, no punishments.  We must love the child, and encourage his
+playing.  To make him realize his weakness and the narrow limits within
+which it can work, to keep the child dependent only on circumstances,
+will suffice, without ever making him feel the yoke of the master.
+
+The best education is accomplished in the country.  Teaching by means
+of things.  Criticism of the ordinary method.  Education of the senses
+by continually exercising them.
+
+
+
+Avoid taking too many Precautions.
+
+This is the second period of life, and the one at which, properly
+speaking, infancy ends; for the words _infans_ and _puer_ are not
+synonymous.[1]  The first is included in the second, and means _one who
+cannot speak_: thus in Valerius Maximus we find the expression _puerum
+infantem_.  But I shall continue to employ the word according to the
+usage of the French language, until I am describing the age for which
+there are other names.
+
+When children begin to speak, they cry less often.  This step in
+advance is natural; one language is substituted for another.  As soon
+as they can utter their complaints in words, why should they cry,
+unless the suffering is too keen to be expressed by words?  If they
+then continue to cry, it is the fault of those around them.  After
+Emile has once said, "It hurts me," only acute suffering can force him
+to cry.
+
+If the child is physically so delicate and sensitive that he naturally
+cries about nothing, I will soon exhaust the fountain of his tears, by
+making them ineffectual.  So long as he cries, I will not go to him; as
+soon as he stops, I will run to him.  Very soon his method of calling
+me will be to keep quiet, or at the utmost, to utter a single cry.
+Children judge of the meaning of signs by their palpable effect; they
+have no other rule.  Whatever harm a child may do himself, he very
+rarely cries when alone, unless with the hope of being heard.
+
+If he fall, if he bruise his head, if his nose bleed, if he cut his
+finger, I should, instead of bustling about him with a look of alarm,
+remain quiet, at least for a little while.  The mischief is done; he
+must endure it; all my anxiety will only serve to frighten him more,
+and to increase his sensitiveness.  After all, when we hurt ourselves,
+it is less the shock which pains us than the fright.  I will spare him
+at least this last pang; for he will certainly estimate his hurt as he
+sees me estimate it.  If he sees me run anxiously to comfort and to
+pity him, he will think himself seriously hurt; but if he sees me keep
+my presence of mind, he will soon recover his own, and will think the
+pain cured when he no longer feels it.  At his age we learn our first
+lessons in courage; and by fearlessly enduring lighter sufferings, we
+gradually learn to bear the heavier ones.
+
+Far from taking care that Emile does not hurt himself, I shall be
+dissatisfied if he never does, and so grows up unacquainted with pain.
+To suffer is the first and most necessary thing for him to learn.
+Children are little and weak, apparently that they may learn these
+important lessons.  If a child fall his whole length, he will not break
+his leg; if he strike himself with a stick, he will not break his arm;
+if he lay hold of an edged tool, he does not grasp it tightly, and will
+not cut himself very badly.
+
+Our pedantic mania for instructing constantly leads us to teach
+children what they can learn far better for themselves, and to lose
+sight of what we alone can teach them.  Is there anything more absurd
+than the pains we take in teaching them to walk?  As if we had ever
+seen one, who, through his nurse's negligence, did not know how to walk
+when grown!  On the contrary, how many people do we see moving
+awkwardly all their lives because they have been badly taught how to
+walk!
+
+Emile shall have no head-protectors, nor carriages, nor go-carts, nor
+leading-strings.  Or at least from the time when he begins to be able
+to put one foot before the other, he shall not be supported, except
+over paved places; and he shall be hurried over these.  Instead of
+letting him suffocate in the exhausted air indoors, let him be taken
+every day, far out into the fields.  There let him run about, play,
+fall down a hundred times a day; the oftener the better, as he will the
+sooner learn to get up again by himself.  The boon of freedom is worth
+many scars.  My pupil will have many bruises, but to make amends for
+that, he will be always light-hearted.  Though your pupils are less
+often hurt, they are continually thwarted, fettered; they are always
+unhappy.  I doubt whether the advantage be on their side.
+
+The development of their physical strength makes complaint less
+necessary to children.  When able to help themselves, they have less
+need of the help of others.  Knowledge to direct their strength grows
+with that strength.  At this second stage the life of the individual
+properly begins; he now becomes conscious of his own being.  Memory
+extends this feeling of personal identity to every moment of his
+existence; he becomes really one, the same one, and consequently
+capable of happiness or of misery.  We must therefore, from this
+moment, begin to regard him as a moral being.
+
+
+Childhood is to be Loved.
+
+Although the longest term of human life, and the probability, at any
+given age, of reaching this term, have been computed, nothing is more
+uncertain than the continuance of each individual life: very few attain
+the maximum.  The greatest risks in life are at its beginning; the less
+one has lived, the less prospect he has of living.
+
+Of all children born, only about half reach youth; and it is probable
+that your pupil may never attain to manhood.  What, then, must be
+thought of that barbarous education which sacrifices the present to an
+uncertain future, loads the child with every description of fetters,
+and begins, by making him wretched, to prepare for him some far-away
+indefinite happiness he may never enjoy!  Even supposing the object of
+such an education reasonable, how can we without indignation see the
+unfortunate creatures bowed under an insupportable yoke, doomed to
+constant labor like so many galley-slaves, without any certainty that
+all this toil will ever be of use to them!  The years that ought to be
+bright and cheerful are passed in tears amid punishments, threats, and
+slavery.  For his own good, the unhappy child is tortured; and the
+death thus summoned will seize on him unperceived amidst all this
+melancholy preparation.  Who knows how many children die on account of
+the extravagant prudence of a father or of a teacher?  Happy in
+escaping his cruelty, it gives them one advantage; they leave without
+regret a life which they know only from its darker side.[2]
+
+O men, be humane! it is your highest duty; be humane to all conditions
+of men, to every age, to everything not alien to mankind.  What higher
+wisdom is there for you than humanity?  Love childhood; encourage its
+sports, its pleasures, its lovable instincts.  Who among us has not at
+times looked back with regret to the age when a smile was continually
+on our lips, when the soul was always at peace?  Why should we rob
+these little innocent creatures of the enjoyment of a time so brief, so
+transient, of a boon so precious, which they cannot misuse?  Why will
+you fill with bitterness and sorrow these fleeting years which can no
+more return to them than to you?  Do you know, you fathers, the moment
+when death awaits your children?  Do not store up for yourselves
+remorse, by taking from them the brief moments nature has given them.
+As soon as they can appreciate the delights of existence, let them
+enjoy it.  At whatever hour God may call them, let them not die without
+having tasted life at all.
+
+You answer, "It is the time to correct the evil tendencies of the human
+heart.  In childhood, when sufferings are less keenly felt, they ought
+to be multiplied, so that fewer of them will have to be encountered
+during the age of reason."  But who has told you that it is your
+province to make this arrangement, and that all these fine
+instructions, with which you burden the tender mind of a child, will
+not one day be more pernicious than useful to him?  Who assures you
+that you spare him anything when you deal him afflictions with so
+lavish a hand?  Why do you cause him more unhappiness than he can bear,
+when you are not sure that the future will compensate him for these
+present evils?  And how can you prove that the evil tendencies of which
+you pretend to cure him will not arise from your mistaken care rather
+than from nature itself!  Unhappy foresight, which renders a creature
+actually miserable, in the hope, well or ill founded, of one day making
+him happy!  If these vulgar reasoners confound license with liberty,
+and mistake a spoiled child for a child who is made happy, let us teach
+them to distinguish the two.
+
+To avoid being misled, let us remember what really accords with our
+present abilities.  Humanity has its place in the general order of
+things; childhood has its place in the order of human life.  Mankind
+must be considered in the individual man, and childhood in the
+individual child.  To assign each his place, and to establish him in
+it--to direct human passions as human nature will permit--is all we can
+do for his welfare.  The rest depends on outside influences not under
+our control.
+
+
+Neither Slaves nor Tyrants.
+
+He alone has his own way who, to compass it, does not need the arm of
+another to lengthen his own.  Consequently freedom, and not authority,
+is the greatest good.  A man who desires only what he can do for
+himself is really free to do whatever he pleases.  From this axiom, if
+it be applied to the case of childhood, all the rules of education will
+follow.
+
+A wise man understands how to remain in his own place; but a child, who
+does not know his, cannot preserve it.  As matters stand, there are a
+thousand ways of leaving it.  Those who govern him are to keep him in
+it, and this is not an easy task.  He ought to be neither an animal nor
+a man, but a child.  He should feel his weakness, and yet not suffer
+from it.  He should depend, not obey; he should demand, not command.
+He is subject to others only by reason of his needs, and because others
+see better than he what is useful to him, what will contribute to his
+well-being or will impair it.  No one, not even his father, has a right
+to command a child to do what is of no use to him whatever.
+
+Accustom the child to depend only on circumstances, and as his
+education goes on, you will follow the order of nature.  Never oppose
+to his imprudent wishes anything but physical obstacles, or punishments
+which arise from the actions themselves, and which he will remember
+when the occasion comes.  It is enough to prevent his doing harm,
+without forbidding it.  With him only experience, or want of power,
+should take the place of law.  Do not give him anything because he asks
+for it, but because he needs it.  When he acts, do not let him know
+that it is from obedience; and when another acts for him, let him not
+feel that he is exercising authority.  Let him feel his liberty as much
+in your actions as in his own.  Add to the power he lacks exactly
+enough to make him free and not imperious, so that, accepting your aid
+with a kind of humiliation, he may aspire to the moment when he can
+dispense with it, and have the honor of serving himself.  For
+strengthening the body and promoting its growth, nature has means which
+ought never to be thwarted.  A child ought not to be constrained to
+stay anywhere when he wishes to go away, or to go away when he wishes
+to stay.  When their will is not spoiled by our own fault, children do
+not wish for anything without good reason.  They ought to leap, to run,
+to shout, whenever they will.  All their movements are necessities of
+nature, which is endeavoring to strengthen itself.  But we must take
+heed of those wishes they cannot themselves accomplish, but must fulfil
+by the hand of another.  Therefore care should be taken to distinguish
+the real wants, the wants of nature, from those which arise from fancy
+or from the redundant life just mentioned.
+
+I have already suggested what should be done when a child cries for
+anything.  I will only add that, as soon as he can ask in words for
+what he wants, and, to obtain it sooner, or to overcome a refusal,
+reinforces his request by crying, it should never be granted him.  If
+necessity has made him speak, you ought to know it, and at once to
+grant what he demands.  But yielding to his tears is encouraging him to
+shed them: it teaches him to doubt your good will, and to believe that
+importunity has more influence over you than your own kindness of heart
+has.
+
+If he does not believe you good, he will soon be bad; if he believes
+you weak, he will soon be stubborn.  It is of great importance that you
+at once consent to what you do not intend to refuse him.  Do not refuse
+often, but never revoke a refusal.
+
+Above all things, beware of teaching the child empty formulas of
+politeness which shall serve him instead of magic words to subject to
+his own wishes all who surround him, and to obtain instantly what he
+likes.  In the artificial education of the rich they are infallibly
+made politely imperious, by having prescribed to them what terms to use
+so that no one shall dare resist them.  Such children have neither the
+tones nor the speech of suppliants; they are as arrogant when they
+request as when they command, and even more so, for in the former case
+they are more sure of being obeyed.  From the first it is readily seen
+that, coming from them, "If you please" means "It pleases me"; and that
+"I beg" signifies "I order you."  Singular politeness this, by which
+they only change the meaning of words, and so never speak but with
+authority!  For myself, I dread far less Emile's being rude than his
+being arrogant.  I would rather have him say "Do this" as if requesting
+than "I beg you" as if commanding.  I attach far less importance to the
+term he uses than to the meaning he associates with it.
+
+Over-strictness and over-indulgence are equally to be avoided.  If you
+let children suffer, you endanger their health and their life; you make
+them actually wretched.  If you carefully spare them every kind of
+annoyance, you are storing up for them much unhappiness; you are making
+them delicate and sensitive to pain; you are removing them from the
+common lot of man, into which, in spite of all your care, they will one
+day return.  To save them some natural discomforts, you contrive for
+them others which nature has not inflicted.
+
+You will charge me with falling into the mistake of those fathers I
+have reproached for sacrificing their children's happiness to
+considerations of a far-away future that may never be.  Not so; for the
+freedom I give my pupil will amply supply him with the slight
+discomforts to which I leave him exposed.  I see the little rogues
+playing in the snow, blue with cold, and scarcely able to move their
+fingers.  They have only to go and warm themselves, but they do nothing
+of the kind.  If they are compelled to do so, they feel the constraint
+a hundred times more than they do the cold.  Why then do you complain?
+Shall I make your child unhappy if I expose him only to those
+inconveniences he is perfectly willing to endure?  By leaving him at
+liberty, I do him service now; by arming him against the ills he must
+encounter, I do him service for the time to come.  If he could choose
+between being my pupil or yours, do you think he would hesitate a
+moment?
+
+Can we conceive of any creature's being truly happy outside of what
+belongs to its own peculiar nature?  And if we would have a man exempt
+from all human misfortunes, would it not estrange him from humanity?
+Undoubtedly it would; for we are so constituted that to appreciate
+great good fortune we must be acquainted with slight misfortunes.  If
+the body be too much at ease the moral nature becomes corrupted.  The
+man unacquainted with suffering would not know the tender feelings of
+humanity or the sweetness of compassion; he would not be a social
+being; he would be a monster among his kind.
+
+The surest way to make a child unhappy is to accustom him to obtain
+everything he wants to have.  For, since his wishes multiply in
+proportion to the ease with which they are gratified, your inability to
+fulfil them will sooner or later oblige you to refuse in spite of
+yourself, and this unwonted refusal will pain him more than withholding
+from him what he demands.  At first he will want the cane you hold;
+soon he will want your watch; afterward he will want the bird he sees
+flying, or the star he sees shining.  He will want everything he sees,
+and without being God himself how can you content him?
+
+Man is naturally disposed to regard as his own whatever is within his
+power.  In this sense the principle of Hobbes is correct up to a
+certain point; multiply with our desires the means of satisfying them,
+and each of us will make himself master of everything.  Hence the child
+who has only to wish in order to obtain his wish, thinks himself the
+owner of the universe.  He regards all men as his slaves, and when at
+last he must be denied something, he, believing everything possible
+when he commands it, takes refusal for an act of rebellion.  At his
+age, incapable of reasoning, all reasons given seem to him only
+pretexts.  He sees ill-will in everything; the feeling of imagined
+injustice embitters his temper; he begins to hate everybody, and
+without ever being thankful for kindness, is angry at any opposition
+whatever.
+
+Who supposes that a child thus ruled by anger, a prey to furious
+passions, can ever be happy?  He happy?  He is a tyrant; that is, the
+vilest of slaves, and at the same time the most miserable of beings.  I
+have seen children thus reared who wanted those about them to push the
+house down, to give them the weathercock they saw on a steeple, to stop
+the march of a regiment so that they could enjoy the drum-beat a little
+longer; and as soon as obedience to these demands was delayed they rent
+the air with their screams, and would listen to no one.  In vain
+everybody tried eagerly to gratify them.  The ease with which they
+found their wishes obeyed stimulated them to desire more, and to be
+stubborn about impossibilities.  Everywhere they found only
+contradictions, impediments, suffering, and sorrow.  Always
+complaining, always refractory, always angry, they spent the time in
+crying and fretting; were these creatures happy?  Authority and
+weakness conjoined produce only madness and wretchedness.  One of two
+spoiled children beats the table, and the other has the sea lashed.[3]
+They will have much to beat and to lash before they are satisfied with
+life.
+
+If these ideas of authority and of tyranny make them unhappy from their
+very childhood, how will it be with them when they are grown, and when
+their relations with others begin to be extended and multiplied?
+
+Accustomed to seeing everything give way before them, how surprised
+they will be on entering the world to find themselves crushed beneath
+the weight of that universe they have expected to move at their own
+pleasure!  Their insolent airs and childish vanity will only bring upon
+them mortification, contempt, and ridicule; they must swallow affront
+after affront; cruel trials will teach them that they understand
+neither their own position nor their own strength.  Unable to do
+everything, they will think themselves unable to do anything.  So many
+unusual obstacles dishearten them, so much contempt degrades them.
+They become base, cowardly, cringing, and sink as far below their real
+self as they had imagined themselves above it.
+
+Let us return to the original order of things.  Nature has made
+children to be loved and helped; has she made them to be obeyed and
+feared?  Has she given them an imposing air, a stern eye, a harsh and
+threatening voice, so that they may inspire fear?  I can understand why
+the roar of a lion fills other creatures with dread, and why they
+tremble at sight of his terrible countenance.  But if ever there were
+an unbecoming, hateful, ridiculous spectacle, it is that of a body of
+magistrates in their robes of ceremony, and headed by their chief,
+prostrate before an infant in long clothes, who to their pompous
+harangue replies only by screams or by childish drivel![4]
+
+Considering infancy in itself, is there a creature on earth more
+helpless, more unhappy, more at the mercy of everything around him,
+more in need of compassion, of care, of protection, than a child?  Does
+it not seem as if his sweet face and touching aspect were intended to
+interest every one who comes near him, and to urge them to assist his
+weakness?  What then is more outrageous, more contrary to the fitness
+of things, than to see an imperious and headstrong child ordering about
+those around him, impudently taking the tone of a master toward those
+who, to destroy him, need only leave him to himself!
+
+On the other hand, who does not see that since the weakness of infancy
+fetters children in so many ways, we are barbarous if we add to this
+natural subjection a bondage to our own caprices by taking from them
+the limited freedom they have, a freedom they are so little able to
+misuse, and from the loss of which we and they have so little to gain?
+As nothing is more ridiculous than a haughty child, so nothing is more
+pitiable than a cowardly child.
+
+Since with years of reason civil bondage[5] begins, why anticipate it
+by slavery at home?  Let us leave one moment of life exempt from a yoke
+nature has not laid upon us, and allow childhood the exercise of that
+natural liberty which keeps it safe, at least for a time, from the
+vices taught by slavery.  Let the over-strict teacher and the
+over-indulgent parent both come with their empty cavils, and before
+they boast of their own methods let them learn the method of Nature
+herself.
+
+
+Reasoning should not begin too soon.
+
+Locke's great maxim was that we ought to reason with children, and just
+now this maxim is much in fashion.  I think, however, that its success
+does not warrant its reputation, and I find nothing more stupid than
+children who have been so much reasoned with.  Reason, apparently a
+compound of all other faculties, the one latest developed, and with
+most difficulty, is the one proposed as agent in unfolding the
+faculties earliest used!  The noblest work of education is to make a
+reasoning man, and we expect to train a young child by making him
+reason!  This is beginning at the end; this is making an instrument of
+a result.  If children understood how to reason they would not need to
+be educated.  But by addressing them from their tenderest years in a
+language they cannot understand, you accustom them to be satisfied with
+words, to find fault with whatever is said to them, to think themselves
+as wise as their teachers, to wrangle and rebel.  And what we mean they
+shall do from reasonable motives we are forced to obtain from them by
+adding the motive of avarice, or of fear, or of vanity.
+
+Nature intends that children shall be children before they are men.  If
+we insist on reversing this order we shall have fruit early indeed, but
+unripe and tasteless, and liable to early decay; we shall have young
+savants and old children.  Childhood has its own methods of seeing,
+thinking, and feeling.  Nothing shows less sense than to try to
+substitute our own methods for these.  I would rather require a child
+ten years old to be five feet tall than to be judicious.  Indeed, what
+use would he have at that age for the power to reason?  It is a check
+upon physical strength, and the child needs none.
+
+In attempting to persuade your pupils to obedience you add to this
+alleged persuasion force and threats, or worse still, flattery and
+promises.  Bought over in this way by interest, or constrained by
+force, they pretend to be convinced by reason.  They see plainly that
+as soon as you discover obedience or disobedience in their conduct, the
+former is an advantage and the latter a disadvantage to them.  But you
+ask of them only what is distasteful to them; it is always irksome to
+carry out the wishes of another, so by stealth they carry out their
+own.  They are sure that if their disobedience is not known they are
+doing well; but they are ready, for fear of greater evils, to
+acknowledge, if found out, that they are doing wrong.  As the reason
+for the duty required is beyond their capacity, no one can make them
+really understand it.  But the fear of punishment, the hope of
+forgiveness, your importunity, their difficulty in answering you,
+extort from them the confession required of them.  You think you have
+convinced them, when you have only wearied them out or intimidated them.
+
+What results from this?  First of all that, by imposing upon them a
+duty they do not feel as such, you set them against your tyranny, and
+dissuade them from loving you; you teach them to be dissemblers,
+deceitful, willfully untrue, for the sake of extorting rewards or of
+escaping punishments.  Finally, by habituating them to cover a secret
+motive by an apparent motive, you give them the means of constantly
+misleading you, of concealing their true character from you, and of
+satisfying yourself and others with empty words when their occasion
+demands.  You may say that the law, although binding on the conscience,
+uses constraint in dealing with grown men.  I grant it; but what are
+these men but children spoiled by their education?  This is precisely
+what ought to be prevented.  With children use force, with men reason;
+such is the natural order of things.  The wise man requires no laws.
+
+
+Well-Regulated Liberty.
+
+Treat your pupil as his age demands.  From the first, assign him to his
+true place, and keep him there so effectually that he will not try to
+leave it.  Then, without knowing what wisdom is, he will practise its
+most important lesson.  Never, absolutely never, command him to do a
+thing, whatever it may be.[6]  Do not let him even imagine that you
+claim any authority over him.  Let him know only that he is weak and
+you are strong: that from his condition and yours he is necessarily at
+your mercy.  Let him know this--learn it and feel it.  Let him early
+know that upon his haughty neck is the stern yoke nature imposes upon
+man, the heavy yoke of necessity, under which every finite being must
+toil.
+
+Let him discover this necessity in the nature of things; never in human
+caprice.  Let the rein that holds him back be power, not authority.  Do
+not forbid, but prevent, his doing what he ought not; and in thus
+preventing him use no explanations, give no reasons.  What you grant
+him, grant at the first asking without any urging, any entreaty from
+him, and above all without conditions.  Consent with pleasure and
+refuse unwillingly, but let every refusal be irrevocable.  Let no
+importunity move you.  Let the "No" once uttered be a wall of brass
+against which the child will have to exhaust his strength only five or
+six times before he ceases trying to overturn it.
