UNIVSRSITY Of CALIFORNIA tAN !ntaaii0ral Cbxtati0n EDITED BY WILLIAM T. HARRIS, A. M., LL. D. VOLUME XX. EDUCATION SERIES ROUSSEAU'S EMILE OR TREATISE ON EDUCATION ABRIDGED, TRANSLATED, AND ANNOTATED BY WILLIAM H. PAYNE, PH. D., LL. D. CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NASHVILLE AND PRESIDENT OF THE PEABODY NORMAL COLLEGE AUTHOR OF CHAPTERS ON SCHOOL SUPERVISION OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE, AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION AND TRANSLATOR OF COMPARYREJ's HISTOIRE DE LA PKPAOOGIE COURS UE PEDAGOQIK, AND LEC.OXS ELEMENTAIRE3 1>K PBYCHOLOGIB NEW YORK AND LONDON D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1918 COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED AT THE APPLETON PRESS. U. S A. CONTENTS. PAGE EDITOR'S PREFACE . vii INTRODUCTION BY TRANSLATOR . . . . . . . xvii AUTHOR'S PREFACE xli BOOK FIRST EMILE'S INFANCY 1 BOOK SECOND EMILE FROM FIVE TO TWELVE .... 41 BOOK THIRD EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN . . . 181 BOOK FOURTH EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY . . . 192 BOOK FIFTH THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN .... 259 APPENDIX THE FRENCH ESTIMATE OF ROUSSEAU . . . 309 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS . . . .. . . 321 (v) EDITOR'S PREFACE. THE significance of Kousseau in education as well as in politics must be found in his revolutionary attitude toward established institutions. Some of his biographers relate the story that when the Academy of Dijon, in 1749, offered a prize for an essay on the question whether the progress of the arts and sciences has tended to the puri- fication of morals and manners, he followed the sugges- tion of Diderot, who reminded him of the greater noto- riety which he could gain by advocating the negative side. He accordingly wrote an essay denouncing civil- ized life in such eloquent terms that he became at once famous as a censor of civilization. He found this line of authorship so flattering to his conceit and so well fitted to his mode of life, his habits of thought, and lit- erary style, that he adopted it as a career, and attacked one after the other the existing foundations of civilization. The essay just named was published in 1750 ; that on the origin of inequality among men, in which he laid the axe to the root of the social system of Europe, in 1752 ; in 1762 he completed his raid against the political basis of government by his work on the social contract ; his Nou- velle Heloi'se appeared in 1760, sapping the ethics of the family relation ; his Emile, in 1762, uproots whatever is traditional in education and religion. Thus he attacks the four cardinal institutions of civilization the family, civil society, the state, and the Church together with the school, which is the means of conserving them. There have been many reformers, but none more radi- cal than Rousseau ; for he advocates the overthrow of civilization and the return to a state of nature. Nature is a word of many meanings. It may signify human nature as revealed in the institutions which man has founded. The nature of bees and ants appears in the social organizations that they form and in the prod- ucts of their united industry. So, too, human nature is revealed in the social unities of civilized life and in the works erected to continue them and secure them. But the word nature may signify physical nature as opposed to man it may stand for matter and brute force ; it may mean the untamed animal appetites that hold sway in human beings when not guided by moral or re- ligious principles. The opposite of civilization is savagery, and Voltaire wittily exposed the fallacy of the revolutionary appeal to Nature when he wrote to Eousseau acknowledging the gift of his essay on the origin of inequality among men : " I have received your new book against the hu- man race, and I thank you for it. No one could paint in stronger colors the horrors of human society from which our ignorance and weakness promise themselves so many delights. Never has any one employed so much genius to make us into beasts. When one reads your book he is seized at once with a desire to go down on all- fours." The truth is, that this appeal to Nature is always a piece of jugglery. A high-sounding word is used in two very different senses, and, as Macbetli says, the word of EDITOR'S PREFACE. IX promise is kept to our ear but broken to our hope.* This juggling with ambiguous words lends itself most readily to a purely literary style wielded by a man unscrupulous of truth and ambitious of producing an effect on his audience. This is the besetting sin in the great orators of reform ; they are mostly close imitators of Rousseau. Spurzheim, the phrenologist, in his tractate on The Natural Laws of Man, takes the word in an ideal sense when he says : " Natural laws are necessarily conformable to reason ; they produce certain never- varying effects ; whatever is undertaken in conformity with their decrees prospers, and penalty is always in proportion to their in- fringement. . . . Natural law is submitted to the free scrutiny of all, and is appreciated in great part by means of reason. ... It is not the arbitrary dictum of self- elected and presumed interpreters of a revelation. . . . Natural laws are inherent in beings and are often plainly to be seen ; always demonstrable, universal, invariable, and harmonious." It is obvious that the appeal to Nature in this case is prompted by a desire to escape from the control of author- ity. If my individual intellect can discover the laws of Nature, and these laws are the highest truth, then I am right in emancipating myself from " self -elected and pre- sumed interpreters of a revelation." I may take on my- self a free and independent attitude, and find for myself the rules of conduct by examining the structure of the world. The impulse to escape from the bonds of external * " And be these juggling fiends no more believed, That palter with us in a double sense ; That keep the word of promise to more important business will be to draw lines that are perfectly straight, perfectly accurate, perfectly equal; to make a square that is perfectly regular, and to trace a circle that is perfectly round. To verify the accuracy of the figure, we will examine it in all its sensible properties ; and this will give us daily occasion to discover new ones. We will fold the two semicircles along the diameter, and the two halves of the square along the diagonal. We will compare our two figures in order to discover the one whose -edges match the most exactly, and which, conse- quently, is the better made ; and we will discuss whether this equality of division ought always to take place in parallelograms, trapeziums, etc. Sometimes we will try to foresee the success of the experiment ; before making it, we will endeavor to find reasons for it. For my pupil, geometry is but the art of making good 112 . EMILE. use of the rule and compass ;* and he ought not to con- found it with drawing, where he will employ neither of these instruments. The rule and compass shall be kept under lock and key, and he shall be granted the use of them only very rarely, and for a little time, in order that he may not become accustomed to slovenly draAving ; but we shall sometimes take our figures with us while out for a walk, and talk of what we have done or of what we propose to do. I shall never forget a young man I saw at Turin, who in his infancy had been taught the relations be- tween contours and surfaces, by allowing him each day to make a choice of isoperimetric cakes cut into various geometrical forms. The little glutton had exhausted the art of Archimedes in order to find in which figure there was the most to eat.f When a child plays at shuttle-cock he trains his eye and arm in accuracy ; when he whips a top he increases his strength by using it, but without learning anything. I have sometimes asked why we do not offer children the same games of skill which men have, such as ten- nis, fives, billiards, bow and arrow, foot-ball, and musi- cal instruments. I have been told, in reply, that some of these sports are. beyond the strength of children, and that their limbs and organs are not sufficiently de- * Rousseau must have been too wise to believe that any system of measurements, however exact, could take the place of mathemati- cal demonstration. No experimental process can ever establish the general truth that the sum of the three angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles. We should not confound " geometrical recre- ations" with geometrical science. (P.) f Isoperimetric figures are those whose contours or circumfer- ences are equal in length, Now, of all these figures it is proved that the circle is the one which contains the greatest surface. Hence the child has to choose cakes in the form of a circle. THE CHILD FROM THE AGE OF FIVE TO TWELVE. H3 veloped for the others. I find these reasons bad. A child has not the stature of a man, and is not allowed to wear a coat made like his. I do not mean that he shall play with our maces on a table three feet high ; I do not mean that he shall knock the balls in our tennis-courts, nor that his little hands shall be made to hold the racket of an expert; but that he shall play in a hall whose windows are protected ; that, at first, he use only soft balls ; that his first rackets shall be of wood, then of parchment, and finally of catgut stretched to accord with his progress. You prefer the shuttle-cock because it is less fatiguing and less dangerous ; but you are wrong in both these reasons. Shuttle-cock is a game for women ; but there is not one of them who can not be made to run by a moving ball. Their white skin is not to be hardened to bruises, and their faces are not expected to suffer con- tusions. But do we imagine that we who are intended to be vigorous can become so without trouble ? And of what defense shall we be capable if we are never at- tacked ? We always play games indolently in which we can be unskillful without risk. A falling shuttle-cock does harm to no one ; but nothing invigorates the arms like having to protect the head with them, and nothing makes the sight so accurate as having to protect the eyes from blows. To spring from one end of the hall to an- other, to estimate the bound of a ball still in the air, and to send it back with a strong and steady hand, such sports do not befit a man but they serve to train a youth. Whatever has been done can be done again. Xow, noth- ing is more common than to see dexterous and sprightly children whose limbs have the same agility as those of a man. At almost all the fairs we see them performing feats of balancing, walking on the hands, jumping, and rope-dancing. For how many years have not troops of children attracted spectators to the Italian comedy by their ballet-dances ! Who is there who has not heard the pantomime troop of the celebrated Nicolini spoken of in Germany and in Italy ? Has any one ever no- ticed in these children movements less perfect, attitudes less pleasing, an ear less accurate, and a dance less airy, than in the dancers of mature age ? Though the fingers at first may be thick, short, and stiff, and the hands plump and incapable of grasping anything, does this prevent multitudes of children from knowing how to write and draw at an age when others can not yet hold the pencil or pen? All Paris still recollects the little English girl of ten who performed prodigies on the harp- sichord. On one occasion, at the house of a magistrate, I saw his son, a little fellow of eight years, put on the table, at dessert, like a statue in the midst of the table- service, and there play on a violin almost as large as him- self, and surprise even the artists present by his execu- tion. All these examples, and thousands like them, prove, as it seems to me, that the inaptitude attributed to chil- dren for manly exercises is imaginary ; and that, if they are not successful in some of them, it is because they have never been trained to them. I shall be told that, with respect to the body, I am here falling into the mistake of that premature intellectual culture which I censure in children. The difference in the two cases is very great ; for, in one, the progress is only apparent, while in the other it is real. I have proved that the intelligence which they seem to have, they do not have ; whereas, they really do all they seem to do. Moreover, we ought always to recollect that all this is, or ought to be, but play, the facile and voluntary direction of the movements which Nature demands of THE CHILD FROM THE AGE OF FIVE TO TWELVE. H5 Jiem, the art of varying their amusements in order to make them more agreeable, without the least appearance of that constraint which turns them into labor ; for, in short, what amusements shall they have from which I can not draw material for their instruction ? And when this can not be done, provided they amuse themselves without inconvenience, and the time passes, their progress in any given direction is of no importance, so far as the present is concerned; whereas, when they must neces- sarily be taught this or that, as things now go, it is always impossible to attain the end without constraint, without vexation, and without ennui. Man has three kinds of voice : namely, the speaking or articulated voice, a singing or melodious voice, and the impassioned or modulated voice, which serves as a language for the passions, and which gives animation to song and speech. The child, like the man, has these three kinds of voice without knowing how to combine them as he does. Like us, he resorts to laughter, to cries, to wailing, to exclamations, and to groans, but he does not know how to mingle their inflections with the two other voices. A perfect music is that which best unites these three voices. Children are incapable of this music, and their singing never has soul. So also, in the speaking voice, their language has no accent ; they cry, but they do not modulate ; and as there is little accent in their conver- sation, there is little energy in their voice. The speech of our pupil will be more uniform and still more simple, because his passions, not yet being awakened, will not mingle their language with his own. Therefore, do not make him recite parts in tragedy, or in comedy, nor at- tempt to teach him, as the phrase is, to declaim. He will have, too much sense to know how to give tone to things 11 116 EMILE. which he can not understand, and expression to senti- ments which he will never experience. Teach him to speak simply and clearly, to articulate correctly, to pronounce accurately and without affecta- tion, to know and to follow grammatical accent and pros- ody, always to employ voice enough to be heard but never more than is necessary a common fault in children brought up in colleges; and in everything have him avoid whatever is superfluous. And so, in singing, make his voice accurate, uniform, flexible, sonorous ; and his ear sensitive to measure and harmony, but nothing more than this. Imitative and theatrical music is not adapted to his age ; and I would not even have him sing words if he wished to sing them, but would try to compose songs expressly for him, inter- esting for his age, and as simple as his ideas. It might reasonably be supposed that, being in such little haste to teach him to read writing, I should be in no great hurry to teach him how to read music. Let us save his brain all attention that is too laborious, and be in no haste to fix his mind on conventional signs. This, I ac- knowledge, seems to present a difficulty ; for if the knowl- edge of notes does not, at first, seem more necessary for knowing how to sing than that of letters for knowing how to talk, there is, however, this difference that in speaking we render our own ideas, while in singing, we do hardly more than render the ideas of others. Now, in order to render them, we must be able to read them. But in the first place, instead of reading them, we can hear them, and a song is translated by the ear still more faithfully than by the eye. Moreover, in order to know music well, it does not suffice to render it ; it is necessary to compose it, and one should be learned along with the other, for except in this way music is never very well THE CHILD FROM THE AGE OF FH f E TO TWELVE. H7 learned. At first, drill your little musician in composing very regular and well-cadenced phrases ; then in uniting them by a very simple modulation ; and, lastly, in marking their different relations by a correct punctuation, which is done by a wise choice of cadences and rests. Above all, never introduce into singing what is odd or strange, and never indulge in the pathetic or the expressive; but choose a melody that is always harmonious and simple, always springing from the essential chords of the piece, and always indicating the bass in such a way that the child may easily perceive and accompany it ; for, in order to train the voice and the ear, he ought never to sing save with the harpsichord. We should die of hunger or poison if we were com- pelled to wait in order to choose the food that is best for us, till experience had taught us to know and to choose it ; but the Supreme Goodness which has caused the pleas- ure of sensitive beings to be the instrument of their con- servation shows us, from what pleases our palate, what is best for our stomach. Naturally, there is no safer physi- cian for a man than his own appetite, and, taking him in his primitive condition, I doubt not that the food which he found most agreeable was also the most whole- some. The farther we depart from the state of Xature the more we lose our natural tastes ; or, rather, habit becomes to us a second nature, which we substitute so completely for the original that none of us longer know what our original is. Those who say that children must be accustomed to the aliments which they will use when grown, do not seem to me to reason correctly. Why ought their nurture to remain the same while their manner of living is so dif- ferent ? A man exhausted by labor, care, and trouble, 118 EMILE. needs succulent food, which brings new energy to the brain; while the child who has just been playing, and whose body is growing, needs a copious diet which pro- duces an abundance of chyle. Moreover, the grown man already has his station in life, his occupation and his home ; but who of us can be sure of what Fortune has in reserve for the child ? In no particular let us impose on him so determinate a form that it will cost him too much to change it when necessity requires. Let us not cause him to die of hunger in foreign countries, if he does not keep a French cook with him wherever he goes, nor to say, one day, that people know how to eat only in France. This, by the way, is a fine compliment ! For myself I would say, on the contrary, that it is only the French who do not know how to eat, since such a peculiar art is re- quired in order to render their food palatable. Gluttony is the vice of natures which have no sub- stance in them. The soul of a glutton is all in his palate he is made only for eating ; in his stupid incapacity, he is himself only at table, he is able to judge only of dishes. Leave him to this employment without regret ; both for ourselves and for him, this employment is better for him than any other. The fear that gluttony may take root in a child of any capacity is a narrow-minded precaution. The child thinks of nothing but eating ; but in adolescence we no longer think of it ; for everything tastes good, and we have many other things to occupy our thoughts. However, I would not have an indiscreet use made of so low a motive, nor support the honor of doing a noble deed on the promise of some toothsome morsel. But as the whole of child- hood is, or ought to be, devoted only to sports and gay amusements, I see no reason why exercises purely corporeal should not have a material and sensible reward. When a THE CHILD FROM THE AGE OF FIVE TO TWELVE. U9 little Majorcan,* seeing a basket on the top of a tree, brings it down by the use of his sling, is it not very proper that he should profit by the feat ? When a young Spartan, at the risk of a hundred blows of the whip, cleverly slips into a kitchen and there steals a live fox, and while carrying him off in his frock is scratched, bitten, and covered with blood ; and when, for fear of being caught, the child allows his bowels to be lacerated without a scowl and without uttering a single cry is it not just that he finally profit by his booty, and that he eat it, after having been eaten by it ? A good dinner never ought to be a reward ; but why should it not sometimes be the effect of the pains we have taken to procure it ? Emile never regards the cake which I put on the stone as a reward for having run well ; he knows merely that the only means of getting the cake is to be the first to reach it. This does not at all contradict the maxims which I lately stated concerning simplicity of diet ; for, in order to sharpen the appetite of children, it is not necessary to excite their gustatory pleasure but only to satisfy their hunger ; and this will be accomplished by the most com- mon things in the world if we do not set ourselves at work to refine their taste. Their continual appetite, excited by the need of growth, is a sure condiment which takes the place of many others. Fruits, milk, some piece of cook- ery more delicate than ordinary bread, and, above all, the art of dispensing all this with moderation this is the way to lead armies of children through the world without giv- ing them a taste for exciting savors or running the risk of blunting their palates. Whatever diet you give your children, provided you * The Majorcans have abandoned this custom for many cent- uries ; it was in force during the celebrity of their slingers. (P.) 120 accustom them only to common and simple dishes, let them eat, ran, and play as much as they please, and you may be sure that they will never eat too much, and will never be troubled by indigestion ; but if you starve them half the time, and they find the means of escaping your vigilance, they will make up for what they have lost with all their might : they will eat to repletion, almost to burst- ing. Our appetite is inordinate only because we give it other rules than those of Nature ; always regulating, pre- scribing, adding and retrenching, we do nothing save with the balance in hand ; but this balance is governed by our fancies and not by our stomachs. I am always recurring to my illustrations. Among peasants the cupboard and the fruit-room are always open, and neither children nor men know what indigestion is. If it should happen, however, that a child eat too much a thing which I do not believe possible, according to my method it is so easy to distract him with amuse- ments which he likes that we might finally exhaust him with inanition without his thinking of it. How is it that means so sure and easy escape all our teachers ? Herodo- tus-* relates that the Lydians, sore pressed by an extreme famine, bethought themselves of inventing games and other amusements, by which they diverted attention from their hunger and passed whole days without thinking of eating. Your wise tutors have perhaps read this passage a hundred times without seeing the application that might be made of it to children. Some of them will say to me that a child does not willingly leave his dinner in order to study his lesson. Master, you are right. I was not thinking of that sort of amusement. Supposing, then, that my method is that of Nature, * Book I, chap. xciv. THE CHILD FROM THE AGE OF FIVE TO TWELVE. 121 and that I am not deceived in its application, we have led our pupil across the regions of the sensations up to the confines of juvenile reason. The first step that we are going to take beyond this ought to be the step of a man ; but before entering on this new course let us look back for a moment on that which we have just traversed. Each age, each period of life, has its proper perfection, a sort of maturity which is all its own. We have often heard mention made of a grown man; but let us now consider a grown child. This spectacle will be something newer for us, and perhaps not less agreeable. The existence of finite beings is so poor and so con- tracted, that when we see only that which is, our emotions are not excited. It is fancy which lends ornament to real objects, and if the imagination does not add a charm to that which strikes our attention, the sterile pleasure which we receive from it is limited to the organ of sense, and always leaves the heart cold. The earth, adorned with the treasures of autumn, displays riches which the eye admires; but this admiration is not affecting; it comes more from reflection than from feeling. In the spring, the fields, almost bare, are still without adornment ; the woods afford no shade, and the verdure is only beginning to appear; but the heart is touched at the sight. In seeing Xature thus return to life, we feel ourselves reani- mated ; we are encompassed by the imagery of pleasure. Those companions of pleasure, those gentle tears always ready to accompany every delicious emotion, are ready to fall from our eyes ; but however animated, lively, and agreeable the sight of the vintage may be, we always look on it with tearless eyes. Why this difference ? It is because to the splendor of spring the imagination adds that of the seasons which are to follow ; because, to those tender buds which the eye 122 tiMILE. perceives, it adds flower, fruit, shadow, and sometimes the mysteries which they may conceal. The imagination unites in a single point successive periods of time, and sees objects less as they shall be than as she desires them to be, since it depends on her to choose them. In autumn, on the contrary, we see nothing more than that which actu- ally exists. If we wish to pass on to the spring-time, the winter stops us, and the chilled imagination dwells on the snow and the hoar-frost. Such is the source of the charm we find in contem- plating a beautiful infancy rather than the perfection of mature age. When is it that we experience a real pleas- ure in seeing a man ? It is when the memory of his ac- tions causes us to go back over his life rejuvenates him, so to speak, in our eyes. If we were compelled to consider him as he is, or to imagine him as he will be in his old age, the idea of declining nature destroys all our pleasure. There is no pleasure in seeing a man advancing at long strides toward the tomb, and the image of death disfigures everything. But when I represent to myself a child from ten to twelve years old, healthy, vigorous, and well formed for his age, he does not excite in me an idea which is not agreeable, either for the present or for the future. I see him impetuous, sprightly, animated, without corroding care, without long and painful foresight, wholly absorbed in his actual existence, and enjoying a plenitude of life which seems bent on reaching out beyond him. I look forward to another period of life, and I see him exercis- ing the senses, the mind, and the powers which are being developed within him from day to day, and of which he gives new evidences from moment to moment. I con- template the child, and he pleases me ; I imagine the man, and he pleases me more ; his ardent blood seems to add warmth to my own ; I seem to live with his life, and his vivacity makes me young again. The clock strikes, and what a change ! In a moment his eye grows dull and his mirth ceases; adieu to joy, adieu to frolicsome sports. A stern and angry man takes him by the hand, says to him gravely, " Come on, sir ! " and leads him away. In the room which they enter I discover books. Books ! What cheerless furniture for one of his age ! The poor child allows himself to be led away, turns a regretful eye on all that surrounds him, holds his peace as he goes, his eyes are swollen with tears which he dares not shed, and his heart heavy with sighs which he dares not utter. thou who hast nothing like this to fear thou for whom no period of life is a time of weariness and unrest thou who seest the day come without anxiety and the night without impatience, and countest the hours only by thy pleasures, come, my happy, my lovable pupil, and by thy presence console me for the departure of this un- fortunate youth. Come ! He comes, and at his approach I am conscious of an emotion of joy which I see that he shares with me. It is his friend, his comrade, his play- fellow whom he approaches. On seeing me he is very sure that he will not remain long without amusements. We are never dependent on each other, but we are always in accord, and are never so content as when we are to- gether. His form, his bearing, and his countenance bespeak self-assurance and contentment. A glow of health is on his face ; his firm step gives him an air of vigor ; his com- plexion, still delicate without being insipid, has no trace of effeminate softness the air and the sun have already placed on it the honorable imprint of his sex ; his feat- ures, still rounded, begin to exhibit some marks of devel- 124 oping character of their own ; his eyes, which the warmth of feeling does not yet animate, have at least all their na tive serenity; long sorrows have not dimmed them, and endless tears have not furrowed his cheeks. In his prompt but sure movements you may see the vivacity of his age, the firmness of independence, and the experience coming from his multiplied activities. His manner is open and free, but neither insolent nor vain. His face, which has not been glued down to books, does not rest on his stom- ach, and there is no need of telling him to hold up his head. Neither shame nor fear has ever made him bow it. Let us make room for him in the midst of an assem- bly. Examine him, gentlemen ; interrogate him without reserve, and be in no apprehension either of his impor- tunities, his babble, or his indiscreet questions. Have no fear that he will take possession of you, that he will pre- sume to engross your whole attention, and that you will no longer be able to shake him off. Nor should you expect from him agreeable small-talk, nor that he tell you things which I have dictated to him. Expect from him only the truth, artless and simple, with- out ornament, without affectation, and without vanity. He will tell you whatever wrong he has done or thought, just as freely as he will the good, without feeling em- barrassed in any way by the effect which his utterances will produce on you. The speech that he will employ will have all the simplicity of its primitive institution. We are fond of forming happy predictions of children, and we always feel regret for that stream of absurdities which almost always comes to overthrow the hopes that we have founded on some happy witticism which has chanced to fall from their lips. If my pupil rarely furnishes such hopes, he will never occasion this regret ; for he never speaks a useless word, and does not exhaust himself on THE CHILD FROM THE AGE OF FIVE TO TWELVE. 125 babble which he knows receives no attention. His ideas are limited, but they are clear ; if he knows nothing by heart, he knows much by experience ; if he reads less than other children in our books, he reads better in the book of Nature ; his mind is not in his tongue, but in his head ; he has less memory than judgment ; he knows how to speak but one language, but he understands what he says ; and if he does not speak as well as others, he has the merit of doing better than they do. He does not know what routine, usage, and habit are. What he did yesterday has no influence on what he does to-day.* He follows no formula, yields neither to author- ity nor to example, and neither acts nor speaks save as it seems best to him. So expect from him neither formal conversation nor studied manners, but always the faithful expression of his ideas, and the conduct which springs from his inclinations. You will find in him a small number of moral notions which relate to his actual condition, but none bearing on the relative condition of men. And of what use would these be to him, since a child is not yet an active mem- ber of society ? Speak to him of liberty, of property, and even of convention, and he can understand you so far. He knows why that which belongs to him is his own, and * The charm of habit comes from the indolence natural to man, and this indolence increases as we abandon ourselves to it. We do more easily what we have already done ; the route having been marked out, it becomes the easier to follow. Thus it is observed that the power of habit is very great in old men and indolent peo- ple, and very small in the young and in active people. This power is good only for weak natures, and it enfeebles them more and more from day to day. The only habit useful to children is to subject themselves without trouble to the necessity of things, and the only habit useful to men is to subject themselves without trouble to reason. Every other habit is a vice. 126 EMILE. why that which does not belong to him is not his own-, but beyond this he knows nothing. Speak to him of duty, or of obedience, and he does not know what you mean. Command him to do something, he will not understand you ; but say to him, " Do me this favor, and I will do the same for you when I have an opportunity," and instantly he will make haste to please you, for he asks nothing bet- ter than to extend his authority, and to acquire rights over you which he knows to be inviolable. Perhaps he is not even averse to holding a place, to making up a number, and to be counted for something ; but if he has this last motive, he has already departed from Nature, and you have not properly closed in advance all the avenues of vanity. On his part, if he needs any assistance he will ask it indifferently of the first one he meets ; he would ask it of the king just as he would of his servant ; for in his eyes all men are still equal. By his manner of asking, you see that he feels that no one owes him anything ; he knows that what he asks is a favor. He knows also that men are inclined to grant these favors. 