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.