+
+In this way you will make him patient, even-tempered, resigned, gentle,
+even when he has not what he wants.  For it is in our nature to endure
+patiently the decrees of fate, but not the ill-will of others.  "There
+is no more," is an answer against which no child ever rebelled unless
+he believed it untrue.  Besides, there is no other way; either nothing
+at all is to be required of him, or he must from the first be
+accustomed to perfect obedience.  The worst training of all is to leave
+him wavering between his own will and yours, and to dispute incessantly
+with him as to which shall be master.  I should a hundred times prefer
+his being master in every case.
+
+It is marvellous that in undertaking to educate a child no other means
+of guiding him should have been devised than emulation, jealousy, envy,
+vanity, greed, vile fear,--all of them passions most dangerous,
+readiest to ferment, fittest to corrupt a soul, even before the body is
+full-grown.  For each instruction too early put into a child's head, a
+vice is deeply implanted in his heart.  Foolish teachers think they are
+doing wonders when they make a child wicked, in order to teach him what
+goodness is; and then they gravely tell us, "Such is man."  Yes; such
+is the man you have made.
+
+All means have been tried save one, and that the very one which insures
+success, namely, well-regulated freedom.  We ought not to undertake a
+child's education unless we know how to lead him wherever we please
+solely by the laws of the possible and the impossible.  The sphere of
+both being alike unknown to him, we may extend or contract it around
+him as we will.  We may bind him down, incite him to action, restrain
+him by the leash of necessity alone, and he will not murmur.  We may
+render him pliant and teachable by the force of circumstances alone,
+without giving any vice an opportunity to take root within him.  For
+the passions never awake to life, so long as they are of no avail.
+
+Do not give your pupil any sort of lesson verbally: he ought to receive
+none except from experience.  Inflict upon him no kind of punishment,
+for he does not know what being in fault means; never oblige him to ask
+pardon, for he does not know what it is to offend you.
+
+His actions being without moral quality, he can do nothing which is
+morally bad, or which deserves either punishment or reproof.[7]
+
+Already I see the startled reader judging of this child by those around
+us; but he is mistaken.  The perpetual constraint under which you keep
+your pupils increases their liveliness.  The more cramped they are
+while under your eye the more unruly they are the moment they escape
+it.  They must, in fact, make themselves amends for the severe
+restraint you put upon them.  Two school-boys from a city will do more
+mischief in a community than the young people of a whole village.
+
+Shut up in the same room a little gentleman and a little peasant; the
+former will have everything upset and broken before the latter has
+moved from his place.  Why is this?  Because the one hastens to misuse
+a moment of liberty, and the other, always sure of his freedom, is
+never in a hurry to use it.  And yet the children of villagers, often
+petted or thwarted, are still very far from the condition in which I
+should wish to keep them.
+
+
+Proceed Slowly.
+
+May I venture to state here the greatest, the most important, the most
+useful rule in all education?  It is, not to gain time, but to lose it.
+Forgive the paradox, O my ordinary reader!  It must be uttered by any
+one who reflects, and whatever you may say, I prefer paradoxes to
+prejudices.  The most perilous interval of human life is that between
+birth and the age of twelve years.  At that time errors and vices take
+root without our having any means of destroying them; and when the
+instrument is found, the time for uprooting them is past.  If children
+could spring at one bound from the mother's breast to the age of
+reason, the education given them now-a-days would be suitable; but in
+the due order of nature they need one entirely different.  They should
+not use the mind at all, until it has all its faculties.  For while it
+is blind it cannot see the torch you present to it; nor can it follow
+on the immense plain of ideas a path which, even for the keenest
+eyesight, reason traces so faintly.
+
+The earliest education ought, then, to be purely negative.  It consists
+not in teaching truth or virtue, but in shielding the heart from vice
+and the mind from error.  If you could do nothing at all, and allow
+nothing to be done; if you could bring up your pupil sound and robust
+to the age of twelve years, without his knowing how to distinguish his
+right hand from his left, the eyes of his understanding would from the
+very first open to reason.  Without a prejudice or a habit, there would
+be in him nothing to counteract the effect of your care.  Before long
+he would become in your hands the wisest of men; and beginning by doing
+nothing, you would have accomplished a marvel in education.
+
+Reverse the common practice, and you will nearly always do well.
+Parents and teachers desiring to make of a child not a child, but a
+learned man, have never begun early enough to chide, to correct, to
+reprimand, to flatter, to promise, to instruct, to discourse reason to
+him.  Do better than this: be reasonable yourself, and do not argue
+with your pupil, least of all, to make him approve what he dislikes.
+For if you persist in reasoning about disagreeable things, you make
+reasoning disagreeable to him, and weaken its influence beforehand in a
+mind as yet unfitted to understand it.  Keep his organs, his senses,
+his physical strength, busy; but, as long as possible, keep his mind
+inactive.  Guard against all sensations arising in advance of judgment,
+which estimates their true value.  Keep back and check unfamiliar
+impressions, and be in no haste to do good for the sake of preventing
+evil.  For the good is not real unless enlightened by reason.  Regard
+every delay as an advantage; for much is gained if the critical period
+be approached without losing anything.  Let childhood have its full
+growth.  If indeed a lesson must be given, avoid it to-day, if you can
+without danger delay it until to-morrow.
+
+Another consideration which proves this method useful is the peculiar
+bent of the child's mind.  This ought to be well understood if we would
+know what moral government is best adapted to him.  Each has his own
+cast of mind, in accordance with which he must be directed; and if we
+would succeed, he must be ruled according to this natural bent and no
+other.  Be judicious: watch nature long, and observe your pupil
+carefully before you say a word to him.  At first leave the germ of his
+character free to disclose itself.  Repress it as little as possible,
+so that you may the better see all there is of it.
+
+Do you think this season of free action will be time lost to him?  On
+the contrary, it will be employed in the best way possible.  For by
+this means you will learn not to lose a single moment when time is more
+precious; whereas, if you begin to act before you know what ought to be
+done, you act at random.  Liable to deceive yourself, you will have to
+retrace your steps, and will be farther from your object than if you
+had been less in haste to reach it.  Do not then act like a miser, who,
+in order to lose nothing, loses a great deal.  At the earlier age
+sacrifice time which you will recover with interest later on.  The wise
+physician does not give directions at first sight of his patient, but
+studies the sick man's temperament, before prescribing.  He begins late
+with his treatment, but cures the man: the over-hasty physician kills
+him.
+
+Remember that, before you venture undertaking to form a man, you must
+have made yourself a man; you must find in yourself the example you
+ought to offer him.  While the child is yet without knowledge there is
+time to prepare everything about him so that his first glance shall
+discover only what he ought to see.  Make everybody respect you; begin
+by making yourself beloved, so that everybody will try to please you.
+You will not be the child's master unless you are master of everything
+around him, and this authority will not suffice unless founded on
+esteem for virtue.
+
+There is no use in exhausting your purse by lavishing money: I have
+never observed that money made any one beloved.  You must not be
+miserly or unfeeling, or lament the distress you can relieve; but you
+will open your coffers in vain if you do not open your heart; the
+hearts of others will be forever closed to you.  You must give your
+time, your care, your affection, yourself.  For whatever you may do,
+your money certainly is not yourself.  Tokens of interest and of
+kindness go farther and are of more use than any gifts whatever.  How
+many unhappy persons, how many sufferers, need consolation far more
+than alms!  How many who are oppressed are aided rather by protection
+than by money!
+
+Reconcile those who are at variance; prevent lawsuits; persuade
+children to filial duty and parents to gentleness.  Encourage happy
+marriages; hinder disturbances; use freely the interest of your pupil's
+family on behalf of the weak who are denied justice and oppressed by
+the powerful.  Boldly declare yourself the champion of the unfortunate.
+Be just, humane, beneficent.  Be not content with giving alms; be
+charitable.  Kindness relieves more distress than money can reach.
+Love others, and they will love you; serve them, and they will serve
+you; be their brother, and they will be your children.
+
+Blame others no longer for the mischief you yourself are doing.
+Children are less corrupted by the harm they see than by that you teach
+them.
+
+Always preaching, always moralizing, always acting the pedant, you give
+them twenty worthless ideas when you think you are giving them one good
+one.  Full of what is passing in your own mind, you do not see the
+effect you are producing upon theirs.
+
+In the prolonged torrent of words with which you incessantly weary
+them, do you think there are none they may misunderstand?  Do you
+imagine that they will not comment in their own way upon your wordy
+explanations, and find in them a system adapted to their own capacity,
+which, if need be, they can use against you?
+
+Listen to a little fellow who has just been under instruction.  Let him
+prattle, question, blunder, just as he pleases, and you will be
+surprised at the turn your reasonings have taken in his mind.  He
+confounds one thing with another; he reverses everything; he tires you,
+sometimes worries you, by unexpected objections.  He forces you to hold
+your peace, or to make him hold his.  And what must he think of this
+silence, in one so fond of talking?  If ever he wins this advantage and
+knows the fact, farewell to his education.  He will no longer try to
+learn, but to refute what you say.
+
+Be plain, discreet, reticent, you who are zealous teachers.  Be in no
+haste to act, except to prevent others from acting.
+
+Again and again I say, postpone even a good lesson if you can, for fear
+of conveying a bad one.  On this earth, meant by nature to be man's
+first paradise, beware lest you act the tempter by giving to innocence
+the knowledge of good and evil.  Since you cannot prevent the child's
+learning from outside examples, restrict your care to the task of
+impressing these examples on his mind in suitable forms.
+
+Violent passions make a striking impression on the child who notices
+them, because their manifestations are well-defined, and forcibly
+attract his attention.  Anger especially has such stormy indications
+that its approach is unmistakable.  Do not ask, "Is not this a fine
+opportunity for the pedagogue's moral discourse?"  Spare the discourse:
+say not a word: let the child alone.  Amazed at what he sees, he will
+not fail to question you.  It will not be hard to answer him, on
+account of the very things that strike his senses.  He sees an inflamed
+countenance, flashing eyes, threatening gestures, he hears unusually
+excited tones of voice; all sure signs that the body is not in its
+usual condition.  Say to him calmly, unaffectedly, without any mystery,
+"This poor man is sick; he has a high fever."  You may take this
+occasion to give him, in few words, an idea of maladies and of their
+effects; for these, being natural, are trammels of that necessity to
+which he has to feel himself subject.
+
+From this, the true idea, will he not early feel repugnance at giving
+way to excessive passion, which he regards as a disease?  And do you
+not think that such an idea, given at the appropriate time, will have
+as good an effect as the most tiresome sermon on morals?  Note also the
+future consequences of this idea; it will authorize you, if ever
+necessity arises, to treat a rebellious child as a sick child, to
+confine him to his room, and even to his bed, to make him undergo a
+course of medical treatment; to make his growing vices alarming and
+hateful to himself.  He cannot consider as a punishment the severity
+you are forced to use in curing him.  So that if you yourself, in some
+hasty moment, are perhaps stirred out of the coolness and moderation it
+should be your study to preserve, do not try to disguise your fault,
+but say to him frankly, in tender reproach, "My boy, you have hurt me."
+
+I do not intend to enter fully into details, but to lay down some
+general maxims and to illustrate difficult cases.  I believe it
+impossible, in the very heart of social surroundings, to educate a
+child up to the age of twelve years, without giving him some ideas of
+the relations of man to man, and of morality in human actions.  It will
+suffice if we put off as long as possible the necessity for these
+ideas, and when they must be given, limit them to such as are
+immediately applicable.  We must do this only lest he consider himself
+master of everything, and so injure others without scruple, because
+unknowingly.  There are gentle, quiet characters who, in their early
+innocence, may be led a long way without danger of this kind.  But
+others, naturally violent, whose wildness is precocious, must be
+trained into men as early as may be, that you may not be obliged to
+fetter them outright.
+
+
+The Idea of Property.
+
+Our first duties are to ourselves; our first feelings are concentrated
+upon ourselves; our first natural movements have reference to our own
+preservation and well-being.  Thus our first idea of justice is not as
+due from us, but to us.  One error in the education of to-day is, that
+by speaking to children first of their duties and never of their
+rights, we commence at the wrong end, and tell them of what they cannot
+understand, and what cannot interest them.
+
+If therefore I had to teach one of these I have mentioned, I should
+reflect that a child never attacks persons, but things; he soon learns
+from experience to respect his superiors in age and strength.  But
+things do not defend themselves.  The first idea to be given him,
+therefore, is rather that of property than that of liberty; and in
+order to understand this idea he must have something of his own.  To
+speak to him of his clothes, his furniture, his playthings, is to tell
+him nothing at all; for though he makes use of these things, he knows
+neither how nor why he has them.  To tell him they are his because they
+have been given to him is not much better, for in order to give, we
+must have.  This is an ownership dating farther back than his own, and
+we wish him to understand the principle of ownership itself.  Besides,
+a gift is a conventional thing, and the child cannot as yet understand
+what a conventional thing is.  You who read this, observe how in this
+instance, as in a hundred thousand others, a child's head is crammed
+with words which from the start have no meaning to him, but which we
+imagine we have taught him.
+
+We must go back, then, to the origin of ownership, for thence our first
+ideas of it should arise.  The child living in the country will have
+gained some notion of what field labor is, having needed only to use
+his eyes and his abundant leisure.  Every age in life, and especially
+his own, desires to create, to imitate, to produce, to manifest power
+and activity.  Only twice will it be necessary for him to see a garden
+cultivated, seed sown, plants reared, beans sprouting, before he will
+desire to work in a garden himself.
+
+In accordance with principles already laid down I do not at all oppose
+this desire, but encourage it.  I share his taste; I work with him, not
+for his pleasure, but for my own: at least he thinks so.  I become his
+assistant gardener; until his arms are strong enough I work the ground
+for him.  By planting a bean in it, he takes possession of it; and
+surely this possession is more sacred and more to be respected than
+that assumed by Nunez de Balboa of South America in the name of the
+king of Spain, by planting his standard on the shores of the Pacific
+Ocean.
+
+He comes every day to water the beans, and rejoices to see them
+thriving.  I add to his delight by telling him "This belongs to you."
+In explaining to him what I mean by "belongs," I make him feel that he
+has put into this plot of ground his time, his labor, his care, his
+bodily self; that in it is a part of himself which he may claim back
+from any one whatever, just as he may draw his own arm back if another
+tries to hold it against his will.
+
+One fine morning he comes as usual, running, watering-pot in hand.  But
+oh, what a sight!  What a misfortune!  The beans are uprooted, the
+garden bed is all in disorder: the place actually no longer knows
+itself.  What has become of my labor, the sweet reward of all my care
+and toil?  Who has robbed me of my own?  Who has taken my beans away
+from me?  The little heart swells with the bitterness of its first
+feeling of injustice.  His eyes overflow with tears; his distress rends
+the air with moans and cries.  We compassionate his troubles, share his
+indignation, make inquiries, sift the matter thoroughly.  At last we
+find that the gardener has done the deed: we send for him.
+
+But we find that we have reckoned without our host.  When the gardener
+hears what we are complaining of, he complains more than we.
+
+"What!  So it was you, gentlemen, who ruined all my labor!  I had
+planted some Maltese melons, from seed given me as a great rarity: I
+hoped to give you a grand treat with them when they were ripe.  But for
+the sake of planting your miserable beans there, you killed my melons
+after they had actually sprouted; and there are no more to be had.  You
+have done me more harm than you can remedy, and you have lost the
+pleasure of tasting some delicious melons."
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  "Excuse us, my good Robert.  You put into them your
+labor, your care.  I see plainly that we did wrong to spoil your work:
+but we will get you some more Maltese seed, and we will not till any
+more ground without finding out whether some one else has put his hand
+to it before us."
+
+ROBERT.  "Oh well, gentlemen, you may as well end the business; for
+there's no waste land.  What I work was improved by my father, and it's
+the same with everybody hereabout.  All the fields you see were taken
+up long ago."
+
+EMILE.  "Mr. Robert, do you often lose your melon-seed?"
+
+ROBERT.  "Pardon, my young master: we don't often have young gentlemen
+about that are careless like you.  Nobody touches his neighbor's
+garden; everybody respects other people's work, to make sure of his
+own."
+
+EMILE.  "But I haven't any garden."
+
+ROBERT.  "What's that to me?  If you spoil mine, I won't let you walk
+in it any more; for you are to understand that I'm not going to have
+all my pains for nothing."
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  "Can't we arrange this matter with honest Robert?  Just
+let my little friend and me have one corner of your garden to
+cultivate, on condition that you have half the produce."
+
+ROBERT.  "I will let you have it without that condition; but remember,
+I will root up your beans if you meddle with my melons."
+
+In this essay on the manner of teaching fundamental notions to children
+it may be seen how the idea of property naturally goes back to the
+right which the first occupant acquired by labor.  This is clear,
+concise, simple, and always within the comprehension of the child.
+From this to the right of holding property, and of transferring it,
+there is but one step, and beyond this we are to stop short.
+
+It will also be evident that the explanation I have included in two
+pages may, in actual practice, be the work of an entire year.  For in
+the development of moral ideas, we cannot advance too slowly, or
+establish them too firmly at every step.  I entreat you, young
+teachers, to think of the example I have given, and to remember that
+your lessons upon every subject ought to be rather in actions than in
+words; for children readily forget what is said or done to them.
+
+As I have said, such lessons ought to be given earlier or later, as the
+disposition of the child, gentle or turbulent, hastens or retards the
+necessity for giving them.  In employing them, we call in an evidence
+that cannot be misunderstood.  But that in difficult cases nothing
+important may be omitted, let us give another illustration.
+
+Your little meddler spoils everything he touches; do not be vexed, but
+put out of his reach whatever he can spoil.  He breaks the furniture he
+uses.  Be in no hurry to give him any more; let him feel the
+disadvantages of doing without it.  He breaks the windows in his room;
+let the wind blow on him night and day.  Have no fear of his taking
+cold; he had better take cold than be a fool.
+
+Do not fret at the inconvenience he causes you, but make him feel it
+first of all.  Finally, without saying anything about it, have the
+panes of glass mended.  He breaks them again.  Change your method: say
+to him coolly and without anger, "Those windows are mine; I took pains
+to have them put there, and I am going to make sure that they shall not
+be broken again."  Then shut him up in some dark place where there are
+no windows.  At this novel proceeding, he begins to cry and storm: but
+nobody listens to him.  He soon grows tired of this, and changes his
+tone; he complains and groans.  A servant is sent, whom the rebel
+entreats to set him free.  Without trying to find any excuse for utter
+refusal, the servant answers, "I have windows to take care of, too,"
+and goes away.  At last, after the child has been in durance for
+several hours, long enough to tire him and to make him remember it,
+some one suggests an arrangement by which you shall agree to release
+him, and he to break no more windows.  He sends to beseech you to come
+and see him; you come; he makes his proposal.  You accept it
+immediately, saying, "Well thought of; that will be a good thing for
+both of us.  Why didn't you think of this capital plan before?"  Then,
+without requiring any protestations, or confirmation of his promise,
+you gladly caress him and take him to his room at once, regarding this
+compact as sacred and inviolable as if ratified by an oath.  What an
+idea of the obligation, and the usefulness, of an engagement will he
+not gain from this transaction!  I am greatly mistaken if there is an
+unspoiled child on earth who would be proof against it, or who would
+ever after think of breaking a window purposely.
+
+
+Falsehood.  The Force of Example.
+
+We are now within the domain of morals, and the door is open to vice.
+Side by side with conventionalities and duties spring up deceit and
+falsehood.  As soon as there are things we ought not to do, we desire
+to hide what we ought not to have done.  As soon as one interest leads
+us to promise, a stronger one may urge us to break the promise.  Our
+chief concern is how to break it and still go unscathed.  It is natural
+to find expedients; we dissemble and we utter falsehood.  Unable to
+prevent this evil, we must nevertheless punish it.  Thus the miseries
+of our life arise from our mistakes.
+
+I have said enough to show that punishment, as such, should not be
+inflicted upon children, but should always happen to them as the
+natural result of their own wrong-doing.  Do not, then, preach to them
+against falsehood, or punish them confessedly on account of a
+falsehood.  But if they are guilty of one, let all its consequences
+fall heavily on their heads.  Let them know what it is to be
+disbelieved even when they speak the truth, and to be accused of faults
+in spite of their earnest denial.  But let us inquire what falsehood
+is, in children.
+
+There are two kinds of falsehood; that of fact, which refers to things
+already past, and that of right, which has to do with the future.  The
+first occurs when we deny doing what we have done, and in general, when
+we knowingly utter what is not true.  The other occurs when we promise
+what we do not mean to perform, and, in general, when we express an
+intention contrary to the one we really have.  These two sorts of
+untruth may sometimes meet in the same case; but let us here discuss
+their points of difference.
+
+One who realizes his need of help from others, and constantly receives
+kindness from them, has nothing to gain by deceiving them.  On the
+contrary, it is evidently his interest that they should see things as
+they are, lest they make mistakes to his disadvantage.  It is clear,
+then, that the falsehood of fact is not natural to children.  But the
+law of obedience makes falsehood necessary; because, obedience being
+irksome, we secretly avoid it whenever we can, and just in proportion
+as the immediate advantage of escaping reproof or punishment outweighs
+the remoter advantage to be gained by revealing the truth.
+
+Why should a child educated naturally and in perfect freedom, tell a
+falsehood?  What has he to hide from you?  You are not going to reprove
+or punish him, or exact anything from him.  Why should he not tell you
+everything as frankly as to his little playmate?  He sees no more
+danger in the one case than in the other.
+
+The falsehood of right is still less natural to children, because
+promises to do or not to do are conventional acts, foreign to our
+nature and infringements of our liberty.  Besides, all the engagements
+of children are in themselves void, because, as their limited vision
+does not stretch beyond the present, they know not what they do when
+they bind themselves.  It is hardly possible for a child to tell a lie
+in making a promise.  For, considering only how to overcome a present
+difficulty, all devices that have no immediate effect become alike to
+him.  In promising for a time to come he actually does not promise at
+all, as his still dormant imagination cannot extend itself over two
+different periods of time.  If he could escape a whipping or earn some
+sugar-plums by promising to throw himself out of the window to-morrow,
+he would at once promise it.  Therefore the laws pay no regard to
+engagements made by children; and when some fathers and teachers, more
+strict than this, require the fulfilling of such engagements, it is
+only in things the child ought to do without promising.
+
+As the child in making a promise is not aware what he is doing, he
+cannot be guilty of falsehood in so doing: but this is not the case
+when he breaks a promise.  For he well remembers having made the
+promise; what he cannot understand is, the importance of keeping it.
+Unable to read the future, he does not foresee the consequences of his
+actions; and when he violates engagements he does nothing contrary to
+what might be expected of his years.