'His expressions are simple and laconic. His voice, his looks, and his movements are those of a being equally accustomed to compliance and to refusal. It is neither the cringing and servile submission of a slave, nor the imperious tone of a master, but a modest confidence in a fellow-creature ; it is the noble and touching sweetness of a free but sensitive and feeble being, who implores the assistance of one who is free, but strong and beneficent. If you grant his re- quest, he will not thank you, but will feel that he has contracted a debt. If you refuse him, he will not com- plain nor insist, for he knows that this will be use- less. He will not say that he has been refused, but that what he asked could not be granted ; for, as I have THE CHILD FEOM THE AGE OF FIVE TO TWELVE. 127 already said, we rarely rebel against a well-recognized necessity. Leave him to himself in perfect liberty, and observe what he does without saying anything to him ; consider what he will do and how he will go about it. Having no need of being assured that he is free, he never does any- thing thoughtlessly, or simply to exhibit his power over himself. Does he not know that he is always master of his own conduct? He is alert, catick, agile; his move- ments have all the vivacity of his age, but you do not see one which has not a purpose. Whatever he chooses to do, he will never undertake anything which is beyond his powers, for he has fairly tested them and knows them. The means he employs will always be adapted to his de- signs, and he will rarely act without being assured of suc- cess. He will have an attentive and discerning eye, and will never go about foolishly interrogating others concern- ing everything he sees ; but he will examine it himself, and will leave no effort untried to find out what he wishes to know before soliciting it from others. If he falls into unforeseen difficulties, he will be less disturbed than an- other ; and if there is risk to run, he will also be less dis- mayed. As his imagination still remains inactive, and as nothing has been done to stimulate it, he sees only what is real, estimates dangers for only what they are worth, and always maintains his composure. He has too often felt the pressure of necessity to be still kicking against it ; he has felt its yoke from his birth, and has become fully accustomed to it ; he is always ready for whatever may happen. Whether he is at work or at play, he is content with either ; his sports are his occupations, and he feels no difference between them. Into whatever he does he throws an interest which excites cheerfulness and a 128 EMILE. liberty which gives pleasure ; and this exhibits both his turn of mind and the range of his knowledge. Is it not a charming and grateful sight to see a pretty child, with bright and merry eye, with pleased and placid mien, with open and smiling countenance, doing the most serious things under the guise of play, or profoundly occupied with the most frivolous amusements ? Do you now wish to judge of him by comparison ? Put him among other children and let him act. You will soon see which is the most truly educated, which most nearly approaches the perfection of their age. Among city children, there is none more dexterous than he, but he is stronger than any other. Among the young peas- antry, he equals them in strength and surpasses them in skill. In everything which is within the compass of in- fancy, he judges, reasons, and foresees better than any one else. As to working, running, jumping, moving bodies, lifting masses, estimating distances, inventing amuse- ments, and gaining prizes, it might be said that Nature is at his command, so easy is it for him to make every- thing bend to his will. He is made for guiding and governing his equals. Talent and experience serve him instead of law and authority. It matters little what dress or name you give him ; he will everywhere take prece- dence, will everywhere become the chief of others. They will always feel his superiority over them. Without wishing to command, he will always be their master ; and without thinking of obedience, they will always obey. Emile has arrived at the end of the period of infancy, has lived the life of a child, and has not bought his per- fection at the cost of his happiness. On the contrary, they have lent each other mutual aid. While acquiring all the reason suited to his age, he has been as happy and as free as his constitution permitted him to be. If the THE CHILD FROM THE AGE OF FIVE TO TWELVE. 129 fatal scythe has come to cut down in him the flower of our hopes, we shall not have to mourn at the same time his life and his death, nor to intensify our griefs by the recol- lection of those which we have caused him ; and we can say to ourselves that he has at least enjoyed his childhood, and that we have caused him to lose nothing of all that Nature had given him. The great disadvantage of this primary education is that none but clear-sighted men take account of it, and that, in a child educated with such care, vulgar eyes see nothing but a vagabond. A teacher thinks of his own interest rather than that of his pupil. He endeavors to prove that he does not waste his time, and that he earns the money which is paid him ; and so he furnishes the child with acquisitions capable of easy display, and which can be exhibited at will. Provided it can easily be seen, it matters not whether what he learns is useful. He stores his memory with this rubbish, without discernment and without choice. When the time comes for examining the child, he is made to display his wares ; he brings them out, and we are satisfied ; then he ties up his bundle and goes his way. My pupil is not so rich ; he has no bundle to display, and has nothing to show but himself. Now, a child can no more be seen in a moment than a man. Where are the observers who can seize at the first glance the traits which characterize him ? There are such, but they are few ; and out of a hundred fathers not one of this number will be found. Too many questions weary and disgust people in gen- eral, and especially children. At the end of a few minutes their attention flags ; they no longer hear what a persistent questioner requires of them, and no longer reply save at random. This manner of examining them is vain and pedantic. It often happens that a random word portrays 130 their mind and heart better than a long discourse could do ; but care must be taken that this word is neither dic- tated nor fortuitous. We must have good judgment our- selves in order to appreciate the judgment of a child. I once heard the late Lord Hyde relate an anecdote concerning one of his friends, who, having returned from Italy after an absence of three years, wished to examine the progress of his son, a boy nine or ten years of age. In company with the child and his tutor, they were walking one afternoon where pupils were engaged in the sport of flying their kites. As they were going along, the father said to his son, " Where is the kite whose shadow we see yonder?" Without hesitating or raising his head, the child replied, " On the highway." And in fact, added Lord Hyde, the highway was between us and the sun. At this reply the father embraced his son, and, finishing the examination at that point, continued his walk with- out saying a word. The next day he sent the tutor a life- pension in addition to his salary. What a man that father was ! And what a son was promised him ! * The question was precisely adapted to the child's age. The reply was very simple ; but observe what accuracy of childish judgment it supposes. It is thus that Aristotle's pupil f tamed the celebrated steed J which no horseman could subdue. * A letter of Rousseau to Madame Latour de Franqueville, Sep- tember 26, 1762, informs us that this young man was the Count de Gisors. He will be mentioned again in Book V. f Alexander the Great. \ Bucephalus. The horse was frightened only at his shadow. The young Alexander discovered the cause and the remedy. BOOK THIRD. FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN THE PERIOD OF INTEL- LECTUAL EDUCATION. ALTHOUGH the whole course of life up to adolescence is a period of weakness, there is a point in the course of this first stage of life when, growth in power having sur- passed the growth of needs, the growing animal, still absolutely weak, becomes relatively strong. All his needs not being developed, his actual powers are more than sufficient to provide for those which he has. As a man he would be very weak, but as a child he is very strong. Whence comes the weakness of man ? From the in- equality which exists between his strength and his desires. It is our passions which make us weak, because we need more strength than Nature gives us in order to satisfy them. Therefore, to diminish our desires is the same as to aug- ment our powers. He whose strength exceeds his desires has some power to spare ; he is certainly a very strong being. This is the third stage of childhood, and the one of which I have now to speak. At the age of twelve or thirteen the strength of the child is developed much more rapidly than his needs. The most violent, the most terrible, has not yet made itself felt in him. But slightly sensitive to the bad effects of air and weather, he braves them without danger ; the growing warmth of his body takes the place of clothing ; his appetite serves him. instead of condiments ; whatever 12 132 EMILE. can nourish him satisfies one of his age ; if he is sleepy, he stretches himself on the ground and sleeps. He sees himself surrounded on all sides by everything that is necessary for him ; no imaginary need torments him ; he is unaffected by opinion ; his desires reach no further than his arms. He is not only able to find a sufficiency in himself, but he has strength in excess of his needs ; and this is the only time in his life when he will be in this condition. I foresee an objection. I shall not be told that the child has more needs than I ascribe to him, but it will be denied that he has the power that I attribute to him. People will not reflect that I am speaking of my own pupil, and not of those walking dolls for whom it is a journey to go from one room to another, who are so boxed up as to labor for breath, and carry about burdens of pasteboard. I shall be told that manly strength manifests itself only at the period of manhood ; and that the vital forces, elaborated in special organs and distributed through the whole body, can alone give to the muscles that consist- ency, activity, tone, and spring which are needed to pro- duce real strength. This is the philosophy of books, but I appeal to experience. Out in your fields I see large boys tilling the earth, dressing vines, holding the plow, handling a cask of wine, and driving a wagon, just as their father would. They would be taken for men if the sound of their voices did not betray them. Even in our cities, young artisans, such as blacksmiths, sledge-tool makers, and farriers, are almost as robust as their masters, and would be hardly less skillful if they had been properly trained. If there is any difference and I grant that there is it is much less, I repeat, than that between the vehe- ment desires of a man and the moderate desires of a child. Moreover, it is not simply a question of physical strength, EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 133 but especially of that strength and capacity of mind which supplies and directs it. This interval when the power of the individual is greater than his desires, although it is not the period of his greatest absolute strength, is, as I have said, the period of his greatest relative strength. It is the most precious period of life, a period which comes but once ; it is very short, and all the shorter, as we shall subse- quently see, because it is the more important that it be well employed. What, then, shall our pupil do with that surplus of faculties and powers which he has on hand at present, but which he will stand in need of at a subsequent period of life ? He will endeavor to employ it in tasks which may profit him when the occasion comes ; he will project into the future, so to speak, that which is superfluous for the time being. The robust child will make provisions for the feeble man ; but he will place these stores neither in coffers which can be stolen from him, nor in barns which are not his own. In order that he may really appropriate his acquisitions to himself, it is in his arms, in his head, and in himself, that he will lodge them. This, then, is the period of labor, of instruction, and of study ; and observe, it is not I who have arbitrarily made this choice, but it is Nature herself who indicates it. Human intelligence has its limits; and not only is man unable to know everything, but he can not even know completely the little that other men know. Since the contradictory of every false proposition is a truth, the number of truths is as inexhaustible as the number of errors. There is, then, a choice in the things which ought to be taught, as well as in the time which is fit for learn- ing them. Of the knowledges which are within our reach, some are false, some are useless, and others serve to nour- 134: tfMILE. ish the pride of him who has them. The small number of those which really contribute to our well-being are alone worthy the pursuit of a wise man, and consequently of a child whom we wish to render such. It is not at all necessary to know everything, but merely that which is useful. From this small number we must still subtract the truths which require, for being comprehended, an under- standing already formed ; such as those which suppose a knowledge of the relations of man to man, which a child can not acquire ; or those which, while true in them- selves, dispose an inexperienced mind to think falsely on other subjects. We are thus reduced to a circle which is very small with respect to the existence of things ; but yet what an immense sphere this circle forms with respect to the mind of a child ! What rash hands shall dare to touch the veil which darkens the human understanding? What abysses I see dug by our vain sciences about this young unfortu- nate ! thou who art to conduct him in his perilous paths, and to draw from before his eyes the sacred curtain of Nature, tremble ! In the first place, make very sure of his head and your own, and have a fear lest either or both become giddy. Beware of the specious attractions of falsehood and of the intoxicating fumes of pride. Remember, ever remember, that ignorance has never been productive of evil, but that error alone is dangerous, and that we do not miss our way through what we do not know, but through what we falsely think we know. His progress in geometry may serve you as a certain test and measure for the development of his intelligence ; but as soon as he can discern what is useful and what is not, it is important to use much tact and skill to interest him in speculative studies. If you wish, for example, to EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 135 have him find a mean proportional between two lines, begin in such a way as to make it necessary for him to find a square equal to a given rectangle. If two mean pro- portionals are required, we must first interest him in the problem of the duplication of the cube, etc. Observe how we are gradually approaching the moral notions which distinguish good from evil. Up to this time we have known no law save that of necessity ; we now have regard to that which is useful ; and we shall soon come to what is proper and good. The same instinct animates the different faculties of man. To the activity of the body, which seeks to develop itself, succeeds the activity of the mind, which seeks to be instructed. At first, children are merely restless, then they are curious ; and this curiosity, well directed, is the motive power (mobile *) of the age which we have now reached. Let us always distinguish the inclinations which come from Nature from those which come from opinion. There is an ardor for knowledge which is founded merely on the desire to be esteemed wise ; but there is another which springs from a curiosity natural to man for all that can interest him from near or from far. The innate desire for well-being, and the impossibility of fully satisfying this desire, cause him to seek without intermission means for contributing to it. Such is the first principle of curiosity a principle natural to the human heart, but the develop- ment of which takes place only in proportion to the growth of our passions and our intelligence. Imagine a philosopher banished to a desert isle with his instruments * By mobile, according to Jouffroy, is meant the element of feel- ing, which is one factor in action. The term motif is used to desig- nate the rational element in action. Maternal affection is a mobile, while a cool consideration of duty is a motif. See Marion's Psy- chologie appliquee a 1'education, p. 127, (P.) 136 and his books, sure of spending there in solitude the rest of his days ; he will hardly occupy himself longer with the solar system, with the laws of attraction, or with the differential calculus. Perhaps he will not open a single book during the remainder of his life ; but he wi/1 never refrain from visiting his isle, even to the re- motest corner, however great it may be. Let us then likewise reject from our primary studies those branches of knowledge for which man has not a natural taste, and let us limit ourselves to those which instinct leads us to pursue. The earth is the isle of the human race ; and the ob- ject which strikes our eyes the most forcibly is the sun. The moment we begin to go beyond ourselves, our first observations will naturally fall on these two objects. Thus the philosophy of almost all savage peoples is occupied wholly with the imaginary divisions of the earth and the divinity of the sun. " What a leap ! " some one will possibly say. A moment ago we were occupied simply with what touches us, with what immediately surrounds us ; but all at once we are scouring the globe, and leaping to the extremities of the universe. This sudden transition is the effect of our pro- gress in power, and of our mental inclinations. In our state of feebleness and insufficiency, the care of self-pres- ervation wraps us up within ourselves ; while in our state of potency and strength, the desire to give extension to our being carries us out of ourselves and makes us reach out as far as it is possible for us to go ; but, as the intellectual world is still unknown to us, our thought goes no farther than our eyes, and our understanding widens only with the space which it measures. Let us transform our sensations into ideas, but let us not jump abruptly from sensible objects to intellectual EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 137 objects ; for it is through the first that we are to reach the second. In the first movements of the mind, let the senses always be its guides ; let there be no book but the world, and no other instruction than facts. The child who reads does not think he merely reads ; he is not re- ceiving instruction, but is learning words. Make your pupil attentive to natural phenomena, and you will soon make him curious ; but, in order to nourish his curiosity, never be in haste to satisfy it. Ask ques- tions that are within his comprehension, and leave him to resolve them. Let him know nothing because you have told it to him, but because he has comprehended it him- self ; he is not to learn science, but to discover it.* If you ever substitute in his mind authority for reason, he will no longer reason ; he will be but the sport of others' opinions. You wish to teach this child geography, and you go in search of globes, spheres, and maps. What machines! Why all these representations ? Why not begin by show- ing him the object itself, so that he may know, at least, what you are talking about ! On a fine evening you go out to walk in a favorable place where the horizon, happily unclouded, allows a full view of the setting sun, and you observe the objects which * The spirit of this precept is good ; the child should be " curious to learn and never satisfied " ; but the teacher can not proceed far on the hypothesis that learning is a process of rediscovery, and that knowledge is synonymous with personal experience. Mr. Bain rightly calls such an assumption a " bold fiction." Rediscovery is impossible in history, and impracticable, save to a limited extent, even in science. Rousseau's denunciation of authority is well enough as a protest and a warning against a servile dependence on it ; but no sane man can renounce authority if he would, and would not if he could. (P.) 138 tiMILE. make it possible to recognize the place of his setting. On the morrow, in order to take an airing, you return to the same place before the sun has risen. You see his coming announced from afar by flashes of fire which he shoots forth before him. The conflagration increases; the east seems all in flames. From their brightness we expect the sun long before he comes to view; at each moment we think we see him approaching, but at last he comes. A brilliant point darts forth like lightning and at once fills all space ; the veil of shadows is effaced and falls. Man recognizes his place of sojourn and finds it embellished. During the night the verdure has acquired new vigor; the rising day which illumines it, and the early rays which gild it, show it covered with a brilliant tracery of dew which reflects light and colors to the eye. The birds unite in chorus, and salute in concert the father of life. At this moment not one is silent ; their chirping, still feeble, is slower and sweeter than in the rest of the day, as if feeling the languor of a peaceful awaken- ing. The concourse of all these objects brings to the senses an impression of freshness which penetrates even to the soul. This has been a half -hour of enchantment which no man can resist ; a spectacle so grand, so beauti- ful, so delicious, leaves no one with a heart untouched. Full of the enthusiasm which he has experienced, the teacher wishes to communicate it to the child. He fan- cies he can move him by making him attentive to the sensations by which he himself has been moved. Pure folly ! The living spectacle of Nature is in the heart of man ; and to see it, it must be felt. The child perceives objects; but he can not perceive the relations which unite them, and can not hear the sweet harmony of their concert. He needs an experience which he has not acquired, and emotions which he has not experienced, EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 139 in order to feel the composite impression which results at once from all these sensations. If he has not long traversed arid plains, if hot sands have not burned his feet, if the stifling reflections of the sun's rays from the rocks have never oppressed him, how will he enjoy the fresh air of a beautiful morning ? How will the per- fume of flowers, the charm of the verdure, the humid vapor of the dew, and the soft and peaceful step on the lawn enchant his senses? How will the song of birds cause him a rapturous emotion, if the accents of love and pleasure are still unknown to him ? With what trans- ports will he see the dawn of a beautiful day, if his imagi- nation can not paint for him those with which it may be fiJled ? Finally, how will he be affected by the beautiful spectacle of Nature, if he does not know the hand that has taken care to adorn it ? Do not address to the child discourses which he can not understand. Let there be no descriptions, no elo- quence, no figures of speech, no poetry. Neither senti- ment nor taste is now at stake. Continue to be simple, clear, and dispassionate; the time will come, only too soon, for assuming a different language. Educated in the spirit of our maxims, and accustomed to derive all his instruments from himself, and never to resort to another until after having recognized his own insufficiency, he examines each new object which he sees for a long time without saying anything. He is thought- ful, but asks no questions. Be content, then, with pre- senting to him suitable objects ; and then, when you see his curiosity sufficiently excited, address to him some laconic question which will put him in the way of resolv- ing it. On the occasion just stated, after having attentively contemplated with him the rising sun after having 140 EMILE. caused him to observe in the same direction the mount- ains and other neighboring objects after having allowed him to talk of these things, wholly at his ease, keep silent for a few moments, like a man who is dreaming, and then say to him : " I think that last evening the sun set yonder, and that he rose at another place this morning ; how can you account for this ? " Add nothing more. If he ad- dresses questions to you, do not reply to them, but speak of something else. Leave him to himself, and you may be sure that he will set himself to thinking. In order that a child may accustom himself to being attentive, and that he may be thoroughly impressed with some sensible truth, it is necessary that it give him some days of unrest before he discover it. If he does not form a proper conception of it in this way, there is a means of making it still more obvious to him, and this is to repeat the question in a different form. If he does not know how the sun goes from his setting to his rising, he knows, at least, how he goes from his rising to his setting ; his eyes alone teach him this. Elucidate the first question by the second ; and your pupil is either absolutely stupid, or the analogy is too clear to escape him. This is his first lesson in astronomy. As we always proceed slowly from one sensible idea to another, as we familiarize ourselves for a long time with the same thing before passing to another, and, finally, as we never force our pupil to be attentive, it is a long dis- tance from this first lesson to the knowledge of the revo- lution of the sun and the shape of the earth ; but as all the apparent movements of the celestial bodies depend on the same principle, and as the first observation leads to all the others, it requires less effort, though more time, to pass from the earth's diurnal revolution to the calculation of eclipses, than to form a proper conception of day and night. EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. We have seen the sun rise on St.-John's-day, and we .shall also see him rise on Christmas-day, or some other fine day of winter ; for it is known that we are not indo- lent, and that it is a pastime for us to brave the cold. I take care to make this second observation in the same place where we had made the first ; and by means of some tact in order to prepare the way for the remark, one or the other of us will not fail to exclaim : " Oh, oh ! This is strange ! The sun no longer rises in the same place ! Here are our old records ; and now the sun rises yonder. There is, then, one place of rising in summer, and another for winter." Youthful teacher, you are now on the right route. These examples ought to suffice you for teaching the sphere with great clearness, while taking the world for the world and the sun for the sun. In general, never substitute the sign for the thing itself save when it is impossible to show the thing ; for the sign absorbs the attention of the child and makes him forget the thing represented. The armillary sphere seems to me a machine badly arranged, and constructed in false proportions. This confusion of circles and fantastical figures which are traced on it give it the air of a conjuring book, which scares the minds of children. The earth is too small and the circles too large and too numerous ; some of them, as the colures, are perfectly useless each circle is wider than the earth ; the thickness of the pasteboard gives them an appearance of solidity which causes them to be taken for really existing circular masses ; and when you tell the child that these circles are imaginary, he does not know what he sees, and no longer understands anything. We never know how to put ourselves in the place of children ; we do not enter into their ideas, but we ascribe to them our own ; aud always following our own modes 142 tfMILE. of reasoning with series of truths, we crarn their heads only with extravagances and errors. It is a disputed question whether we shall resort to analysis or to synthesis * in the study of the sciences ; but it is not always necessary to make a choice. Sometimes we can resolve and compose in the same researches, and may guide the child by the method of instruction when he fancies he is merely analyzing. Then, while employing both at the same time, they serve each other mutually in the way of tests. Starting at the same moment from two oppo- site points, without thinking of traversing the same route, he will be wholly surprised at the unexpected meeting, and this surprise can not fail to be very agreeable. For example, I would begin the study of geography from these two starting-points, and connect with the study of the revolutions of the globe the measurements of its parts, starting from the place where the child lives. While the child is studying the sphere, and is thus trans- ported into the heavens, recall his attention to the divis- ions of the earth, and show him at first the spot where he lives. His first two starting-points in geography will be the city where he lives and the country-seat of his father. After these will come the intermediate places, then the * By synthesis, in the study of geography, Rousseau seems to mean the process which begins with the immediate surroundings of the child, and, by successive additions of territory, finally rises to the conception of the globe as a whole ; and by analysis, the counter- process which, starting with a conception of the globe as a whole; or, it may be, with the solar system, descends by successive division to the child's immediate neighborhood. The ancient method was analytic, but the modern, in obedience to the supposed requirements of intuition, has been synthetic, though there is now a partial re- turning toward the older, and, I venture to say, the better and more philosophical method, (P.) MILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 143 neighboring rivers, and lastly the observation of the sun, and the manner of finding one's way. This is the point of reunion. Let him make for himself a map of all this. This map will be very simple, and composed, at first, of only two objects ; but to these he will gradually add the others as he ascertains or estimates their distance and position. You already see what advantage we have pro- cured for him in advance by causing him to use his eyes for a compass. Notwithstanding all this, it will doubtless be necessary to guide him somewhat ; but only a very little, and with- out seeming to guide him. If he makes mistakes, let him do it ; do not correct his errors, but wait in silence till he is in a condition to see them and to correct them for him- self ; or, at most, on a favorable occasion introduce some procedure which will make him conscious of them. If he were never to make mistakes, he would not learn so well. Moreover, it is not proposed that he shall know the exact topography of the country, but the means of gain- ing this knowledge for himself. It is of little importance for him to carry maps in his head, provided he has a clear conception of what they represent, and a definite idea of the art which serves for constructing them. You already see the difference there is between the learning of your pupils and the ignorance of mine ! They know the maps, but he makes them. These are new ornaments for his chamber. Always recollect that the spirit of my system is not to teach the child many things, but never to allow anything to enter his mind save ideas which are accurate and clear. Though he learn nothing, it is of little importance to me provided he is not deceived ; and I furnish his head with truths only to protect him from errors which he would learn in their place. Reason and judgment come slowly j 144 EMILE. but prejudices rush forward in flocks, and it is from these that he must be preserved. But if you make knowledge your sole object, you enter a bottomless and shoreless sea, everywhere strewn with rocks, and you will never extricate yourself from it. When I see a man smitten with the love of knowledge allow himself to be seduced by its charm, and to run from one subject to another without knowing how to stop, I fancy I see a child upon the sea-shore gathering shells. At first, he loads himself with them ; then, tempted by those he sees beyond, he throws them away and picks up others, until, weighed down by their number, and not knowing what to select, he ends by throwing all away and returns empty-handed. During the period of infancy the time was long, and we sought only to lose it, for fear of making a bad use of it. It is now the very reverse of all this, and we have not time enough in which to do all that is useful. Reflect that the passions are approaching, and that the moment they knock at the door your pupil will no longer be attentive save to them. The peaceful epoch of intelligence is so short, it passes so rapidly, it has so many necessary uses, that it is folly to imagine that it suffices to make a child wise. It is not proposed to teach him the sciences, but to give him a taste for them, and methods for learning them, when this taste shall be better developed. Without doubt this is the fundamental principle of all good edu- cation. This is also the time for accustoming the pupil, little by little, to give consecutive attention to the same sub- ject; but it is never constraint, but always pleasure or desire, which should produce this attention. Great care should be taken that attention does not become a burden to him, and that it does not result in ennui. Therefore keep a watchful eye over him, and, whatever may happen, EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 145 abandon everything rather than have his tasks become irksome ; for how much he learns is of no account, but only that he does nothing against his will.