+
+It follows from this that all the untruths spoken by children are the
+fault of those who instruct them; and that endeavoring to teach them
+how to be truthful is only teaching them how to tell falsehoods.  We
+are so eager to regulate, to govern, to instruct them, that we never
+find means enough to reach our object.  We want to win new victories
+over their minds by maxims not based upon fact, by unreasonable
+precepts; we would rather they should know their lessons and tell lies
+than to remain ignorant and speak the truth.
+
+As for us, who give our pupils none but practical teaching, and would
+rather have them good than knowing, we shall not exact the truth from
+them at all, lest they disguise it; we will require of them no promises
+they may be tempted to break.  If in my absence some anonymous mischief
+has been done, I will beware of accusing Emile, or of asking "Was it
+you?"[8]  For what would that be but teaching him to deny it?  If his
+naturally troublesome disposition obliges me to make some agreement
+with him, I will plan so well that any such proposal shall come from
+him and never from me.  Thus, whenever he is bound by an engagement he
+shall have an immediate and tangible interest in fulfilling it.  And if
+he ever fails in this, the falsehood shall bring upon him evil results
+which he sees must arise from the very nature of things, and never from
+the vengeance of his tutor.  Far from needing recourse to such severe
+measures, however, I am almost sure that Emile will be long in learning
+what a lie is, and upon finding it out will be greatly amazed, not
+understanding what is to be gained by it.  It is very plain that the
+more I make his welfare independent of either the will or the judgment
+of others, the more I uproot within him all interest in telling
+falsehoods.
+
+When we are less eager to instruct we are also less eager to exact
+requirements from our pupil, and can take time to require only what is
+to the purpose.  In that case, the child will be developed, just
+because he is not spoiled.  But when some blockhead teacher, not
+understanding what he is about, continually forces the child to promise
+things, making no distinctions, allowing no choice, knowing no limit,
+the little fellow, worried and weighed down with all these obligations,
+neglects them, forgets them, at last despises them; and considering
+them mere empty formulas, turns the giving and the breaking of them
+into ridicule.  If then you want to make him faithful to his word, be
+discreet in requiring him to give it.
+
+The details just entered upon in regard to falsehood may apply in many
+respects to all duties which, when enjoined upon children, become to
+them not only hateful but impracticable.  In order to seem to preach
+virtue we make vices attractive, and actually impart them by forbidding
+them.  If we would have the children religious, we tire them out taking
+them to church.  By making them mumble prayers incessantly we make them
+sigh for the happiness of never praying at all.  To inspire charity in
+them, we make them give alms, as if we disdained doing it ourselves.
+It is not the child, but his teacher, who ought to do the giving.
+However much you love your pupil, this is an honor you ought to dispute
+with him, leading him to feel that he is not yet old enough to deserve
+it.
+
+Giving alms is the act of one who knows the worth of his gift, and his
+fellow-creature's need of the gift.  A child who knows nothing of
+either can have no merit in bestowing.  He gives without charity or
+benevolence: he is almost ashamed to give at all, as, judging from your
+example and his own, only children give alms, and leave it off when
+grown up.  Observe, that we make the child bestow only things whose
+value be does not know: pieces of metal, which he carries in his
+pocket, and which are good for nothing else.  A child would rather give
+away a hundred gold pieces than a single cake.  But suggest to this
+free-handed giver the idea of parting with what he really prizes--his
+playthings, his sugar-plums, or his luncheon; you will soon find out
+whether you have made him really generous.
+
+To accomplish the same end, resort is had to another expedient, that of
+instantly returning to the child what he has given away, so that he
+habitually gives whatever he knows will be restored to him.  I have
+rarely met with other than these two kinds of generosity in children,
+namely, the giving either of what is no use to themselves, or else of
+what they are certain will come back to them.
+
+"Do this," says Locke, "that they may be convinced by experience that
+he who gives most generously has always the better portion."  This is
+making him liberal in appearance and miserly in reality.  He adds, that
+children will thus acquire the habit of generosity.
+
+Yes; a miser's generosity, giving an egg to gain an ox.  But when
+called upon to be generous in earnest, good-bye to the habit; they soon
+cease giving when the gift no longer comes back to them.  We ought to
+keep in view the habit of mind rather than that of the hands.  Like
+this virtue are all others taught to children; and their early years
+are spent in sadness, that we may preach these sterling virtues to
+them!  Excellent training this!
+
+Lay aside all affectation, you teachers; be yourselves good and
+virtuous, so that your example may be deeply graven on your pupils'
+memory until such time as it finds lodgment in their heart.  Instead of
+early requiring acts of charity from my pupil I would rather do them in
+his presence, taking from him all means of imitating me, as if I
+considered it an honor not due to his age.  For he should by no means
+be in the habit of thinking a man's duties the same as a child's.
+Seeing me assist the poor, he questions me about it and, if occasion
+serve, I answer, "My boy, it is because, since poor people are willing
+there should be rich people, the rich have promised to take care of
+those who have no money or cannot earn a living by their labor."
+
+"And have you promised it too?" inquires he.
+
+"Of course; the money that comes into my hands is mine to use only upon
+this condition, which its owner has to carry out."
+
+After this conversation, and we have seen how a child may be prepared
+to understand it, other children besides Emile would be tempted to
+imitate me by acting like a rich man.  In this case I would at least
+see that it should not be done ostentatiously.  I would rather have him
+rob me of my right, and conceal the fact of his generosity.  It would
+be a stratagem natural at his age, and the only one I would pardon in
+him.
+
+The only moral lesson suited to childhood and the most important at any
+age is, never to injure any one.  Even the principle of doing good, if
+not subordinated to this, is dangerous, false, and contradictory.  For
+who does not do good?  Everybody does, even a wicked man who makes one
+happy at the expense of making a hundred miserable: and thence arise
+all our calamities.  The most exalted virtues are negative: they are
+hardest to attain, too, because they are unostentatious, and rise above
+even that gratification dear to the heart of man,--sending another
+person away pleased with us.  If there be a man who never injures one
+of his fellow-creatures, what good must he achieve for them!  What
+fearlessness, what vigor of mind he requires for it!  Not by reasoning
+about this principle, but by attempting to carry it into practice, do
+we find out how great it is, how hard to fulfil.
+
+The foregoing conveys some faint idea of the precautions I would have
+you employ in giving children the instructions we sometimes cannot
+withhold without risk of their injuring themselves or others, and
+especially of contracting bad habits of which it will by and by be
+difficult to break them.  But we may rest assured that in children
+rightly educated the necessity will seldom arise; for it is impossible
+that they should become intractable, vicious, deceitful, greedy, unless
+the vices which make them so are sowed in their hearts.  For this
+reason what has been said on this point applies rather to exceptional
+than to ordinary cases.  But such exceptional cases become common in
+proportion as children have more frequent opportunity to depart from
+their natural state and to acquire the vices of their seniors.  Those
+brought up among men of the world absolutely require earlier teaching
+in these matters than those educated apart from such surroundings.
+Hence this private education is to be preferred, even if it do no more
+than allow childhood leisure to grow to perfection.
+
+
+Negative or Temporizing Education.
+
+Exactly contrary to the cases just described are those whom a happy
+temperament exalts above their years.  As there are some men who never
+outgrow childhood, so there are others who never pass through it, but
+are men almost from their birth.  The difficulty is that these
+exceptional cases are rare and not easily distinguished; besides, all
+mothers capable of understanding that a child can be a prodigy, have no
+doubt that their own are such.  They go even farther than this: they
+take for extraordinary indications the sprightliness, the bright
+childish pranks and sayings, the shrewd simplicity of ordinary cases,
+characteristic of that time of life, and showing plainly that a child
+is only a child.  Is it surprising that, allowed to speak so much and
+so freely, unrestrained by any consideration of propriety, a child
+should occasionally make happy replies?  If he did not, it would be
+even more surprising; just as if an astrologer, among a hundred false
+predictions, should never hit upon a single true one.  "They lie so
+often," said Henry IV., "that they end by telling the truth."  To be a
+wit, one need only utter a great many foolish speeches.  Heaven help
+men of fashion, whose reputation rests upon just this foundation!
+
+The most brilliant thoughts may enter a child's head, or rather, the
+most brilliant sayings may fall from his lips, just as the most
+valuable diamonds may fall into his hands, without his having any right
+either to the thoughts or to the diamonds.  At his age, he has no real
+property of any kind.  A child's utterances are not the same to him as
+to us; he does not attach to them the same ideas.  If he has any ideas
+at all on the subject, they have neither order nor coherence in his
+mind; in all his thoughts nothing is certain or stable.  If you watch
+your supposed prodigy attentively, you will sometimes find him a
+well-spring of energy, clear-sighted, penetrating the very marrow of
+things.  Much oftener the same mind appears commonplace, dull, and as
+if enveloped in a dense fog.  Sometimes he outruns you, and sometimes
+he stands still.  At one moment you feel like saying, "He is a genius,"
+and at another, "He is a fool."  You are mistaken in either case: he is
+a child; he is an eaglet that one moment beats the air with its wings,
+and the next moment falls back into the nest.
+
+In spite of appearances, then, treat him as his age demands, and beware
+lest you exhaust his powers by attempting to use them too freely.  If
+this young brain grows warm, if you see it beginning to seethe, leave
+it free to ferment, but do not excite it, lest it melt altogether into
+air.  When the first flow of spirits has evaporated, repress and keep
+within bounds the rest, until, as time goes on, the whole is
+transformed into life-giving warmth and real power.  Otherwise you will
+lose both time and pains; you will destroy your own handiwork, and
+after having thoughtlessly intoxicated yourself with all these
+inflammable vapors, you will have nothing left but the dregs.
+
+Nothing has been more generally or certainly observed than that dull
+children make commonplace men.  In childhood it is very difficult to
+distinguish real dullness from that misleading apparent dullness which
+indicates a strong character.  At first it seems strange that the two
+extremes should meet in indications so much alike; and yet such is the
+case.  For at an age when man has no real ideas at all, the difference
+between one who has genius and one who has not is, that the latter
+entertains only mistaken ideas, and the former, encountering only such,
+admits none at all.  The two are therefore alike in this, that the
+dullard is capable of nothing, and the other finds nothing to suit him.
+The only means of distinguishing them is chance, which may bring to the
+genius some ideas he can comprehend, while the dull mind is always the
+same.
+
+During his childhood the younger Cato was at home considered an idiot.
+No one said anything of him beyond that he was silent and headstrong.
+It was only in the antechamber of Sulla that his uncle learned to know
+him.  If he had never crossed its threshold, he might have been thought
+a fool until he was grown.  If there had been no such person as Caesar,
+this very Cato, who read the secret of Caesar's fatal genius, and from
+afar foresaw his ambitious designs, would always have been treated as a
+visionary.[9]  Those who judge of children so hastily are very liable
+to be mistaken.  They are often more childish than the children
+themselves.
+
+
+Concerning the Memory.
+
+Respect children, and be in no haste to judge their actions, good or
+evil.  Let the exceptional cases show themselves such for some time
+before you adopt special methods of dealing with them.  Let nature be
+long at work before you attempt to supplant her, lest you thwart her
+work.  You say you know how precious time is, and do not wish to lose
+it.  Do you not know that to employ it badly is to waste it still more,
+and that a child badly taught is farther from being wise than one not
+taught at all?  You are troubled at seeing him spend his early years in
+doing nothing.  What! is it nothing to be happy?  Is it nothing to
+skip, to play, to run about all day long?  Never in all his life will
+he be so busy as now.  Plato, in that work of his considered so severe,
+the "Republic," would have children accustomed to festivals, games,
+songs, and pastimes; one would think he was satisfied with having
+carefully taught them how to enjoy themselves.  And Seneca, speaking of
+the Roman youth of old, says, "They were always standing; nothing was
+taught them that they had to learn when seated."  Were they of less
+account when they reached manhood?  Have no fear, then, of this
+supposed idleness.  What would you think of a man who, in order to use
+his whole life to the best advantage, would not sleep?  You would say,
+"The man has no sense; he does not enjoy life, but robs himself of it.
+To avoid sleep, he rushes on his death."  The two cases are parallel,
+for childhood is the slumber of reason.
+
+Apparent quickness in learning is the ruin of children.  We do not
+consider that this very quickness proves that they are learning
+nothing.  Their smooth and polished brain reflects like a mirror the
+objects presented to it, but nothing abides there, nothing penetrates
+it.  The child retains the words; the ideas are reflected; they who
+hear understand them, but he himself does not understand them at all.
+
+Although memory and reason are two essentially different faculties, the
+one is never really developed without the other.  Before the age of
+reason, the child receives not ideas, but images.  There is this
+difference between the two, that images are only absolute
+representations of objects of sense, and ideas are notions of objects
+determined by their relations.  An image may exist alone in the mind
+that represents it, but every idea supposes other ideas.  When we
+imagine, we only see; when we conceive of things, we compare them.  Our
+sensations are entirely passive, whereas all our perceptions or ideas
+spring from an active principle which judges.
+
+I say then that children, incapable of judging, really have no memory.
+They retain sounds, shapes, sensations; but rarely ideas, and still
+more rarely the relations of ideas to one another.  If this statement
+is apparently refuted by the objection that they learn some elements of
+geometry, it is not really true; that very fact confirms my statement.
+It shows that, far from knowing how to reason themselves, they cannot
+even keep in mind the reasonings of others.  For if you investigate the
+method of these little geometricians, you discover at once that they
+have retained only the exact impression of the diagram and the words of
+the demonstration.  Upon the least new objection they are puzzled.
+Their knowledge is only of the sensation; nothing has become the
+property of their understanding.  Even their memory is rarely more
+perfect than their other faculties: for when grown they have nearly
+always to learn again as realities things whose names they learned in
+childhood.
+
+However, I am far from thinking that children have no power of
+reasoning whatever.[10]  I observe, on the contrary, that in things
+they understand, things relating to their present and manifest
+interests, they reason extremely well.  We are, however, liable to be
+misled as to their knowledge, attributing to them what they do not
+have, and making them reason about what they do not understand.  Again,
+we make the mistake of calling their attention to considerations by
+which they are in no wise affected, such as their future interests, the
+happiness of their coming manhood, the opinion people will have of them
+when they are grown up.  Such speeches, addressed to minds entirely
+without foresight, are absolutely unmeaning.  Now all the studies
+forced upon these poor unfortunates deal with things like this, utterly
+foreign to their minds.  You may judge what attention such subjects are
+likely to receive.
+
+
+On the Study of Words.
+
+Pedagogues, who make such an imposing display of what they teach, are
+paid to talk in another strain than mine, but their conduct shows that
+they think as I do.  For after all, what do they teach their pupils?
+Words, words, words.  Among all their boasted subjects, none are
+selected because they are useful; such would be the sciences of things,
+in which these professors are unskilful.  But they prefer sciences we
+seem to know when we know their nomenclature, such as heraldry,
+geography, chronology, languages; studies so far removed from human
+interests, and particularly from the child, that it would be wonderful
+if any of them could be of the least use at any time in life.
+
+It may cause surprise that I account the study of languages one of the
+useless things in education.  But remember I am speaking of the studies
+of earlier years, and whatever may be said, I do not believe that any
+child except a prodigy, will ever learn two languages by the time he is
+twelve or fifteen.[11]
+
+I admit that if the study of languages were only that of words, that
+is, of forms, and of the sounds which express them, it might be
+suitable for children.  But languages, by changing their signs, modify
+also the ideas they represent.  Minds are formed upon languages;
+thoughts take coloring from idioms.  Reason alone is common to all.  In
+each language the mind has its peculiar conformation, and this may be
+in part the cause or the effect of national character.  The fact that
+every nation's language follows the vicissitudes of that nation's
+morals, and is preserved or altered with them, seems to confirm this
+theory.
+
+Of these different forms, custom gives one to the child, and it is the
+only one he retains until the age of reason.  In order to have two, he
+must be able to compare ideas; and how can he do this when he is
+scarcely able to grasp them?  Each object may for him have a thousand
+different signs, but each idea can have but one form; he can therefore
+learn to speak only one language.  It is nevertheless maintained that
+he learns several; this I deny.  I have seen little prodigies who
+thought they could speak six or seven: I have heard them speak German
+in Latin, French, and Italian idioms successively.  They did indeed use
+five or six vocabularies, but they never spoke anything but German.  In
+short, you may give children as many synonyms as you please, and you
+will change only their words, and not their language; they will never
+know more than one.
+
+To hide this inability we, by preference, give them practice in the
+dead languages, of which there are no longer any unexceptionable
+judges.  The familiar use of these tongues having long been lost, we
+content ourselves with imitating what we find of them in books, and
+call this speaking them.  If such be the Greek and Latin of the
+masters, you may judge what that of the children is.  Scarcely have
+they learned by heart the rudiments, without in the least understanding
+them, before they are taught to utter a French discourse in Latin
+words; and, when further advanced, to string together in prose, phrases
+from Cicero and cantos from Virgil.  Then they imagine they are
+speaking Latin, and who is there to contradict them?[12]
+
+In any study, words that represent things are nothing without the ideas
+of the things they represent.  We, however, limit children to these
+signs, without ever being able to make them understand the things
+represented.  We think we are teaching a child the description of the
+earth, when he is merely learning maps.  We teach him the names of
+cities, countries, rivers; he has no idea that they exist anywhere but
+on the map we use in pointing them out to him.  I recollect seeing
+somewhere a text-book on geography which began thus:
+
+"What is the world?  A pasteboard globe."  Precisely such is the
+geography of children.  I will venture to say that after two years of
+globes and cosmography no child of ten, by rules they give him, could
+find the way from Paris to St. Denis.  I maintain that not one of them,
+from a plan of his father's garden, could trace out its windings
+without going astray.  And yet these are the knowing creatures who can
+tell you exactly where Pekin, Ispahan, Mexico, and all the countries of
+the world are.
+
+I hear it suggested that children ought to be engaged in studies in
+which only the eye is needed.  This might be true if there were studies
+in which their eyes were not needed; but I know of none such.
+
+A still more ridiculous method obliges children to study history,
+supposed to be within their comprehension because it is only a
+collection of facts.[13]  But what do we mean by facts?  Do we suppose
+that the relations out of which historic facts grow are so easily
+understood that the minds of children grasp such ideas without
+difficulty?  Do we imagine that the true understanding of events can be
+separated from that of their causes and effects? and that the historic
+and the moral are so far asunder that the one can be understood without
+the other?  If in men's actions you see only purely external and
+physical changes, what do you learn from history?  Absolutely nothing;
+and the subject, despoiled of all interest, no longer gives you either
+pleasure or instruction.  If you intend to estimate actions by their
+moral relations, try to make your pupils understand these relations,
+and you will discover whether history is adapted to their years.
+
+If there is no science in words, there is no study especially adapted
+to children.  If they have no real ideas, they have no real memory; for
+I do not call that memory which retains only impressions.  Of what use
+is it to write on their minds a catalogue of signs that represent
+nothing to them?  In learning the things represented, would they not
+also learn the signs?  Why do you give them the useless trouble of
+learning them twice?  Besides, you create dangerous prejudices by
+making them suppose that science consists of words meaningless to them.
+The first mere word with which the child satisfies himself, the first
+thing he learns on the authority of another person, ruins his judgment.
+Long must he shine in the eyes of unthinking persons before he can
+repair such an injury to himself.
+
+No; nature makes the child's brain so yielding that it receives all
+kinds of impressions; not that we may make his childhood a distressing
+burden to him by engraving on that brain dates, names of kings,
+technical terms in heraldry, mathematics, geography, and all such
+words, unmeaning to him and unnecessary to persons at any age in life.
+But all ideas that he can understand, and that are of use to him, all
+that conduce to his happiness and that will one day make his duties
+plain, should early write themselves there indelibly, to guide him
+through life as his condition and his intellect require.
+
+The memory of which a child is capable is far from inactive, even
+without the use of books.  All he sees and hears impresses him, and he
+remembers it.  He keeps a mental register of people's sayings and
+doings.  Everything around him is the book from which he is continually
+but unconsciously enriching his memory against the time his judgment
+can benefit by it.  If we intend rightly to cultivate this chief
+faculty of the mind, we must choose these objects carefully, constantly
+acquainting him with such as he ought to understand, and keeping back
+those he ought not to know.  In this way we should endeavor to make his
+mind a storehouse of knowledge, to aid in his education in youth, and
+to direct him at all times.  This method does not, it is true, produce
+phenomenal children, nor does it make the reputation of their teachers;
+but it produces judicious, robust men, sound in body and in mind, who,
+although not admired in youth, will make themselves respected in
+manhood.
+
+Emile shall never learn anything by heart, not even fables such as
+those of La Fontaine, simple and charming as they are.  For the words
+of fables are no more the fables themselves than the words of history
+are history itself.  How can we be so blind as to call fables moral
+lessons for children?  We do not reflect that while these stories amuse
+they also mislead children, who, carried away by the fiction, miss the
+truth conveyed; so that what makes the lesson agreeable also makes it
+less profitable.  Men may learn from fables, but children must be told
+the bare truth; if it be veiled, they do not trouble themselves to lift
+the veil.[14]
+
+Since nothing ought to be required of children merely in proof of their
+obedience, it follows that they can learn nothing of which they cannot
+understand the actual and immediate advantage, whether it be pleasant
+or useful.  Otherwise, what motive will induce them to learn it?  The
+art of conversing with absent persons, and of hearing from them, of
+communicating to them at a distance, without the aid of another, our
+feelings, intentions, and wishes, is an art whose value may be
+explained to children of almost any age whatever.  By what astonishing
+process has this useful and agreeable art become so irksome to them?
+They have been forced to learn it in spite of themselves, and to use it
+in ways they cannot understand.  A child is not anxious to perfect the
+instrument used in tormenting him; but make the same thing minister to
+his pleasures, and you cannot prevent him from using it.
+
+Much attention is paid to finding out the best methods of teaching
+children to read.  We invent printing-offices and charts; we turn a
+child's room into a printer's establishment.[15]  Locke proposes
+teaching children to read by means of dice; a brilliant contrivance
+indeed, but a mistake as well.  A better thing than all these, a thing
+no one thinks of, is the desire to learn.  Give a child this desire,
+and you will not need dice or reading lotteries; any device will serve
+as well.  If, on the plan I have begun to lay down, you follow rules
+exactly contrary to those most in fashion, you will not attract and
+bewilder your pupil's attention by distant places, climates, and ages
+of the world, going to the ends of the earth and into the very heavens
+themselves, but will make a point of keeping it fixed upon himself and
+what immediately concerns him; and by this plan you will find him
+capable of perception, memory, and even reasoning; this is the order of
+nature.[16]  In proportion as a creature endowed with sensation becomes
+active, it acquires discernment suited to its powers, and the surplus
+of strength needed to preserve it is absolutely necessary in developing
+that speculative faculty which uses the same surplus for other ends.
+If, then, you mean to cultivate your pupil's understanding, cultivate
+the strength it is intended to govern.  Give him constant physical
+exercise; make his body sound and robust, that you may make him wise
+and reasonable.  Let him be at work doing something; let him run,
+shout, be always in motion; let him be a man in vigor, and he will the
+sooner become one in reason.
+
+You would indeed make a mere animal of him by this method if you are
+continually directing him, and saying, "Go; come; stay; do this; stop
+doing that."  If your head is always to guide his arm, his own head
+will be of no use to him.  But recollect our agreement; if you are a
+mere pedant, there is no use in your reading what I write.
+
+To imagine that physical exercise injures mental operations is a
+wretched mistake; the two should move in unison, and one ought to
+regulate the other.
+
+My pupil, or rather nature's pupil, trained from the first to depend as
+much as possible on himself, is not continually running to others for
+advice.  Still less does he make a display of his knowledge.  On the
+other hand, he judges, he foresees, he reasons, upon everything that
+immediately concerns him; he does not prate, but acts.  He is little
+informed as to what is going on in the world, but knows very well what
+he ought to do, and how to do it.  Incessantly in motion, he cannot
+avoid observing many things, and knowing many effects.  He early gains
+a wide experience, and takes his lessons from nature, not from men.  He
+instructs himself all the better for discovering nowhere any intention
+of instructing him.  Thus, at the same time, body and mind are
+exercised.  Always carrying out his own ideas, and not another
+person's, two processes are simultaneously going on within him.  As he
+grows robust and strong, he becomes intelligent and judicious.
+
+In this way he will one day have those two excellences,--thought
+incompatible indeed, but characteristic of nearly all great
+men,--strength of body and strength of mind, the reason of a sage and
+the vigor of an athlete.
+
+I am recommending a difficult art to you, young teacher,--the art of
+governing without rules, and of doing everything by doing nothing at
+all.  I grant, that at your age, this art is not to be expected of you.
+It will not enable you, at the outset, to exhibit your shining talents,
+or to make yourself prized by parents; but it is the only one that will
+succeed.  To be a sensible man, your pupil must first have been a
+little scapegrace.  The Spartans were educated in this way; not tied
+down to books, but obliged to steal their dinners;[17] and did this
+produce men inferior in understanding?  Who does not remember their
+forcible, pithy sayings?  Trained to conquer, they worsted their
+enemies in every kind of encounter; and the babbling Athenians dreaded
+their sharp speeches quite as much as their valor.
+
+In stricter systems of education, the teacher commands and thinks he is
+governing the child, who is, after all, the real master.  What you
+exact from him he employs as means to get from you what he wants.  By
+one hour of diligence he can buy a week's indulgence.  At every moment
+you have to make terms with him.  These bargains, which you propose in
+your way, and which he fulfils in his own way, always turn out to the
+advantage of his whims, especially when you are so careless as to make
+stipulations which will be to his advantage whether he carries out his
+share of the bargain or not.  Usually, the child reads the teacher's
+mind better than the teacher reads his.  This is natural; for all the
+sagacity the child at liberty would use in self-preservation he now
+uses to protect himself from a tyrant's chains; while the latter,
+having no immediate interest in knowing the child's mind, follows his
+own advantage by leaving vanity and indolence unrestrained.
+
+Do otherwise with your pupil.  Let him always suppose himself master,
+while you really are master.  No subjection is so perfect as that which
+retains the appearance of liberty; for thus the will itself is made
+captive.  Is not the helpless, unknowing child at your mercy?  Do you
+not, so far as he is concerned, control everything around him?  Have
+you not power to influence him as you please?  Are not his work, his
+play, his pleasure, his pain, in your hands, whether he knows it or not?
+
+Doubtless he ought to do only what he pleases; but your choice ought to
+control his wishes.  He ought to take no step that you have not
+directed; he ought not to open his lips without your knowing what he is
+about to say.
+
+In this case he may, without fear of debasing his mind, devote himself
+to exercises of the body.  Instead of sharpening his wits to escape an
+irksome subjection, you will observe him wholly occupied in finding out
+in everything around him that part best adapted to his present
+well-being.  You will be amazed at the subtilty of his contrivances for
+appropriating to himself all the objects within the reach of his
+understanding, and for enjoying everything without regard to other
+people's opinions.
+
+By thus leaving him free, you will not foster his caprices.  If he
+never does anything that does not suit him, he will soon do only what
+he ought to do.  And, although his body be never at rest, still, if he
+is caring for his present and perceptible interests, all the reason of
+which he is capable will develop far better and more appropriately than
+in studies purely speculative.
+
+As he does not find you bent on thwarting him, does not distrust you,
+has nothing to hide from you, he will not deceive you or tell you lies.
+He will fearlessly show himself to you just as he is.  You may study
+him entirely at your ease, and plan lessons for him which he will all
+unconsciously receive.
+
+He will not pry with suspicious curiosity into your affairs, and feel
+pleasure when he finds you in fault.  This is one of our most serious
+disadvantages.  As I have said, one of a child's first objects is to
+discover the weaknesses of those who have control of him.  This
+disposition may produce ill-nature, but does not arise from it, but
+from their desire to escape an irksome bondage.  Oppressed by the yoke
+laid upon them, children endeavor to shake it off; and the faults they
+find in their teachers yield them excellent means for doing this.  But
+they acquire the habit of observing faults in others, and of enjoying
+such discoveries.  This source of evil evidently does not exist in
+Emile.  Having no interest to serve by discovering my faults, he will
+not look for them in me, and will have little temptation to seek them
+in other people.
+
+This course of conduct seems difficult because we do not reflect upon
+it; but taking it altogether, it ought not to be so.  I am justified in
+supposing that you know enough to understand the business you have
+undertaken; that you know the natural progress of the human mind; that
+you understand studying mankind in general and in individual cases;
+that among all the objects interesting to his age that you mean to show
+your pupil, you know beforehand which of them will influence his will.
+
+Now if you have the appliances, and know just how to use them, are you
+not master of the operation?
+
+You object that children have caprices, but in this you are mistaken.
+These caprices result from faulty discipline, and are not natural.  The
+children have been accustomed either to obey or to command, and I have
+said a hundred times that neither of these two things is necessary.
+Your pupil will therefore have only such caprices as you give him, and
+it is just you should be punished for your own faults.  But do you ask
+how these are to be remedied?  It can still be done by means of better
+management and much patience.
+
+
+Physical Training.
+
+Man's first natural movements are for the purpose of comparing himself
+with whatever surrounds him and finding in each thing those sensible
+qualities likely to affect himself.  His first study is, therefore, a
+kind of experimental physics relating to his own preservation.  From
+this, before he has fully understood his place here on earth, he is
+turned aside to speculative studies.  While yet his delicate and
+pliable organs can adapt themselves to the objects upon which they are
+to act, while his senses, still pure, are free from illusion, it is
+time to exercise both in their peculiar functions, and to learn the
+perceptible relations between ourselves and outward things.  Since
+whatever enters the human understanding enters by the senses, man's
+primitive reason is a reason of the senses, serving as foundation for
+the reason of the intellect.  Our first teachers in philosophy are our
+own feet, hands, and eyes.  To substitute books for these is teaching
+us not to reason, but to use the reason of another; to believe a great
+deal, and to know nothing at all.
+
+In practising an art we must begin by procuring apparatus for it; and
+to use this apparatus to advantage, we must have it solid enough to
+bear use.  In learning to think, we must therefore employ our members,
+our senses, our organs, all which are the apparatus of our
+understanding.  And to use them to the best advantage, the body which
+furnishes them must be sound and robust.  Our reason is therefore so
+far from being independent of the body, that a good constitution
+renders mental operations easy and accurate.  In indicating how the
+long leisure of childhood ought to be employed, I am entering into
+particulars which maybe thought ridiculous.  "Pretty lessons," you will
+tell me, "which you yourself criticize for teaching only what there is
+no need of learning!  Why waste time in instructions which always come
+of their own accord, and cost neither care nor trouble?  What child of
+twelve does not know all you are going to teach yours, and all that his
+masters have taught him besides?"
+
+Gentlemen, you are mistaken.  I am teaching my pupil a very tedious and
+difficult art, which yours certainly have not acquired,--that of being
+ignorant.  For the knowledge of one who gives himself credit for
+knowing only what he really does know reduces itself to a very small
+compass.  You are teaching science: very good; I am dealing with the
+instrument by which science is acquired.  All who have reflected upon
+the mode of life among the ancients attribute to gymnastic exercises
+that vigor of body and mind which so notably distinguishes them from us
+moderns.  Montaigne's support of this opinion shows that he had fully
+adopted it; he returns to it again and again, in a thousand ways.
+Speaking of the education of a child, he says, "We must make his mind
+robust by hardening his muscles; inure him to pain by accustoming him
+to labor; break him by severe exercise to the keen pangs of
+dislocation, of colic, of other ailments."  The wise Locke,[18] the
+excellent Rollin,[19] the learned Fleury,[20] the pedantic de
+Crouzas,[21] so different in everything else, agree exactly on this
+point of abundant physical exercise for children.  It is the wisest
+lesson they ever taught, but the one that is and always will be most
+neglected.
+
+
+Clothing.
+
+As to clothing, the limbs of a growing body should be entirely free.
+Nothing should cramp their movements or their growth; nothing should
+fit too closely or bind the body; there should be no ligatures
+whatever.  The present French dress cramps and disables even a man, and
+is especially injurious to children.  It arrests the circulation of the
+humors; they stagnate from an inaction made worse by a sedentary life.
+This corruption of the humors brings on the scurvy, a disease becoming
+every day more common among us, but unknown to the ancients, protected
+from it by their dress and their mode of life.  The hussar dress does
+not remedy this inconvenience, but increases it, since, to save the
+child a few ligatures, it compresses the entire body.  It would be
+better to keep children in frocks as long as possible, and then put
+them into loosely fitting clothes, without trying to shape their
+figures and thereby spoil them.  Their defects of body and of mind
+nearly all spring from the same cause: we are trying to make men of
+them before their time.
+
+Of bright and dull colors, the former best please a child's taste; such
+colors are also most becoming to them; and I see no reason why we
+should not in such matters consult these natural coincidences.  But the
+moment a material is preferred because it is richer, the child's mind
+is corrupted by luxury, and by all sorts of whims.  Preferences like
+this do not spring up of their own accord.  It is impossible to say how
+much choice of dress and the motives of this choice influence
+education.  Not only do thoughtless mothers promise children fine
+clothes by way of reward, but foolish tutors threaten them with coarser
+and simpler dress as punishment.  "If you do not study your lessons, if
+you do not take better care of your clothes, you shall be dressed like
+that little rustic."  This is saying to him, "Rest assured that a man
+is nothing but what his clothes make him; your own worth depends on
+what you wear."  Is it surprising that sage lessons like this so
+influence young men that they care for nothing but ornament, and judge
+of merit by outward appearance only?
+
+Generally, children are too warmly clothed, especially in their earlier
+years.  They should be inured to cold rather than heat; severe cold
+never incommodes them when they encounter it early.  But the tissue of
+their skin, as yet yielding and tender, allows too free passage to
+perspiration, and exposure to great heat invariably weakens them.  It
+has been observed that more children die in August than in any other
+month.  Besides, if we compare northern and southern races, we find
+that excessive cold, rather than excessive heat, makes man robust.  In
+proportion as the child grows and his fibres are strengthened, accustom
+him gradually to withstand heat; and by degrees you will without risk
+train him to endure the glowing temperature of the torrid zone.
+
+
+Sleep.
+
+Children need a great deal of sleep because they take a great deal of
+exercise.  The one acts as corrective to the other, so that both are
+necessary.  As nature teaches us, night is the time for rest.  Constant
+observation shows that sleep is softer and more profound while the sun
+is below the horizon.  The heated air does not so perfectly
+tranquillize our tired senses.  For this reason the most salutary habit
+is to rise and to go to rest with the sun.  In our climate man, and
+animals generally, require more sleep in winter than in summer.  But
+our mode of life is not so simple, natural, and uniform that we can
+make this regular habit a necessity.  We must without doubt submit to
+regulations; but it is most important that we should be able to break
+them without risk when occasion requires.  Do not then imprudently
+soften your pupil by letting him lie peacefully asleep without ever
+being disturbed.  At first let him yield without restraint to the law
+of nature, but do not forget that in our day we must be superior to
+this law; we must be able to go late to rest and rise early, to be
+awakened suddenly, to be up all night, without discomfort.  By
+beginning early, and by always proceeding slowly, we form the
+constitution by the very practices which would ruin it if it were
+already established.
+
+It is important that your pupil should from the first be accustomed to
+a hard bed, so that he may find none uncomfortable.
+
+Generally, a life of hardship, when we are used to it, gives us a far
+greater number of agreeable sensations than does a life of ease, which
+creates an infinite number of unpleasant ones.  One too delicately
+reared can find sleep only upon a bed of down; one accustomed to bare
+boards can find it anywhere.  No bed is hard to him who falls asleep as
+soon as his head touches the pillow.  The best bed is the one which
+brings the best sleep.  Throughout the day no slaves from Persia, but
+Emile and I, will prepare our beds.  When we are tilling the ground we
+shall be making them soft for our slumber.
+
+
+Exercise of the Senses.
+
+A child has not a man's stature, strength, or reason; but he sees and
+hears almost or quite as well.  His sense of taste is as keen, though
+he does not enjoy it as a pleasure.
+
+Our senses are the first powers perfected in us.  They are the first
+that should be cultivated and the only ones forgotten, or at least, the
+most neglected.
+
+To exercise the senses is not merely to use them, but to learn how to
+judge correctly by means of them; we may say, to learn how to feel.
+For we cannot feel, or hear, or see, otherwise than as we have been
+taught.
+
+There is a kind of exercise, purely natural and mechanical, that
+renders the body robust without injuring the mind.  Of this description
+are swimming, running, leaping, spinning tops, and throwing stones.
+All these are well enough; but have we nothing but arms and legs?  Have
+we not eyes and ears as well? and are they of no use while the others
+are employed?  Use, then, not only your bodily strength, but all the
+senses which direct it.  Make as much of each as possible, and verify
+the impressions of one by those of another.  Measure, count, weigh, and
+compare.  Use no strength till after you have calculated the resistance
+it will meet.  Be careful to estimate the effect before you use the
+means.  Interest the child in never making any useless or inadequate
+trials of strength.  If you accustom him to forecast the effect of
+every movement, and to correct his errors by experience, is it not
+certain that the more he does the better his judgment will be?
+
+If the lever he uses in moving a heavy weight be too long, he will
+expend too much motion; if too short, he will not have power enough.
+Experience will teach him to choose one exactly suitable.  Such
+practical knowledge, then, is not beyond his years.  If he wishes to
+carry a burden exactly as heavy as his strength will bear, without the
+test of first lifting it, must he not estimate its weight by the eye?
+If he understands comparing masses of the same material but of
+different size, let him choose between masses of the same size but of
+different material.  This will oblige him to compare them as to
+specific gravity.  I have seen a well-educated young man who, until he
+had tried the experiment, would not believe that a pail full of large
+chips weighs less than it does when full of water.
+
+
+The Sense of Touch.
+
+We have not equal control of all our senses.  One of them, the sense of
+touch, is in continual action so long as we are awake.  Diffused over
+the entire surface of the body, it serves as a perpetual sentinel to
+warn us of what is likely to harm us.  By the constant use of this
+sense, voluntary or otherwise, we gain our earliest experience.  It
+therefore stands less in need of special cultivation.  We observe
+however, that the blind have a more delicate and accurate touch than
+we, because, not having sight to guide them, they depend upon touch for
+the judgments we form with the aid of sight.  Why then do we not train
+ourselves to walk, like them, in the dark, to recognize by the touch
+all bodies we can reach, to judge of objects around us, in short, to do
+by night and in the dark all they do in daytime without eyesight?  So
+long as the sun shines, we have the advantage of them; but they can
+guide us in darkness.  We are blind during half our life-time, with
+this difference, that the really blind can always guide themselves,
+whereas we dare not take a step in the dead of night.  You may remind
+me that we have artificial light.  What! must we always use machines?
+Who can insure their being always at hand when we need them?  For my
+part, I prefer that Emile, instead of keeping his eyes in a chandler's
+shop, should have them at the ends of his fingers.
+
+As much as possible, let him be accustomed to play about at night.
+This advice is more important than it would seem.  For men, and
+sometimes for animals, night has naturally its terrors.  Rarely do
+wisdom, or wit, or courage, free us from paying tribute to these
+terrors.  I have seen reasoners, free-thinkers, philosophers, soldiers,
+who were utterly fearless in broad daylight, tremble like women at the
+rustle of leaves by night.  Such terrors are supposed to be the result
+of nursery tales.  The real cause is the same thing which makes the
+deaf distrustful, and the lower classes superstitious; and that is,
+ignorance of objects and events around us.
+
+The cause of the evil, once found, suggests the remedy.  In everything,
+habit benumbs the imagination; new objects alone quicken it again.
+Every-day objects keep active not the imagination, but the memory;
+whence the saying "Ab assuetis non fit passio."[22]  For only the
+imagination can set on fire our passions.  If, therefore, you wish to
+cure any one of the fear of darkness, do not reason with him.  Take him
+into the dark often, and you may be sure that will do him more good
+than philosophical arguments.  When at work on the roofs of houses,
+slaters do not feel their heads swim; and those accustomed to darkness
+do not fear it at all.
+
+There will be one advantage of our plays in the dark.  But if you mean
+them to be successful, you must make them as gay as possible.  Darkness
+is of all things the most gloomy; so do not shut your child up in a
+dungeon.  When he goes into the dark make him laugh; when he leaves it
+make him laugh again; and all the time he is there, let the thought of
+what he is enjoying, and what he will find there when he returns,
+protect him from the shadowy terrors which might otherwise inhabit it.
+
+I have heard some propose to teach children not to be afraid at night,
+by surprising them.  This is a bad plan, and its effect is contrary to
+the one sought: it only makes them more timid than before.  Neither
+reason nor habit can accustom us to a present danger, the nature and
+extent of which we do not know, nor can they lessen our dread of
+unexpected things however often we meet with them.  But how can we
+guard our pupil against such accidents?  I think the following is the
+best plan.  I will tell my Emile, "If any one attacks you at night, you
+are justified in defending yourself; for your assailant gives you no
+notice whether he means to hurt you or only to frighten you.  As he has
+taken you at a disadvantage, seize him boldly, no matter what he may
+seem to be.  Hold him fast, and if he offers any resistance, hit him
+hard and often.  Whatever he may say or do, never let go until you know
+exactly who he is.  The explanation will probably show you that there
+is nothing to be afraid of; and if you treat a practical joker in this
+way, he will not be likely to try the same thing again."
+
+Although, of all our senses, touch is the one most constantly used,
+still, as I have said, its conclusions are the most rude and imperfect.
+This is because it is always used at the same time with sight; and
+because the eye attains its object sooner than the hand; the mind
+nearly always decides without appealing to touch.  On the other hand,
+the decisions of touch, just because they are so limited in their
+range, are the most accurate.  For as they extend no farther than our
+arm's length, they correct the errors of other senses, which deal with
+distant objects, and scarcely grasp these objects at all, whereas all
+that the touch perceives it perceives thoroughly.  Besides, if to
+nerve-force we add muscular action, we form a simultaneous impression,
+and judge of weight and solidity as well as of temperature, size, and
+shape.  Thus touch, which of all our senses best informs us concerning
+impressions made upon us by external things, is the one oftenest used,
+and gives us most directly the knowledge necessary to our preservation.
+
+
+The Sense of Sight.
+
+The sense of touch confines its operations to a very narrow sphere
+around us, but those of sight extend far beyond; this sense is
+therefore liable to be mistaken.  With a single glance a man takes in
+half his own horizon, and in these myriad impressions, and judgments
+resulting from them, how is it credible that there should be no
+mistakes?  Sight, therefore, is the most defective of all our senses,
+precisely because it is most far-reaching, and because its operations,
+by far preceding all others, are too immediate and too vast to receive
+correction from them.  Besides, the very illusions of perspective are
+needed to make us understand extension, and to help us in comparing its
+parts.  If there were no false appearances, we could see nothing at a
+distance; if there were no gradations in size, we could form no
+estimate of distance, or rather there would be no distance at all.  If
+of two trees the one a hundred paces away seemed as large and distinct
+as the other, ten paces distant, we should place them side by side.  If
+we saw all objects in their true dimensions, we should see no space
+whatever; everything would appear to be directly beneath our eye.
+
+For judging of the size and distance of objects, sight has only one
+measure, and that is the angle they form with our eye.  As this is the
+simple effect of a compound cause, the judgment we form from it leaves
+each particular case undecided or is necessarily imperfect.  For how
+can I by the sight alone tell whether the angle which makes one object
+appear smaller than another is caused by the really lesser magnitude of
+the object or by its greater distance from me?
+
+An opposite method must therefore be pursued.  Instead of relying on
+one sensation only, we must repeat it, verify it by others, subordinate
+sight to touch, repressing the impetuosity of the first by the steady,
+even pace of the second.  For lack of this caution we measure very
+inaccurately by the eye, in determining height, length, depth, and
+distance.  That this is not due to organic defect, but to careless use,
+is proved by the fact that engineers, surveyors, architects, masons,
+and painters generally have a far more accurate eye than we, and
+estimate measures of extension more correctly.  Their business gives
+them experience that we neglect to acquire, and thus they correct the
+ambiguity of the angle by means of appearances associated with it,
+which enable them to determine more exactly the relation of the two
+things producing the angle.
+
+Children are easily led into anything that allows unconstrained
+movement of the body.  There are a thousand ways of interesting them in
+measuring, discovering, and estimating distances.  "Yonder is a very
+tall cherry-tree; how can we manage to get some cherries?  Will the
+ladder in the barn do?  There is a very wide brook; how can we cross
+it?  Would one of the planks in the yard be long enough?  We want to
+throw a line from our windows and catch some fish in the moat around
+the house; how many fathoms long ought the line to be?  I want to put
+up a swing between those two trees; would four yards of rope be enough
+for it?  They say that in the other house our room will be twenty-five
+feet square; do you think that will suit us?  Will it be larger than
+this?  We are very hungry; which of those two villages yonder can we
+reach soonest, and have our dinner?"