* If he asks you questions, reply just enough to stimu- late his curiosity, but not enough to satisfy it. Above all, when you see that, instead of asking questions for instruction, he undertakes to beat the bush and to annoy you with silly questions, stop on the instant, for you may then be sure that he no longer cares for the thing itself, but merely to subject you to his interrogations. You must have less regard to the words which he pronounces than for the motive which prompts him to speak. This caution, hitherto less necessary, becomes of the utmost im- portance the moment the child begins to reason. There is a chain of general truths by which all the sciences hold to common principles and are developed in logical succession. This chain is the method of the phi- losophers ; but in this place we are not at all concerned with it. There is a totally different one, by means of which each individual object brings forward another, and always points out the one which follows it. This order, which through a continual curiosity stimulates the atten- tion required of us, is the one which most men follow, and is especially the one required by children. We had observed for a long time, my pupil and I, that amber, glass, wax, and other bodies, when rubbed, attracted straws, and that others did not attract them. By chance we found one which has a property still more * In the actual conduct of life the path of duty often crosses that of inclination, and ^raile will have a sorry preparation for living if he does not learn to bend his neck to the yoke of au- thority. This is a fundamental and fatal vice in Rousseau's ethical system, and he is here following the bias of his own disordered 146 singular that of attracting at some distance, and without being rubbed, filings and other bits of iron. How many times this quality amused us without our being able to see anything more in it ! At last we discover that it is communicated even to iron magnetized by a certain process One day we went to the fair, where we saw a juggler attract with a piece of bread a wax duck floating in a basin of water.* We were greatly surprised, but we did not say that the man was a sorcerer, for we did not know what a sorcerer was. Continually impressed by effects of whose cause we were ignorant, we were in no hurry to come to any conclusion, and we quietly reposed in our ignorance until we found occasion to escape from it. On reaching home we continued to talk of the duck at the fair, and so took it into our heads to imitate it. "We took a good needle, well magnetized, and surrounded it with white wax, which we did our best to mold into the form of a duck in such a way that the needle traversed the body, and with its eye formed the beak of the bird We placed the duck on the water, brought a key near the beak, and saw, with a joy easy to comprehend, that our duck followed the key precisely as the one at the fair fol- lowed the piece of bread. At another time we might have observed in what direction the duck turns his head when left on the water in a state of repose ; but at that moment, * I can not resist laughing while reading a spirited criticism of M. de Formey on this little story : " This juggler," he says, " who takes pride in competing with a child, and gravely lectures his instructor, is an individual living in a world of Emiles." The witty M. de Formey can not suppose that this little scene was prearranged, C,nd that the juggler had been instructed in the part he was to play , for this, in fact, is what I have not said. But how many times, let me remind him, have I declared that I did not write for people who needed to have everything told to them ! EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 147 wholly occupied with our object, we had no further pur- pose in view. That same afternoon we returned to the fair with pre- pared bread in our pockets ; and as soon as the juggler had performed his trick, my little doctor, who could scarcely contain himself, said to him that the trick was not difficult, and that he could do it just as well him- self. He was taken at his word. He at once took from his pocket the bread in which a piece of iron was con- cealed. With beating heart he approached the table, and with trembling hand presented the bread. The duck came forward and followed, the child shouting and trembling with joy. At the clapping of hands and the cheers of the crowd, his head was turned and he was beside himself. The juggler, though confounded, came forward to embrace and congratulate him, and begged the honor of his presence for the morrow, adding that he would do his best to bring together still more people to applaud his cleverness. My little philosopher, puffed up with pride, was bent on prating ; but I at once shut his mouth and took him away, loaded with praises. With an uneasiness that was laughable the child counted the minutes until the next morning. He in- vited everybody he met, and would have the whole human race witness his glory. He awaited the hour with im- patience, and anticipated it by rushing off to the place of assembly, which he found already crowded. On entering, his young heart expanded. Other sports were to precede ; the juggler surpassed himself, and executed surprising feats. The child saw nothing of all this, but was nervous, in a state of perspiration, and scarcely breathed. He spent his time in handling with impatience the piece of bread which he carried in his pocket. At last his turn came, and he was formally presented to the public. He stepped for- 13 ward, somewhat abashed, and took the bread from his pocket. A new vicissitude in human affairs ! The duck, yesterday so tame, had become wild to-day, and instead of presenting his beak he turned tail and sailed away. He refused the bread and the hand that offered it with as much care as he had previously followed them. After a thousand useless attempts, which were always greeted with hoots, the child complained, said that he had been de- ceived, that it was another duck which had been substi- tuted for the first, and dared the juggler to attract this one. The juggler, without making any reply, took a piece of bread and presented it to the duck, which instantly followed the bread, and approached the hand which drew it back. The child took the same piece of bread; but far from succeeding better than before, he saw the duck make fun of him, and execute pirouettes all around the basin. He finally withdrew, covered with confusion, and no longer dared expose himself to the hoots and jeers. Then the juggler took the piece of bread which the child had brought, and used it with as much success as he did his own. He drew out the piece of iron in the presence of the audience, and there was another laugh at our expense ; and then with this bread alone he attracted the duck as before. He did the same thing with another piece of bread cut in the presence of the audience by a third hand. He did the same with his glove, and with the tip of his finger. Finally he withdrew to the mid- dle of the room, and, with a pompous tone peculiar to these people, declaring that his duck would obey his voice no less than the movement of his hand, he spoke to it and the duck obeyed. He told it to go to the right, and it went to the right ; to come back, and it came ; to turn, and it turned ; the movement was as prompt as the order. MILE PROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN*. 149 The redoubled plaudits were so many affronts for us. We slipped out without being observed, and shut ourselves up in our chamber, without going to relate our success to everybody, as we had intended. The next morning some one knocked at our door. I opened it, and there was the juggler. He modestly com- plained of our conduct. What had he done to us to make us willing to discredit his feats and to take away from him his livelihood ? What was there so wonderful in the art of attracting a wax duck as to make us willing to buy this honor at the expense of the subsistence of an honest man ? " On my honor, gentlemen, if I had some other talent for making a living I would hardly plume myself on this one. You may well believe that a man who has spent his life in working at this sorry trade knows much more about it than you who have been occupied with it for only a few minutes. If I did not at first show you masterpieces of my art, it was because it was not neces- sary to be in haste to make a foolish exhibition of what one knows. I have always taken care to save my best tricks for special emergencies, and besides what I showed you I have still others to arrest the attention of young inconsiderates. Finally, gentlemen, I have cheerfully come to teach you the secret which has caused you so much trouble, praying you not to use it to my disadvantage, and hereafter to be more discreet." Then he showed his machine, and we saw with the utmost surprise that it consisted merely of a strong mag- net, well mounted, which a child concealed under the table caused to move without being detected. The man put up his machine, and, after having ex- pressed our thanks and our excuses, we wished to make him a present, but he refused it. " No, gentlemen, you have not sufficiently commended yourselves to my favor 150 fiMILE. to permit me to accept jour gifts ; and against your will I leave you under obligations to me. This is my only revenge. Learn that there is generosity in men of all con- ditions ; I receive pay for my tricks, not for my lessons." All the details of this example are more important than they seem. How many lessons in this single one ! How many mortifying consequences follow the first move- ment of vanity ! Youthful teacher, carefully watch this first movement. If you can thus draw from it humili- ation and disgrace, you may be sure that it will be a long time before a second instance will occur. What prepa- rations ! you will say. I grant it, and all for the sake of making a compass to serve us instead of a noon-mark. Having learned that the magnet acts through other bodies, we have nothing else to do than to make a ma- chine similar to that which we have seen a hollow table, a very shallow basin adjusted to this table and filled with a few inches of water, a duck made with a little more care, etc. Often directing our attention to the basin, we finally observe that the duck in repose always affects nearly the same direction. We repeat this experi- ment, examine this direction, and find that it is from south to north. Nothing more is necessary. Our com- pass is found, or something equally good, and we are now ready for physical science. On the earth there are different climates, these climates have different temperatures. The seasons vary more sen- sibly as we approach the pole ; all bodies are contracted by cold and are expanded by heat ; this effect is more meas- urable in liquids, and more sensible in spirituous liquors. Hence the thermometer. The wind strikes the face ; the air is then a body, a fluid ; we feel it, although we have no means of seeing it. Invert a glass in water, and the water will not fill it unless you leave a place for the air to EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 151 escape ; the air is then capable of resistance. Press the glass farther down and the water will gain on the air but can not wholly replace it ; the air is then capable of com- pression up to a certain limit. A ball filled with com- pressed air has greater elasticity than if filled with any other matter; the air is then an elastic body. While lying in your bath, lift your arm horizontally from the water, and you will feel it loaded with a terrible weight ; the air is then a heavy body. By putting the air in equilibrium with other fluids we can measure its weight. Hence the barometer, the siphon, the air-gun, and the pneumatic engine. All the laws of statics and hydro- statics are discovered by experiments which are just as rude. I would not have one enter a laboratory of experi- mental physics for anything of this kind. All this parade of instruments and machines displeases me.. The scien- tific atmosphere kills science. All these machines either frighten the child, or their appearance divides and absorbs the attention which he owes to their effects. I wish we might make all our own apparatus ; and I would not begin by 'making the instrument before the ex- periment ; but, after having caught a glimpse of the ex- periment, as by hazard, I would invent, little by little, the instrument which is to verify it. I prefer that our instru- ments should be less perfect and accurate, and that we should have more exact ideas of what they ought to be, and of the operations which ought to result from them. For my first lesson in statics, instead of hunting for bal- ances, I put a stick crosswise on the back of a chair and measure the length of the two parts of the stick in equilibrium, and I add weights to both sides, sometimes equal and sometimes unequal, and drawing back or ex- tending the stick as it may be necessary, I finally dis- cover that equilibrium results from a reciprocal propo'r- i 52 EMILE. tion between the amount of the weights and the length of the levers. Here is my little physicist already capable of rectifying balances before having seen any. Without doubt we derive much clearer and much more accurate notions of things which we learn for ourselves than of those which we gain from the instruc- tion of others; and besides, not accustoming our reason to submit slavishly to authority, we become more ingen- ious in discovering relations and in associating ideas, than when, accepting all this just as it is given us, we allow our mind to become weighed down with indifference, just as the body of a man who is always dressed and attended by his servants and carried about by his horses finally loses the strength and use of his limbs. Boileau boasted of having taught Racine to rhyme with much difficulty. Among so many admirable methods for abridging the study of the sciences, it is very necessary that some one give us a method for learning them with effort. The most obvious advantage of these slow and labori- ous investigations is to maintain, in the midst of specu- lative studies, the body in activity, the limbs in their flexibility, and the ceaseless training of the hands to labor and to employments useful to man. So many instruments invented to guide us in our experiments and to supply the place of accurate sense-perception cause us to neglect the exercise of it. The graphometer relieves us from estimating the size of angles ; the eye which meas- ured distances with precision relies on the chain which measures them for it. The steelyard relieves me from estimating by the hand the weight which I was accus- tomed to ascertain by it. The more ingenious our instru- ments are, the blunter and more clumsy our organs be- come By collecting machines about us we no longer find them within ourselves. EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 153 But when we bestow on the manufacturer of these machines the skill which supplied their place, when we employ in making them the sagacity which was needed for doing without them, we gain without losing anything we add art to nature, and we become more ingenious without becoming less dextrous. Instead of making a child stick to his books, if I employ him in a workshop, his hands labor to the profit of his mind ; he becomes a philosopher, but fancies he is only a workman. Finally, this exercise has other uses, of which I shall speak here- after ; and we shall see how from the recreations of philosophy we may rise to the real functions of a man. I have already said that purely speculative knowledge is hardly adapted to children, even when they have ap- proached adolescence ; but, without carrying them very far into systematic physics, proceed in such a way that all their experiments may be connected through some sort of deduction, so that by the aid of this chain they may place them in order in their mind, and recall them when occasion requires ; for it is very difficult to hold isolated facts, or even trains of reasoning, for a very long time in the memory when we have no hold by which to recall them. In your search for the laws of Nature, always begin with the most common and the most obvious phenomena, and accustom your pupil not to take these phenomena for reasons, but for facts. I take a stone and pretend to set it in the air ; I open my hand, and the stone falls. I look at Emile, who is attentive to what I am doing, and say to him, Why did that stone fall ? What child would stop short at this question? No one, not even Emile, unless I had taken great pains to prepare him for not knowing how to reply to it. All will say that the stone falls because it is heavy. And what is it to be heavy? 154 EMILE. It is that which makes a body fall. Then the stone falls because it falls ! Here my little philosopher stopped in earnest. This is his first lesson in systematic physics, and whether or not it may be profitable in this way, it will always be a lesson in good sense. In proportion as the child advances in intelligence, other important considerations oblige us to be more care- ful in the choice of his occupations. As soon as he comes to have sufficient knowledge of himself to conceive in what his welfare consists, as soon as he can grasp rela- tions sufficiently extended to judge of what is best and what is not best for him, from that moment he is in a condition to feel the difference between work and play, and to regard the second merely as a respite from the first. Then objects of real utility may enter into his studies, and may invite him to give to them a more con- stant application than he gave to simple amusements. The law of necessity, always reappearing, teaches man from an early hour to do what does not please him, in order to prevent an evil which would be more displeasing. Such is the use of foresight ; and from this foresight, well or badly regulated, springs all human wisdom or all hu- man misery. When, before feeling their needs, children foresee them, their intelligence is already far advanced, and they begin to know the value of time. It is then important to accustom them to direct its employment to useful ob- jects, but of a utility sensible at their age and within the scope of their understanding. Whatever relates to the moral order and to the usages of society ought not to be presented to them so soon, because they are not in a con- dition to understand it. It is absurd to require them to apply themselves to things which are vaguely declared to be for their good, without their knowing what this good FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 155 is of which they are assured they will derive profit when grown, and without their taking any present interest in this assumed advantage which they can not comprehend. Let the child do nothing on trust. Nothing is good for him which he does not feel to be such. In always keeping him in advance of his intelligence you think you are exercising foresight, but you are lacking in it. In order to furnish him with some vain instruments of which he will perhaps never make use, you take from him the most universal instrument of man, which is good sense ; you accustom him to allow himself always to be led, and never to be anything but a machine in the hands of others. You wish him to be docile while young ; but this is to wish him to be credulous and a dupe when grown. You are always saying to him : " All I require of you is for your advantage ; but you are not in a con- dition to know it. Of what advantage is it to me whether or not you do what I require ? It is for yourself alone that you are working." With all these fine speeches which you now address to him in order to make him wise, you are preparing for the success of those which a visionary, a pretender, a charlatan, a rogue, or fools of every sort, will one day address to him in order to catch him in their net, or to make him adopt their folly. A man should know many things whose utility a child could not comprehend ; but must and can a child learn all that it is important for a man to know ? Try to teach a child all that is useful for one of his age, and you will discover that his time Avill be more than filled. Why will you, to the prejudice of studies which are adapted to nim to-day, apply him to those of an age which he is so little certain to reach ? But you will say : " Will there be time to learn what one ought to know when the mo- ment shall have come to make use of it ? " I can not 156 EMILE. say ; but what I do know is that it is impossible to learn it sooner, for our real masters are experience and feel- ing, and a man never really feels what is befitting a man save in the relations where he has found himself. A child knows that he is destined to become a man, and all the ideas which he can have of man's estate are occasions of instruction to him ; . but of the ideas of that state which are not within his comprehension, he ought to remain in absolute ignorance. My whole book is but a continual proof of this principle of education. As soon as we have succeeded in giving our pupil an idea of the word useful, we have another strong hold for governing him ; for this word makes a strong impression on him, provided he has only an idea of it in proportion to his age, and clearly sees how it is related to his actual welfare. Your children have not been impressed by this word because you have not taken care to give them an idea of it which is within their comprehension ; and be- cause, as others always take it upon themselves to pro- vide what is useful for them, they never have occasion to think of it themselves, and do not know what util- ity is. What is this good for 9 Henceforth this is the conse- crated word, the decisive word between him and me in all the transactions of our life. This is the question which on my part invariably follows all his questions, and which serves as a check on those multitudes of foolish and tire- some questions with which children weary all those who are about them, without respite and without profit, more to exercise over them some sort of domination than to derive any advantage from them. When one has been taught, as his most important lesson, to desire nothing in the way of knowledge save what is useful, he asks ques- tions like Socrates ; he does not ask a question without EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 157 framing for himself its answer, which he knows will be demanded of him before resolving it. As it is of little importance that your pupil learn this or that, provided he has a clear conception of what he learns and of its use, the moment you can not give him an explanation of what you have told him is good for him, give him no explanation at all. Say to him without scru- ple : I have no good reply to make to you ; I was wrong ; let it all go. If your instruction was wholly out of place, there is no harm in abandoning it wholly ; if it was not, with a little care you will soon find occasion to make him conscious of its utility. I do not like discursive explanations ; young people pay little attention to them, and hardly ever retain them. Things ! things ! I shall never repeat often enough that we give too much power to words. With our babbling education we make nothing but babblers. Suppose that while I am studying with my pupil the course of the sun and the manner of finding the points of the compass, he suddenly interrupts me, by asking what all this is good for. What a fine discourse I might hold with him ! On how many things I might take occa- sion to instruct him while replying to his questions, espe- cially if Ave had witnesses of our conversation ! * I might speak to him of the utility of travel, of the advantages of commerce, of the productions peculiar to each climate, of the manners of different peoples, of the use of the cal- endar, of the computation of the return of seasons for agri- culture, of the art of navigation, of the manner of making * I have often observed that in the learned instructions which we give to children we think less of making ourselves heard by them than by the grand personages who are present. 1 am very certain of what I have now said,' for 1 have observed this very thing of myself. 158 EMILE. one's way on the sea, and of following our route with ex- actness without knowing where we are. Politics, natural history, astronomy, even ethics and the law of nations might enter into my explanation in such a way as to give my pupil a grand idea of all these sciences and a great desire to learn them. When I had said all, I would have made the display of a real pedant, and my pupil would not have gained a single idea. He would have a great desire to ask me, as before, what purpose it serves to find the points of the compass, but he dares not for fear of offending me. He finds it more to his advantage to feign to understand what he has been forced to hear. It is in this way that children get what is called a polished edu- cation. But our Emile, educated in a more rustic manner, to whom we have given, with so much trouble, a dull under- standing, will listen to nothing of all this. From the first word which he does not understand he runs away, goes frolicking through the room, and leaves me to hold forth all alone. Let us look for a more homely solution ; my scientific apparatus is worth nothing to him. We were observing the position of the forest at the north of Montmorency when he interrupted me by his importunate question, Of what use is that? You are right, I say to him ; we must think of that at our leisure ; and if we find that this work is good for nothing, we will not resume it, for we have no lack of useful amusements. We occupy ourselves with something else, and the ques- tion of geography is not raised for the rest of the day. On the following morning I propose to him a walk before breakfast ; he asks nothing better. Children are al- ways ready for a ramble, and this one has good legs. We . enter the forest, we stroll through the meadows, we be- come lost, we no longer know where we are ; and when EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 159 we attempt to return we are no longer able to find our way back. Time passes, the heat increases, and we are hungry; we hurry on, we wander about to no purpose from place to place, and everywhere we find but woods, walks, plains, but no information for finding our way. Very warm, very weary, very hungry, the only purpose served by our wanderings is to lead us farther astray. We finally seat ourselves in order to rest and deliberate. Emiie, whom I suppose to be educated as other children are, does not deliberate ; he weeps. He does not know that we are at the gate of Montmorency, and that a simple hedge conceals it from us ; but this hedge is a forest for him ; a man of his stature is buried in bushes. After a few moments' silence, I say to him with a dis- turbed air : " My dear Emile, how shall we proceed to get out of this place ? " EMILE (dripping with sweat and weeping bitterly). " I know nothing about it. I am tired, hungry, and thirsty ; I can do nothing more." JEAX JACQUES. " Do you fancy I am in a better con- dition than you are, and do you think that I should fail to weep if I could dine on my tears ? It is not a question of weeping, but of finding our way. Let us see your watch ; what time is it ? " E. " It is noon, and I have not had my break- fast." J. J. " That is true ; it is noon, and I, too, have had nothing to eat." E. " Oh, then you too must be hungry ! " J. J. " The misfortune is that my dinner will not come to find me here. It is noon, and it is exactly the hour when we were observing yesterday from Montmorency the position of the forest. If we could also observe from the forest the position of Montmorency? ..." 160 EMILE. E\ "Oh, yes; but yesterday we saw the forest, and from this place we do not see the city." J. J. " This is the difficulty. ... If we could do with- out seeing it and still find its position ? . . . " E. " my good friend ! " J. J. " Did we not say that the forest was? ..." E. " At the north of Montmorency." J. J. " Consequently, Montmorency should be ..." E. " At the south of the forest." J. J. " We have a means of finding the north at noon." E. " Yes, by the direction of a shadow." J. J. " But the south ? " E. " How shall we find it?" J. J. " The south is opposite the north." E. " That is true ; we have only to look opposite the shadow. Oh ! there is the south ! There is the south ! surely Montmorency is in that direction ; let us look for it there." J. J. " Perhaps you are right ; let us take this path through the woods." E. (clapping his hands and shouting for joy}. Ah! I see Montmorency ! There it is before us, in plain sight. Let us go to breakfast, let us go to dinner, let us make haste. Astronomy is good for something." Be assured that if he does not say these last words, he will think them ; it is of little importance, provided it is not I who speak them. Now, you may be sure that as long as he lives he will not forget the lesson of that day ; whereas, if I had done no more than invent all this for him in his chamber, my discourse would have been for- gotten by the following day. So far as possible, we must speak by actions, and tell only what can not be done. The relations of effects to causes whose connection we EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEX. 1G1 do not see, the good and the evil of which we have no jdea, the needs which we have never felt, are as nothing to us ; it is impossible to interest us through them in doing anything connected with them. At the age of fifteen we see the happiness of a wise man, just as at thirty we see the glory of paradise. If we have no clear conception of either we shall do but little to acquire it ; and even when we form a conception of it, we shall still do but little if we do not desire it, if we do not think it good for us. It is in vain that dispassionate reason makes us approve or blame ; it is only passion that can make us act ; and how can we become impassioned for interests which we have not yet had ? Never direct the child's attention to anything which he can not see. While humanity is almost unknown to him, as you are not able to raise him to the state of man, lower man for him to the state of childhood. While thinking of what would be useful to him at another age, speak to him only of that whose utility he sees at present. More- over, let there never be comparisons with other children ; as soon as he begins to reason let him have no rivals, no competitors, even in running. I would a hundred times rather he would not learn what he can learn only through jealousy or through vanity. But every year I will mark the progress he has made ; I will compare it with that which he makes the following year. I will say to him : " You have grown so many inches ; there is the ditch which you jumped and the load which you carried ; here is the distance you threw a stone and the course you ran at one breath. Let us see what you can do now." In this way I excite him without making him jealous of any one. I would have him surpass himself, and he ought to do it. I see no harm in his being his own rival. I hate books ; they merely teach us to talk of what 162 we do not know.* It is said that Hermes engraved on columns the elements of the sciences in order to protect his discoveries from the deluge. If he had thoroughly imprinted them in the heads of men they would have been preserved there through tradition. Well-prepared brains are the monuments on which human knowledges are most permanently engraved. Might there not be a means of bringing together so many lessons scattered through so many books, and of reuniting them under a common object which may be easy to see, interesting to follow, and which may serve as a stimulus, even to children of this age ? If we can in- vent a situation where all the natural needs of man are exhibited in a manner obvious to the mind of a child, and where the means of providing for these same needs are successively developed with the same facility, it is by the living and artless portraiture of this state that the first exercise must be given to his imagination. Zealous philosopher, I see that your imagination is already excited. Do not disturb yourself ; this situation has been found, has been described, and, by your leave, much better than you can describe it yourself at least, with more truth and simplicity. Since we must neces- sarily have books, there exists one which, to my way of thinking, furnishes the happiest treatise on natural edu- cation. This book shall be the first which my Emile will read ; for a long time it will of itself constitute his whole * This is doubtless a rhetorical style of saying that knowledge at first hand is preferable to knowledge that comes to us through the interpretation of language. Pestalozzi and even Plato affected a contempt for books : yet they were prolific authors, and owe their immortality to their writings. There are modern instances of this self-inflicted and unconscious satire of writing books to prove that books are useless ! (P.) FROM TWELVE TO F1FTEEX. 