+
+As the sense of sight is the one least easily separated from the
+judgments of the mind, we need a great deal of time for learning how to
+see.  We must for a long time compare sight with touch, if we would
+accustom our eye to report forms and distances accurately.
+
+Without touch and without progressive movement, the keenest eye-sight
+in the world could give us no idea of extent.  To an oyster the entire
+universe must be only a single point.  Only by walking, feeling,
+counting, and measuring, do we learn to estimate distances.
+
+If we always measure them, however, our eye, depending on this, will
+never gain accuracy.  Yet the child ought not to pass too soon from
+measuring to estimating.  It will be better for him, after comparing by
+parts what he cannot compare as wholes, finally to substitute for
+measured aliquot parts others, obtained by the eye alone.  He should
+train himself in this manner of measuring instead of always measuring
+with the hand.  I prefer that the very first operations of this kind
+should be verified by actual measurements, so that he may correct the
+mistakes arising from false appearances by a better judgment.  There
+are natural measures, nearly the same everywhere, such as a man's pace,
+the length of his arm, or his height.  When the child is calculating
+the height of the story of a house, his tutor may serve as a unit of
+measure.  In estimating the altitude of a steeple, he may compare it
+with that of the neighboring houses.  If he wants to know how many
+leagues there are in a given journey, let him reckon the number of
+hours spent in making it on foot.  And by all means do none of this
+work for him; let him do it himself.
+
+We cannot learn to judge correctly of the extent and size of bodies
+without also learning to recognize their forms, and even to imitate
+them.  For such imitation is absolutely dependent on the laws of
+perspective, and we cannot estimate extent from appearances without
+some appreciation of these laws.
+
+
+Drawing.
+
+All children, being natural imitators, try to draw.  I would have my
+pupil cultivate this art, not exactly for the sake of the art itself,
+but to render the eye true and the hand flexible.  In general, it
+matters little whether he understands this or that exercise, provided
+he acquires the mental insight, and the manual skill furnished by the
+exercise.  I should take care, therefore, not to give him a
+drawing-master, who would give him only copies to imitate, and would
+make him draw from drawings only.  He shall have no teacher but nature,
+no models but real things.  He shall have before his eyes the
+originals, and not the paper which represents them.  He shall draw a
+house from a real house, a tree from a tree, a human figure from the
+man himself.  In this way he will accustom himself to observe bodies
+and their appearances, and not mistake for accurate mutations those
+that are false and conventional.  I should even object to his drawing
+anything from memory, until by frequent observations the exact forms of
+the objects had clearly imprinted themselves on his imagination, lest,
+substituting odd and fantastic shapes for the real things, he might
+lose the knowledge of proportion and a taste for the beauties of
+nature.  I know very well that he will go on daubing for a long time
+without making anything worth noticing, and will be long in mastering
+elegance of outline, and in acquiring the deft stroke of a skilled
+draughtsman.  He may never learn to discern picturesque effects, or
+draw with superior skill.  On the other hand, he will have a more
+correct eye, a truer hand, a knowledge of the real relations of size
+and shape in animals, plants, and natural bodies, and practical
+experience of the illusions of perspective.  This is precisely what I
+intend; not so much that he shall imitate objects as that he shall know
+them.  I would rather have him show me an acanthus than a finished
+drawing of the foliation of a capital.
+
+Yet I would not allow my pupil to have the enjoyment of this or any
+other exercise all to himself.  By sharing it with him I will make him
+enjoy it still more.  He shall have no competitor but myself; but I
+will be that competitor continually, and without risk of jealousy
+between us.  It will only interest him more deeply in his studies.
+Like him I will take up the pencil, and at first I will be as awkward
+as he.  If I were an Apelles, even, I will make myself a mere dauber.
+
+I will begin by sketching a man just as a boy would sketch one on a
+wall, with a dash for each arm, and with fingers larger than the arms.
+By and by one or the other of us will discover this disproportion.  We
+shall observe that a leg has thickness, and that this thickness is not
+the same everywhere; that the length of the arm is determined by its
+proportion to the body; and so on.  As we go on I will do no more than
+keep even step with him, or will excel him by so little that he can
+always easily overtake and even surpass me.  We will get colors and
+brushes; we will try to imitate not only the outline but the coloring
+and all the other details of objects.  We will color; we will paint; we
+will daub; but in all our daubing we shall be continually peering into
+nature, and all we do shall be done under the eye of that great teacher.
+
+If we had difficulty in finding decorations for our room, we have now
+all we could desire.  I will have our drawings framed, so that we can
+give them no finishing touches; and this will make us both careful to
+do no negligent work.  I will arrange them in order around our room,
+each drawing repeated twenty or thirty times, and each repetition
+showing the author's progress, from the representation of a house by an
+almost shapeless attempt at a square, to the accurate copy of its front
+elevation, profile, proportions, and shading.  The drawings thus graded
+must be interesting to ourselves, curious to others, and likely to
+stimulate further effort.  I will inclose the first and rudest of these
+in showy gilded frames, to set them off well; but as the imitation
+improves, and when the drawing is really good, I will add only a very
+simple black frame.  The picture needs no ornament but itself, and it
+would be a pity that the bordering should receive half the attention.
+
+Both of us will aspire to the honor of a plain frame, and if either
+wishes to condemn the other's drawing, he will say it ought to have a
+gilt frame.  Perhaps some day these gilded frames will pass into a
+proverb with us, and we shall be interested to observe how many men do
+justice to themselves by framing themselves in the very same way.
+
+
+Geometry.
+
+I have said that geometry is not intelligible to children; but it is
+our own fault.  We do not observe that their method is different from
+ours, and that what is to us the art of reasoning should be to them
+only the art of seeing.  Instead of giving them our method, we should
+do better to take theirs.  For in our way of learning geometry,
+imagination really does as much as reason.  When a proposition is
+stated, we have to imagine the demonstration; that is, we have to find
+upon what proposition already known the new one depends, and from all
+the consequences of this known principle select just the one required.
+According to this method the most exact reasoner, if not naturally
+inventive, must be at fault.  And the result is that the teacher,
+instead of making us discover demonstrations, dictates them to us;
+instead of teaching us to reason, he reasons for us, and exercises only
+our memory.
+
+Make the diagrams accurate; combine them, place them one upon another,
+examine their relations, and you will discover the whole of elementary
+geometry by proceeding from one observation to another, without using
+either definitions or problems, or any form of demonstration than
+simple superposition.  For my part, I do not even pretend to teach
+Emile geometry; he shall teach it to me.  I will look for relations,
+and he shall discover them.  I will look for them in a way that will
+lead him to discover them.  In drawing a circle, for instance, I will
+not use a compass, but a point at the end of a cord which turns on a
+pivot.  Afterward, when I want to compare the radii of a semi-circle,
+Emile will laugh at me and tell me that the same cord, held with the
+same tension, cannot describe unequal distances.
+
+When I want to measure an angle of sixty degrees, I will describe from
+the apex of the angle not an arc only, but an entire circle; for with
+children nothing must be taken for granted.  I find that the portion
+intercepted by the two sides of the angle is one-sixth of the whole
+circumference.  Afterward, from the same centre, I describe another and
+a larger circle, and find that this second arc is one-sixth of the new
+circumference.  Describing a third concentric circle, I test it in the
+same way, and continue the process with other concentric circles, until
+Emile, vexed at my stupidity, informs me that every arc, great or
+small, intercepted by the sides of this angle, will be one-sixth of the
+circumference to which it belongs.  You see we are almost ready to use
+the instruments intelligently.
+
+In order to prove the angles of a triangle equal to two right angles, a
+circle is usually drawn.  I, on the contrary, will call Emile's
+attention to this in the circle, and then ask him, "Now, if the circle
+were taken away, and the straight lines were left, would the size of
+the angles be changed?"
+
+It is not customary to pay much attention to the accuracy of figures in
+geometry; the accuracy is taken for granted, and the demonstration
+alone is regarded.  Emile and I will pay no heed to the demonstration,
+but aim to draw exactly straight and even lines; to make a square
+perfect and a circle round.  To test the exactness of the figure we
+will examine it in all its visible properties, and this will give us
+daily opportunity of finding out others.  We will fold the two halves
+of a circle on the line of the diameter, and the halves of a square on
+its diagonal, and then examine our two figures to see which has its
+bounding lines most nearly coincident, and is therefore best
+constructed.  We will debate as to whether this equality of parts
+exists in all parallelograms, trapeziums, and like figures.  Sometimes
+we will endeavor to guess at the result of the experiment before we
+make it, and sometimes to find out the reasons why it should result as
+it does.
+
+Geometry for my pupil is only the art of using the rule and compass
+well.  It should not be confounded with drawing, which uses neither of
+these instruments.  The rule and compass are to be kept under lock and
+key, and he shall be allowed to use them only occasionally, and for a
+short time, lest he fall into the habit of daubing.  But sometimes,
+when we go for a walk, we will take our diagrams with us, and talk
+about what we have done or would like to do.
+
+
+Hearing.
+
+What has been said as to the two senses most continually employed and
+most important may illustrate the way in which I should exercise the
+other senses.  Sight and touch deal alike with bodies at rest and
+bodies in motion.  But as only the vibration of the air can arouse the
+sense of hearing, noise or sound can be made only by a body in motion.
+If everything were at rest, we could not hear at all.  At night, when
+we move only as we choose, we have nothing to fear except from other
+bodies in motion.  We therefore need quick ears to judge from our
+sensations whether the body causing them is large or small, distant or
+near, and whether its motion is violent or slight.  The air, when in
+agitation, is subject to reverberations which reflect it back, produce
+echoes, and repeat the sensation, making the sonorous body heard
+elsewhere than where it really is.  In a plain or valley, if you put
+your ear to the ground, you can hear the voices of men and the sound of
+horses' hoofs much farther than when standing upright.  As we have
+compared sight with touch, let us also compare it with hearing, and
+consider which of the two impressions, leaving the same body at the
+same time, soonest reaches its organ.  When we see the flash of a
+cannon there is still time to avoid the shot; but as soon as we hear
+the sound there is not time; the ball has struck.  We can estimate the
+distance of thunder by the interval between the flash and the
+thunderbolt.  Make the child understand such experiments; try those
+that are within his own power, and discover others by inference.  But
+it would be better he should know nothing about these things than that
+you should tell him all he is to know about them.
+
+We have an organ that corresponds to that of hearing, that is, the
+voice.  Sight has nothing like this, for though we can produce sounds,
+we cannot give off colors.  We have therefore fuller means of
+cultivating hearing, by exercising its active and passive organs upon
+one another.
+
+
+The Voice.
+
+Man has three kinds of voice: the speaking or articulate voice, the
+singing or melodious voice, and the pathetic or accented voice, which
+gives language to passion and animates song and speech.  A child has
+these three kinds of voice as well as a man, but he does not know how
+to blend them in the same way.  Like his elders he can laugh, cry,
+complain, exclaim, and groan.  But he does not know how to blend these
+inflections with the two other voices.  Perfect music best accomplishes
+this blending; but children are incapable of such music, and there is
+never much feeling in their singing.  In speaking, their voice has
+little energy, and little or no accent.
+
+Our pupil will have even a simpler and more uniform mode of speaking,
+because his passions, not yet aroused, will not mingle their language
+with his.  Do not, therefore, give him dramatic parts to recite, nor
+teach him to declaim.  He will have too much sense to emphasize words
+he cannot understand, and to express feelings he has never known.
+
+Teach him to speak evenly, clearly, articulately, to pronounce
+correctly and without affectation, to understand and use the accent
+demanded by grammar and prosody.  Train him to avoid a common fault
+acquired in colleges, of speaking louder than is necessary; have him
+speak loud enough to be understood; let there be no exaggeration in
+anything.
+
+Aim, also, to render his voice in singing, even, flexible, and
+sonorous.  Let his ear be sensitive to time and harmony, but to nothing
+more.  Do not expect of him, at his age, imitative and theatrical
+music.  It would be better if he did not even sing words.  If he wished
+to sing them, I should try to invent songs especially for him, such as
+would interest him, as simple as his own ideas.
+
+
+The Sense of Taste.
+
+Of our different sensations, those of taste generally affect us most.
+We are more interested in judging correctly of substances that are to
+form part of our own bodies than of those which merely surround us.  We
+are indifferent to a thousand things, as objects of touch, of hearing,
+or of sight; but there is almost nothing to which our sense of taste is
+indifferent.  Besides, the action of this sense is entirely physical
+and material.  Imagination and imitation often give a tinge of moral
+character to the impressions of all the other senses; but to this it
+appeals least of all, if at all.  Generally, also, persons of
+passionate and really sensitive temperament, easily moved by the other
+senses, are rather indifferent in regard to this.  This very fact,
+which seems in some measure to degrade the sense of taste, and to make
+excess in its indulgence more contemptible, leads me, however, to
+conclude that the surest way to influence children is by means of their
+appetite.  Gluttony, as a motive, is far better than vanity; for
+gluttony is a natural appetite depending directly on the senses, and
+vanity is the result of opinion, is subject to human caprice and to
+abuse of all kinds.  Gluttony is the passion of childhood, and cannot
+hold its own against any other; it disappears on the slightest occasion.
+
+Believe me, the child will only too soon leave off thinking of his
+appetite; for when his heart is occupied, his palate will give him
+little concern.  When he is a man, a thousand impulsive feelings will
+divert his mind from gluttony to vanity; for this last passion alone
+takes advantage of all others, and ends by absorbing them all.  I have
+sometimes watched closely those who are especially fond of dainties;
+who, as soon as they awoke, were thinking of what they should eat
+during the day, and could describe a dinner with more minuteness than
+Polybius uses in describing a battle; and I have always found that
+these supposed men were nothing but children forty years old, without
+any force or steadiness of character.  Gluttony is the vice of men who
+have no stamina.  The soul of a gourmand has its seat in his palate
+alone; formed only for eating, stupid, incapable, he is in his true
+place only at the table; his judgment is worthless except in the matter
+of dishes.  As he values these far more highly than others in which we
+are interested, as well as he, let us without regret leave this
+business of the palate to him.
+
+It is weak precaution to fear that gluttony may take root in a child
+capable of anything else.  As children, we think only of eating; but in
+youth, we think of it no more.  Everything tastes good to us, and we
+have many other things to occupy us.
+
+Yet I would not use so low a motive injudiciously, or reward a good
+action with a sugar-plum.  Since childhood is or should be altogether
+made up of play and frolic, I see no reason why exercise purely
+physical should not have a material and tangible reward.  If a young
+Majorcan, seeing a basket in the top of a tree, brings it down with a
+stone from his sling, why should he not have the recompense of a good
+breakfast, to repair the strength used in earning it?
+
+A young Spartan, braving the risk of a hundred lashes, stole into a
+kitchen, and carried off a live fox-cub, which concealed under his
+coat, scratched and bit him till the blood came.  To avoid the disgrace
+of detection, the child allowed the creature to gnaw his entrails, and
+did not lift an eyelash or utter a cry.[23]  Was it not just that, as a
+reward, he was allowed to devour the beast that had done its best to
+devour him?
+
+A good meal ought never to be given as a reward; but why should it not
+sometimes be the result of the pains taken to secure it?  Emile will
+not consider the cake I put upon a stone as a reward for running well;
+he only knows that he cannot have the cake unless he reaches it before
+some other person does.
+
+This does not contradict the principle before laid down as to
+simplicity in diet.  For to please a child's appetite we need not
+arouse it, but merely satisfy it; and this may be done with the most
+ordinary things in the world, if we do not take pains to refine his
+taste.  His continual appetite, arising from his rapid growth, is an
+unfailing sauce, which supplies the place of many others.  With a
+little fruit, or some of the dainties made from milk, or a bit of
+pastry rather more of a rarity than the every-day bread, and, more than
+all, with some tact in bestowing, you may lead an army of children to
+the world's end without giving them any taste for highly spiced food,
+or running any risk of cloying their palate.
+
+Besides, whatever kind of diet you give children, provided they are
+used only to simple and common articles of food, let them eat, run, and
+play as much as they please, and you may rest assured they will never
+eat too much, or be troubled with indigestion.  But if you starve them
+half the time, and they can find a way to escape your vigilance, they
+will injure themselves with all their might, and eat until they are
+entirely surfeited.
+
+Unless we dictate to our appetite other rules than those of nature, it
+will never be inordinate.  Always regulating, prescribing, adding,
+retrenching, we do everything with scales in hand.  But the scales
+measure our own whims, and not our digestive organs.
+
+To return to my illustrations; among country folk the larder and the
+orchard are always open, and nobody, young or old, knows what
+indigestion means.
+
+
+Result.  The Pupil at the Age of Ten or Twelve.
+
+Supposing that my method is indeed that of nature itself, and that I
+have made no mistakes in applying it, I have now conducted my pupil
+through the region of sensations to the boundaries of childish reason.
+The first step beyond should be that of a man.  But before beginning
+this new career, let us for a moment cast our eyes over what we have
+just traversed.  Every age and station in life has a perfection, a
+maturity, all its own.  We often hear of a full-grown man; in
+contemplating a full-grown child we shall find more novelty, and
+perhaps no less pleasure.
+
+The existence of finite beings is so barren and so limited that when we
+see only what is, it never stirs us to emotion.  Real objects are
+adorned by the creations of fancy, and without this charm yield us but
+a barren satisfaction, tending no farther than to the organ that
+perceives them, and the heart is left cold.  The earth, clad in the
+glories of autumn, displays a wealth which the wondering eye enjoys,
+but which arouses no feeling within us; it springs less from sentiment
+than from reflection.  In spring the landscape is still almost bare;
+the forests yield no shade; the verdure is only beginning to bud; and
+yet the heart is deeply moved at the sight.  We feel within us a new
+life, when we see nature thus revive; delightful images surround us;
+the companions of pleasure, gentle tears, ever ready to spring at the
+touch of tender feelings, brim our eyes.  But upon the panorama of the
+vintage season, animated and pleasant though it be, we have no tears to
+bestow.  Why is there this difference?  It is because imagination joins
+to the sight of spring-time that of following seasons.  To the tender
+buds the eye adds the flowers, the fruit, the shade, sometimes also the
+mysteries that may lie hid in them.  Into a single point of time our
+fancy gathers all the year's seasons yet to be, and sees things less as
+they really will be than as it would choose to have them.  In autumn,
+on the contrary, there is nothing but bare reality.  If we think of
+spring then, the thought of winter checks us, and beneath snow and
+hoar-frost the chilled imagination dies.
+
+The charm we feel in looking upon a lovely childhood rather than upon
+the perfection of mature age, arises from the same source.  If the
+sight of a man in his prime gives us like pleasure, it is when the
+memory of what he has done leads us to review his past life and bring
+up his younger days.  If we think of him as he is, or as he will be in
+old age, the idea of declining nature destroys all our pleasure.  There
+can be none in seeing a man rapidly drawing near the grave; the image
+of death is a blight upon everything.
+
+But when I imagine a child of ten or twelve, sound, vigorous, well
+developed for his age, it gives me pleasure, whether on account of the
+present or of the future.  I see him impetuous, sprightly, animated,
+free from anxiety or corroding care, living wholly in his own present,
+and enjoying a life full to overflowing.  I foresee what he will be in
+later years, using the senses, the intellect, the bodily vigor, every
+day unfolding within him.  When I think of him as a child, he delights
+me; when I think of him as a man, he delights me still more.  His
+glowing pulses seem to warm my own; I feel his life within myself, and
+his sprightliness renews my youth.  His form, his bearing, his
+countenance, manifest self-confidence and happiness.  Health glows in
+his face; his firm step is a sign of bodily vigor.  His complexion,
+still delicate, but not insipid, has in it no effeminate softness, for
+air and sun have already given him the honorable stamp of his sex.  His
+still rounded muscles are beginning to show signs of growing
+expressiveness.  His eyes, not yet lighted with the fire of feeling,
+have all their natural serenity.  Years of sorrow have never made them
+dim, nor have his cheeks been furrowed by unceasing tears.  His quick
+but decided movements show the sprightliness of his age, and his sturdy
+independence; they bear testimony to the abundant physical exercise he
+has enjoyed.  His bearing is frank and open, but not insolent or vain.
+His face, never glued to his books, is never downcast; you need not
+tell him to raise his head, for neither fear nor shame has ever made it
+droop.
+
+Make room for him among you, and examine him, gentlemen.  Question him
+with all confidence, without fear of his troubling you with idle
+chatter or impertinent queries.  Do not be afraid of his taking up all
+your time, or making it impossible for you to get rid of him.  You need
+not expect brilliant speeches that I have taught him, but only the
+frank and simple truth without preparation, ornament, or vanity.  When
+he tells you what he has been thinking or doing, he will speak of the
+evil as freely as of the good, not in the least embarrassed by its
+effect upon those who hear him.  He will use words in all the
+simplicity of their original meaning.
+
+We like to prophesy good of children, and are always sorry when a
+stream of nonsense comes to disappoint hopes aroused by some chance
+repartee.  My pupil seldom awakens such hopes, and will never cause
+such regrets: for he never utters an unnecessary word, or wastes breath
+in babble to which he knows nobody will listen.  If his ideas have a
+limited range, they are nevertheless clear.  If he knows nothing by
+heart, he knows a great deal from experience.  If he does not read
+ordinary books so well as other children, he reads the book of nature
+far better.  His mind is in his brain, and not at his tongue's end.  He
+has less memory than judgment.  He can speak only one language, but he
+understands what he says: and if he does not say it as well as another,
+he can do things far better than they can.
+
+He does not know the meaning of custom or routine.  What he did
+yesterday does not in any wise affect his actions of to-day.  He never
+follows a rigid formula, or gives way in the least to authority or to
+example.  Everything he does and says is after the natural fashion of
+his age.  Expect of him, therefore, no formal speeches or studied
+manners, but always the faithful expression of his own ideas, and a
+conduct arising from his own inclinations.
+
+You will find he has a few moral ideas in relation to his own concerns,
+but in regard to men in general, none at all.  Of what use would these
+last be to him, since a child is not yet an active member of society?
+Speak to him of liberty, of property, even of things done by common
+consent, and he may understand you.  He knows why his own things belong
+to him and those of another person do not, and beyond this he knows
+nothing.  Speak to him of duty and obedience, and he will not know what
+you mean.  Command him to do a thing, and he will not understand you.