163 /ibrary, and always hold a distinguished place in it. It shall be the text on which all our conversations on the natural sciences will serve merely as a commentary. Dur- ing our progress it will serve as a test for the state of our judgment ; and, as long as our taste is not corrupted, the reading of it will always please us. What, then, is this wonderful book? Is it Aristotle? Is it Pliny? Is it Buffon ? No ; it is Kobinson Crusoe. * Robinson Crusoe on his island, alone, deprived of the assistance of his fellows and of the instruments of all the arts, yet providing for his own subsistence and preserva- tion, and procuring for himself a state of comparative comfort here is an object interesting for every age, and one which may be made agreeable to children in a thousand ways. This is how we realize the desert island which first served me as a means of compari- son. This, I grant, is not the condition of man as a social being, and probably is not to be that of Emile ; but it is with reference to this state that we are to appreciate all the others. The surest means of rising above preju- dices, and of ordering our judgments in accordance with the true relations of things, is to put ourselves in the place of an isolated man, and to judge of everything as this man must judge of it, having regard to its proper utility. This romance, divested of all its rubbish, be- ginning with the shipwreck of Eobinson near his island, and ending with the arrival of the vessel which comes to take him away from it. will be at once the amusement and the instruction of Emile during the period now under * Rousseau owed many of his ideas to the greater writers of ancient and modern times ; but the source of his inspiration was Robinson Crusoe. This narrative accorded exactly with Rousseau's temperament, and afforded him an ideal gratification of his in- stincts. (P.) 14 discussion. I , would have his head turned by it, and having him constantly occupied with his castle, his goats, and his plantations, I would have him learn in detail, not in books but from things, all that he would need to know in a similar situation ; I would have him think he is Robinson himself ; and have him see himself dressed in skins, wearing a broad hat, a large saber, and all the gro- tesque equipage of the character, even to the umbrella which he will never need. I would have him, when anxious about the measures to be adopted, in case he is in want of this or that, examine the conduct of his hero, and inquire if nothing has been omitted, and whether something better might not have been done; I would have him attentively note his faults, and profit by them, so as not to fall into them himself under similar circumstances; for do not doubt that he is forming a scheme to go and set up a similar establishment. This is the real castle-building of that happy age when we know no other happiness than necessity and liberty. What a resource this play is for a man of ability who calls it into being only to the end that he may turn it to profitable account ! The child, in haste to make a store- house for his island, will be more zealous to learn than his master to teach. He will wish to know everything that is useful, and to know only that ; you will no longer need to guide him, but only to hold him back. Therefore let us make haste to establish him in his island while he finds all his happiness in it ; for the day will come when, if he still wishes to live there, he would no longer live there alone, and when Friday, who now scarcely interests him, will not long suffice him. The practice of the natural arts, for which a single man may suffice, leads to the cultivation of the industrial arts, which need the co-operation of several hands. The EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 165 first may be practiced by recluses and savages ; but the others can be developed only in society which they render necessary. As long as we know only physical needs, each man suffices for himself; but the introduction of the superfluous makes indispensable the division and dis- tribution of labor ; for, while a man working alone gains merely the subsistence of one man, a hundred men work- ing in concert will gain enough for the subsistence of two hundred. As soon, then, as a part of mankind seek repose, the united arms of those who labor are needed to supplement the idleness of those who are doing nothing. Your greatest anxiety ought to be to divert the mind of your pupil from all the notions of social relations which are not within his comprehension ; but when the relationships of knowledge compel you to show him the mutual dependence of men, instead of showing it to him on its moral side, first turn his attention to industry and the mechanic arts which make men useful to one another. In conducting him from shop to shop never suffer him to see any labor without putting his own hand to the work, nor to go away without perfectly knowing the rea- son of all that is done there, or at least of all that he has observed. For this purpose, labor yourself, and be an example to him in all things. In order to make him a master, be everywhere an apprentice ; and count that an hour's labor will teach him more things than he will re- tain from a day of explanations. " My son is made to live in the world ; he will not live with sages, but with fools ; he must therefore know their follies, since it is through them that they wish to be governed. The real knowledge of things may be good, but- that of men and their judgments is worth still more ; for in human society the greatest instrument of man is man, and the wisest is he who uses this instrument the best. Why give children the idea of an imaginary order of things wholly contrary to that which they will find established, and according to which they must regulate their conduct? First give them lessons to make them wise, and then you will give them the means of judging in what respect others are fools." These are the specious maxims by which the false prudence of parents strives to render their children the slaves of prejudice on which they have been nourished, and themselves the puppets of the senseless crowd whom they think to make the instruments of their passions. In order to attain to a knowledge of man, how many things must be previously learned ! Man is the final study of the sage, and you presume to make of him the first study of a child ! Before instructing him in our feelings, begin by teaching him to appreciate them. Is it knowing folly to take it for reason ? In order to be wise we must discern what is not wise. How will your child know men if he can neither judge of their judgments nor detect their errors ? It is a misfortune to know what they think when we do not know whether what they think is true or false. First teach him, then, what things are in them- selves, and you will afterward teach him what they are as you see them. It is in this way that he will learn to com- pare opinion with truth, and to rise above the common herd ; for we do not recognize prejudices when we adopt them, and we do not lead the people when we resemble them. But if you begin by instructing your child in' public opinion before teaching him to estimate its value, be assured that whatever you may do, it will become his own, and that you will no longer destroy it. My con- clusion is, that to render a young man judicious, we must carefully form his judgments instead of dictating to him our own. EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 167 You see that up to this point I have not spoken to my pupil of men, for he will have too much good sense to understand me ; his relations with his species are not yet obvious enough for him to be able to judge of others by himself. He knows no other human being save himself, and he is even very far from knowing himself ; but if he expresses few judgments of himself, at least he expresses only those that are just. He does not know what the place of others is, but he recognizes his own and keeps it. Instead of by social laws which he can not know, we have bound him by the chains of necessity. He is hardly more than a physical being ; let us continue to keep him such. It is through their sensible relations with his utility, his safety, his preservation, and his comfort, that he ought to appreciate all the bodies of nature, and all the works of men. Thus, in his eyes, iron ought to have a far greater value than gold, and glass than a diamond. So also he will honor a shoemaker or a mason much more than a Lempereur, a Le Blanc, and all the jewelers of Eu- rope. A pastry-cook, in particular, is a very important man in his eyes, and he would give the whole Academy of Science for the smallest confectioner of Lombard Street. Goldsmiths, engravers, gilders, embroiderers, are, in his opinion, but idlers who amuse themselves at pastimes which are perfectly useless ; he does not even put much value on clock-making. I do not inquire whether it is true that industry is more important and deserves a higher recompense in the elegant arts, by which a finish is given to original materi- als, than in the primary labor which converts them to human use ; but I do say that in all cases the art whose use is the most general and the most indispensable is incontestably the one which deserves the most esteem ; and 168 tiMILE. that the one to which fewer arts are necessary deserves it still more than those more subordinate, because it is freer and nearer independence. These are the true rules for estimating arts and industries; all others are arbitrary, and depend on opinion. The first and most respectable of all the arts is agri- culture. I would place the forge in the second rank, carpentering in the third, and so on. The child who has not been seduced by vulgar prejudices will judge of them precisely in the same way. How many important reflec- tions on this point will our Emile draw from his Robin- son Crusoe ! What will he think as he sees that the arts are perfected only by subdivision and by multiplying to infinity their respective instruments? He will say to himself: "All these people are stupidly ingenious; one would think that they are afraid that their arms and fingers may be good for something, seeing they invent so many instruments for dispensing with them. In order to practice a single art they have put a thousand others under contribution ; a city is necessary for each work- man. As for my companion and myself, we place our genius in our dexterity; we make for ourselves instru- ments which we can carry everywhere with us. All these people, so proud of their talents in Paris, would be of no account on our island, and in their turn would be our apprentices." Eeader, do not pause here to see the bodily training and manual dexterity of our pupil, but consider what di- rection we are giving to his childish curiosity ; consider his senses, his inventive spirit, his foresight; consider what a head we are going to form for him ; in everything he sees, in everything he does, he will wish to know every- thing, and understand the reason of everything : from instrument to instrument, he will always ascend to the EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 169 first; he will take nothing on trust; he will refuse to learn that which can not be understood without an ante- rior knowledge which he does not possess. If he sees a spring made, he would know how the steel was taken from the mine ; if he sees the pieces of a box put together, he would know how the tree was cut; if he himself is at work, at each tool that he is using he will not fail to say to himself : " If I did not have this tool, how should I go to work to make one like it or to do without it ? " Besides, it is an error difficult to avoid, in occupations for which the teacher has a passion, always to suppose that the child has the same taste. Take care, when the amusement of labor engrosses you, lest your pupil grow tired of it without daring to notify you of it. The child ought to be wholly absorbed in the thing he is doing ; but you ought to be wholly absorbed in the child observing him, watching him without respite, and without seeming to do so, having a presentiment of his feelings in advance, and preventing those which he ought not to have, and, finally, employing him in such a way that he not only feels that he is useful in what he is doing, but that he may feel a pleasure in it from clearly comprehending that what he does has a useful purpose. The need of a conventional standard of value by which things may be measured and exchanged has caused money to be invented ; for money is but a term of comparison for the value of things of different kinds; and in this sense money is the true bond of society. But every- thing may be money. Formerly, cattle were money, and shells still are among several peoples ; iron was money in Sparta, leather has been in Sweden, and gold and silver are with us. Thus explained, the use of this invention is made ob- vious to the most stupid. It is difficult to compare 170 immediately things of different kinds cloth, for example with wheat ; but when a common measure has been found, namely, money, it is easy for the manufacturer and the laborer to refer the value of the things which they wish to exchange to this common measure. If a given quantity of cloth is worth a given sum of money, and if a given quantity of wheat is also worth the same sum of money, it follows that the merchant receiving this wheat for his cloth makes an equitable exchange. Thus it is by means of money that goods of different kinds become commensurable, and may be compared. Do not go further than this, and do not enter into an explanation of the moral effects of this institution. In everything it is important clearly to set forth its uses before showing its abuses. If you attempt to explain to children how signs cause things to be neglected, how from money proceed all the vagaries of- opinion, how countries rich in money must be poor in everything else, you are treating these children not only as philosophers, but as men of wisdom ; and you are attempting to make them understand what few philosophers even have clearly com- prehended. To what an abundance of interesting objects may we not thus turn the curiosity of the pupil without ever quitting the real and material relations which are within his reach or allowing a single idea to arise in his mind which he can not comprehend ! The art of the teacher consists in never allowing his observations to bear on minutiae which serve no purpose, but ever to confront him with the wide relations which he must one day know in order to judge correctly of the order, good and bad, of civil society. He must know how to adapt the conversa- tions with which he amuses his pupil to the turn of mind which he has given him. A given question which might EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 171 - f not arouse the attention of another would torment Emile for six months. "We go to dine at an elegant house, and find all the preparations for a feast many people, many servants, many dishes, and a table-service elegant and fine. All this apparatus of pleasure and feasting has something in- toxicating in it which affects the head when we are not accustomed to it. I foresee the effect of all this on my young pupil. While the repast is prolonged, while the courses succeed each other, and while a thousand noisy speeches are in progress around the table, I approach his ear and say to him : " Through how many hands do you really think has passed all that you see on this table be- fore it reaches it?" What a host of ideas do I awaken in his mind by these few words ! In an instant all the vapors of delirium are expelled. He dreams, he reflects, he calculates, he becomes restless. While the philoso- phers, enlivened by the wine, and perhaps by their com- panions, talk nonsense and play the child, he philoso- phizes all alone in his corner. He interrogates me, but I refuse to reply, and put him off until another time ; he becomes impatient, forgets to eat and drink, and longs to be away from the table in order to converse with me at his ease. What an object for his curiosity ! What a text for his instruction ! With a sound judgment which noth- ing has been able to corrupt, what will he think of luxury when he finds that all the regions of the world have been put under contribution, that twenty millions of hands, perhaps, have been at work for a long time to create the material for this feast, and that it may have cost the lives of thousands of men? Carefully watch the secret conclusions which he draws in his heart from all these observations. If you have guarded him less carefully than I suppose, he may be 172 EMILE. tempted to turn his reflections in another direction, and to regard himself as a personage of importance to the world, seeing there has been this vast combination of human in- dustry for the preparation of his dinner. If you have a presentiment of this reasoning, you may easily prevent it before he forms it, or, at least, may at once efface its impression. Not yet knowing how to appreciate things save through the material enjoyment of them, he can not judge of their fitness or uufitness for him save through obvious relations. The comparison of a simple and rus- tic dinner, prepared for by exercise and seasoned by hun- ger, liberty, and joy, with a feast so magnificent and elab- orate, will suffice to make him feel that as all this festal preparation has given him no real profit, and as his stomach comes just as well satisfied from the table of the peasant as from that of the banker, there was nothing at the one more than at the other which he could truly call his own. What remains for us to do after having observed all that surrounds us ? To convert to our use all of it that we can appropriate to ourselves, and to make use of our curiosity for the advantage of our own well-being. Up to this point we have provided ourselves with instruments of all sorts, without knowing which of them we shall need. Perhaps, though useless to ourselves, ours will be able to serve others ; and possibly, on our part, we shall have need of theirs. Thus we shall all find our advantage in these exchanges ; but, in order to make them, we must know our mutual needs, each one must know what others have for their use, and what he can offer to them in return. Let us suppose ten men, each of whom has ten different needs. It is necessary that each one, for his own necessities, apply himself to ten sorts of labor ; but by reason of difference in genius and talent one will EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 173 be less successful in one sort of work, and another in an- other. All, fit for different things, will do the same things and will be poorly served. Let us form a society of these ten men, and let each one apply himself, both for his own sake and for that of the nine others, to the kind of occu- pation to which he is best adapted. Each will profit by the talents of the others as if he alone had them all ; each will perfect his own by a continual exercise ; and it will come to pass that all the ten, perfectly well provided for, will still have something left for others. This is the ob- vious basis of all our institutions. It is not my purpose in this place to examine its consequences ; this is what I have done in another treatise.* On this principle a man who would regard himself as an isolated being, dependent on no one and sufficing for himself, would not fail to be miserable. It would be even impossible for him to subsist; for, finding the entire earth covered with thine and mine, and having nothing of his own but his body, whence would he derive the necessaries of life? By withdrawing from the state of nature, we force our fellows to withdraw from it also. No one can remain there against the will of others ; and it would really be to withdraw from it to desire to remain there in the impossibility of subsisting ; for the first law of Nature is the duty of self-preservation. Thus are formed little by little in the mind of a child the ideas of social relations even before he is really able to be an active member of society. Emile sees that in order to have articles for his own use he must have some necessary for the use of others, through whom he can ob- tain in exchange the things which he needs, and which are in their power. I easily lead him to feel the need of * Discours sur 1'Inegalite. 174 these exchanges, and to put himself in a condition to profit by them. " Sir, it is necessary for me to live" said an unfortu- nate satirical author to the minister who reproached him with the infamy of his calling " / do not see the necessity for it" coldly replied the man in power. This response, well enough for a minister, would have been barbarous and false in the mouth of any one else. Every man must live. This argument, to which every one gives more or less force in proportion as he is more or less human, seems to me without reply when made by any one with reference to himself. Since, of all the aversions given us by Nature, the strongest is that for death, it follows that anything is permitted by her to any one who has no other means of living. The principle on which the virtuous man despises life and sacrifices it to his duty is very far from this primitive simplicity. Happy the people among whom one can be good without effort and just without virtue ! If there is any miserable country in the world where one can not live save through evil doing, and where the citizens are rogues by necessity, it is not the criminal who should be hung, but he who compels him to become such. As soon as Emile comes to know what life is, my first care shall be to teach him how to preserve it. So far I have not distinguished classes, ranks, or fortunes; nor shall I distinguish them scarcely more in the sequel, because man is the same in all conditions. A rich man does not have a larger stomach than a poor man, and it digests no better than his; the arms of the lord are neither longer nor stronger than those of his slave ; a great man is no larger than a common man ; and, finally, natural needs being everywhere the same, the means of providing for them ought everywhere to be equal. Adapt the education of man to man, and not to that which, he SMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 175 is not. Do you not see that in striving to educate him exclusively for one condition you are making him useless for every other ? and that, if it please Fortune, you have labored only to make him unhappy? What is there more ridiculous than a man once a great lord, but now poor, who retains in his misery the prejudices of his birth? What is there more abject than an impoverished rich man, who, recollecting the contempt shown to poverty, feels that he has become the lowest of men ? The sole resource of one is the trade of public cheat, and of the other that of a cringing valet with this fine phrase, "It is necessary for me to live." You place confidence in the actual state of society with- out reflecting that this state is subject to inevitable revolu- tions, and that it is impossible to foresee or to prevent that which may confront your children. The great become small, the rich become poor, the monarch becomes a sub- ject. Are the blows of Fortune so rare that you can count on being exempt from them ? We are approaching a state of crisis and a century of revolutions.* Who can answer to you for what you will then become ? Whatever men have made, men may destroy ; there are no ineffaceable characters save those which Nature impresses, and Nature makes neither princes, nor millionaires, nor lords. What, then, will that satrap do in his fallen state whom you have educated only for grandeur ? What will that extortioner do in his poverty who knows how to live only on gold ? What will that pompous imbecile do, deprived of every- thing, who can make no use of himself, and who employs * I hold it to be impossible for the great monarchies of Europe to last much longer ; all have achieved brilliancy, and every state in this condition is in its decline. I have for my opinion reasons more cogent than this maxim ; but this is not the time to declare them, and they must be evident to all. 176 EMILE. his existence only in what is foreign to himself ? Happy he who then knows how to turn away from the station which he quits, and can remain a man in spite of Fort- une ! Praise as much as you will that conquered king who, in his fury, would be buried under the ruins of his throne : for myself I despise him. I see that he owes his existence solely to his crown, and that if he were not king he would be nothing at all. But he who loses his crown and does without it, is then superior to it. From the rank of king, which a craven, a villain, or a madman might occupy as well, he ascends to the state of man which so few men know how to fill. He then triumphs over Fort- une and braves her; he owes nothing save to himself alone ; and when all that remains to him to show is him- self, he is not a cipher, but is something. Yes, I would a hundred times rather be the King of Syracuse as a school- master at Corinth, and the King of Macedon as a clerk at Rome,* than an unfortunate Tarquin, not knowing what will become of him if he does not reign, or than the heir of the possessor of three kingdoms, f the puppet of whoever dares insult his misery, wandering from court to court, seeking assistance everywhere and everywhere find- ing affronts, all from not knowing how to do something besides the thing which is no longer in his power. The man and the citizen, whichever he may be, has no other valuable to give to society than himself, all his other valuables being there without his will ; and when a man is rich, either he does not enjoy his riches, or the public enjoys them also. In the first case, he steals from others that of which he deprives himself ; and in the sec- * Alexander [the son of Perseus, last], King of Macedonia, was the secretary of a Roman magistrate. f The Prince Charles Edward, called the Pretender, grandson of James II, King of England, dethroned in 1688. (P.) EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. ond, he gives them nothing. So the entire social debt remains with him as long as he pays only with his prop- erty. " But," you say, " my father served society while gaining this property." Be it so ; he has paid his own debt, but not yours. You owe more to others than as though you were born without property ; you were favored in your birth. It is not just that what one man has done for society should release another from what he owes it ; for each one, owing his entire self, can pay only for him- self, and no father can transmit to his son the right of being useless to his fellows ; yet that is what he does, according to you, in leaving him his riches, which are the proof and reward of labor. He who eats in idleness what he himself has not earned, steals ; and a land-holder whom the state pays for doing nothing does not differ from a brigand who lives at the expense of travelers. Outside of society, an isolated man, owing nothing to any one, has a right to live as he pleases ; but in society, where he necessarily lives at the expense of others, he owes them in labor the price of his support ; to this there is no ex- ception. To work, then, is a duty indispensable to social man. Rich or poor, powerful or weak, every idle citizen is a knave. Now, of all the occupations which can furnish sub- sistence to man, that which approaches nearest to the state of Nature is manual labor ; of all the conditions the most independent of fortune and of men, is that of the artisan. The artisan depends only on his labor. He is free as free as the husbandman is a slave ; for the lat- ter is dependent on his field, whose harvest is at the dis- cretion of others. The enemy, the prince, a powerful neighbor, may take away from him this field ; on ac- count of it he may be harassed in a thousand ways ; but wherever there is a purpose to harass the artisan, his bag- 178 gage is soon ready ; he folds his arms and walks off. Still, agriculture is the first employment of man ; it is the most honorable, the most useful, and consequently the most noble that he can practice. I do not tell Emile to learn agriculture, for he knows it. All rustic employ- ments are familiar to him ; it is with them that he began, and to them he will ever be returning. I say to him, then, Cultivate the heritage of your fathers. But if you lose this heritage, or if you have none, what are you to do ? Learn a trade. " A trade for my son ! My son an artisan ! My dear sir, are you serious ? " , More serious than you are, madam, who would make it impossible for him ever to be any- thing but a lord, a marquis, a prince, or perhaps, one day, less than nothing ; but on my part I wish to give him a rank which he can not lose, a rank which will honor him as long as he lives. I wish to raise him to the state of manhood ; and whatever you may say of it, he will have fewer equals by this title than by all those which he will derive from you. The letter kills and the spirit makes alive. It is im- portant to learn a trade, less for the sake of knowing the trade than for overcoming the prejudices which de- spise it. You say you will never be compelled to work for a living. Ah, so much the worse so much the worse for you ! But never mind ; do not work from necessity, but work for glory. Condescend to the state of the artisan in order to be above your own. In order to put fortune and things under subjection to you, begin by making yourself independent of them. In order to reign by opinion, begin by reigning over opinion. Recollect that it is not an accomplishment that I de- mand of you, but a trade, a real trade an art purely mechanic, where the hands work more than the head, EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 179 which does not lead to fortune, but with which one can dispense with fortune. In families far above the danger of lacking for bread, I have seen fathers carry foresight so far as to add to the duty of instructing their children the duty of providing them with the knowledge from which, whatever may happen, they may gain the means for living. These provident fathers think they are doing a great deal ; but they are doing nothing, because the re- sources which they fancy they are economizing for their children depend on that very fortune of which they wish to make them independent. So that with all those accom- plishments, if he who has them does not chance to be in circumstances favorable for making use of them, he will perish of hunger just as soon as though he had none of them. But instead of resorting for a livelihood to those high knowledges which are acquired for nourishing the soul and not the body, if you resort, in case of need, to your hands arid the use which you have learned to make of them, all difficulties disappear, all artifices become useless ; you have resources always ready at the moment of need. Probity and honor are no longer an obstacle to living. You no longer need to be a coward and a liar before the great, compliant and cringing before knaves, the base pimp of everybody, borrower or thief, which are almost the same thing when one has nothing. The opinions of others do not affect you ; you have no one's favor to court, no fool to flatter, and no porter to conciliate. That rogues manage great affairs is of little importance to you ; this will not prevent you in your obscure mode of life from being an honest man and from having bread. You enter the first shop whose trade you have learned : " Fore- man, I am in need of employment." " Fellow- workman, stand there and go to work." Before noon comes you 15 180 EMILE. have earned your dinner, and if you are diligent and fru- gal, before the week has passed you will have the where- withal to live for another week; you will have lived a free, healthy, true, industrious, and just man. It is not to lose one's time to gain it in this way. I insist absolutely that Emile shall learn a trade. " An honorable trade, at least," you will say. What does this term mean ? Is not every trade honorable that is useful to the public ? I do not want him to be an embroiderer, a gilder, or a varnisher, like Locke's gentleman ; neither do I want him to be a musician, a comedian, or a writer of books.