+But tell him that if he will do you such and such a favor, you will do
+the same for him whenever you can, and he will readily oblige you; for
+he likes nothing better than to increase his power, and to lay you
+under obligations he knows to be inviolable.  Perhaps, too, he enjoys
+being recognized as somebody and accounted worth something.  But if
+this last be his motive, he has already left the path of nature, and
+you have not effectually closed the approaches to vanity.
+
+If he needs help, he will ask it of the very first person he meets, be
+he monarch or man-servant; to him one man is as good as another.
+
+By his manner of asking, you can see that he feels you do not owe him
+anything; he knows that what he asks is really a favor to him, which
+humanity will induce you to grant.  His expressions are simple and
+laconic.  His voice, his look, his gesture, are those of one equally
+accustomed to consent or to refusal.  They show neither the cringing
+submission of a slave, nor the imperious tone of a master; but modest
+confidence in his fellow-creatures, and the noble and touching
+gentleness of one who is free, but sensitive and feeble, asking aid of
+another, also free, but powerful and kind.  If you do what he asks, he
+does not thank you, but feels that he has laid himself under
+obligation.  If you refuse, he will not complain or insist; he knows it
+would be of no use.  He will not say, "I was refused," but "It was
+impossible."  And, as has been already said, we do not often rebel
+against an acknowledged necessity.
+
+Leave him at liberty and by himself, and without saying a word, watch
+what he does, and how he does it.  Knowing perfectly well that he is
+free, he will do nothing from mere thoughtlessness, or just to show
+that he can do it; for is he not aware that he is always his own
+master?  He is alert, nimble, and active; his movements have all the
+agility of his years; but you will not see one that has not some
+definite aim.  No matter what he may wish to do, he will never
+undertake what he cannot do, for he has tested his own strength, and
+knows exactly what it is.  The means he uses are always adapted to the
+end sought, and he rarely does anything without being assured he will
+succeed in it.  His eye will be attentive and critical, and he will not
+ask foolish questions about everything he sees.  Before making any
+inquiries he will tire himself trying to find a thing out for himself.
+If he meets with unexpected difficulties, he will be less disturbed by
+them than another child, and less frightened if there is danger.  As
+nothing has been done to arouse his still dormant imagination, he sees
+things only as they are, estimates danger accurately, and is always
+self-possessed.  He has so often had to give way to necessity that he
+no longer rebels against it.  Having borne its yoke ever since he was
+born, he is accustomed to it, and is ready for whatever may come.
+
+Work and play are alike to him; his plays are his occupations, and he
+sees no difference between the two.  He throws himself into everything
+with charming earnestness and freedom, which shows the bent of his mind
+and the range of his knowledge.  Who does not enjoy seeing a pretty
+child of this age, with his bright expression of serene content, and
+laughing, open countenance, playing at the most serious things, or
+deeply occupied with the most frivolous amusements?  He has reached the
+maturity of childhood, has lived a child's life, not gaining perfection
+at the cost of his happiness, but developing the one by means of the
+other.
+
+While acquiring all the reasoning power possible to his age, he has
+been as happy and as free as his nature allowed.  If the fatal scythe
+is to cut down in him the flower of our hopes, we shall not be obliged
+to lament at the same time his life and his death.  Our grief will not
+be embittered by the recollection of the sorrows we have made him feel.
+We shall be able to say, "At least, he enjoyed his childhood; we robbed
+him of nothing that nature gave him."
+
+In regard to this early education, the chief difficulty is, that only
+far-seeing men can understand it, and that a child so carefully
+educated seems to an ordinary observer only a young scapegrace.
+
+A tutor usually considers his own interests rather than those of his
+pupil.  He devotes himself to proving that he loses no time and earns
+his salary.  He teaches the child such accomplishments as can be
+readily exhibited when required, without regard to their usefulness or
+worthlessness, so long as they are showy.  Without selecting or
+discerning, he charges the child's memory with a vast amount of
+rubbish.  When the child is to be examined, the tutor makes him display
+his wares; and, after thus giving satisfaction, folds up his pack
+again, and goes his way.
+
+My pupil is not so rich; he has no pack at all to display; he has
+nothing but himself.  Now a child, like a man, cannot be seen all at
+once.  What observer can at the first glance seize upon the child's
+peculiar traits?  Such observers there are, but they are uncommon; and
+among a hundred thousand fathers you will not find one such.
+
+
+
+[1] _Puer_, child; _infans_, one who does not speak.
+
+[2] Reading these lines, we are reminded of the admirable works of
+Dickens, the celebrated English novelist, who so touchingly depicts the
+sufferings of children made unhappy by the inhumanity of teachers, or
+neglected as to their need of free air, of liberty, of affection: David
+Copperfield, Hard Times, Nicholas Nickleby, Dombey and Son, Oliver
+Twist, Little Dorrit, and the like.
+
+[3] Here he means Xerxes, King of Persia, who had built an immense
+bridge of boats over the Hellespont to transport his army from Asia
+into Europe.  A storm having destroyed this bridge, the all-powerful
+monarch, furious at the insubordination of the elements, ordered chains
+to be cast into the sea, and had the rebellious waves beaten with rods.
+
+[4] The feeling of a republican, of the "citizen of Geneva," justly
+shocked by monarchial superstitions.  Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had had,
+in fact, from the days of their first playthings, the degrading
+spectacle of a universal servility prostrated before their cradle.  The
+sentiment here uttered was still uncommon and almost unknown when
+Rousseau wrote it.  He did much toward creating it and making it
+popular.
+
+[5] Civil bondage, as understood by Rousseau, consists in the laws and
+obligations of civilized life itself.  He extols the state of nature as
+the ideal condition, the condition of perfect freedom, without seeing
+that, on the contrary, true liberty cannot exist without the protection
+of laws, while the state of nature is only the enslavement of the weak
+by the strong--the triumph of brute force.
+
+[6] In this unconditional form the principle is inadmissible.  Any one
+who has the rearing of children knows this.  But the idea underlying
+the paradox ought to be recognized, for it is a just one.  We ought not
+to command merely for the pleasure of commanding, but solely to
+interpret to the child the requirements of the case in hand.  To
+command him for the sake of commanding is an abuse of power: it is a
+baseness which will end in disaster.  On the other hand, we cannot
+leave it to circumstances to forbid what ought not to be done.  Only,
+the command should be intelligible, reasonable, and unyielding.  This
+is really what Rousseau means.
+
+[7] This is not strictly true.  The child early has the consciousness
+of right and wrong; and if it be true that neither chastisement nor
+reproof is to be abused, it is no less certain that conscience is early
+awake within him, and that it ought not to be neglected in a work so
+delicate as that of education: on condition, be it understood, that we
+act with simplicity, without pedantry, and that we employ example more
+than lectures.  Rousseau says this admirably a few pages farther on.
+
+[8] Nothing is more injudicious than such a question, especially when
+the child is in fault.  In that case, if he thinks you know what he has
+done, he will see that you are laying a snare for him, and this opinion
+cannot fail to set him against you.  If he thinks you do not know he
+will say to himself, "Why should I disclose my fault?"  And thus the
+first temptation to falsehood is the result of your imprudent
+question.--[Note by J. J. ROUSSEAU.]
+
+[9] He refers to Cato, surnamed of Utica, from the African city in
+which he ended his own life.  When a child, he was often invited by his
+brother to the house of the all-powerful Sulla.  The cruelties of the
+tyrant roused the boy to indignation, and it was necessary to watch him
+lest he should attempt to kill Sulla.  It was in the latter's
+antechamber that the scene described by Plutarch occurred.
+
+[10] While writing this I have reflected a hundred times that in an
+extended work it is impossible always to use the same words in the same
+sense.  No language is rich enough to furnish terms and expressions to
+keep pace with the possible modifications of our ideas.  The method
+which defines all the terms, and substitutes the definition for the
+term, is fine, but impracticable; for how shall we then avoid
+travelling in a circle?  If definitions could be given without using
+words, they might be useful.  Nevertheless, I am convinced that, poor
+as our language is, we can make ourselves understood, not by always
+attaching the same meaning to the same words, but by so using each word
+that its meaning shall be sufficiently determined by the ideas nearly
+related to it, and so that each sentence in which a word is used shall
+serve to define the word.  Sometimes I say that children are incapable
+of reasoning, and sometimes I make them reason extremely well; I think
+that my ideas do not contradict each other, though I cannot escape the
+inconvenient contradictions of my mode of expression.
+
+[11] Another exaggeration: the idea is not to teach children to speak
+another language as perfectly as their own.  There are three different
+objects to be attained in studying languages.  First, this study is
+meant to render easy by comparison and practice the knowledge and free
+use of the mother tongue.  Second, it is useful as intellectual
+gymnastics, developing attention, reflection, reasoning, and taste.
+This result is to be expected particularly from the study of the
+ancient languages.  Third, it lowers the barriers separating nations,
+and furnishes valuable means of intercourse which science, industries,
+and commerce cannot afford to do without.  The French have not always
+shown wisdom in ignoring the language of their neighbors or their
+rivals.
+
+[12] From this passage, it is plain that the objections lately raised
+by intelligent persons against the abuse of Latin conversations and
+verses are not of recent date, after all.
+
+[13] There is indeed a faulty method of teaching history, by giving
+children a dry list of facts, names, and dates.  On the other hand, to
+offer them theories upon the philosophy of history is quite as
+unprofitable.  Yet it is not an absurd error, but a duty, to teach them
+the broad outlines of history, to tell them of deeds of renown, of
+mighty works accomplished, of men celebrated for the good or the evil
+they have done; to interest them in the past of humanity, be it
+melancholy or glorious.  By abuse of logic Rousseau, in protesting
+against one excess, falls into another.
+
+[14] Rousseau here analyzes several of La Fontaine's fables, to show
+the immorality and the danger of their "ethics."  He dwells
+particularly upon the fable of the Fox and the Crow.  In this he is
+right; the morality of the greater part of these fables leaves much to
+be desired.  But there is nothing to prevent the teacher from making
+the application.  The memory of a child is pliable and vigorous; not to
+cultivate it would be doing him great injustice.  We need not say that
+a true teacher not only chooses, but by his instructions explains and
+rectifies everything he requires his pupil to read or to learn by
+heart.  With this reservation one cannot but admire this aversion of
+Rousseau's for parrot-learning, word-worship, and exclusive cultivation
+of the memory.  In a few pages may here be found a complete philosophy
+of teaching, adapted to the regeneration of a people.
+
+[15] Rousseau here alludes to the typographical lottery invented by
+Louis Dumas, a French author of the eighteenth century.  It was an
+imitation of a printing-office, and was intended to teach, in an
+agreeable way, not only reading, but even grammar and spelling.  There
+may be good features in all these systems, but we certainly cannot save
+the child all trouble; we ought to let him understand that work must be
+in earnest.  Besides, as moralists and teachers, we ought not to
+neglect giving children some kinds of work demanding application.  They
+will be in better spirits for recreation hours after study.
+
+[16] It is well to combine the two methods; to keep the child occupied
+with what immediately concerns him, and to interest him also in what is
+more remote, whether in space or in time.  He ought not to become too
+positive, nor yet should he be chimerical.  The "order of nature"
+itself has provided for this, by making the child inquisitive about
+things around him, and at the same time about things far away.
+
+[17] This expresses rather too vehemently a true idea.  Do not try to
+impart a rigid education whose apparent correctness hides grave
+defects.  Allow free course to the child's instinctive activity and
+turbulence; let nature speak; do not crave reserve and fastidiousness
+at the expense of frankness and vigor of mind.  This is what the writer
+really means.
+
+[18] An English philosopher, who died in 1701.  He wrote a very
+celebrated "Treatise on the Education of Children."
+
+[19] A celebrated professor, Rector of the University of Paris, who
+died in 1741.  He left a number of works on education.
+
+[20] An abbe of the seventeenth century who wrote a much valued
+"History of the Church," and a "Treatise on the Method and Choice of
+Studies."  He was tutor to Count Vermandois, natural son to Louis XIV.
+
+[21] A professor of mathematics, born at Lausanne, tutor to Prince
+Fredrick of Hesse Cassel.
+
+[22] "Passion is not born of familiar things."
+
+[23] Recorded as illustrating Spartan education.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THIRD.
+
+
+The third book has to do with the youth as he is between the ages of
+twelve and fifteen.  At this time his strength is proportionately
+greatest, and this is the most important period in his life.  It is the
+time for labor and study; not indeed for studies of all kinds, but for
+those whose necessity the student himself feels.  The principle that
+ought to guide him now is that of utility.  All the master's talent
+consists in leading him to discover what is really useful to him.
+Language and history offer him little that is interesting.  He applies
+himself to studying natural phenomena, because they arouse his
+curiosity and afford him means of overcoming his difficulties.  He
+makes his own instruments, and invents what apparatus he needs.
+
+He does not depend upon another to direct him, but follows where his
+own good sense points the way.  Robinson Crusoe on his island is his
+ideal, and this book furnishes the reading best suited to his age.  He
+should have some manual occupation, as much on account of the uncertain
+future as for the sake of satisfying his own constant activity.
+
+Side by side with the body the mind is developed by a taste for
+reflection, and is finally prepared for studies of a higher order.
+With this period childhood ends and youth begins.
+
+
+
+The Age of Study.
+
+Although up to the beginning of youth life is, on the whole, a period
+of weakness, there is a time during this earlier age when our strength
+increases beyond what our wants require, and the growing animal, still
+absolutely weak, becomes relatively strong.  His wants being as yet
+partly undeveloped, his present strength is more than sufficient to
+provide for those of the present.  As a man, he would be very weak; as
+child, he is very strong.
+
+Whence arises this weakness of ours but from the inequality between our
+desires and the strength we have for fulfilling them?  Our passions
+weaken us, because the gratification of them requires more than our
+natural strength.
+
+If we have fewer desires, we are so much the stronger.  Whoever can do
+more than his wishes demand has strength to spare; he is strong indeed.
+Of this, the third stage of childhood, I have now to speak.  I still
+call it childhood for want of a better term to express the idea; for
+this age, not yet that of puberty, approaches youth.
+
+At the age of twelve or thirteen the child's physical strength develops
+much faster than his wants.  He braves without inconvenience the
+inclemency of climate and seasons, scarcely feeling it at all.  Natural
+heat serves him instead of clothing, appetite instead of sauce.  When
+he is drowsy, he lies down on the ground and falls asleep.  Thus he
+finds around him everything he needs; not governed by caprices, his
+desires extend no farther than his own arms can reach.  Not only is he
+sufficient for himself, but, at this one time in all his life, he has
+more strength than he really requires.
+
+What then shall he do with this superabundance of mental and physical
+strength, which he will hereafter need, but endeavor to employ it in
+ways which will at some time be of use to him, and thus throw this
+surplus vitality forward into the future?  The robust child shall make
+provision for his weaker manhood.  But he will not garner it in barns,
+or lay it up in coffers that can be plundered.  To be real owner of
+this treasure, he must store it up in his arms, in his brain, in
+himself.  The present, then, is the time to labor, to receive
+instruction, and to study; nature so ordains, not I.
+
+Human intelligence has its limits.  We can neither know everything, nor
+be thoroughly acquainted with the little that other men know.  Since
+the reverse of every false proposition is a truth, the number of
+truths, like the number of errors, is inexhaustible.  We have to select
+what is to be taught as well as the time for learning it.  Of the kinds
+of knowledge within our power some are false, some useless, some serve
+only to foster pride.  Only the few that really conduce to our
+well-being are worthy of study by a wise man, or by a youth intended to
+be a wise man.  The question is, not what may be known, but what will
+be of the most use when it is known.  From these few we must again
+deduct such as require a ripeness of understanding and a knowledge of
+human relations which a child cannot possibly acquire; such as, though
+true in themselves, incline an inexperienced mind to judge wrongly of
+other things.
+
+This reduces us to a circle small indeed in relation to existing
+things, but immense when we consider the capacity of the child's mind.
+How daring was the hand that first ventured to lift the veil of
+darkness from our human understanding!  What abysses, due to our unwise
+learning, yawn around the unfortunate youth!  Tremble, you who are to
+conduct him by these perilous ways, and to lift for him the sacred veil
+of nature.  Be sure of your own brain and of his, lest either, or
+perhaps both, grow dizzy at the sight.  Beware of the glamour of
+falsehood and of the intoxicating fumes of pride.  Always bear in mind
+that ignorance has never been harmful, that error alone is fatal, and
+that our errors arise, not from what we do not know, but from what we
+think we do know.[1]
+
+
+The Incentive of Curiosity.
+
+The same instinct animates all the different faculties of man.  To the
+activity of the body, striving to develop itself, succeeds the activity
+of the mind, endeavoring to instruct itself.  Children are at first
+only restless; afterwards they are inquisitive.  Their curiosity,
+rightly trained, is the incentive of the age we are now considering.
+We must always distinguish natural inclinations from those that have
+their source in opinion.
+
+There is a thirst for knowledge which is founded only upon a desire to
+be thought learned, and another, springing from our natural curiosity
+concerning anything which nearly or remotely interests us.  Our desire
+for happiness is inborn, and as it can never be fully satisfied, we are
+always seeking ways to increase what we have.  This first principle of
+curiosity is natural to the heart of man, but is developed only in
+proportion to our passions and to our advance in knowledge.  Call your
+pupil's attention to the phenomena of nature, and you will soon render
+him inquisitive.  But if you would keep this curiosity alive, do not be
+in haste to satisfy it.  Ask him questions that he can comprehend, and
+let him solve them.  Let him know a thing because he has found it out
+for himself, and not because you have told him of it.  Let him not
+learn science, but discover it for himself.  If once you substitute
+authority for reason, he will not reason any more; he will only be the
+sport of other people's opinions.
+
+When you are ready to teach this child geography, you get together your
+globes and your maps; and what machines they are!  Why, instead of
+using all these representations, do you not begin by showing him the
+object itself, so as to let him know what you are talking of?
+
+On some beautiful evening take the child to walk with you, in a place
+suitable for your purpose, where in the unobstructed horizon the
+setting sun can be plainly seen.  Take a careful observation of all the
+objects marking the spot at which it goes down.  When you go for an
+airing next day, return to this same place before the sun rises.  You
+can see it announce itself by arrows of fire.  The brightness
+increases; the east seems all aflame; from its glow you anticipate long
+beforehand the coming of day.  Every moment you imagine you see it.  At
+last it really does appear, a brilliant point which rises like a flash
+of lightning, and instantly fills all space.  The veil of shadows is
+cast down and disappears.  We know our dwelling-place once more, and
+find it more beautiful than ever.  The verdure has taken on fresh vigor
+during the night; it is revealed with its brilliant net-work of
+dew-drops, reflecting light and color to the eye, in the first golden
+rays of the new-born day.  The full choir of birds, none silent, salute
+in concert the Father of life.  Their warbling, still faint with the
+languor of a peaceful awakening, is now more lingering and sweet than
+at other hours of the day.  All this fills the senses with a charm and
+freshness which seems to touch our inmost soul.  No one can resist this
+enchanting hour, or behold with indifference a spectacle so grand, so
+beautiful, so full of all delight.
+
+Carried away by such a sight, the teacher is eager to impart to the
+child his own enthusiasm, and thinks to arouse it by calling attention
+to what he himself feels.  What folly!  The drama of nature lives only
+in the heart; to see it, one must feel it.  The child sees the objects,
+but not the relations that bind them together; he can make nothing of
+their harmony.  The complex and momentary impression of all these
+sensations requires an experience he has never gained, and feelings he
+has never known.  If he has never crossed the desert and felt its
+burning sands scorch his feet, the stifling reflection of the sun from
+its rocks oppress him, how can he fully enjoy the coolness of a
+beautiful morning?  How can the perfume of flowers, the cooling vapor
+of the dew, the sinking of his footstep in the soft and pleasant turf,
+enchant his senses?  How can the singing of birds delight him, while
+the accents of love and pleasure are yet unknown?  How can he see with
+transport the rise of so beautiful a day, unless imagination can paint
+all the transports with which it may be filled?  And lastly, how can he
+be moved by the beautiful panorama of nature, if he does not know by
+whose tender care it has been adorned?
+
+Do not talk to the child about things he cannot understand.  Let him
+hear from you no descriptions, no eloquence, no figurative language, no
+poetry.  Sentiment and taste are just now out of the question.
+Continue to be clear, unaffected, and dispassionate; the time for using
+another language will come only too soon.
+
+Educated in the spirit of our principles, accustomed to look for
+resources within himself, and to have recourse to others only when he
+finds himself really helpless, he will examine every new object for a
+long time without saying a word.  He is thoughtful, and not disposed to
+ask questions.  Be satisfied, therefore, with presenting objects at
+appropriate times and in appropriate ways.  When you see his curiosity
+fairly at work, ask him some laconic question which will suggest its
+own answer.
+
+On this occasion, having watched the sunrise from beginning to end with
+him, having made him notice the mountains and other neighboring objects
+on the same side, and allowed him to talk about them just as he
+pleases, be silent for a few minutes, as if in deep thought, and then
+say to him, "I think the sun set over there, and now it has risen over
+here.  How can that be so?"  Say no more; if he asks questions, do not
+answer them: speak of something else.  Leave him to himself, and he
+will be certain to think the matter over.
+
+To give the child the habit of attention and to impress him deeply with
+any truth affecting the senses, let him pass several restless days
+before he discovers that truth.  If the one in question does not thus
+impress him, you may make him see it more clearly by reversing the
+problem.  If he does not know how the sun passes from its setting to
+its rising, he at least does know how it travels from its rising to its
+setting; his eyes alone teach him this.  Explain your first question by
+the second.  If your pupil be not absolutely stupid, the analogy is so
+plain that he cannot escape it.  This is his first lesson in
+cosmography.
+
+As we pass slowly from one sensible idea to another, familiarize
+ourselves for a long time with each before considering the next, and do
+not force our pupil's attention; it will be a long way from this point
+to a knowledge of the sun's course and of the shape of the earth.  But
+as all the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies are upon the same
+principle, and the first observation prepares the way for all the rest,
+less effort, if more time, is required to pass from the daily rotation
+of the earth to the calculation of eclipses than to understand clearly
+the phenomena of day and night.
+
+Since the sun (apparently) revolves about the earth, it describes a
+circle, and we already know that every circle must have a centre.  This
+centre, being in the heart of the earth, cannot be seen; but we may
+mark upon the surface two opposite points that correspond to it.  A rod
+passing through these three points, and extending from one side of the
+heavens to the other, shall be the axis of the earth, and of the sun's
+apparent daily motion.  A spherical top, turning on its point, shall
+represent the heavens revolving on their axis; the two extremities of
+the top are the two poles.  The child will be interested in knowing one
+of them, which I will show him near the tail of Ursa Minor.