* Except these professions, and others which resemble them, let him choose the one he prefers ; I do not assume to restrain him in anything. I would rather have him a cobbler than a poet ; I would rather have him pave the highways than to decorate china. But, you will say, " Bailiffs, spies, and hangmen are useful people." It is the fault only of the government that they are so. But let that pass ; I was wrong. It does not suffice to choose a useful calling ; it is also necessary that it does not require of those who practice it qualities of soul which are odious and incompatible with humanity. Thus, returning to our first statement, let us choose an honorable calling; but let us always recollect that there is no honor without utility. This is the spirit which should guide us in the choice of Emile's occupation, though it is not for us to make this choice, but for him ; for, as the maxims with which he is equipped preserve in him a natural contempt for * " You yourself are one," some one will say. I am, to my sorrow, I acknowledge ; and my faults, which I think I have sufficiently ex- piated, are no reasons why others should have similar ones. I do not write to excuse my faults, but to prevent my readers from imi- tating them. EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 181 useless things, he will never wish to consume his time in work of no value, and he knows no value in things save that of their real utility. He must have a trade which might serve Robinson in his island. By causing to pass in review before a child the pro- ductions of Xature and art, by stimulating his curiosity and following it where it leads, we have the advantage of studying his tastes, his inclinations, and his propensities, and to see glitter the first spark of his genius, if he has genius of any decided sort. But a common error, and one from which we must preserve ourselves, is to attrib- ute to the ardor of talent the effect of the occasion, and to take for a marked inclination toward such or such an art the imitative spirit which is common to man and monkey, and which mechanically leads both to wish to do whatever they see done without knowing very well what it is good for. The world is full of artisans, and espe- cially of artists, who have no natural talent for the art which they practice, and in which they have been urged forward from their earliest age, either through motives of expedience, or through an apparent but mistaken zeal which would have also led them toward any other art if they had seen it practiced as soon. One hears a drum and thinks himself a general ; another sees a house built and wishes to be an architect. Each one is drawn to the trade which he sees practiced, when he believes it to be held in esteem. But perhaps we are giving too much importance to the choice of a trade. Since we have in view only manual labor, this choice is nothing for Emile, and his apprentice- ship is already more than half done, through the tasks with which we have occupied our time up to the present moment. What do you wish him to do ? He is ready for everything. He already knows how to handle the 182 ^MILE. spade and the hoe ; he can use the lathe, the hammer, the plane, and the file; the tools of all the trades are already familiar to him. All he has to do in addition is to acquire of some of these tools such a prompt and facile use as to make him equal in speed to good workmen using the same tools, and on this point he has a great advantage over all others ; he has an agile body and flex- ible limbs, which can assume all sorts of attitudes without difficulty and prolong all sorts of movements without effort. Moreover, he has accurate and well-trained or- gans ; all the machinery of the arts is already known to him. For the duties of master-workman all he lacks is habit, and habit is acquired only with time. To which of the trades whose choice it depends on us to make will he give sufficient time in order to make himself expert in it ? This is the only question in the case. Give to the man a trade which befits his sex, and to a young man a trade which befits his age ; every sedentary and domestic profession which effeminates and softens the body is neither pleasing nor adapted to him. A young lad should never aspire to be a tailor. Work in metals is useful, and even the most useful of all. However, unless some special reason inclines me to it, I would not make of your son a farrier, a locksmith, or a blacksmith ; I would not like to see him in his shop the figure of a Cyclops. So also I would not have him a mason, and still less a shoe-maker. All trades must be practiced, but he who can choose ought to have regard for cleanliness, for this is not a matter of opinion ; on this point the senses decide for us. Finally, I would have none of those stupid trades whose operatives, without in- genuity and almost automata, never exercise their hands save at one kind of labor, such as weavers, stocking-makers, and stone-cutters. Of what use is it to employ men of EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 183 sense at these trades ? They are machines in charge of another machine. All things considered, the trade which I would rather have be to the taste of my pupil is that of cabinet-maker. It is cleanly, it is useful, and it may be practiced at home ; it keeps the body sufficiently exercised ; it requires of the workman skill and ingenuity, and in the form of the products which utility determines, elegance and taste are not excluded. But if, perchance, the genius of your pupil is decidedly turned toward the speculative sci- ences, then I would not blame you for giving him a trade adapted to his inclinations ; that he learn, for example, to make mathematical instruments, spy-glasses, telescopes, etc. * AY hen Emile learns his trade I wish to learn it with him ; for I am convinced that he will never learn anything well save what we learn together. We then put ourselves in apprenticeship, and we do not assume to be treated as gentlemen, but as real apprentices, who are not such for the sport of the thing. Why should we not be apprentices in real earnest ? The Czar Peter was a carpenter at the bench and a drummer in his own army ; do you think that this prince was n6t your equal by birth or by merit ? You understand that I am not saying this to Emile, but to you, whoever you may be. Unfortunately, we can not spend all our time at the bench. We are not only apprenticed work- men, but we are apprenticed men ; and our apprenticeship to this last trade is longer and more difficult than the other.* * Rousseau here enunciates a cardinal doctrine in education, though he does not consistently and logically maintain it through- out his treatise, as when he gives a narrow construction to the term useful. As the child's prime vocation is manhood, liberal or hu- mane studies should have precedence over technical or professional studies; they are the more useful. The pupils of an elementary 184 EMILE. How, then, shall we proceed ? Shall we have a master of the plane one hour a day, just as we have a dancing- master ? No ; we shall not be apprentices, but disciples ; and our ambition is not so much to learn cabinet-making as to rise to the position of cabinet-maker. I am there- fore of the opinion that we should go, at least once or twice a week, to spend a whole day with the master work- man ; that we should rise when he does ; that we should be at work before he comes ; that we should eat at his table, work under his orders, and that, after having had the honor to sup with his family we, if we wish, should return to rest on our hard beds. This is how we learn several trades at once, and how we employ ourselves at manual labor without neglecting the other apprenticeship. If I have been understood thus far, it ought to be plain how, with the habitual exercise of the body and labor of the hands, I insensibly give to my pupil a taste for reflection and meditation in order to counterbalance in him the in- dolence which would result from his indifference for the judgments of men and from the repose of his passions. He must work as a peasant and think as a philosopher in order not to be as lazy as a savage. The great secret of education is to make the exercises of the body and of the mind always serve as a recreation for each other. We have now returned to our theme. Here is our child on the point of ceasing to be such, and of assuming his individuality. Here he is feeling more than ever the necessity which attaches him to things. After having be- gun by training his body and his senses, we have trained his mind and his judgment. Finally, we have connected with the use of his limbs the use of his faculties ; we have school may be predestined to a dozen different vocations, but their education should be essentially the same. (P.) EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 185 made him an active and a thinking being ; and nothing more is left for us in order to complete the man than to make of him a being who loves and feels that is, to perfect the reason .through the feelings. But before entering on this new order of things, let us look back on that from which we started, and see, as exactly as possible, what point we have reached. At first our pupil had only sensations, but now he has ideas ; all he did was to feel, but now he judges ; for from the comparison of several successive or simultaneous sen- sations with the judgment which we derive from them there proceeds a sort of mixed or complex sensation which I call an idea. The manner of forming ideas is what gives its charac- teristic to the human mind. The mind which forms its ideas solely on real relations is a strong mind ; that which contents itself with apparent relations is a superficial mind ; that which sees relations just as they are is an accu- rate mind ; that which estimates their value imperfectly is an unsound mind; he who invents imaginary relations which have neither reality nor appearance is a lunatic ; while he who does not compare at all is an imbecile. The greater or less aptitude for comparing ideas and finding their relations is that which makes the minds of men the larger or the smaller. Simple ideas are but compared sensations. There are judgments in simple sensations as well as in complex sensations, which I call simple ideas. In sensation the judgment is purely passive ; it affirms that one feels what he feels. In perception or idea the judgment is active ; it brings together, it compares, it determines relations which sense does not determine. This is the whole differ- ence, but it is great. Nature never deceives us. It is always we who deceive ourselves. I see a child eight years 186 EMILE. old served with ice cream; he carries the spoon to his mouth without knowing what it is, and, shocked by the cold, cries out, "Ah f that burns me." He experiences a very vivid sensation ; he knows nothing more vivid than the heat of fire, and he thinks that it is this which he feels. Nevertheless he is mistaken ; the shock of the cold hurts him, but it does not burn him. These two sensa- tions are not similar, since those who have experienced both do not confound them. It is not, then, the sensation which deceives him, but the judgment which he derives from it. Since all our errors come from our judgment, it is clear that if we never needed to judge we should have no need to learn ; we should never be in a situation to de- ceive ourselves ; we should be happier in our ignorance than we could be with our knowledge. Who denies that scholars know a thousand true things which the ignorant will never know ? Are scholars nearer the truth on this account ? Quite the contrary : they depart from truth as they advance ; because the vanity of judging, ever making greater progress than knowledge, each truth which they learn brings with it a hundred false judgments. It is absolutely certain that the learned societies of Europe are but so many public schools of falsehood ; and very surely there are more errors in the Academy of Sciences than in the whole tribe of Hurons. Since the more men know the more they are deceived, the only means of shunning error is ignorance.* Do not judge and you will never be mistaken. This is the teach- * If liability to error increases with our knowledge, the infinitely wise would also be infinitely fallible. Rousseau's declaration that ignorance is a defense against error, might well raise the question of his sanity if we did not recollect his passion for paradox and rhetoric. (P.) F.MILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. i7 ing of Nature as well as of reason. Outside of a very small number of immediate and very obvious relations which things have with us, we have naturally only a pro- found indifference for everything else. A savage would not take a step to see the operation of the finest machine and all the wonders of electricity. What is that to me 9 is the phrase most familiar to the ignorant and the most appropriate to the wise. But, unfortunately, this phrase is no longer in keeping with us. Everything concerns us, since we are dependent on everything ; and our curiosity necessarily extends with our needs. This is why I have ascribed very great curi- osity to the philosopher and none at all to the savage. The latter stands in need of no one ; the other has need of everybody, and especially of admirers. I shall be told that I am departing from Nature, but this I do not admit. She chooses her instruments, not according to opinion but according to necessity. Now, needs change with the situation of men. There is a wide difference between natural man living in a state of nature and natural man living in a state of society. Emile is not a savage to be banished to a desert, but a savage made to live in cities. He must know how to find his subsistence there, to derive advantage from their in- habitants, and to live, if not as they do, at least to live with them. As he knows by experience that my most frivolous questions have some object which he does not at first perceive, he has not formed a habit of replying to them carelessly ; on the contrary, he is cautious of them, gives them his attention, and examines them with great care before replying to them. He never makes me a reply with which he is not himself satisfied ; and he is very hard to satisfy. Finally, neither of us is in a fret to 188 EMILE. know the truth of things, but only not to fall into error. We should be much more unwilling to accept a reason which is not good than not to find it at all. / do not know is a phrase which becomes us both so well, and which we repeat so often, that it no longer costs either of us anything. But, whether some thoughtlessness escape him, or whether he shun it by our handy / do not know, my reply is the same : Let us see ; let us examine. Emile will never have dissected insects, will never have counted the spots on the sun, and will not know what a microscope or a telescope is. Your wise pupils will ridi- cule his ignorance, and they will not be wrong ; for, before using these instruments, I intend that he shall invent them, and you are very doubtful whether this can be done so soon. This is the spirit of my whole method so far. If the child places a little ball between two crossed fingers and thinks he feels two balls, I will not allow him to look at them until he is convinced that there is but one there. These explanations will suffice, I think, clearly to mark the progress which the mind of my pupil has so far made, and the route by which he has followed this progress. But you are frightened, perhaps, at the quantity of things which I have made to pass before him. You fear lest I weigh down his mind under this mass of knowledge. The very contrary is true : I teach him much more to ignore these things than to know them. I show him the route to learning, easy, in truth, but long, boundless, and slow to traverse. I have made him take the first steps in order that he may recognize the entrance to it, but I shall never allow him to go far. Compelled to learn for himself, he uses his own reason and not that of others ; for in order to grant nothing to opinion, you must grant nothing to authority ; and the EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. 189 most of our errors come much less from ourselves than from others. From this continual exercise there should result a vigor of mind similar to that which is given the body by labor and fatigue. Another advantage is that we advance only in proportion to our strength. The mind like the body can carry no greater weight than it can support. When the understanding appropriates things before depositing them in the memory, that which it afterward draws from it is its own ; whereas by overbur- dening the memory unwarily we run the risk of never drawing from it anything which is our own. Emile has little knowledge, but what he has is really his own; he knows nothing by halves. Of the small number of things which he knows, and knows well, the most important is that there is much which he does not know but which he may one day know ; much more that other men know and that he will never know ; and an in- finity of other things which no man will ever know. He has a mind that is universal, not through its knowledge, but through its facility of acquiring it; a mind that is open, intelligent, ready for everything, and, as Montaigne says, if not taught, at least teachable. It is sufficient for me that he can find the what profits it of everything he does, and the why of everything he believes. Once more, my purpose is not at all to give him knowledge, but to teach him how to acquire it when necessary, to make him estimate it exactly for what it is worth, and to make him love truth above everything else. With this method we advance slowly, but we never take a useless step and are never compelled to go back. Emile has only natural and purely physical knowl- edge. He does not know even the name of history, nor what metaphysics and ethics are. He knows the essential relations of man to things, but nothing of the moral rela- 190 EMILE. tions of man to man. He can generalize ideas but little, and can make but few abstractions. He sees qualities common to certain bodies without reasoning on these qualities in themselves. He knows abstract extension by the aid of geometrical figures, and abstract quantity by the aid of algebraic signs. These figures and these signs are the supports of these abstractions on which his senses rest. He does not seek to know things through their nature, but only through the relations which interest him. He estimates what is foreign to him only through its relation to himself ; but this estimate is exact and sure. Fancy and convention play no part in it. He sets most store by what is most useful to him ; and never departing from this manner of appraising, he pays no attention to opinion. Emile is industrious, temperate, patient, firm, and full of courage. His imagination, in nowise enkindled, never magnifies dangers for him. He is sensible to few evil?, and knows how to suffer with constancy because he has not learned to contend against destiny. "With respect to death, he does not yet know clearly what it is ; but ac- customed to submit without resistance to the law of ne- cessity, when he must die he will die without a groan and without a struggle ; and this is all that Nature permits in that moment abhorred by all. To live in freedom and in but slight dependence on things human is the best means of learning how to die. In a word, Emile has every virtue which is related to himself. In order to have the social virtues also, all he lacks is to know the relations which exact them ; he lacks merely the knowledge which his mind is wholly prepared to receive. He considers himself without regard to others, and thinks it well that others are not thinking at all of him. He exacts nothing of any one, and believes that he is in EMILE FROM TWELVE TO FIFTEEN. debt to nobody. He is alone in human society, and counts only on himself. He has also a greater right than any other to count upon himself, for he is all that one can be at his age. He has no faults, or has only those which are inevitable to us; he has no vices, or only those against which no man can protect himself. He has a sound body, agile limbs, a just and unprejudiced mind, and a heart that is free and without passions. Self-love, the first and the most natural of all, is as yet scarcely excited in it. Without disturbing the repose of any one, he has lived as contented, happy, and free as Nature has per- mitted. Do yon think that a child who has thus reached his fifteenth year has lost the years preceding ? BOOK FOUKTH. EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY THE PERIOD OF MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. How swift is our passage over this earth ! The first quarter of life has slipped away before we know its use, and the last quarter also slips away after we have ceased to enjoy it. At first we do not know how to live ; soon we are no longer able to live ; and in the interval which separates these two useless extremities three quarters of the time which remains to us is consumed in sleep, in labor, in suffering, in constraint, in troubles of every de- scription. Life is short, less through the brevity of the time that it lasts than because, of this brief period,' we have almost nothing for enjoying it. It matters not that the moment of death is far removed from that of birth, for life is always too short when this space is badly filled. We have two births, so to speak one for existing and the other for living; one for the species and the other for the sex. But man in general is not made to remain always in a state of infancy. He passes out of it at a time prescribed by Nature ; and this critical moment, though very short, has lasting influences. As the tempest is announced from afar by the roaring of the sea, so this stormy revolution is foretold by the murmur of the rising passions; a rumbling agitation warns us of the approach of danger. (192) SMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 193 Here is the second birth of which I have spoken ; it is here that man really begins to live, and nothing human is foreign to him. So far our cares have been but child's play; it is only now that they assume a real importance. This epoch, where ordinary education ends, is properly the one where ours ought to begin. Our passions are the principal instruments of our con- servation, and it is therefore an attempt as vain as it is ridiculous to wish to destroy them ; it would be to control Nature and reform the work of God. If God were to tell man to destroy the passions which he has given him, God would and would not, he would contradict himself. But he has never gived this senseless order ; nothing like it is written in the human heart; and whatever God wishes a man to do he does not cause it to be told to him by another man, but he says it to him himself, he writes it in the depths of his heart. The source of our passions, the origin and basis of all the others, the only one which is born with man and never leaves him while he lives, is the love of self. This passion is primitive, innate, anterior to every other, and of which, in some sense, all the others are but modifications. In this sense all of them, so to speak, are natura. 1 ; but the most of these modifications have foreign causes without which they would never have existed, and these very modifications, far from being advantageous to us, are harmful ; they change the primitive object and go counter to their purpose. It is then ' that man finds himself estranged from Nature and in contradiction with him- self. Love of one's self is always good and always in con- formity with order. Each one being especially charged with his own conservation, the first and the most impor- ant of all his cares is and ought to be to guard it with 194 o-easeless vigilance; and how shall he do this unless he takes the greatest interest in it ? It is therefore necessary that we love ourselves in order to preserve ourselves. We must love ourselves more than anything else ; and, through an immediate consequence of the same feeling, we love that which preserves us. Every child becomes attached to his nurse. Romulus must needs feel an attachment for the wolf that suckled him. What- ever favors the well-being of an individual attracts him, and whatever harms him repels him ; and this is but a blind instinct. That which transforms this instinct into a feeling, attachment into love, and aversion into hatred, is the manifest intention of hurting *us or of doing us good. The first feeling of a child is to love himself, and the second, which is derived from the first, is to love those who come near him ; for in the state of weakness in which he is he knows no one save through the care and assist- tance which he receives. At first, the attachment which he has for his nurse and his governess is but habit. He seeks them because he has need of them and finds it well to have them ; it is rather knowledge than benevolence. It requires much time for him to comprehend that they are not only useful to him, but that they wish to be so. It is then that he begins to love them. A child is then naturally inclined to benevolence be- cause he sees that everything which approaches him is brought to assist him, and he derives from this observa- tion the habit of feeling favorably disposed toward his species ; but in proportion as he extends his relations, his needs, and his active or passive dependencies, the feeling of his relations to others is aroused and produces that of duties and preferences. Then the child becomes imperi- ous, jealous, deceptive, and vindictive. If he is con- EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. strained to obedience, not seeing the utility of what he is commanded to do, he attributes it to caprice or to the in- tention of tormenting him, and he rebels. If he himself is obeyed, the moment anything resists him he sees in it a rebellion, an intention of resisting him; and he beats the chair or table for having disobeyed him. The love of self (amour de soi), which regards only ourselves, is content when our real needs are satisfied ; but self-love (amour-propre), which makes comparisons, is never satis- fied, and could not be, because this feeling, by preferring ourselves to others, also requires that others prefer our- selves to them a thing which is impossible.* This is how the gentle and affectionate passions spring from the love of self, while the malevolent and irascible passions spring from self-love. Thus, that which makes man essentially good is to have few needs and to compare himself but little with others ; while that which makes him essentially bad is to have many needs and to pay great deference to opinion. On this principle it is easy to see how we may direct to good or to evil all the passions of children and of men. It is true that, not being able to live always alone, they will find it difficult to live always good. And this very difficulty will necessarily increase with their relations ; and it is particularly in this that the dangers of society render art and care the more indis- pensable to us for preventing in the human heart the depravation which springs from its new needs. The study proper for man is that of his relations. * Rousseau distinguishes love of self (amour de soi) from self- love (amour-propre). The first feeling is directed toward simple well-being, has no reference whatever to others, and is unselfish, The second feeling, on the contrary, leads the individual to compare himself with others, and sometimes to seek his own advantage at their expense. Our term self-love includes both meanings. (P.) 10 196 ^MILE. While he knows himself only through his physical being, he ought to study himself through his relations with things, and this is the occupation of his childhood ; but when he begins to feel his moral nature, he ought to study himself through his relations with men, and this is the occupation of his entire life, beginning at the point we have now reached. As soon as man has need of a companion, he is no longer an isolated being, his heart is no longer alone. All his relations with his species, and all the affections of his soul, are born with her. His first passion soon causes the rise of others. The instructions of nature are tardy and slow, while those of men are almost always premature. In the first case, the senses arouse the imagination ; and in the second, the imagination arouses the senses and gives them a pre- cocious activity which can not fail to enervate and en- feeble, first the individual, and then, in the course of time, the species itself. A more general and a more trust- worthy observation than that of the effect of climate is that puberty and sexual power always come earlier among educated and refined people than among ignorant and barbarous people. Children have a singular sagacity in discerning through all the affectations of decency the bad manners which it conceals. The refined language which we dictate to them, the lessons of propriety which we give them, the veil of mystery which we affect to draw before their eyes, are so many spurs to their curiosity. From the manner in which we go about this, it is clear that what we feign to conceal from them is only so much for them to learn ; and of all the lessons which we give them this is the one which they turn to the largest account. If the age at which man acquires the consciousness of his sex differs as much through the effect of education as E"MILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 197 through the action of nature, it follows that we may ac- celerate or retard this age according to the manner in which children are educated ; and if the body gains or loses consistency in proportion as we retard or accelerate this progress, it also follows that the more we strive to retard it the greater the vigor and power which a young man will acquire. I am now speaking of purely physical effects ; but we shall soon see that these are not the only ones. From these reflections I draw the solution of this ques- tion so often agitated, whether it is best to enlighten chil- dren at an early hour on the objects of their curiosity, or whether it is not best to satisfy them with modest but false explanations. I do not think it necessary to do either. In the first place, this curiosity does not come to them unless we have paved the way for it. We must then proceed in such a way that they will not have it. In the second place, questions which we are not compelled to answer do not require us to deceive the one who asks them ; it is much better to impose silence on him than to make him a reply which is false. This law will cause him little surprise if we have taken care to subject him to it in things which are indifferent. Finally, if we decide to reply to them, let it be done with the greatest simplicity, without mystery, without embarrassment, and without a smile. There is much less danger in satisfying the curiosity of the child than in exciting it. Let your replies always be grave, short, decided, and without ever seeming to hesitate. I need not add that they ought to be true. We can not teach children the danger of lying to men without feeling, as men, the great- er danger of lying to children. One single falsehood told by a teacher to his pupil, and known to be such, would forever ruin all the fruits of an education. 198 EMILE. An absolute ignorance of certain things is perhaps what is most advisable for children ; but let them learn at an early hour that which it is impossible always to con- ceal from them. It is necessary either that their curiosity be not awakened in any way, or that it be satisfied before the age when it is no longer a danger. In this matter your manner of treating your pupil will depend much on his particular situation, on the society in which he moves, and on the circumstances by which it is foreseen he will be surrounded. It is important in such cases to trust nothing to chance ; and if you are not sure of keeping him in ignorance of the difference of the sexes up to his six- teenth year, take care that he learn it before the age of ten. In your dealings with children I would not have you affect a language which is too refined ; nor that you make long detours, which they perceive, in order to avoid giving to things their real names. In these matters good man- ners always have great simplicity ; but imaginations sul- lied by vice make the ear fastidious, and are ever forcing us to adopt refinements of expression. Gross terms are of no consequence; it is lewd thoughts which must be shunned. Though modesty is natural to the human species, chil- dren are naturally destitute of it. Modesty is born only with the knowledge of evil ; how, then, shall children who neither have nor ought to have this knowledge have the feeling which is the effect of it ? To give them les- sons in modesty and honor is to teach them that there are things that are shameful and dishonorable, and to give them a secret desire to know these things. Sooner or later they succeed in this, and the first spark which touches the imagination will most certainly accelerate the conflagration of the senses. Whoever blushes is already guilty ; true innocence is ashamed of nothing. EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 199 1 see but one good means of preserving the innocence of children ; and this is, that all those who surround them respect and love it. Without this all the prudence which we try to make use of with them comes to naught sooner or later ; a smile, a wink, a chance gesture, tell them all that we seek to conceal from them ; it suffices for them in order to learn it to see that we have designed to keep it from them. The nice turns of expression which gen- teel people use among themselves, taking for granted knowledge which children ought not to have, are wholly out of place with them ; but when we truly honor their simplicity we easily adopt, in speaking to them, that sim- plicity of language which befits them. There is a certain artlessness of language which becomes innocence and is pleasing to it ; this is the true tone which turns aside a child from a dangerous curiosity. By speaking to him of everything in simple terms, we do not allow him to suspect that there is anything more to say to him. In giving to coarse words the displeasing ideas which befit them, we smother the first fire of the imagination ; we do not for- bid him to pronounce these words and to have these ideas ; but without his thinking of it we give him a repugnance for recalling them. And from what embarrassment would not this artless liberty save those who, drawing it from their own heart, always say that which must be said, and always say it just as they have felt it ! Your children read ; and in their reading they acquire knowledge which they would not have had if they had not read. If they study, the imagination becomes inflamed and sharpened in the silence of the study chamber. If they live in the world, they hear a strange jargon and see examples by which they are strongly impressed. They have been so thoroughly persuaded that they are men, that in all that men do in their presence they at once try 200 to ascertain how all this may be adapted to their use ; it must necessarily be that all the actions of others serve them as a model when the judgments of others serve them as a law. The domestics who are made to wait on them and who are consequently interested in pleasing them, curry favor with them at the expense of good morals ; and giggling governesses address conversation to them at four years which the most shameless would not dare to hold at fifteen. These nurses soon forget what they have said, but the children never forget what they have heard. Li- centious conversation leads to dissolute manners ; a vile servant makes a child debauched, and the secret of one serves as a guarantee for that of the other. Would you put order and control into the nascent passions? Lengthen the time during which they are de- veloped, to the end that they may have the time to adjust themselves in proportion as they come into being. Then it is not man who ordains them, but Nature herself, and your only care is to let her arrange her work. If your pupil were alone you would have nothing to do ; but everything that surrounds him inflames his imagination. The torrent of prejudices hurries him on, and in order to rescue him you must push him in a contrary direction. Feeling must restrain the imagination, and reason must put to silence the opinions of men. The source of all the passions is the sensibility; the imagination determines their inclination. Every being who feels his relations must be affected when these relations are altered, and when he imagines, or thinks he imagines, those which are better adapted to his nature. These are the errors of imagination which transform into vices the passions of all limited beings, even of angels, if they have passions ; for they must needs know the nature of all beings in order to know what relations are most consonant with their own. EJ1ILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 201 This, then, is the sum of all human wisdom in the use of the passions : 1, to feel the true relations of man both in the species and in the individual ; 2, to order all the affections of the soul according to these relations. The first feeling of which a young man who has been carefully educated is susceptible is not love, but friendship. The first act of his nascent imagination is to teach him that he has fellow-creatures, and the species affects him before the sex. Here is another advantage of prolonged innocence ; it is to profit by the nascent sensibility for sowing in the heart of the young adolescent the first seeds of humanity, an advantage all the more precious as it is the only time of life when the same cares can have a real success. Would you excite and nourish in the heart of a young man the first movements of the nascent sensibility, and turn his character toward benevolence and goodness ? Do not cause pride, vanity, and envy to germinate in him ; through the deceptive image of the happiness of men, do not at first expose to his eyes the pomp of courts, the pageantry of palaces, and the attractions of the theatre ; do not take him about in social circles and brilliant assem- blies ; do not show him the exterior of grand society until after having put him in a condition to form an estimate of it in itself. To show him the world before he knows men is not to form him, but to corrupt him ; it is not to instruct him but to deceive him. Men are by nature neither kings, nor grandees, nor courtiers, nor millionaires ; all are born naked and poor ; all are subject to the miseries of life, to chagrins, evils, needs, and sorrows of every sort ; and, finally, all are con- demned to death. This is what man truly is ; this is that from which no mortal is exempt. Begin, then, by study- ing that which is most inseparable from human nature, that which most truly constitutes humanity. At the age 202 of sixteen the adolescent knows what it is to suffer, for he himself has suffered ; but he hardly knows that other beings also suffer. To see without feeling is not to know ; and, as I have said a hundred times, the child, not imagin- ing what others feel, knows no ills save his own ; but when the first development of the senses enkindles in him the fire of imagination, he begins to know himself in his fellows, to be affected by their complaints, and to suffer with their sorrows. It is then that the sad picture of suffering hu- manity ought to carry to his heart the first feeling of ten- derness which he has ever experienced. If this period is not easy to note in your children, whom do you blame for it ? You instruct them so early to counterfeit feeling, you teach them its language so soon, that, always speaking in the same tone, they turn your lessons against you, and leave you no means to distinguish when, ceasing to pretend, they begin to feel what they say. But see my Emile. At the age to which I have conduct- ed him he has neither felt nor feigned. Before knowing what it is to love, he has said to no one, / love you very much. No one has prescribed for him the countenance he is to assume on entering the sick chamber of his father, mother, or tutor ; no one has shown him the art of affect- ing the sadness which he does not feel. He has not feigned to weep over the death of any one, for he does not know what it is to die. The same insensibility which he has in his heart is also in his manners. Indifferent to everything outside of himself, like all other children he takes an interest in no one ; all that distinguishes him is that he does not wish to seem interested, and that he is not false like them. Emile, having reflected little on sentient beings, will be late in knowing what it is to suffer and die. Com- plaints and cries will begin to agitate his feelings; the EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 203 sight of flowing blood will make him turn away his eyes ; and the convulsions of a dying animal will give him un- told agony before he knows whence these new emotions come to him. If he had remained stupid and barbarous he would not have them ; if he were wiser, he would know their source. He has already compared ideas too much not to suffer, but not enough to conceive what he feels. Thus arises pity, the first related feeling which touches the human heart according to the order of Nature. In order to become sensible and compassionate the child must know that there are beings similar to himself, who suffer what he has suffered, who feel the sorrows which he has felt, and others of which he can form an idea as being able to feel them also. In fact, how shall we allow ourselves to be moved to pity if not by transporting us outside of our- selves and identifying ourselves with the suffering animal, by quitting, so to speak, our own being, in order to assume his ? We suffer only as much as we judge he suffers ; and it is not in us, but in him, that we suffer. Thus no one becomes sensible save when his imagination is aroused and begins to transport him outside of himself. In order to excite and nourish this nascent sensibility, J * and to guide it or to follow it in its natural course, what have we then to do save to offer to the young man objects on which may be exerted the expansive force of his heart, which will increase it and extend it over other beings, which will ever call "his attention away from himself ; and to avoid with care those objects which contract and con- centrate the human heart and compress the springs of selfishness ? In other terms, what can we do save to excite in him goodness, humanity, commiseration, beneficence, and all the attractive and gentle passions which naturally please men, and to prevent the rise of envy, covetousness, hatred, and all the repulsive and cruel passions which ren- 204 SMILE. der, so to speak, the sensibility not only null, but negative, and are the torment of him who experiences them ? Do not accustom your pupil to look down from the summit of his glory on the afflictions of the unfortunate and the toils of the wretched ; and never hope to teach him to pity them if he considers them as strangers to himself. Make him clearly understand that the lot of these unfortunates may be his own, that all their misfort- unes lie before him, and that a thousand unforeseen and inevitable events may at any moment plunge him into them. Teach him to count neither upon birth, nor upon health, nor upon riches ; show him all the vicissitudes of fortune ; search out examples for him, always too frequent, of men who from a higher station than his own have fallen below that of these unfortunates. Whether this is through their fault or not is not now in question ; only, does he even know what is meant by fault? Never encroach upon the order of his knowledge and never enlighten him save through knowledge which is within his comprehen- sion ; he need not be very wise in order to know that no human prudence can determine whether he shall be living or dying within an hour ; whether the pains of colic shall not make him grind his teeth before night ; whether in a month he shall be rich or poor ; or whether within a year, perhaps, he shall not be rowing in the galleys of Algiers. Above all, do not tell him all this coldly, as you would his catechism ; but let him see and feel human calamities. Disturb and affright his imagination with the perils by which every man is ceaselessly surrounded ; let him see about him all these abysses, and as he hears you describe them, let him cling to you for fear of falling into them. We shall make him timid and cowardly, you will say. We shall see in the sequel ; but for the present let us begin by making him human ; this is what chiefly concerns us. EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 205 It is at this age that begins with a skillful teacher the real function of the observer and philosopher who knows the art of exploring the heart while attempting to mold it. While the young man does not yet think of disguising himself, and has not yet learned to do it, at each new object which we present to him we see in his manner, in his eyes, and in his movements, the impression which he receives from it ; we see on his face all the emotions of his soul ; and by watching them we come to foresee them, and finally to direct them. I do not know whether, through not having learned to imitate conventional manners and to feign sentiments which he does not have, my young man will be the less agreeable ; but with this we are not concerned in this place. I know only that he will be more affectionate, and I find it very difficult to believe that he who loves only himself can disguise himself so well as to be as pleasing as he who draws from his attachment for others a new feeling of happiness. But as to this feeling itself, I think I have said enough to guide a reasonable reader on this point, and to show that I have not contradicted myself. I return to my method, and say : When the critical age approaches, offer to young people spectacles which hold them in check, and not those which excite them; divert their nascent imagination by objects which, far from in- flaming their senses, repress their activity. Kemove them from large cities, where the attire and immodesty of wom- en hasten and anticipate the lessons of nature, and where everything presents to their eyes pleasures which they ought not to know until they can choose them wisely. Take them to their early homes, where the simplicity of country life alloAvs the passions of their age to be devel- oped less rapidly ; or, if their taste for the arts still attaches 206 SMILE. them to the city, prevent in them through this very taste an idleness that is full of danger. Select with care their company, their occupations, and their pleasures; show them only pictures which are touching but modest, which move without seducing, and which nourish their sensibility without exciting their senses. Eecollect also that there are everywhere some excesses to fear, and that immoder- ate passions always do more harm than we are willing to encounter. It is not proposed to make of your pupil a nurse or a brother of charity, to afflict his sight by con- tinual objects of sorrow and suffering, to conduct him from infirmary to infirmary, from hospital to hospital, and from La Greve * to the prisons ; he must be touched but not hardened by the sight of human suffering. Long struck by the same sights, we no longer feel their impres- sions. Habit accustoms us to everything, and what we see too often we no longer imagine ; and it is only the imagination which makes us feel the ills of others. It is thus that, through seeing people suffer and die, priests and physicians become unpityiug. Then let your pupil know the lot of man and the miseries of his fellows, but do not let him too often be the witness of them. One single object, well chpsen and exhibited in a suitable light, will give him tender reflections for a month. It is not so much what he sees as his reflection on what he has seen that determines the judgment which he derives from it ; and the durable impressions which he receives from an object come less from the object itself than from the point of view under which it is brought to his recollection. It is thus that, by carefully managing these examples, lessons, and images, you will for a long time blunt the * A public square in Paris where executions formerly took place. -(P.) E"MILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 207 edge of the senses and will divert nature by following her own direction. Teacher, be sparing of words ; but learn to make a jhoice of times, places, and persons ; then give all your lessons by examples, and you may be sure of their effect. Teachers complain that the ardor of this age renders the young unruly, and I see that this is true. Is not this their own fault? As soon as they have allowed this ardor to take its course through the senses, are they igno- rant that they no longer can give it another? Will the long and lifeless sermons of a pedant efface from the mind of his pupil the image of the pleasures which he has con- ceived ? Will they banish from his heart the desires which torment him ? Will they allay the ardor of a tempera- ment whose use he knows? Will he not be irritated at the obstacles which oppose the only happiness of which he has an idea ? And in the harsh law which we prescribe for him without being able to make him understand it, what will he see except the caprice and hatred of a man who is trying to torment him? Is it strange that he rebels, and hates him in his turn ? I well understand that by making ourselves compliant we can make ourselves more endurable and thus preserve an apparent authority. But I fail to see what purpose is served by the authority which is preserved over a pupil only by fomenting the vices which it ought to repress. It is as though a horseman, in order to pacify a mettlesome horse, should make him jump over a precipice. So far is the ardor of youth from being an obstacle to education, that it is through it that education is com- pleted and perfected ; it is this ardor which gives you a hold on the heart of a young man when he ceases to be less strong than you are. His first affections are the reins with which you direct all his movements ; he was free, but 208 I see him brought under subjection. As long as he loved nothing, he depended only on himself and his needs ; but the moment he loves, he depends on his attachments. Thus are formed the first bonds which unite him to his species. By directing his nascent sensibility along this line, do not think that it will at first embrace all men, and that this term human species will signify anything to him. No, this sensibility will be limited at first to his fellows ; and these will not be for him unknown beings, but those with whom he has relations ; those whom habit has made dear or necessary to him ; those whom he sees evidently having with him common ways of thinking and feeling ; those whom he sees exposed to the pains he has suffered, and sensible to the pleasures he has tasted ; in a word, those whom the more manifest identity of nature gives him a greater disposition to love. It will not be until after having cultivated his nature in a thousand ways, and after many reflections on his own feelings and on those which he observes in others, that he will be able to gen- eralize his individual notions under the abstract idea of humanity, and unite with his particular affections those which may identify him with his species. In becoming capable of attachment he becomes sen- sible of the attachment of others, and in the same way at- tentive to the symbols of this attachment. Do you see what a new empire you have acquired over him? how many chains you have thrown around his heart before he perceived them ! What will be his feelings when, opening his eyes upon himself, he shall see what you have done for him, and when he shall be able to compare himself with other young men of his age and to compare you with other tutors ? I say, when he shall see it. But beware of saying this to him ; for if you tell him this, he will no longer see it. If you exact obedience of him in return for EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 209 the good offices you have done him, he will think that you have overreached him. He will say to himself, that in pretending to oblige him gratuitously you have presumed to charge him with a debt, and to bind him by a contract to which he has not consented. It is in vain for you to rejoin, that what you have required of him is only for his own good ; but after all you make a requirement, and you do it by virtue of what you have done without his con- sent. When a poor wretch takes money which some one pretends to give him, and finds himself enlisted without his consent, you denounce the injustice. Are you not still more unjust when you demand of your pupil pay for the services which he has not accepted ? If gratitude is a natural sentiment, and you have not destroyed its effect by your own fault, be assured that your pupil, beginning to see the value of your services, will be sensible of them provided you yourself have not put a price on them ; and that they will give you an au- thority over his heart which nothing will be able to de- stroy. But, before being well assured of this advantage, guard against losing it by magnifying yourself in his sight. To extol your services to him is to make them in- supportable to him ; to forget them is to make him re- member them. Until it is time to treat him as a man, let there never be a question of what he owes you, but of what he owes himself. In order to render him docile, leave him in complete liberty ; conceal yourself in order that he may look for you ; elevate his soul to the noble sentiment of gratitude by never speaking to him save of his own interest. 1 have not wished to have him told that what was done was for his good, before he was in a condition to understand it ; in that remark he would have seen only your dependence, and would only have taken you for his servant. But now that he begins to feel what 210 6MILE. it is to love, he also feels what a kindly, benignant bond may unite a man to what he loves ; and in the zeal which makes you devote yourself to him without respite, he no longer sees the attachment of a slave, but the affection of a friend. We finally enter upon the moral order, and come to take a second step in manly culture. If this were the place for it, I would try to show how, from the first movements of the heart, arise the first utterances of the conscience ; and how, from the feelings of love and hate, spring the first notions of good and evil. I would make it seem that justice and goodness are not merely abstract terms, pure moral creations formed by the understanding, but real affections of the soul enlightened by reason, and which are but a progress ordained by our primitive affec- tions ; that by the reason alone, independently of the con- science, we can not establish any natural law. ; and that the whole law of Nature is but a delusion if it is not founded on a need natural to the human heart. But I do not think I am here required to write dissertations on metaphysics and ethics, nor courses of study of any sort ; it is sufficient for me to mark the order and progress of our feelings and knowledge with respect to our constitution. Others will perhaps demonstrate what I have only indi- cated. My Emile having thus far regarded only himself, the first look which he throws upon his fellows leads him to compare himself with them, and the first feeling which this comparison excites within him is to desire the first place. This is the point at which the love of self changes into self-love, and where begin to arise all the passions which depend upon it. But in order to decide whether those of his passions which shall dominate in his char- acter shall be humane and beneficent, or cruel and malev- EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 211 olent, whether they shall be passions of benevolence and commiseration, or of envy and covetousness, it is necessary to know to what place he will aspire among men, and what kind of obstacles he will think he has to overcome in order to reach the one which he wishes to occupy. In order to guide him in this investigation, after hav- ing shown him men by the accidents common to the species, we must now show them to him by their differ- ences. Here comes the measurement of natural and civil inequality, and the picture of the whole social order. Society must be studied through men, and men through society ; those who would treat politics and morals separately will never understand anything of either. This is now the study that concerns us ; but in order to pursue it properly we must begin by knowing the hu- man heart. If it were proposed merely to show to young people man through his mask, we should not need to show him to them they will always see him more than enough ; but since the mask is not the man, and it is not necessary that its varnish delude them, in painting men for them paint them just as they are, not to the end that young people may hate them, but that they may pity them and not wish to resemble them. This, to my mind, is the rational feeling which man can have respecting his species. In this view it is important in this place to take a route opposite that which we have hitherto followed, and to instruct the young man through the experience of oth- ers rather than through his own. If men deceive him, he will hate them ; if, respected by them, he sees them de- ceive one another, he will pity them. " The spectacle of the world," said Pythagoras, " resembles that of the Olym- pic games : some keep shop there, and think only of theit 17 212 EMILE. profits ; others pay there with their persons and seek glory; still others are content to see the games, and these are not the worst." I would have the associates of the young man chosen in such a way that he may think well of those who live with him ; and that he be taught to know the world so well that he may think ill of all that is done in it. Let him know that man is naturally good ; let him feel it ; let him judge of his neighbors by himself ; but let him see how society depraves and perverts men ; let him find in their prejudices the source of all their vices ; let him be inclined to esteem each individual, but let him despise the multitude ; let him see that all men wear nearly the same mask, but let him know also that there are faces more beautiful than the mask which covers them. This method, it must be admitted, has its disadvan- tages, and is not easy in practice ; for if he becomes an observer too early, if you train him in watching the actions of others too closely, you will make him slander- ous and satirical, decisive and prompt in judging ; he will take an odious pleasure in looking everywhere for sinister interpretations, and in seeing in the good nothing what- ever that is good. You will accustom him, at least, to the sight of vice ; and, by seeing wrong-doers without horror, he will accustom himself to see the unfortunate without pity. Very soon the general perversity will serve him bss as a lesson than as an excuse ; and he will say to himself that if men are of this sort he need not wish to be otherwise. In order to remove this obstacle and to place the human heart within the reach of our pupil without the risk of spoiling his own, I would show him men at a dis- tance ; show them to him in other times or in other places, and in such a way that he may see the stage without ever tfMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 213 being an actor on it. This is the time to begin history. It is through this study that he will read hearts without philosophical lectures ; it is through it that he will see them as a simple spectator, without interest and without passion, as their judge and not as their accomplice or their accuser. In order to know men we must see them act. In the world we hear them speak ; they make a show of words and conceal their actions ; but in history they are unveiled, and we judge them by their deeds. Even their sayings aid in appreciating them ; for, comparing what they do with what they say, we see at once what they are and what they would seem to be ; the more they disguise themselves the better we know them. Unhappily this study has its dangers 'and its incon- veniences of more than one kind. It is difficult to place ourselves at a point of view from which we can judge our fellow-beings with equity. One of the great vices of his- tory is that it portrays men much more through their bad qualities than through their good. As it is interesting only as it describes revolutions and catastrophes, so long as a people grows and prospers in the calm of a peaceful government it says nothing of it ; history begins to speak of a people only when, no longer able to suffice for itself, it takes part in the affairs of its neighbors or allows them to take part in its own. History makes a people illus- trious only when it is already in its decline. All our his- tories begin where they ought to end. We have very exact histories of peoples which are in a state of decay. What we lack is an account of peoples which are growing ; they are so happy and so wise that history has nothing to say of them ; and, in fact, we see even in our day that the best conducted governments are those of which the least is said. We know, then, only the bad ; the good hardly 21 4r tiMILE. forms an epoch. It is only the wicked who attain celeb- rity ; the good are forgotten or turned to ridicule ; and this is how history, like philosophy, ever calumniates the human race. Moreover, the facts described in history are very far from being the exact portraiture of facts as they really happened ; they change form in the head of the historian ; they are molded in accordance with his interest and take the tint of his prejudices. Who is there who can place the reader at exactly the right spot on the stage to see an event just as it happened ? Ignorance or par- tiality disguises everything. Without altering even one historical fact, by amplifying or retrenching circumstances which are connected with it, how many different aspects can be given to it ! The worst historians for a young man are those who judge. Facts ! facts ! Supply him with these, and let him form his own judgments. It is in this way that he learns to know men. If the author's judgment is always guiding him, he does no more than see through the eye of another ; and when this eye fails him he no longer sees anything. Thucydides, in my opinion, is the true model for his- torians. He relates facts without judging them, but he omits none of the circumstances necessary for enabling us to judge of them ourselves. He places all he relates under the eye of the reader ; and, far from interposing between events and readers, he steps aside, and we no longer think we are reading, but seeing. Unfortunately, he is always speaking of .wars, and we see scarcely anything in his writings save what is of all the least instructive namely, combats. The Retreat of the Ten Thousand and Caesar's Commentaries have nearly the same wisdom and the same fault. The good Herodotus, without portraits, without maxims, but flowing, artless, and full of details EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 215 the most capable of interesting and pleasing, would per- haps be the best of historians if these very details did not; often degenerate into puerile simplicities, better adapted to spoil the taste of youth than to form it. Discernment is already necessary for reading him. I say nothing of Livy his turn will come ; but he is a politician, a rhetori- cian, and everything not adapted to the age of our pupil. History, in general, is defective in that it registers only the obvious and marked facts which can be fixed by names, places, and dates; but the slow and progressive causes of these facts, which can not be marked out in the same way, always remain unknown. We often find in a battle gained or lost the reason of a revolution which, even before that battle, had become inevitable. War does hardly more than make manifest events already deter- mined by moral causes which the historians are rarely able t j see. The philosophic spirit has turned in this direction the reflections of several writers of this century ; but I doubt whether truth has gained- by their labors. The fury of systems having taken possession of them all, nobody attempts to see things as they are, but only so far as they are in accord with his system. Add to all these reflections that history exhibits actions much more than men, because it grasps the latter only at certain chosen moments and on dress parade ; it brings to view only the man in public who has dressed himself up to be seen ; it does not follow him into his house, his study, his family, and into the society of his friends ; it portrays him only when he is keeping up his dignity; and it is more his dress than his person that history paints. I would much prefer the reading of individual lives for beginning the study of the human heart ; for then it is in 216 tiMILE. vain for the man to conceal himself, for the historian pur- sues him everywhere ; he leaves him no moment of respite, no corner where he may avoid the piercing eye of a spec- tator ; and it is when we think ourselves the best con- cealed that the author makes us best known. "The writers of lives who please me most," says Montaigne, " are those who take more pleasure in counsels than in events, more in what proceeds from within than in what comes from without ; and this is why in all respects my man is Plutarch." * Plutarch excels by these very details on which we dare enter no further. He has an inimitable grace in painting great men in little things ; he is so happy in the choice of his strokes that often a word, a smile, or a gesture suffices him for characterizing his hero. There are very few peo- ple in a condition to see the effects which reading, thus directed, may produce on the wholly inexperienced mind of a young man. Weighed down by books from our childhood and accustomed to read without thinking, what we read impresses us so much the less, as, already carry- ing within us the passions and the prejudices which fill the history and the lives of men, all that they do seems to us natural, because we have departed from nature and judge of others by ourselves. But let us picture to ourselves a young man educated according to my precepts ; let us imagine my Emile, for whom eighteen years of assiduous care have had no other purpose than to preserve an un- impaired judgment and a sound heart let us imagine him, at the raising of the curtain, gazing for the first time on the stage of the world, or rather placed back of the theatre, seeing the actors as they take on or put off their attire, and counting the ropes and pulleys with * Book ii, chap. x. EfflLE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 217 which gross prestige abuses the eyes of the spectators. Very soon his first surprise will be succeeded by emotions of shame and disdain for his species ; he will be indig- nant at thus seeing the whole human race, its own dupe, stooping to these puerile amusements ; he will be afflicted to see his brothers tearing one another in pieces for phan- toms and turning themselves into ferocious beasts for not having been able to content themselves with being men. Certainly, with the natural disposition of the pupil, with however little prudence the teacher may select his course of reading, and however little he may put this youth in the way of reflections to be drawn from it, this exercise will be for him a course in practical philosophy, better surely, and better conceived, than all the vain spec- ulations with which the minds of young men in our schools are perplexed. One step more and we touch the goal. Self-love is a useful but dangerous instrument ; it often wounds the hand which uses it, and rarely does good without doing evil. Emile, on considering his rank in the human spe- cies, and seeing himself so happily situated there, will be tempted to do honor to his own reason for the work of yours, and to attribute to his own merit the effect of his good fortune. He will say to himself, I am wise, and men are fools. While pitying them he will despise them, and while felicitating himself he will esteem himself the more ; and feeling himself happier than they are, he will fancy that he is more worthy of being so. This is the error to be feared most, because it is the most difficult to destroy. If he were to remain in this condition, he would have gained little from all our services ; and if I were to choose, I do not know whether I should not much more prefer the illusion of prejudices than that of pride. There is no folly, save vanity, of which we can not cure 218 EMILE. a man who is not a fool. Nothing corrects the latter save experience if, indeed, anything can correct it. At its birth, at least, we may prevent it from growing. Do not, then, waste your strength in fine arguments to prove to a youth that he is a man like others, and subject to the same weaknesses. Make him feel this, or he will never know it. Here, again, is an exception to my own rule ; it is that of voluntarily exposing my pupil to all the ac- cidents which may prove to him that he is not wiser than we are. I would let flatterers take every advantage of him they could. If giddy heads were to entice him into any extravagance, I would let him run the risk of it. If sharpers were to beset him at play, I would hand him over to them to be made their dupe. I would allow him to be flattered, plucked, and robbed by them ; and when, having stripped him of everything, they were to finish by deriding him, I would still thank them in his presence for the lessons which they had been so good as to give him. The only snares from which I would carefully guard him would be those of courtesans. The only con- siderations I would have for him would be to share all the dangers which I had allowed him to incur and all the affronts which I had allowed him to receive. I would endure everything in silence, without complaint or re- proach, and without ever saying to him a single word on the subject ; and you may be sure that with this discretion well maintained, all that he will have seen me suffer for him will make more impression on his heart than what he will have suffered himself. I can not here avoid exposing the false dignity of tutors who, in order foolishly to play the sage, underrate their pupils, affect to treat them always as children, and always to distinguish themselves from them in whatever they make them do. Far from disparaging in this way EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 219 their young spirits, spare nothing in order to exalt their souls ; make of them your equals in order that they may become such ; and if they can not yet ascend to you, de- send to them without shame and without scruple. This is not saying that the pupil ought to suppose in his teacher an intelligence as limited as his own, and the same facility for allowing himself to be deluded. This opinion is good for a child, who, not knowing how to see anything nor to make any comparisons, puts all the world within his reach, and gives his confidence only to those who can actually put themselves there. But a young man of Emile's age, and as sensible as he is, is no longer foolish enough to be imposed on in this way, and it would not be well if he were. The confidence which he ought to have in his tutor is of another sort ; it should be based on the authority of reason, on superior intelligence, and on ad- vantages which the young man is in a condition to ap- preciate and of whose utility he is sensible. Long experi- ence has convinced him that he is loved by his guide ; that his guide is a wise and enlightened man, who, wishing his happiness, knows what can procure it for him. He ought to know that for his own interest it is best for him to listen to his advice. Now, if the master were to allow himself to be deceived like the disciple, he would lose the right to exact deference from him and to give him in- struction. Still less ought the pupil to suppose that his teacher purposely allows him to fall into snares, and that he lays ambushes for his simplicity. What must be done, then, in order to shun at the same time these two difficul- ties ? That which is the best and the most natural : Be simple and true as he is ; warn him of the dangers to which he is exposed ; show them to him clearly, plainly, without exaggeration or temper, without pedantic display, and especially without giving him your advice for com- 220 EMILE. mands until they become such, and this imperious tone is absolutely necessary. Does he hold out after this, as he will often do ? Then say no more to him ; allow him his liberty, follow him, imitate him, cheerfully and frankly iinbend yourself, and, if it is possible, amuse yourself as much as he does. If the consequences become too serious, you are always on hand to arrest them ; and yet, how thoroughly must the young man, a witness of your fore- sight and of your kindness, be at the same time impressed by one and touched by the other ! All his faults are so many bonds which he furnishes you for holding him in check when it becomes necessary. Now, that which here constitutes the greatest art of the teacher is to bring for- ward the occasions and to direct the exhortations in such a way as to know in advance when the young man will yield and when he. will hold out, in order to surround him everywhere with the lessons of experience without ever exposing him to too great dangers. Warn him of his faults before he falls into them ; but when he has fallen into them do not reproach him with them : you would merely cause his self-love to rise in re- bellion. The lesson which revolts does not profit. I know nothing more stupid than this saying, / told you so. The best means to make him recollect what you have said to him is to appear to have forgotten it. On the con- trary, when you see him ashamed for not having believed you, mildly efface this humiliation by kind words. He will become firmly attached to you when he sees that you forget yourself for his sake, and that instead of completely crushing him you offer him consolation. But if to his chagrin you add reproaches, he will hate you, and will make it a law no longer to listen to you, as though to prove to you that he does not think as you do on the im- portance of your advice. EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 221 The manner of your consolation may still be a means of instruction to him, all the more useful because he will not distrust it then. In saying to him, for example, that a thousand others have committed the same faults, you will place him far above his own reckoning ; you will cor- rect him by not seeming to pity him ; for, to one who be- lieves he is of more account than other men, it is a very mortifying excuse to be consoled by their example ; it is to conceive that the most that he can assume is that they are worth no more than he is. The time of faults is the time for fables.