+
+This will serve to amuse us for one night.  By degrees we shall grow
+familiar with the stars, and this will awaken a desire to know the
+planets and to watch the constellations.
+
+We have seen the sun rise at midsummer; we will also watch its rising
+at Christmas or some other fine day in winter.  For be it known that we
+are not at all idle, and that we make a joke of braving the cold.  I
+take care to make this second observation in the same place as the
+first; and after some conversation to pave the way for it.  One or the
+other of us will be sure to exclaim, "How queer that is! the sun does
+not rise where it used to rise!  Here are our old landmarks, and now it
+is rising over yonder.  Then there must be one east for summer, and
+another for winter."  Now, young teacher, your way is plain.  These
+examples ought to suffice you for teaching the sphere very
+understandingly, by taking the world for your globe, and the real sun
+instead of your artificial sun.
+
+
+Things Rather than their Signs.
+
+In general, never show the representation of a thing unless it be
+impossible to show the thing itself; for the sign absorbs the child's
+attention, and makes him lose sight of the thing signified.
+
+The armillary sphere[2] seems to me poorly designed and in bad
+proportion.  Its confused circles and odd figures, giving it the look
+of a conjurer's apparatus, are enough to frighten a child.  The earth
+is too small; the circles are too many and too large.  Some of them,
+the colures,[3] for instance, are entirely useless.  Every circle is
+larger than the earth.  The pasteboard gives them an appearance of
+solidity which creates the mistaken impression that they are circular
+masses which really exist.  When you tell the child that these are
+imaginary circles, he understands neither what he sees nor what you
+mean.
+
+Shall we never learn to put ourselves in the child's place?  We do not
+enter into his thoughts, but suppose them exactly like our own.
+Constantly following our own method of reasoning, we cram his mind not
+only with a concatenation of truths, but also with extravagant notions
+and errors.
+
+In the study of the sciences it is an open question whether we ought to
+use synthesis or analysis.  It is not always necessary to choose
+either.  In the same process of investigation we can sometimes both
+resolve and compound, and while the child thinks he is only analyzing,
+we can direct him by the methods teachers usually employ.  By thus
+using both we make each prove the other.  Starting at the same moment
+from two opposite points and never imagining that one road connects
+them, he will be agreeably surprised to find that what he supposed to
+be two paths finally meet as one.
+
+I would, for example, take geography at these two extremes, and add to
+the study of the earth's motions the measurement of its parts,
+beginning with our own dwelling-place.  While the child, studying the
+sphere, is transported into the heavens, bring him back to the
+measurement of the earth, and first show him his own home.
+
+The two starting-points in his geography shall be the town in which he
+lives, and his father's house in the country.  Afterward shall come the
+places lying between these two; then the neighboring rivers; lastly,
+the aspect of the sun, and the manner of finding out where the east is.
+This last is the point of union.  Let him make himself a map of all
+these details; a very simple map, including at first only two objects,
+then by degrees the others, as he learns their distance and position.
+You see now what an advantage we have gained beforehand, by making his
+eyes serve him instead of a compass.
+
+Even with this it may be necessary to direct him a little, but very
+little, and without appearing to do so at all.  When he makes mistakes,
+let him make them; do not correct them.  Wait in silence until he can
+see and correct them himself.  Or, at most, take a good opportunity to
+set in motion some thing which will direct his attention to them.  If
+he were never to make mistakes, he could not learn half so well.
+Besides, the important thing is, not that he should know the exact
+topography of the country, but that he should learn how to find it out
+by himself.  It matters little whether he has maps in his mind or not,
+so that he understands what they represent, and has a clear idea of how
+they are made.
+
+Mark the difference between the learning of your pupils and the
+ignorance of mine.  They know all about maps, and he can make them.
+Our maps will serve as new decorations for our room.
+
+
+Imparting a Taste for Science.
+
+Bear in mind always that the life and soul of my system is, not to
+teach the child many things, but to allow only correct and clear ideas
+to enter his mind.  I do not care if he knows nothing, so long as he is
+not mistaken.  To guard him from errors he might learn, I furnish his
+mind with truths only.  Reason and judgment enter slowly; prejudices
+crowd in; and he must be preserved from these last.  Yet if you
+consider science in itself, you launch upon an unfathomable and
+boundless sea, full of unavoidable dangers.  When I see a man carried
+away by his love for knowledge, hastening from one alluring science to
+another, without knowing where to stop, I think I see a child gathering
+shells upon the seashore.  At first he loads himself with them; then,
+tempted by others, he throws these away, and gathers more.  At last,
+weighed down by so many, and no longer knowing which to choose, he ends
+by throwing all away, and returning empty-handed.
+
+In our early years time passed slowly; we endeavored to lose it, for
+fear of misusing it.  The case is reversed; now we have not time enough
+for doing all that we find useful.  Bear in mind that the passions are
+drawing nearer, and that as soon as they knock at the door, your pupil
+will have eyes and ears for them alone.  The tranquil period of
+intelligence is so brief, and has so many other necessary uses, that
+only folly imagines it long enough to make the child a learned man.
+The thing is, not to teach him knowledge, but to give him a love for
+it, and a good method of acquiring it when this love has grown
+stronger.  Certainly this is a fundamental principle in all good
+education.
+
+Now, also, is the time to accustom him gradually to concentrate
+attention on a single object.  This attention, however, should never
+result from constraint, but from desire and pleasure.  Be careful that
+it shall not grow irksome, or approach the point of weariness.  Leave
+any subject just before he grows tired of it; for the learning it
+matters less to him than the never being obliged to learn anything
+against his will.  If he himself questions you, answer so as to keep
+alive his curiosity, not to satisfy it altogether.  Above all, when you
+find that he makes inquiries, not for the sake of learning something,
+but to talk at random and annoy you with silly questions, pause at
+once, assured that he cares nothing about the matter, but only to
+occupy your time with himself.  Less regard should be paid to what he
+says than to the motive which leads him to speak.  This caution,
+heretofore unnecessary, is of the utmost importance as soon as a child
+begins to reason.
+
+There is a chain of general truths by which all sciences are linked to
+common principles and successively unfolded.  This chain is the method
+of philosophers, with which, for the present, we have nothing to do.
+There is another, altogether different, which shows each object as the
+cause of another, and always points out the one following.  This order,
+which, by a perpetual curiosity, keeps alive the attention demanded by
+all, is the one followed by most men, and of all others necessary with
+children.  When, in making our maps, we found out the place of the
+east, we were obliged to draw meridians.  The two points of
+intersection between the equal shadows of night and morning furnish an
+excellent meridian for an astronomer thirteen years old.  But these
+meridians disappear; it takes time to draw them; they oblige us to work
+always in the same place; so much care, so much annoyance, will tire
+him out at last.  We have seen and provided for this beforehand.
+
+I have again begun upon tedious and minute details.  Readers, I hear
+your murmurs, and disregard them.  I will not sacrifice to your
+impatience the most useful part of this book.  Do what you please with
+my tediousness, as I have done as I pleased in regard to your
+complaints.
+
+
+The Juggler.
+
+For some time my pupil and I had observed that different bodies, such
+as amber, glass, and wax, when rubbed, attract straws, and that others
+do not attract them.  By accident we discovered one that has a virtue
+more extraordinary still,--that of attracting at a distance, and
+without being rubbed, iron filings and other bits of iron.  This
+peculiarity amused us for some time before we saw any use in it.  At
+last we found out that it may be communicated to iron itself, when
+magnetized to a certain degree.  One day we went to a fair, where a
+juggler, with a piece of bread, attracted a duck made of wax, and
+floating on a bowl of water.  Much surprised, we did not however say,
+"He is a conjurer," for we knew nothing about conjurers.  Continually
+struck by effects whose causes we do not know, we were not in haste to
+decide the matter, and remained in ignorance until we found a way out
+of it.
+
+When we reached home we had talked so much of the duck at the fair that
+we thought we would endeavor to copy it.  Taking a perfect needle, well
+magnetized, we inclosed it in white wax, modelled as well as we could
+do it into the shape of a duck, so that the needle passed entirely
+through the body, and with its larger end formed the duck's bill.  We
+placed the duck upon the water, applied to the beak the handle of a
+key, and saw, with a delight easy to imagine, that our duck would
+follow the key precisely as the one at the fair had followed the piece
+of bread.  We saw that some time or other we might observe the
+direction in which the duck turned when left to itself upon the water.
+But absorbed at that time by another object, we wanted nothing more.
+
+That evening, having in our pockets bread prepared for the occasion, we
+returned to the fair.  As soon as the mountebank had performed his
+feat, my little philosopher, scarcely able to contain himself, told him
+that the thing was not hard to do, and that he could do it himself.  He
+was taken at his word.  Instantly he took from his pocket the bread in
+which he had hidden the bit of iron.  Approaching the table his heart
+beat fast; almost tremblingly, he presented the bread.  The duck came
+toward it and followed it; the child shouted and danced for joy.  At
+the clapping of hands, and the acclamations of all present, his head
+swam, and he was almost beside himself.  The juggler was astonished,
+but embraced and congratulated him, begging that we would honor him
+again by our presence on the following day, adding that he would take
+care to have a larger company present to applaud our skill.  My little
+naturalist, filled with pride, began to prattle; but I silenced him,
+and led him away loaded with praises.  The child counted the minutes
+until the morrow with impatience that made me smile.  He invited
+everybody he met; gladly would he have had all mankind as witnesses of
+his triumph.  He could scarcely wait for the hour agreed upon, and,
+long before it came, flew to the place appointed.  The hall was already
+full, and on entering, his little heart beat fast.  Other feats were to
+come first; the juggler outdid himself, and there were some really
+wonderful performances.  The child paid no attention to these.  His
+excitement had thrown him into a perspiration; he was almost
+breathless, and fingered the bread in his pocket with a hand trembling
+with impatience.
+
+At last his turn came, and the master pompously announced the fact.
+Rather bashfully the boy drew near and held forth his bread.  Alas for
+the changes in human affairs!  The duck, yesterday so tame, had grown
+wild.  Instead of presenting its bill, it turned about and swam away,
+avoiding the bread and the hand which presented it, as carefully as it
+had before followed them.  After many fruitless attempts, each received
+with derision, the child complained that a trick was played on him, and
+defied the juggler to attract the duck.
+
+The man, without a word, took a piece of bread and presented it to the
+duck, which instantly followed it, and came towards his hand.  The
+child took the same bit of bread; but far from having better success,
+he saw the duck make sport of him by whirling round and round as it
+swam about the edge of the basin.  At last he retired in great
+confusion, no longer daring to encounter the hisses which followed.
+
+Then the juggler took the bit of bread the child had brought, and
+succeeded as well with it as with his own.  In the presence of the
+entire company he drew out the needle, making another joke at our
+expense; then, with the bread thus disarmed, he attracted the duck as
+before.  He did the same thing with a piece of bread which a third
+person cut off in the presence of all; again, with his glove, and with
+the tip of his finger.  At last, going to the middle of the room, he
+declared in the emphatic tone peculiar to his sort, that the duck would
+obey his voice quite as well as his gesture.  He spoke, and the duck
+obeyed him; commanded it to go to the right, and it went to the right;
+to return, and it did so; to turn, and it turned itself about.  Each
+movement was as prompt as the command.  The redoubled applause was a
+repeated affront to us.  We stole away unmolested, and shut ourselves
+up in our room, without proclaiming our success far and wide as we had
+meant to do.
+
+There was a knock at our door next morning; I opened it, and there
+stood the mountebank, who modestly complained of our conduct.  What had
+he done to us that we should try to throw discredit on his performances
+and take away his livelihood?  What is so wonderful in the art of
+attracting a wax duck, that the honor should be worth the price of an
+honest man's living?  "Faith, gentlemen, if I had any other way of
+earning my bread, I should boast very little of this way.  You may well
+believe that a man who has spent his life in practising this pitiful
+trade understands it much better than you, who devote only a few
+minutes to it.  If I did not show you my best performances the first
+time, it was because a man ought not to be such a fool as to parade
+everything he knows.  I always take care to keep my best things for a
+fit occasion; and I have others, too, to rebuke young and thoughtless
+people.  Besides, gentlemen, I am going to teach you, in the goodness
+of my heart, the secret which puzzled you so much, begging that you
+will not abuse your knowledge of it to injure me, and that another time
+you will use more discretion."
+
+Then he showed us his apparatus, and we saw, to our surprise, that it
+consisted only of a powerful magnet moved by a child concealed beneath
+the table.  The man put up his machine again; and after thanking him
+and making due apologies, we offered him a present.  He refused,
+saying, "No, gentlemen, I am not so well pleased with you as to accept
+presents from you.  You cannot help being under an obligation to me,
+and that is revenge enough.  But, you see, generosity is to be found in
+every station in life; I take pay for my performances, not for my
+lessons."
+
+As he was going out, he reprimanded me pointedly and aloud.  "I
+willingly pardon this child," said he; "he has offended only through
+ignorance.  But you, sir, must have known the nature of his fault; why
+did you allow him to commit such a fault?  Since you live together,
+you, who are older, ought to have taken the trouble of advising him;
+the authority of your experience should have guided him.  When he is
+old enough to reproach you for his childish errors, he will certainly
+blame you for those of which you did not warn him."[4]
+
+He went away, leaving us greatly abashed.  I took upon myself the blame
+of my easy compliance, and promised the child that, another time, I
+would sacrifice it to his interest, and warn him of his faults before
+they were committed.  For a time was coming when our relations would be
+changed, and the severity of the tutor must succeed to the complaisance
+of an equal.  This change should be gradual; everything must be
+foreseen, and that long beforehand.
+
+The following day we returned to the fair, to see once more the trick
+whose secret we had learned.  We approached our juggling Socrates with
+deep respect, hardly venturing to look at him.  He overwhelmed us with
+civilities, and seated us with a marked attention which added to our
+humiliation.  He performed his tricks as usual, but took pains to amuse
+himself for a long time with the duck trick, often looking at us with a
+rather defiant air.  We understood it perfectly, and did not breathe a
+syllable.  If my pupil had even dared to open his mouth, he would have
+deserved to be annihilated.
+
+All the details of this illustration are far more important than they
+appear.  How many lessons are here combined in one!  How many
+mortifying effects does the first feeling of vanity bring upon us!
+Young teachers, watch carefully its first manifestation.  If you can
+thus turn it into humiliation and disgrace, be assured that a second
+lesson will not soon be necessary.
+
+"What an amount of preparation!" you will say.  True; and all to make
+us a compass to use instead of a meridian line!
+
+Having learned that a magnet acts through other bodies, we were all
+impatience until we had made an apparatus like the one we had seen,--a
+hollow table-top with a very shallow basin adjusted upon it and filled
+with water, a duck rather more carefully made, and so on.  Watching
+this apparatus attentively and often, we finally observed that the
+duck, when at rest, nearly always turned in the same direction.
+Following up the experiment by examining this direction, we found it to
+be from south to north.  Nothing more was necessary; our compass was
+invented, or might as well have been.  We had begun to study physics.
+
+
+Experimental Physics.
+
+The earth has different climates, and these have different
+temperatures.  As we approach the poles the variation of seasons is
+more perceptible,--all bodies contract with cold and expand with heat.
+This effect is more readily measured in liquids, and is particularly
+noticeable in spirituous liquors.  This fact suggested the idea of the
+thermometer.  The wind strikes our faces; air is therefore a body, a
+fluid; we feel it though we cannot see it.  Turn a glass vessel upside
+down in water, and the water will not fill it unless you leave a vent
+for the air; therefore air is capable of resistance.  Sink the glass
+lower, and the water rises in the air-filled region of the glass,
+although it does not entirely fill that space.  Air is therefore to
+some extent compressible.  A ball filled with compressed air bounds
+much better than when filled with anything else: air is therefore
+elastic.  When lying at full length in the bath, raise the arm
+horizontally out of the water, and you feel it burdened by a great
+weight; air is therefore heavy.  Put air in equilibrium with other
+bodies, and you can measure its weight.  From these observations were
+constructed the barometer, the siphon, the air-gun, and the air-pump.
+All the laws of statics and hydrostatics were discovered by experiments
+as simple as these.  I would not have my pupil study them in a
+laboratory of experimental physics.  I dislike all that array of
+machines and instruments.  The parade of science is fatal to science
+itself.  All those machines frighten the child; or else their singular
+forms divide and distract the attention he ought to give to their
+effects.
+
+I would make all our own machines, and not begin by making the
+instrument before the experiment has been tried.  But after apparently
+lighting by chance on the experiment, I should by degrees invent
+instruments for verifying it.  These instruments should not be so
+perfect and exact as our ideas of what they should be and of the
+operations resulting from them.
+
+For the first lesson in statics, instead of using balances, I put a
+stick across the back of a chair, and when evenly balanced, measure its
+two portions.  I add weights to each part, sometimes equal, sometimes
+unequal.  Pushing it to or fro as may be necessary, I finally discover
+that equilibrium results from a reciprocal proportion between the
+amount of weight and the length of the levers.  Thus my little student
+of physics can rectify balances without having ever seen them.
+
+When we thus learn by ourselves instead of learning from others, our
+ideas are far more definite and clear.  Besides, if our reason is not
+accustomed to slavish submission to authority, this discovering
+relations, linking one idea to another, and inventing apparatus,
+renders us much more ingenious.  If, instead, we take everything just
+as it is given to us, we allow our minds to sink down into
+indifference; just as a man who always lets his servants dress him and
+wait on him, and his horses carry him about, loses finally not only the
+vigor but even the use of his limbs.  Boileau boasted that he had
+taught Racine to rhyme with difficulty.  There are many excellent
+labor-saving methods for studying science; but we are in sore need of
+one to teach us how to learn them with more effort of our own.
+
+The most manifest value of these slow and laborious researches is, that
+amid speculative studies they maintain the activity and suppleness of
+the body, by training the hands to labor, and creating habits useful to
+any man.  So many instruments are invented to aid in our experiments
+and to supplement the action of our senses, that we neglect to use the
+senses themselves.  If the graphometer measures the size of an angle
+for us, we need not estimate it ourselves.  The eye which measured
+distances with precision intrusts this work to the chain; the steelyard
+saves me the trouble of measuring weights by the hand.  The more
+ingenious our apparatus, the more clumsy and awkward do our organs
+become.  If we surround ourselves with instruments, we shall no longer
+find them within ourselves.
+
+But when, in making the apparatus, we employ the skill and sagacity
+required in doing without them, we do not lose, but gain.  By adding
+art to nature, we become more ingenious and no less skilful.  If,
+instead of keeping a child at his books, I keep him busy in a workshop,
+his hands labor to his mind's advantage: while he regards himself only
+as a workman he is growing into a philosopher.  This kind of exercise
+has other uses, of which I will speak hereafter; and we shall see how
+philosophic amusements prepare us for the true functions of manhood.
+
+I have already remarked that purely speculative studies are rarely
+adapted to children, even when approaching the period of youth; but
+without making them enter very deeply into systematic physics, let all
+the experiments be connected by some kind of dependence by which the
+child can arrange them in his mind and recall them at need.  For we
+cannot without something of this sort retain isolated facts or even
+reasonings long in memory.
+
+In investigating the laws of nature, always begin with the most common
+and most easily observed phenomena, and accustom your pupil not to
+consider these phenomena as reasons, but as facts.  Taking a stone, I
+pretend to lay it upon the air; opening my hand, the stone falls.
+Looking at Emile, who is watching my motions, I say to him, "Why did
+the stone fall?"
+
+No child will hesitate in answering such a question, not even Emile,
+unless I have taken great care that he shall not know how.  Any child
+will say that the stone falls because it is heavy.  "And what does
+heavy mean?"  "Whatever falls is heavy."  Here my little philosopher is
+really at a stand.  Whether this first lesson in experimental physics
+aids him in understanding that subject or not, it will always be a
+practical lesson.
+
+
+Nothing to be Taken upon Authority.  Learning from the Pupil's own
+Necessities.
+
+As the child's understanding matures, other important considerations
+demand that we choose his occupations with more care.  As soon as he
+understands himself and all that relates to him well enough and broadly
+enough to discern what is to his advantage and what is becoming in him,
+he can appreciate the difference between work and play, and to regard
+the one solely as relaxation from the other.  Objects really useful may
+then be included among his studies, and he will pay more attention to
+them than if amusement alone were concerned.  The ever-present law of
+necessity early teaches us to do what we dislike, to escape evils we
+should dislike even more.  Such is the use of foresight from which,
+judicious or injudicious, springs all the wisdom or all the unhappiness
+of mankind.
+
+We all long for happiness, but to acquire it we ought first to know
+what it is.  To the natural man it is as simple as his mode of life; it
+means health, liberty, and the necessaries of life, and freedom from
+suffering.  The happiness of man as a moral being is another thing,
+foreign to the present question.  I cannot too often repeat that only
+objects purely physical can interest children, especially those who
+have not had their vanity aroused and their nature corrupted by the
+poison of opinion.
+
+When they provide beforehand for their own wants, their understanding
+is somewhat developed, and they are beginning to learn the value of
+time.  We ought then by all means to accustom and to direct them to its
+employment to useful ends, these being such as are useful at their age
+and readily understood by them.  The subject of moral order and the
+usages of society should not yet be presented, because children are not
+in a condition to understand such things.  To force their attention
+upon things which, as we vaguely tell them, will be for their good,
+when they do not know what this good means, is foolish.  It is no less
+foolish to assure them that such things will benefit them when grown;
+for they take no interest in this supposed benefit, which they cannot
+understand.
+
+Let the child take nothing for granted because some one says it is so.
+Nothing is good to him but what he feels to be good.  You think it far
+sighted to push him beyond his understanding of things, but you are
+mistaken.  For the sake of arming him with weapons he does not know how
+to use, you take from him one universal among men, common sense: you
+teach him to allow himself always to be led, never to be more than a
+machine in the hands of others.  If you will have him docile while he
+is young, you will make him a credulous dupe when he is a man.  You are
+continually saying to him, "All I require of you is for your own good,
+but you cannot understand it yet.  What does it matter to me whether
+you do what I require or not?  You are doing it entirely for your own
+sake."  With such fine speeches you are paving the way for some kind of
+trickster or fool,--some visionary babbler or charlatan,--who will
+entrap him or persuade him to adopt his own folly.