* By censur- ing the wrong-doer under an unknown mask we instruct without offending him ; and he then understands, through the truth whose application he makes to himself, that the apologue is not a falsehood. The child who has n^ver been deceived by flattery understands nothing of the fable which I have previously examined ; f but the heed- less child who has just been the dupe of a flatterer under- stands wonderfully well that the crow was only a block- head. Thus, from a fact he derives a maxim ; and the experience which he would have soon forgotten becomes fixed in his judgment by means of a fable. There is no ethical knowledge which can not be acquired through the * Rousseau now modifies somewhat his condemnation of fables, though he is manifestly wrong in thinking that their real use is in the instruction of men their purpose is not to throw a veil over truth, but by means of comparison to bring a great moral truth within the comprehension of children. The art of the fabulist con- sists in giving to a general truth a concrete and attractive form, or in making it easy to infer a general truth from a concrete instance. Instruction by fable, by allegory, and by parable, is one of the most ancient and effective of teaching devices, and on all accounts is worthy of being restored to something of its ancient place of honor. (P.) f The Fox and the Crow. 222 EMILE. experience of others or through one's own. In case experience is dangerous, instead of making it ourselves we draw the lesson from history. AVhen the trial is with- out consequence, it is well for the young man to remain exposed to it ; then, by means of the apologue, we formu- late as maxims the particular cases which are known to him. I do not intend, however, that these maxims should be developed, or even announced. Nothing is so useless, so badly conceived, as the moral by which most fables are terminated ; as though this moral was not or ought not to be developed in the fable itself, in a way to make it obvious to the reader ! Why, then, by adding this moral at the end, take from him the pleasure of finding it for himself ? Skillful teaching causes the learner to take delight in instruction. Now, in order that he may take delight in it, his mind must not remain so passive to all you say to him that he has absolutely nothing to do to understand you. The pride of the teacher must always allow some exercise of his own ; he must be able to say : " I conceive, I discern, I act, I instruct myself." One of the things which make the Pantalon of the Italian com- edy a bore is the pains he takes to interpret to the pit the platitudes which are already too well understood. I would not have a tutor be a Pantalon, and still less an author. We must always make ourselves understood, but we need not always tell everything. He who tells all tells little, for at the end we no longer listen to him. What signify those four lines which La Fontaine adds to the fable of the toad who would swell himself to the size of the ox ? Was he afraid that he would not be understood ? Did this great painter need to write names below the objects which he painted ? Far from generalizing his moral by this process, he particularizes it, restricts it in EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 223 some sort to the example cited, and prevents its applica- tion to others. Before placing the fables of this inim- itable author in the hands of a young man, I would have stricken from them all those conclusions by which he takes the trouble to explain what he has just said so clear- ly and agreeably. If your pupil does not understand the fable save through the aid of the explanation, you may be sure that he will never understand it even in that way. Again, it is important to give to these fables an order more didactic and more in conformity with the ado- lescent's progress in feeling and intelligence. Can we conceive anything less reasonable than to follow with exactness the numerical order of the book, without re- gard to need or to occasion ? First the crow, then the grasshopper, then the frog, then the two mules, etc. I have in mind these two mules, because I recollect having seen a child who had been educated for finance, and whose thoughts were full of the employment which he was going to take up, read this fable, learn it by heart, re- cite it, and repeat it hundreds and hundreds of times, with- out ever drawing from it the least objection to the calling to which he was destined. Not only have I never seen chil- dren make any substantial application of the fables which they learn, but I have never seen that any one cared to make this application for them. The pretext for this study is moral instruction ; but the real object of mother and child is to occupy the whole company with him while he recites his fables. Thus, while growing up, and when it is no longer a question of reciting them, but of deriving profit from them, he forgets them all. Once more : It belongs only to men to be instructed by fables ; and it is now time for Emile to begin.* * At the age of eighteen. 224 EMILE. When I see that in the age of their greatest activity young people are restricted to purely speculative studies, and that afterward, without the least experience, they are all at once sent forth into the world and into business, I find that reason, no less than nature, is shocked, and I am no longer surprised that so few people know how to get on in the world. Through what strange turn of mind is it that we are taught so many useless things, while the art of self-conduct counts for nothing? It is asserted that we are trained for society, and yet we are taught as though each of us was to spend his life in thinking alone in his cell, or in discussing idle questions with the indif- ferent. You fancy you are teaching your pupils to live by teaching them certain contortions of the body and certain verbal formula which have no significance. I also have taught my Emile to live, for I have taught him to live by himself, and, in addition, to know how to earn his daily bread. But this is not enough. In order to live in the world, we must know how to get on with men, and must know the instruments which give us a hold on them ; we must calculate the action and reaction of individual interest in civil society, and must foresee events so accurately that we shall rarely be deceived in our enterprises, or at least shall always take the means most likely to succeed. The laws do not permit young men to transact their own business and to dispose of their own property; but of what use would these pre- cautions be to them if up to the prescribed age they could acquire no experience ? They would have gained nothing by waiting, and would be just as inexperienced tt twenty-five as at fifteen. Doubtless, a young man blinded by his ignorance or deceived by his passions must be prevented from doing harm to himself ; but at every age it is permissible to be beneficent ; at every age, F.MILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 226 under the direction of a wise man, protection may be given to the unfortunate whose only need is proper sup- port. Nurses and mothers become attached to children through the service they render them; the exercise of the social virtues fills the heart with the love of human- ity. It is by doing good that we become good ; I do not know of a surer process. Interest your pupil in all the good deeds which are within his reach. Let the cause of the poor always be his own ; let him assist them, not only with his purse, but with his good offices ; let him serve them, protect them, and consecrate to them his per- son and his time ; let him make himself their man of business ; he will never perform so noble a service during the course of his life. How many of the oppressed, whose petitions have never been heard, will obtain justice when he shall demand it for them with that intrepid firmness which is given by the exercise of virtue ; when he will force open the doors of the great and the rich ; and when he will go, if necessary, even to the foot of the throne, to make heard the petitions of the unfortunate, to whom every way of approach is closed by their misery, and whom the fear of being punished for wrongs which have been done them prevents even from daring to utter a word of complaint ! But shall we make of Emile a knight-errant, a re- dresser of wrongs, a paladin? Shall he go to meddle before public affairs, make himself the sage and defender of the laws before the great, before magistrates, before the prince, and become a solicitor before judges, and an advocate in the courts ? I know nothing of all this. The nature of things is not changed by the use of banter and ridicule. He will do whatever he knows to be useful and good. He will do nothing more, and he knows that 226 nothing is useful and good for him which is not befit- ting his age. He knows that his first duty is toward himself ; that young men ought to distrust themselves, to be circumspect in their conduct, respectful in the presence of older persons, reserved and discreet in speak- ing only on proper occasions, modest in indifferent things, but bold in well-doing, and courageous in speaking the truth. Such were those illustrious Romans who, before being admitted to office, spent their youth in punishing crime and defending innocence, with no other thought than that of improving themselves by serving justice and protecting good morals. Emile loves neither disturbance nor quarrels, neither among men,* nor even among animals. He will never * But if some one seeks a quarrel with him, what will he do f I reply that he will never have a quarrel : that he will never con- duct himself so as to have one. But, after all, some one will re- join : Who is there who is safe from a blow or from an insult on the part of a brute, a drunkard, or a bold rascal who, in order to have the pleasure of killing his man, begins by insulting him ? This is a different thing. It is not necessary that the honor or the life of citizens should be at the mercy of a brute, a drunkard, or a bold rascal; and we can no more preserve ourselves from such an acci- dent than from the fall of a tile. A blow and an insult received and suffered are civil consequences which no wisdom can foresee and the victim of which no tribunal can avenge. In such cases the in- sufficiency of the laws restores to one his independence ; he then becomes sole magistrate and sole judge between the offender and himself; he is sole interpreter and minister of the law of Nature; he owes himself justice, and can alone render it ; and there is rto government on the earth insane enough to punish him for having justified himself in such a case. I do not say that he ought to fight, for this is folly ; but I do say that he owes justice to himself, and that he is sole dispenser of it. Without so many useless edicts against duels, if I were sovereign, I guarantee that there should never be a blow or an insult given within my domains, and this EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 227 .ncite two dogs to fight, and will never cause a cat to be pursued by a dog. This spirit of peace is an effect of his education, which, not having fomented self-love and a high opinion of himself, has prevented him from seek- ing his pleasures in domination and in the misfortunes of others. He suffers when he sees suffering. This is a natural feeling. That which hardens a young man and causes him to take pleasure in seeing a sensible creature tormented is that turn of vanity which makes him regard himself as exempt from the same suffering through his wisdom or through his superiority. He who has been preserved from this turn of mind can not fall into the vice which is the consequence of it. Hence Emile loves peace. The image of happiness charms him, and when he can contribute toward producing it he has an additional means of sharing in it. I have not supposed that while seeing the unfortunate he has for them only that sterile and cruel pity which contents itself with pitying the evils which it can cure. His active benefi- by a very simple means, one with which courts would have nothing to do. However it may be, fimile knows in such cases the justice which he owes to himself and the example which he owes to the safety of men of honor. It does not depend on the bravest man to prevent himself from being insulted, but it does depend on him to prevent another from long boasting of having insulted him.* * Rousseau's theory of natural right is here extended to its logical conclusion ; men, on occasion, may resume the natural rights which society had extorted from them, and may punish offenders without the intervention of legal processes. Much of our Fourth-of-July oratory fosters this political heresy : This is a gov- ernment of the people, for the people, by the people ; and the easy inference is that when the people become dissatisfied with the pro- tection promised them by the laws they may resume their delegated authority, and become their own court, judge, and executioner. -(P.) 18 228 cence soon gives him knowledge which, with a harder heart, he would not have acquired, or which he would have acquired much later. If he sees discord prevailing among his companions, he seeks to reconcile them ; if he sees persons in affliction, he informs himself of the cause of their sorrows ; if he sees two men hating each other, he wishes to know the cause of their enmity ; if he sees a victim of oppression groaning under the vexations of the powerful and the rich, he seeks for ways by which these vexatious may be made to cease ; and in the interest which he takes in all the unfortunate, the means for cur- ing their ills are never matters of indifference for him. What, then, have we to do to avail ourselves of these dispositions in a manner suitable to his age ? To regu- late his good offices and his knowledge, and to employ his zeal in augmenting them. I do not grow weary of repeating that all the lessons of young men should be given in actions rather than in words. Let them learn nothing in books that can be taught them by experience. What an extravagant idea to train them in speaking without a topic for discussion, and to fancy that they can be made to feel, on the benches of a college, the energy of a language of the passions and all the force of the art of persuading, without being interested in some one who is to be persuaded ! All the precepts of rhetoric seem but pure verbiage to one who does not see that they can be employed to his advantage. Of what importance is it to a scholar to know how Hannibal pro- ceeded in order to prevail upon his soldiers to cross the Alps ? If, in place of these magnificent harangues, you tell him how he ought to proceed in order to induce his master to grant him a leave of absence, you may be sure that he will be more attentive to your rules. The more I think of it, the more I am convinced that EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 229 in thus putting beneficence in action and drawing from our good or bad success reflections on their causes, there is little useful knowledge which can not be cultivated in the mind of a young man ; and that, with all the real knowledge which can be acquired in colleges, he will acquire a still more important science in addition, which is the application of this acquisition to the usages of life. What grand designs I see arranged, little by little, in his mind ! What sublime sentiments stifle in his heart the germ of petty passions ! What clearness of judgment and what accuracy of reason I see formed in him by his cult- ured propensities and from the experience which concen- trates the desires of a great soul within the narrow limits of the possible, and causes a man superior to others, but not able to raise them to his level, to know how to con- descend to theirs ! The true principles of the just, the true models of the beautiful, all the moral relations of beings, and all the ideas of order, are engraved in his un- derstanding ; he sees the place of each thing, and the cause which removes the thing from its place'; he sees what can produce the good, and what prevents it. With- out having experienced the human passions, he knows their illusions and their manner of acting. Consider that, while wishing to form the man of na- ture, it is not proposed for this purpose to make a savago of him and to banish him to the depths of a forest ; but that, confined within the social vortex, it suffices that he does not allow himself to be drawn there either by the passions or the opinions of men ; that he see with his eyes and feel with his heart ; and that he be governed by no authority save that of his own reason. Locke would have us begin with the study of mind, and pass thence to the study of the body. This is the method of superstition, of prejudice, and of error, but not 230 fiMILE. that of reason, nor even of well-ordered nature ; it is to close one's eyes in order to learn how to see. We must have studied the .body for a long time in order to form a correct notion of mind and to suspect that it exists. The contrary order serves only to establish materialism. I foresee that many of my readers will be surprised to see me pursue the entire primary period of my pupil's education without speaking to him of religion. At the age of fifteen he did not know that he had a soul, and per- haps at eighteen it is not yet time for him to learn it ; for, if he learn it sooner than is necessary, he runs the risk of never knowing it. Let us refrain from announcing the truth to those who are not in a condition to understand it, for this is equiva- lent to substituting error for it. It would be much better to have no idea of the Divinity, than to have ideas which are low, fanciful, wrongful, or unworthy of him. Not to know the Divinity is a lesser evil than to have unworthy conceptions of him. " I would much prefer," says the good Plutarch, " that one should believe there is no Plu- tarch in existence, than to say that Plutarch is unjust, envious, jealous, and so tyrannical as to exact more than he gives power to perform." The great evil of the deformed images of the Divinity which are traced in the minds of children is that they remain there as long as they live, and that when they have become men they have no other conception of God than that of their childhood. In Switzerland I once saw a good and pious mother so convinced of this truth, that she would not instruct her son in religion in his child- hood for fear that, satisfied with this rude instruction, he would neglect a bettei at the age of reason. This child never heard God spoken of save with seriousness and reverence ; and the moment he attempted to speak EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 231 af him himself silence was imposed on him, as though the subject were too sublime and too grand for him. This reserve excited his curiosity, and his self-love yearned for the moment when he might know this mystery which was so carefully kept from him. The less one spoke to him of God, and the less he was suffered to speak of him himself, the more his thoughts were occupied with him ; fchat child saw God everywhere. And what I would fear from this air of mystery indiscreetly affected is, that by exciting the imagination of a young man too vividly his head might be turned, and that finally he would be- come a fanatic instead of a believer.* But let us fear nothing of this sort for my Emile, who, constantly refusing his attention to whatever is beyond his reach, hears with the most profound indifference the things which he does not understand. There are so many things respecting which he is accustomed to say that they do not fall within his province, that an additional one scarcely embarrasses him ; and when he begins to be dis- turbed by these great questions, it is not from having heard them proposed, but because the natural progress * One of Rousseau's cardinal doctrines is the progressive devel- opment of the child's powers ; but he seems to miss the truth that there is a corresponding progress in the child's knowledge, fimile shall not read fables till he can form a clear comprehension of them ; shall not learn the demonstration of a proposition till the logical faculty has been fully developed ; and shall have no notion of the Supreme Being till the time comes when he can form an adequate notion of him. St. Paul was wiser : " When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child ; but when I became a man I put away childish things." The natural genesis of knowledge is from the vague to the definite. Rude notions suf- fice for the child ; they serve his present needs best, and are the necessary antecedents to the higher form of knowledge which is befitting to men. (P.) 232 EMILE. of his intelligence carries his researches in that direc- tion.* We work in concert with Nature, and while she is forming the physical man, we are trying to form the moral man ; but our progress is not the same. The body is already robust and strong while the soul is still lan- guishing and feeble, and notwithstanding all that human art can do, temperament always precedes reason. It is to hold the one and to excite the other that we have so far devoted all our care, so that as far as possible man might always be one. While developing the disposition we have diverted his nascent sensibility ; we have regulated it by cultivating the reason. Intellectual objects modify the impressions of sensible objects. By ascending to the prin- ciple of things we have withdrawn him from the empire of the senses. It was easy to rise from the study of Na- ture to the search for its author. When we have reached this point what new holds we have gained on our pupil ! What new means we have of speaking to his heart ! It is only then that he finds his real interest in being good and in doing good, with no regard to men, and without being forced to it by the laws ; in being just between God and himself ; in performing his duty, even at the cost of his life ; and in maintaining purity of heart, not only for the love of order to which each always prefers the love of self, but for the love of his Creator which is mingled with this very love of self, in order that he may finally enjoy the lasting happiness which the repose of a good conscience and the contem- plation of that Supreme Being promise him in the other * At this point intervenes the Savoyard Vicar's Confession of Faith, a sort of philosophical gospel of deism and natural religion. It forms a religious tract too long to quote, and a mere extract would give only a very imperfect idea of it. (P.) EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 233 life, after having made a good use of this. Depart from this, and I see nothing but injustice, hypocrisy, and false- hood among men ; and the individual interest which, in competition, necessarily prevails over everything else, teaches each of them to adorn vice with the mask of vir- tue. Let all other men consult my happiness at the ex- pense of their own ; let everything have reference to me alone ; let the whole human race die, if necessary, in pain and in wretchedness, in order to spare me a moment of sorrow or of hunger : such is the inward language of every unbeliever who reasons. Yes, I will maintain it as long as I live : whoever has said in his heart there is no God, and speaks differently, is but a liar or a fool. The true moment of nature finally comes, as it ne- cessarily must. Since man must die, he must reproduce himself in order that the species may endure and the order of the world be preserved. When, by signs which I have mentioned, you have a presentiment of the critical moment, instantly and forever abandon your former man- ner with him. He is still your disciple, but he is no longer your pupil. He is your friend he is a man ; hence- forth treat him as such. What ! must I abdicate my authority when it is the most necessary ? Must the adult be abandoned to him- self at the moment when he is the least capable of self- conduct, and is in danger of making the greatest mis- takes ? Must I renounce my rights when it is of the most importance to him that I use them ? I freely acknowledge that, if coming in direct collision with his nascent desires, you were stupidly to treat as crimes the new needs which make themselves felt within him, you would not long be listened to by him ; but the moment you abandon my method I am no longer respon- sible to you for anything. Always recollect that you 234 are the minister of Nature; you are never to be her enemy. But what course shall we follow ? All that is to be expected here is the alternative of favoring his propen- sities or of opposing them ; of being his tyrant or his ac- complice ; and both have such dangerous consequences that it is only too difficult to decide between them. Considering that Nature has no fixed limit which can not be advanced or retarded, I think I may assume that, without departing from her law, Emile has remained up to this time, through my care, in his primitive innocence ; and I see this happy epoch ready to terminate. Sur- rounded by ever-increasing perils, he is on the point of escaping from me on the first occasion, regardless of all I may do ; and this occasion will not be slow in making its appearance. He will follow the blind instinct of his senses, and a thousand to one he will be lost. I have re- flected too much on the manners of men not to see the invincible influence of this first moment on the rest of his life. If I dissimulate and pretend to see nothing, he takes advantage of my weakness ; thinking that he deceives me, he holds me in contempt, and I am the accomplice of his ruin. If I attempt to hold him back, the time for it is passed, and he no longer listens to me. I become dis- agreeable to him, odious, unendurable, and he will not be likely to lose any time in getting rid of me. There is therefore, henceforth, only one reasonable course for me to take : and this is, to make him accountable to himself for his actions, to shield him, at least, from the surprises of error, and to show him without concealment the perils by which he is surrounded. Up to this time I have held him back through his ignorance ; but now he must be controlled by his intelligence. These new instructions are important, and it behooves EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 235 us to discuss matters from a higher point of view. This is the moment, so to speak, for presenting to him my ac- count, by showing him the use that has been made of his time and of my own ; for declaring to him what he is and what I am ; what I have done and what he has done ; what we owe to each other, all his moral relations, and all the engagements which he has contracted; what point he has reached in the progress of his faculties, what part of the route remains to be traversed, the difficulties he will find there, the means for overcoming them, and how far I am able to aid him ; then, how far he alone is hence- forth able to aid himself ; lastly, the critical point where he now stands, the new perils which surround him, and all the valid reasons which should induce him to watch attentively over himself before listening to his nascent desires. Recollect that for adult conduct we must adopt the very reverse of the course you have followed in the man- agement of. a child. Do not hesitate to instruct him in those dangerous mysteries which you have so long con- cealed from him with so much care. Since he must finally know them, it is important that he learn them neither from another nor from himself, but from you alone. For fear of surprise, he must know his enemy, since he will henceforth be compelled to fight him. Young men who are found wise on these subjects, without knowing how they became so, have never gained their wisdom with impunity. This indiscreet instruction, as it can not have an honest purpose, at least sullies the imagination of those who receive it, and disposes them to the vices of those who give it. This is not all : domes- tics thus insinuate themselves into the mind of the child, gain his confidence, make him regard his tutor as a gloomy and disagreeable person, and one of the favorite purposes 236 of their secret gossip is to slander him. When the pupil has reached this point the master may retire, for there is no longer any good that he can do. But why does the child choose secret confidants ? Always through the tyranny of those who govern him. Why should he conceal himself from them if he were not forced to do so ? Why should he complain of them if he had no subject of complaint ? Naturally they are his first confidants ; and we see from the eagerness with which he comes to tell them what he thinks, that he believes that he has only half thought it until he has told them. Consider that, if the child fears neither lecture nor reprimand on your part, he will always tell you everything ; and that no one will dare confide anything to him which he ought to conceal from you, if he is very sure that he will conceal nothing from you. So long as he continues thus to open his heart freely to me, and tell me with pleasure whatever he feels, I have nothing to fear the* danger is not yet near ; but if he be- comes more timid and more reserved, and I perceive in his conversation the first embarassment from shame, the instinct is already developing itself, and the idea of evil is already beginning to be -associated with it. There is no longer a moment to lose ; and, if I do not make haste to instruct him, he will soon be instructed in spite of myself. Reading, solitude, idleness, an aimless and