+
+A man may be well acquainted with things whose utility a child cannot
+comprehend; but is it right, or even possible, for a child to learn
+what a man ought to know?  Try to teach the child all that is useful to
+him now, and you will keep him busy all the time.  Why would you injure
+the studies suitable to him at his age by giving him those of an age he
+may never attain?  "But," you say, "will there be time for learning
+what he ought to know when the time to use it has already come?"  I do
+not know; but I am sure that he cannot learn it sooner.  For experience
+and feeling are our real teachers, and we never understand thoroughly
+what is best for us except from the circumstances of our case.  A child
+knows that he will one day be a man.  All the ideas of manhood that he
+can understand give us opportunities of teaching him; but of those he
+cannot understand he should remain in absolute ignorance.  This entire
+book is only a continued demonstration of this principle of education.
+
+
+Finding out the East.  The Forest of Montmorency.
+
+I do not like explanatory lectures; young people pay very little
+attention to them, and seldom remember them.  Things! things!  I cannot
+repeat often enough that we attach too much importance to words.  Our
+babbling education produces nothing but babblers.
+
+Suppose that while we are studying the course of the sun, and the
+manner of finding where the east is, Emile all at once interrupts me,
+to ask, "What is the use of all this?"  What an opportunity for a fine
+discourse!  How many things I could tell him of in answering this
+question, especially if anybody were by to listen!  I could mention the
+advantages of travel and of commerce; the peculiar products of each
+climate; the manners of different nations; the use of the calendar; the
+calculation of seasons in agriculture; the art of navigation, and the
+manner of travelling by sea, following the true course without knowing
+where we are.  I might take up politics, natural history, astronomy,
+even ethics and international law, by way of giving my pupil an exalted
+idea of all these sciences, and a strong desire to learn them.  When I
+have done, the boy will not have understood a single idea out of all my
+pedantic display.  He would like to ask again, "What is the use of
+finding out where the east is?" but dares not, lest I might be angry.
+He finds it more to his interest to pretend to understand what he has
+been compelled to hear.  This is not at all an uncommon case in
+superior education, so-called.
+
+But our Emile, brought up more like a rustic, and carefully taught to
+think very slowly, will not listen to all this.  He will run away at
+the first word he does not understand, and play about the room, leaving
+me to harangue all by myself.  Let us find a simpler way; this
+scientific display does him no good.
+
+We were noticing the position of the forest north of Montmorency, when
+he interrupted me with the eager question, "What is the use of knowing
+that?"  "You may be right," said I; "we must take time to think about
+it; and if there is really no use in it, we will not try it again, for
+we have enough to do that is of use."  We went at something else, and
+there was no more geography that day.
+
+The next morning I proposed a walk before breakfast.  Nothing could
+have pleased him better; children are always ready to run about, and
+this boy had sturdy legs of his own.  We went into the forest, and
+wandered over the fields; we lost ourselves, having no idea where we
+were; and when we intended to go home, could not find our way.  Time
+passed; the heat of the day came on; we were hungry.  In vain did we
+hurry about from place to place; we found everywhere nothing but woods,
+quarries, plains, and not a landmark that we knew.  Heated, worn out
+with fatigue, and very hungry, our running about only led us more and
+more astray.  At last we sat down to rest and to think the matter over.
+Emile, like any other child, did not think about it; he cried.  He did
+not know that we were near the gate of Montmorency, and that only a
+narrow strip of woodland hid it from us.  But to him this narrow strip
+of woodland was a whole forest; one of his stature would be lost to
+sight among bushes.
+
+After some moments of silence I said to him, with a troubled air,
+
+"My dear Emile, what shall we do to get away from here?"
+
+EMILE.  [_In a profuse perspiration, and crying bitterly._] I don't
+know.  I'm tired.  I'm hungry.  I'm thirsty.  I can't do anything.
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  Do you think I am better off than you, or that I would
+mind crying too, if crying would do for my breakfast?  There is no use
+in crying; the thing is, to find our way.  Let me see your watch; what
+time is it?
+
+EMILE.  It is twelve o'clock, and I haven't had my breakfast.
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  That is true.  It is twelve o'clock, and I haven't had
+my breakfast, either.
+
+EMILE.  Oh, how hungry you must be!
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  The worst of it is that my dinner will not come here to
+find me.  Twelve o'clock?  it was just this time yesterday that we
+noticed where Montmorency is.  Could we see where it is just as well
+from this forest?
+
+EMILE.  Yea; but yesterday we saw the forest, and we cannot see the
+town from this place.
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  That is a pity.  I wonder if we could find out where it
+is without seeing it?
+
+EMILE.  Oh, my dear friend!
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  Did not we say that this forest is--
+
+EMILE.  North of Montmorency.
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  If that is true, Montmorency must be--
+
+EMILE.  South of the forest.
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  There is a way of finding out the north at noon.
+
+EMILE.  Yes; by the direction of our shadows.
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  But the south?
+
+EMILE.  How can we find that?
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  The south is opposite the north.
+
+EMILE.  That is true; all we have to do is to find the side opposite
+the shadows.  Oh, there's the south! there's the south!  Montmorency
+must surely be on that side; let us look on that side.
+
+JEAN JACQUES.  Perhaps you are right.  Let us take this path through
+the forest.
+
+EMILE.  [_Clapping his hands, with a joyful shout._] Oh, I see
+Montmorency; there it is, just before us, in plain sight.  Let us go to
+our breakfast, our dinner; let us run fast.  Astronomy is good for
+something!
+
+Observe that even if he does not utter these last words, they will be
+in his mind.  It matters little so long as it is not I who utter them.
+Rest assured that he will never in his life forget this day's lesson.
+Now if I had only made him imagine it all indoors, my lecture would
+have been entirely forgotten by the next day.  We should teach as much
+as possible by actions, and say only what we cannot do.
+
+
+Robinson Crusoe.
+
+In his legitimate preference for teaching by the eye and hand and by
+real things, and in his aversion to the barren and erroneous method of
+teaching from books alone, Rousseau, constantly carried away by the
+passionate ardor of his nature, rushes into an opposite extreme, and
+exclaims, "I hate books; they only teach us to talk about what we do
+not understand."  Then, checked in the full tide of this declamation by
+his own good sense, he adds:--
+
+
+Since we must have books, there is one which, to my mind, furnishes the
+finest of treatises on education according to nature.  My Emile shall
+read this book before any other; it shall for a long time be his entire
+library, and shall always hold an honorable place.  It shall be the
+text on which all our discussions of natural science shall be only
+commentaries.  It shall be a test for all we meet during our progress
+toward a ripened judgment, and so long as our taste is unspoiled, we
+shall enjoy reading it.  What wonderful book is this?  Aristotle?
+Pliny?  Buffon?  No; it is "Robinson Crusoe."
+
+The story of this man, alone on his island, unaided by his fellow-men,
+without any art or its implements, and yet providing for his own
+preservation and subsistence, even contriving to live in what might be
+called comfort, is interesting to persons of all ages.  It may be made
+delightful to children in a thousand ways.  Thus we make the desert
+island, which I used at the outset for a comparison, a reality.
+
+This condition is not, I grant, that of man in society; and to all
+appearance Emile will never occupy it; but from it he ought to judge of
+all others.  The surest way to rise above prejudice, and to judge of
+things in their true relations, is to put ourselves in the place of an
+isolated man, and decide as he must concerning their real utility.
+
+Disencumbered of its less profitable portions, this romance from its
+beginning, the shipwreck of Crusoe on the island, to its end, the
+arrival of the vessel which takes him away, will yield amusement and
+instruction to Emile during the period now in question.  I would have
+him completely carried away by it, continually thinking of Crusoe's
+fort, his goats, and his plantations.  I would have him learn, not from
+books, but from real things, all he would need to know under the same
+circumstances.  He should be encouraged to play Robinson Crusoe; to
+imagine himself clad in skins, wearing a great cap and sword, and all
+the array of that grotesque figure, down to the umbrella, of which he
+would have no need.  If he happens to be in want of anything, I hope he
+will contrive something to supply its place.  Let him look carefully
+into all that his hero did, and decide whether any of it was
+unnecessary, or might have been done in a better way.  Let him notice
+Crusoe's mistakes and avoid them under like circumstances.  He will
+very likely plan for himself surroundings like Crusoe's,--a real castle
+in the air, natural at his happy age when we think ourselves rich if we
+are free and have the necessaries of life.  How useful this hobby might
+be made if some man of sense would only suggest it and turn it to good
+account!  The child, eager to build a storehouse for his island, would
+be more desirous to learn than his master would be to teach him.  He
+would be anxious to know everything he could make use of, and nothing
+besides.  You would not need to guide, but to restrain him.
+
+
+Here Rousseau insists upon giving a child some trade, no matter what
+his station in life may be; and in 1762 he uttered these prophetic
+words, remarkable indeed, when we call to mind the disorders at the
+close of that century:--
+
+
+You trust to the present condition of society, without reflecting that
+it is subject to unavoidable revolutions, and that you can neither
+foresee nor prevent what is to affect the fate of your own children.
+The great are brought low, the poor are made rich, the king becomes a
+subject.  Are the blows of fate so uncommon that you can expect to
+escape them?  We are approaching a crisis, the age of revolutions.  Who
+can tell what will become of you then?  All that man has done man may
+destroy.  No characters but those stamped by nature are ineffaceable;
+and nature did not make princes, or rich men, or nobles.
+
+
+This advice was followed.  In the highest grades of society it became
+the fashion to learn some handicraft.  It is well known that Louis XVI.
+was proud of his skill as a locksmith.  Among the exiles of a later
+period, many owed their living to the trade they had thus learned.
+
+To return to Emile: Rousseau selects for him the trade of a joiner, and
+goes so far as to employ him and his tutor in that kind of labor for
+one or more days of every week under a master who pays them actual
+wages for their work.
+
+
+Judging from Appearances.  The Broken Stick.
+
+If I have thus far made myself understood, you may see how, with
+regular physical exercise and manual labor, I am at the same time
+giving my pupil a taste for reflection and meditation.  This will
+counterbalance the indolence which might result from his indifference
+to other men and from the dormant state of his passions.  He must work
+like a peasant and think like a philosopher, or he will be as idle as a
+savage.  The great secret of education is to make physical and mental
+exercises serve as relaxation for each other.  At first our pupil had
+nothing but sensations, and now he has ideas.  Then he only perceived,
+but now he judges.  For from comparison of many successive or
+simultaneous sensations, with the judgments based on them, arises a
+kind of mixed or complex sensation which I call an idea.
+
+The different manner in which ideas are formed gives each mind its
+peculiar character.  A mind is solid if it shape its ideas according to
+the true relations of things; superficial, if content with their
+apparent relations; accurate, if it behold things as they really are;
+unsound, if it understand them incorrectly; disordered, if it fabricate
+imaginary relations, neither apparent nor real; imbecile, if it do not
+compare ideas at all.  Greater or less mental power in different men
+consists in their greater or less readiness in comparing ideas and
+discovering their relations.
+
+From simple as well as complex sensations, we form judgments which I
+will call simple ideas.  In a sensation the judgment is wholly passive,
+only affirming that we feel what we feel.  In a preception or idea, the
+judgment is active; it brings together, compares, and determines
+relations not determined by the senses.  This is the only point of
+difference, but it is important.  Nature never deceives us; it is
+always we who deceive ourselves.
+
+I see a child eight years old helped to some frozen custard.  Without
+knowing what it is, he puts a spoonful in his mouth, and feeling the
+cold sensation, exclaims, "Ah, that burns!"  He feels a keen sensation;
+he knows of none more so than heat, and thinks that is what he now
+feels.  He is of course mistaken; the chill is painful, but does not
+burn him; and the two sensations are not alike, since, after
+encountering both, we never mistake one for the other.  It is not,
+therefore, the sensation which misleads him, but the judgment based on
+it.
+
+It is the same when any one sees for the first time a mirror or optical
+apparatus; or enters a deep cellar in mid-winter or midsummer; or
+plunges his hand, either very warm or very cold, into tepid water; or
+rolls a little ball between two of his fingers held crosswise.  If he
+is satisfied with describing what he perceives or feels, keeping his
+judgment in abeyance, he cannot be mistaken.  But when he decides upon
+appearances, his judgment is active; it compares, and infers relations
+it does not perceive; and it may then be mistaken.  He will need
+experience to prevent or correct such mistakes.  Show your pupil clouds
+passing over the moon at night, and he will think that the moon is
+moving in an opposite direction, and that the clouds are at rest.  He
+will the more readily infer that this is the case, because he usually
+sees small objects, not large ones, in motion, and because the clouds
+seem to him larger than the moon, of whose distance he has no idea.
+When from a moving boat he sees the shore at a little distance, he
+makes the contrary mistake of thinking that the earth moves.  For,
+unconscious of his own motion, the boat, the water, and the entire
+horizon seem to him one immovable whole of which the moving shore is
+only one part.
+
+The first time a child sees a stick half immersed in water, it seems to
+be broken.  The sensation is a true one, and would be, even if we did
+not know the reason for this appearance.  If therefore you ask him what
+he sees, he answers truly, "A broken stick," because he is fully
+conscious of the sensation of a broken stick.  But when, deceived by
+his judgment, he goes farther, and after saying that he sees a broken
+stick, he says again that the stick really is broken, he says what is
+not true; and why?  Because his judgment becomes active; he decides no
+longer from observation, but from inference, when he declares as a fact
+what he does not actually perceive; namely, that touch would confirm
+the judgment based upon sight alone.
+
+The best way of learning to judge correctly is the one which tends to
+simplify our experience, and enables us to make no mistakes even when
+we dispense with experience altogether.  It follows from this that
+after having long verified the testimony of one sense by that of
+another, we must further learn to verify the testimony of each sense by
+itself without appeal to any other.  Then each sensation at once
+becomes an idea, and an idea in accordance with the truth.  With such
+acquisitions I have endeavored to store this third period of human life.
+
+To follow this plan requires a patience and a circumspection of which
+few teachers are capable, and without which a pupil will never learn to
+judge correctly.  For example: if, when he is misled by the appearance
+of a broken stick, you endeavor to show him his mistake by taking the
+stick quickly out of the water, you may perhaps undeceive him, but what
+will you teach him?  Nothing he might not have learned for himself.
+You ought not thus to teach him one detached truth, instead of showing
+him how he may always discover for himself any truth.  If you really
+mean to teach him, do not at once undeceive him.  Let Emile and myself
+serve you for example.
+
+In the first place, any child educated in the ordinary way would, to
+the second of the two questions above mentioned, answer, "Of course the
+stick is broken."  I doubt whether Emile would give this answer.
+Seeing no need of being learned or of appearing learned, he never
+judges hastily, but only from evidence.  Knowing how easily appearances
+deceive us, as in the case of perspective, he is far from finding the
+evidence in the present case sufficient.  Besides, knowing from
+experience that my most trivial question always has an object which he
+does not at once discover, he is not in the habit of giving heedless
+answers.  On the contrary, he is on his guard and attentive; he looks
+into the matter very carefully before replying.  He never gives me an
+answer with which he is not himself satisfied, and he is not easily
+satisfied.  Moreover, he and I do not pride ourselves on knowing facts
+exactly, but only on making few mistakes.  We should be much more
+disconcerted if we found ourselves satisfied with an insufficient
+reason than if we had discovered none at all.  The confession, "I do
+not know," suits us both so well, and we repeat it so often, that it
+costs neither of us anything.  But whether for this once he is
+careless, or avoids the difficulty by a convenient "I do not know," my
+answer is the same: "Let us see; let us find out."
+
+The stick, half-way in the water, is fixed in a vertical position.  To
+find out whether it is broken, as it appears to be, how much we must do
+before we take it out of the water, or even touch it!  First, we go
+entirely round it, and observe that the fracture goes around with us.
+It is our eye alone, then, that changes it; and a glance cannot move
+things from place to place.
+
+Secondly, we look directly down the stick, from the end outside of the
+water; then the stick is no longer bent, because the end next our eye
+exactly hides the other end from us.  Has our eye straightened the
+stick?
+
+Thirdly, we stir the surface of the water, and see the stick bend
+itself into several curves, move in a zig-zag direction, and follow the
+undulations of the water.  Has the motion we gave the water been enough
+thus to break, to soften, and to melt the stick?
+
+Fourth, we draw off the water and see the stick straighten itself as
+fast as the water is lowered.  Is not this more than enough to
+illustrate the fact and to find out the refraction?  It is not then
+true that the eye deceives us, since by its aid alone we can correct
+the mistakes we ascribe to it.
+
+Suppose the child so dull as not to understand the result of these
+experiments.  Then we must call touch to the aid of sight.  Instead of
+taking the stick out of the water, leave it there, and let him pass his
+hand from one end of it to the other.  He will feel no angle; the
+stick, therefore, is not broken.
+
+You will tell me that these are not only judgments but formal
+reasonings.  True; but do you not see that, as soon as the mind has
+attained to ideas, all judgment is reasoning?  The consciousness of any
+sensation is a proposition, a judgment.  As soon, therefore, as we
+compare one sensation with another, we reason.  The art of judging and
+the art of reasoning are precisely the same.
+
+If, from the lesson of this stick, Emile does not understand the idea
+of refraction, he will never understand it at all.  He shall never
+dissect insects, or count the spots on the sun; he shall not even know
+what a microscope or a telescope is.
+
+Your learned pupils will laugh at his ignorance, and will not be very
+far wrong.  For before he uses these instruments, I intend he shall
+invent them; and you may well suppose that this will not be soon done.
+
+This shall be the spirit of all my methods of teaching during this
+period.  If the child rolls a bullet between two crossed fingers, I
+will not let him look at it till he is otherwise convinced that there
+is only one bullet there.
+
+
+Result.  The Pupil at the Age of Fifteen.
+
+I think these explanations will suffice to mark distinctly the advance
+my pupil's mind has hitherto made, and the route by which he has
+advanced.  You are probably alarmed at the number of subjects I have
+brought to his notice.  You are afraid I will overwhelm his mind with
+all this knowledge.  But I teach him rather not to know them than to
+know them.  I am showing him a path to knowledge not indeed difficult,
+but without limit, slowly measured, long, or rather endless, and
+tedious to follow.  I am showing him how to take the first steps, so
+that he may know its beginning, but allow him to go no farther.
+
+Obliged to learn by his own effort, he employs his own reason, not that
+of another.  Most of our mistakes arise less within ourselves than from
+others; so that if he is not to be ruled by opinion, he must receive
+nothing upon authority.  Such continual exercise must invigorate the
+mind as labor and fatigue strengthen the body.
+
+The mind as well as the body can bear only what its strength will
+allow.  When the understanding fully masters a thing before intrusting
+it to the memory, what it afterward draws therefrom is in reality its
+own.  But if instead we load the memory with matters the understanding
+has not mastered, we run the risk of never finding there anything that
+belongs to it.
+
+Emile has little knowledge, but it is really his own; he knows nothing
+by halves; and the most important fact is that he does not now know
+things he will one day know; that many things known to other people he
+never will know; and that there is an infinity of things which neither
+he nor any one else ever will know.  He is prepared for knowledge of
+every kind; not because he has so much, but because he knows how to
+acquire it; his mind is open to it, and, as Montaigne says, if not
+taught, he is at least teachable.  I shall be satisfied if he knows how
+to find out the "wherefore" of everything he knows and the "why" of
+everything he believes.  I repeat that my object is not to give him
+knowledge, but to teach him how to acquire it at need; to estimate it
+at its true value, and above all things, to love the truth.  By this
+method we advance slowly, but take no useless steps, and are not
+obliged to retrace a single one.
+
+Emile understands only the natural and purely physical sciences.  He
+does not even know the name of history, or the meaning of metaphysics
+and ethics.  He knows the essential relations between men and things,
+but nothing of the moral relations between man and man.  He does not
+readily generalize or conceive of abstractions.  He observes the
+qualities common to certain bodies without reasoning about the
+qualities themselves.  With the aid of geometric figures and algebraic
+signs, he knows something of extension and quantity.  Upon these
+figures and signs his senses rest their knowledge of the abstractions
+just named.  He makes no attempt to learn the nature of things, but
+only such of their relations as concern himself.  He estimates external
+things only by their relation to him; but this estimate is exact and
+positive, and in it fancies and conventionalities have no share.  He
+values most those things that are most useful to him; and never
+deviating from this standard, is not influenced by general opinion.
+
+Emile is industrious, temperate, patient, steadfast, and full of
+courage.  His imagination, never aroused, does not exaggerate dangers.
+He feels few discomforts, and can bear pain with fortitude, because he
+has never learned to contend with fate.  He does not yet know exactly
+what death is, but, accustomed to yield to the law of necessity, he
+will die when he must, without a groan or a struggle.  Nature can do no
+more at that moment abhorred by all.  To live free and to have little
+to do with human affairs is the best way of learning how to die.
+
+In a word, Emile has every virtue which affects himself.  To have the
+social virtues as well, he only needs to know the relations which make
+them necessary; and this knowledge his mind is ready to receive.  He
+considers himself independently of others, and is satisfied when others
+do not think of him at all.  He exacts nothing from others, and never
+thinks of owing anything to them.  He is alone in human society, and
+depends solely upon himself.  He has the best right of all to be
+independent, for he is all that any one can be at his age.  He has no
+errors but such as a human being must have; no vices but those from
+which no one can warrant himself exempt.  He has a sound constitution,
+active limbs, a fair and unprejudiced mind, a heart free and without
+passions.  Self-love, the first and most natural of all, has scarcely
+manifested itself at all.  Without disturbing any one's peace of mind
+he has led a happy, contented life, as free as nature will allow.  Do
+you think a youth who has thus attained his fifteenth year has lost the
+years that have gone before?
+
+
+
+[1] This might be carried too far, and is to be admitted with some
+reservations.  Ignorance is never alone; its companions are always
+error and presumption.  No one is so certain that he knows, as he who
+knows nothing; and prejudice of all kinds is the form in which our
+ignorance is clothed.
+
+[2] The armillary sphere is a group of pasteboard or copper circles, to
+illustrate the orbits of the planets, and their position in relation to
+the earth, which is represented by a small wooden ball.
+
+[3] The imaginary circles traced on the celestial sphere, and figured
+in the armillary sphere by metallic circles, are called _culures_.
+
+[4] Rousseau here informs his readers that even these reproaches are
+expected, he having dictated them beforehand to the mountebank; all
+this scene has been arranged to deceive the child.  What a refinement
+of artifice in this passionate lover of the natural!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Emile, by Jean Jacques Rousseau
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