sedentary life, intercourse with young men and women, these are the paths dangerous to open to one of his age, and which ceaselessly keep him alongside of peril. It is through other sensible objects that I divert his senses ; it' is by tracing another course for his inclinations that I turn them aside from the one which they began to follow ; it is by exercising his body at painful labor that I arrest EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 237 the activity of the imagination that is leading him away. When the hands are fully occupied, the imagination is in repose ; when the body is very weary, the heart does not become excited. The promptest and easiest precaution is to take him away from local danger. At first I re- move him from cities, far from objects capable of tempt- ing him. But this is not enough. In what desert, in what wild retreat, will he escape the images which pursue him ? It is of no account to withdraw him from dangerous objects, if I do not also withdraw him from the recol- lection of them ; if I do not find the art of detaching him from everything. If I do not distract his attention from himself, I might as well leave him where he was. Emile knows a trade, but this trade is not our resource here; he loves and understands agriculture, but agri- culture does not suffice us. The occupations which he knows become routine ; in devoting himself to them it is as though he were doing nothing ; he is thinking of a wholly different thing ; head and hands are acting sep- arately. What is needed is a new occupation which in- terests him by its novelty, which keeps him in good humor, gives him pleasure, occupies his attention, and keeps him in training an occupation of which he is pas- sionately fond and in which he is wholly absorbed. Now the only one which seems to me to fulfill all these condi- tions is hunting. If hunting is ever an innocent pleasure, if it is ever fitting for a man, it is now that we must have recourse to it. ^mile has everything necessary for success in it ; he is robust, dexterous, patient, indefatigable Without fail he will contract a taste for this exercise ; he will throw into it all the ardor of his age ; for a time, at least, he will lose in it all the dangerous inclinations which spring from idleness. Hunting toughens the heart 238 EMILE. as well as the body; it accustoms us to blood and to cruelty. Diana has been represented as the enemy of love, and the allegory is very appropriate. The languors of love spring only from a pleasing repose ; violent exercise suppresses tender emotions. Never employ dry reasoning with the young ; therefore clothe reason with a body, if you would make it effect- ive. Cause the language of the intellect to pass through the heart, in order that you may make it understood. I repeat it, cold arguments may determine our opinions, but not our actions ; they cause us to believe, but not to act ; we demonstrate what must be thought, but not what must be done. If this is true for men in general, it is all the more true for young men who are still enveloped in their senses, and who think only as they imagine. I shall carefully refrain, therefore, even after the prep- arations of which I have spoken, from going suddenly into Emile's chamber to treat him to a long and dull dis course on the subject designed for his instruction. I will begin by arousing his imagination ; I will choose the time, the place, and the objects most favorable for the impres- sion which I wish to make ; I will summon the whole of Nature, so to speak, to witness our conferences ; I will call the Eternal, whose work Nature is, to witness the truth of what I shall say ; I will make him the judge between Emile and myself ; I will mark the place where we are, the rocks, the woods, and the mountains which surround us, as so many monuments to his engagements and my own ; and in my eyes, my accent, and my gestures, I will put the enthusiasm and ardor with which I wish to inspire him. Then I shall speak to him, and he will hear me ; I shall grow tender, and he will be moved. By impressing myself with the sanctity of my duties I shall give him a greater respect for his own, I will employ images and figures to give ani- EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 239 mation and force to my reasoning. I will not be tedious and diffuse by the use of lifeless maxims, but will abound in overflowing emotions. My reasoning will be grave and sententious, but my heart will never have said enough. It is then, while showing him all I have done for him, that I shall show it to him as done for myself, and he will see in my tender affection the reason of all my cares. What surprise, what agitation I shall cause him by this sudden change in my manner of speech ! Instead of contracting his soul by always speaking to him of his own interest, it is of mine alone that I shall henceforth speak to him, and I shall affect him the more by it. I shall make his young heart burn with all the feelings of friendship, generosity, and gratitude which I have already caused to spring up there, and which are so sweet to cherish. I will press him to my heart while shedding over him tears of tender- ness, and I will say to him : " You are my all, my child, my workmanship ; it is from your happiness that I expect my own ; if you frustrate my hopes, you rob me of twenty years of life, and becloud my old age with unhappiness." It is thus that we make ourselves heard by a young man, and engrave in the depths of his heart the remembrance of what we have told him. If I have been able to take all the necessary precau- tions in the use of these maxims, and to hold with my Emile the conversations adapted to the juncture to which his progress in years has brought him, I do not doubt for an instant that he will come of himself to the point where I wish to lead him ; that he will put himself with eager- ness under my protection ; and that he will say to me, with all the warmth of his age, when pressed by the dangers which he sees surrounding him : " my friend, my pro- tector, my master, resume the authority which you would lay down at the moment when it most concerns me that 240 1SMILE. it should remain with you. Thus far you have had this authority only through my weakness, but you shall henceforth have it through my will, and it shall be the more sacred to me on this account. Protect me from all the enemies who assail me, and especially from those whom I carry with me and who betray me. Watch over your work to the end, that it may remain worthy of you. It is my constant wish to obey your laws, and this forever. If I ever disobey you, it will be against my will. Make me free by protecting me against the passions which assail me ; prevent me from being their slave, and compel me to be my own master by not obeying my senses, but my rea- son." When you have brought your pupil to this point (and if he does not come to it it will be your fault), be on your guard against taking him too quickly at his word, for fear that, if your control should ever seem to him too harsh, he might think himself entitled to escape from it by ac- cusing you of having taken him by surprise. It is at this moment that reserve and gravity are in place ; and this tone will affect him all the more because it will be the first occasion on which he will have seen you assume it. How narrow one must be to see in the nascent desires of a young man only an obstacle to the lessons of reason ! As for myself, I see in them the true means of making him docile to these very lessons. We have no hold on the passions save through the passions ; it is through their empire that we must make war on their tyranny, and it is always from Nature herself that we must draw the instru- ments proper for controlling her. Emile is not made for living always in solitude ; as a member of society he ought to fulfill its duties. Made to live with men, he ought to know them. He knows men in general, and it remains for him to know them as in- EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 241 dividuals. He knows what is done in the world, and it remains for him to see how men live in it. It is time to show him the exterior of that grand stage whose concealed workings he already knows. He will no longer entertain for it the stupid admiration of a young rattle-brain, but the discernment of an upright, an accurate mind. His passions will be able to impose on him, doubtless ; but when will it happen that they do not impose on those who abandon themselves to them ? But at least he will not be deceived by the passions of others. If he sees them, he will see them with the eye of a sage, without being influ- enced by their examples or seduced by their prejudices. As there is a proper age for the study of the sciences, there is also one for properly apprehending the use of the world. Whoever learns this use too young follows it all his life without choice or reflection, and, although with self-conceit, without ever really knowing what he does ; but he who learns it and sees the reasons of it, follows it with more discernment, and consequently with more pro- priety and grace. Give me a child of twelve years who knows nothing at all, and at fifteen I will guarantee to make him as wise as he whom you have instructed from infancy ; but with this difference, that the knowledge of your pupil will be only in his memory, while that of mine will be in his judgment. So also, introduce a young man of twenty into the world ; if well trained, he will in one year be more amiable and more judiciously polished than he whom you have reared there from infancy ; for the first, being capable of feeling the reasons of all the pro- cedures relative to age, condition, and sex, which constitute this usage, can reduce them to principles and extend them to unforeseen cases ; whereas the other, having only rou- tine for his sole guide, is embarrassed the moment there is a departure from it. 242 13M1LE. It is true, on the other hand, that we must not wait too long. Whoever has passed all his youth at a distance from cultivated society will maintain there for the rest of his life an air of embarrassment and restraint, a style of conversation that is always inappropriate, and dull and awkward manners which the habit of living there no longer corrects, and which become only the more ridicu- lous by the effort to escape from them. Each kind of in- struction has its fit time which must be known, and its dangers which must be avoided. There are special dan- gers clustering around the subject in hand ; but I shall not expose my pupil to them without taking precautions to shield him from them. Your heart, I say to the young man, has need of a companion, and we are going to look for one who is suit- able for you. We shall not find her easily, perhaps, for true merit is always rare ; but we shall neither be in haste nor discouraged. Doubtless there is such an one, and we shall at last find her, or at least one who approaches our ideal the nearest. With a project so flattering for him, I introduce him into society. What need have I to say more of it? Do you not see that I have done all that is necessary ? In describing to him the lady whom I destined for him, imagine whether I shall be able to make myself heard on the subject ; whether I can make agreeable and dear to him the qualities which he ought to love ; whether I shall be able to bring all his feelings into conformity with what he ought to seek or shun. I must be the most unskillful of men if I do not make him enamored in advance without knowing the object of his affections. It does not matter that the object which I picture to him is imaginary ; it suffices that it disgusts him with those who might tempt him, and that he everywhere finds com- FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 243 parisons which make him prefer his dream to the real objects which will excite his attention. What is real love itself, if not a dream, a fiction, an illusion ? "We love the picture which we form much more than the object to which we apply it. If we saw what we love exactly as it is, there would no longer be any love in the world. When we cease to love, the person whom we loved remains the same as before, but we no longer see her the same. The veil of delusion falls, and love vanishes. Now, by fur- nishing the imaginary object, I am the master of compar- isons, and easily prevent the illusion of real objects. For this purpose I do not wish the young man to be deceived by painting for him a model of perfection which can not exist ; but I will so choose the faults of his sweet- heart that they befit him, please him, and serve to correct his own. Xor do I wish to deceive him by falsely assert- ing that the object depicted to him really exists ; but if he is pleased with the picture, it will soon make him wish for the original. But whether he personify or not the object which I shall have made endearing to him, this model, if it is well conceived, will not attach him the less to whatever resembles it, and will give him no less repulsion for what- ever does not resemble it than as if the object were real. What an advantage to preserve his heart from the dan- gers to which his person must be exposed, to restrain his senses through his imagination, and especially to rescue him from those mistresses of education who make it so costly, and who train a young man to politeness only by divesting him of all his honor ! Sophie is so modest ! How will he view their advances ? Sophie has such sim- plicity ! How will he love their airs ? There is too great a distance between his ideals and his observations for the latter ever to be dangerous to him. 244 You can not imagine how Emile, at the age of 'twenty, can be docile. How different our ideas are ! As for me, I can not conceive how he could be docile at ten ; for what hold had I on him at that age? It cost me the cares of fifteen years to secure that hold. I was not then educating him, but was preparing him for being edu- cated. He is now sufficiently trained to be docile; he recognizes the voice of friendship, and can be obedient to reason. I grant to him, it is true, the appearance of independence ; but he was never in more complete sub- jection, for his obedience is the result of his will. So long as I could not make myself the master of his will I remained master of his person ; I did not take a step from him. Now I sometimes leave him to himself, because I always govern him. On leaving him, I em- brace him, and say to him with an air of assurance : " Emile, I confide you to my friend ; I intrust you to his honest heart, and he will be accountable to me for you." What precautions to be taken with a young man of good birth, before exposing him to the scandalous man- ners of the times ! These precautions are painful, but they are indispensable; it is through neglect on this point that so many of the young are lost. It is through the disorders of early life that men degenerate, and that we see them become what they are to-day. In whatever station he may have been born, and into whatever society he may begin to introduce himself, his first appearance shall be simple and without display. God forbid that he shall be so unfortunate as to shine there ! The qualities which instantly attract attention are not his ; he neither has them nor wishes to have them. He sets too little value on the judgments of men to incur their prejudices, and is not at all anxious to be esteemed before being known. His manner of presenting himself EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 245 is neither modest nor vain, but natural and true. He knows neither constraint nor disguise, and is the same in society as when alone and without witness. On this account- will he be rude, scornful, and attentive to no one ? Just the contrary. If, alone, he takes no account whatever of other men, does it follow that he should take no account of them while living with them ? He indi- cates no preference for them over himself in his manners, because he does not prefer them in his heart ; but, on the other hand, he does not treat them with an indifference which he is very far from feeling ; if he has not the for- malities of politeness, he has the active instincts of human- ity. He does not love to see any one suffer. He will not offer his place to another through affectation, but will yield it to him voluntarily through goodness of heart, if, seeing him neglected, he thinks that this neglect morti- fies him ; for it will cost my young man less to remain standing voluntarily than to see the other remain stand- ing by compulsion. He speaks little, because he hardly cares to occupy the attention of others ; for the same reason, he says only things that are of some importance ; otherwise, what excuse has he for engaging in conversation? Emile is too wise ever to be a babbler. Excessive prattle neces- sarily comes either from pretension to wit of which I shall speak hereafter or from the value put on trifles which we are silly enough to think are valued as highly by others as by ourselves. He who has such a knowl- edge of things as to give to all of them their real value, never speaks too much, for he can also appreciate the attention which is given him, and the interest which can be taken in his conversation. Generally speaking, people who know little speak much, and people who know much speak little. It is plain that an ignorant man thinks 246 everything that he knows is important, and so tells it to everybody. But a wise man does not readily open his stores ; he will have too much to say, and he sees that there is still more to be said after he is done, and so he remains silent. Far from shocking the manners of others, Emile conforms to them with good grace ; not for the sake of seeming well informed in social usages, nor to affect the airs of a polished gentleman, but, on the con- trary, for the sake of escaping notice, for fear that he may be observed ; and he is never more at ease than when no one is paying attention to him. Although, on entering society, he is in absolute igno- rance of its usages, he is no'., on this account timid and nervous. If he keeps in the background, it is not through embarrassment, but because in order to see well, he must not be seen ; for he is hardly disturbed by what people think of him, and ridicule does not cause him the least fear. It is on this account that, always being calm and cool, he is not troubled by bashfulness. Whether he is observed or not, whatever he does is always the very best he can do ; and being wholly free to observe others, he catches their manners with an ease that is not possible to the slaves of opinion. We may say that he learns the habity of society the more readily, precisely because he sets but little value on them. I grant that with principles so different, Emile will not be like other people, and may God preserve him from ever being so ! But in so far as he is different from others he will be neither disagreeable nor ridiculous ; the difference will be felt, but will occasion no inconvenience. Emile will be, if you please, an amiable foreigner, and at first his peculiarities will be pardoned by saying : " He will outgrow all that ! " In the end, people will become wvfectly accustomed to his manners, and, seeing that EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 247 he does not change them, he will again be pardoned for them by saying : " He was made so ! " He will not be feted in society as a popular man, but people will love him without knowing why. No one will extol his understanding, but he will readily be accepted as an umpire among men of genius ; his own comprehen- sion will be clear and limited, and he will have good sense and sound judgment. Never running' after new ideas, he could not pride himself on his wit. I have made him feel that all ideas which are wholesome and truly useful to men are the first that were known, that they have ever constituted the true bonds of society, and that all that is left for transcendent minds to do is to distinguish themselves by ideas which are pernicious and dangerous to the human race.* This manner of gain- ing admiration scarcely affects him ; he knows where he ought to find the happiness of his life, and in what way he can contribute to the happiness of others. The sphere of his knowledge does not extend beyond what is profit- able. His route is straight and well defined. Not being tempted to step aside from it, he is lost among those who follow it. He aims neither at eccentricity nor brill- iancy. Emile is a man of good sense, and wishes to be nothing else ; any attempt to hurt his feelings by this title will be in vain, for he will always think himself honored by it. Although the desire to please does not leave him absolutely indifferent to the opinion of others, he will accept only so much of that opinion as relates directly to his own person, without caring for those arbitrary appreciations which have no law save fashion or preju- * This is good philosophy, but has a strange sound when uttered by Rousseau. (P.) 248 dice. He will have the pride of wishing to do well what- ever he undertakes, and even of wishing to do better than others. In running he would be the fleetest, in a con- test the strongest, in work the most clever, and in games of skill the most dexterous ; but he will care little for advantages which are not clear in themselves, but which need to be established by the judgment of others as of having more genius than another, of being a better talker, of being more learned, etc. ; still less those which become no one, as of being better born, of being thought richer, more respectable, more highly esteemed, and of overawing by a grander display. Loving men because they are his fellows, he will love those in particular who resemble him the most, because he will feel that he is good ; and judging of this resem- blance by conformity of taste in things moral, in what- ever pertains to a good character he will be very glad to be approved. He will not say exactly that he rejoices because people approve him, but that he rejoices because people approve the good he has done ; and that he rejoices because the people who honor him honor themselves in doing it. So long as they judge in this wholesome way, it will be a fine thing to obtain their esteem. Studying men through their manners in society, just as he previously studied them through their passions in history, he will often have occasion to reflect on what gratifies or shocks the human heart. In this way he philosophizes on the principles of taste, and this is the study that is proper for him during this period. If, in order to cultivate the taste of my disciple, I had to choose between countries where this culture is yet to be born and others where it has degenerated, I would follow the retrograde order : I would begin his round with the latter and finish it with the former. The reason EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 249 of this choice is that taste is corrupted by an excessive delicacy, which makes us sensitive to things which the most of mankind do not perceive. This refinement leads to the spirit of discussion, for the more we subtilize ob- jects the more they are multiplied; and this subtilty makes the tact more delicate and less uniform. Then there are formed as many tastes as there are minds. In disputes as to the preference, philosophy and learning are exhausted ; and it is in this way that we learn to think that shrewd observations can hardly be made save by people who are much in society, whereas they occur after- ward to all the others, and people who are little accus- tomed to large assemblies there exhaust their attention on the more obvious features. At this moment there is perhaps no civilized place on the globe where the general taste is as bad as in Paris. And yet it is in this capital that good taste is cultivated ; and there appear but few books esteemed in Europe whose author was not trained in Paris. Those who think it suffices to read the books which are written there are deceived, we learn much more from the conversation of authors than from their books ; and the authors themselves are not those from whom we learn the most. It is the spirit of society which develops the thinking mind and extends the view as far as it can go. If you have a spark of genius, come and spend a year in Paris; you will soon be all you are capable of being, or you will never be anything. I will go to still greater lengths in order to secure to him a taste that is pure and wholesome. In the tumult of dissipation I shall hold carefully arranged conversa- tions with him, and always directing them to objects which please him, I shall be careful to make them both amusing and instructive. This is the time for reading and for agreeable books, the time to teach him to make 250 fiMILE. an analysis of a discourse, and to make him sensible to all the beauties of eloquence and diction. It is of little account to learn languages for themselves, for their use is not so important as we think ; but the study of language leads to the study of general grammar. We must learn Latin in order to know French well ; and we must study and compare both in order to understand the rules of the art of speaking. There is, moreover, a certain simplicity of taste which penetrates the heart and which is found only in the writings of the ancients. In oratory, in poetry, in every species of literature, he will find them, just as in history, abundant in matter and sober in judgment. Our authors, on the contrary, say little and talk much. To be ever giving their judgment for law is not the means of forming our own. The difference between the two tastes is visible on monuments, and even on tombstones. Ours are covered with eulogies, while on those of the ancients we read facts : Sta, viator ; heroem calcas. In general, Emile will contract a greater taste for the books of the ancients than for our own, on the sim- ple ground that, being the first, the ancients are nearer to Nature, and have more native genius. Whatever La Motte and the Abbe Terrasson may say to the contrary, there is no real progress in reason in the human race, because what is gained on the one hand is lost on the other ; for as all minds always start from the same point, and as the time spent in learning what others have thought is lost for teaching one's self how to think, we have more acquired knowledge and less vigor of mind. Our minds, like our hands, are trained to do everything with tools, and nothing by themselves. Fontenelle said that all this dispute on the ancients and moderns reduced EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 251 itself to knowing whether the trees of former times were taller than those of to-day. If there had been a change in agriculture this question would not be an improper one to discuss. After having thus ascended to the sources of pure literature, I show him also their outlets in the reservoirs of modern compilations newspapers, translations, dic- tionaries. He throws a glance over all this, and then he leaves it never to return to it. For his amusement I make him listen to the babble of the academies ; I call his attention to the fact that each of the members alone is always worth more than the whole body ; and thence he will draw an inference as to the utility of those noble establishments. I take Emile to the theatre in order to study, not manners, but taste ; for it is there, in particular, that he will be presented to those who know how to reflect. Let alone precepts and ethics, I will say to him ; it is not here that he is to learn them. The theatre is not made for truth, but to please and amuse men ; there is no school where we learn so well the art of pleasing them and of interesting the human heart. The study of the theatre leads to that of poetry; they have exactly the same object. If he has the least spark of taste for poetry, with what pleasure he will cultivate the languages of poets the Greek, the Latin, and the Italian ! These studies will be amusements for him without constraint, and will profit him only the more for it. They will be delicious to him at an age and in circumstances when the heart is interested so charmingly in all varieties of beauty calculated to touch it. Imagine on one side my Emile, and on the other a college blade, reading the fourth book of the j3Zneid, or Tibullus, or the Banquet of Plato. What a difference ! How the heart of one is stirred by 252 fiMILE. that which does not even affect the other ! choice young man ! pause, suspend your reading, for I observe that you are too much affected. It is my earnest wish that the language of love may please you, but not that it mislead you. Be a man of feeling, but be a wise man. If you are but one of these, you are nothing. Moreover, whether he succeed or not in the dead languages, in the belles-lettres, or in poetry, matters but little to me. He will be worth none the less if he knows nothing of all this, and we have to do with none of this nonsense in his education. My principal object in teaching him to feel and to love the beautiful in all its forms is to fix on it his affec- tions and his tastes, to prevent his natural appetites from becoming corrupted, and to prevent him from some day seeking in his riches the means of happiness which he ought to find within himself. I have said elsewhere * that taste is but the art of discerning the value of little things, and this is' very true ; but since the happiness of life de- pends on the contexture of little things, such concerns are far from being unimportant ; for it is through them that we learn to fill up life with the good things placed within our reach, to the full extent of the truth which they may have for us. I do not here mean moral good, which depends on a happy frame of the soul, but only physical good and real pleasure, leaving out of account the prejudices of opinion. In order to develop my thought the better, allow me to leave Emile for a moment, whose pure and wholesome heart can no longer serve as a rule for any one, and to seek in myself a more obvious and familiar example of the manners which I wish to commend to the reader, f * Lettre a d'Alembert. f What follows is characteristic of Rousseau's mind and heart EMILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 253 There are positions which seem to change our nature, and to recast, for better or for worse, the men who fill them. I have thought a hundred times that if I had the misfortune to-day to fill such a position as I have in mind, in a certain country, to-morrow I should be almost inevi- tably a tyrant, an extortioner, a destroyer of the people, a menace to the prince, an enemy by profession of the whole human race, a foe to all equity and to every species of virtue. So also, if I were rich, I should have done whatever was necessary to become such. I should therefore be insolent and mean, tender-hearted and sensitive for myself alone, pitiless and harsh for all the world, a scornful wit- ness of the miseries of the rabble. I should make of my fortune the instrument of my pleasures, and these would be my sole occupation. From that boundless profusion of good things which cover the earth I should seek whatever is most agreeable to me, and which I can the best appropriate to my use. To this end, the first use I should make of my riches would be to purchase leisure and liberty, to which I should add health if it were to be bought; but as it can be bought only with temperance, and as there is no pleasure in life without it, I should be temperate for sensual reasons. I would always keep as near to Nature as possible in order to humor the senses which I have received from her, very sure that the more of herself that is added to my enjoyments the more of reality I should find in them. his ideal, in brief, of happiness in this world. It is almost auto- biographic, for it reproduces memories of some of his happiest moments. He was addicted to meditation, was shy of society, loved solitude and simple pleasures, was a man of the people, and a foe to oppression in all its forms. (P.) 254 SMILE. In the choice of objects for imitation I should always take her for my model ; in my appetites I would give her the preference ; in my tastes I would always consult her ; and in my viands I should always prefer those which she has made the most toothsome, and which have passed through the fewest hands in order to reach my table. For the same reason I should not imitate those who, finding nothing good save where they are not, always place the seasons in contradiction with themselves, and the climate in contradiction with the seasons ; who, seek- ing for summer in winter and winter in summer, would have cold in Italy and heat in the north. For my part I would stay in my place, where I would adopt the oppo- site course. I would draw from a season whatever was agreeable in it, and from a climate all that was peculiar to it. I would go to spend the summer in Naples and the winter in St. Petersburg, now breathing sweet zephyrs, half reclining in the cool grottoes of Tarentum, and now in the illumination of an ice palace, out of breath and fatigued with the pleasures of a ball. In my table service and in the adornment of my apartments I would imitate the variety of the seasons by the use of simple ornaments, .and I would draw from each all the delight it could afford, without anticipating those which were to follow. In order to be well served, I would have few domestics. A private citizen derives more real service from a single servant than a duke from the ten gentlemen who sur- round him. I would not have a palace for a dwelling, for in that palace I would occupy but one apartment. Every room in common belongs to no one, and the apartment of each of my household would be as foreign to me as that of my neighbor. EffiLE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 255 My furniture should be as simple as my tastes. I would have neither picture-gallery nor library, especially if I loved books and were a judge of pictures. I should then know that such collections are never complete, and that the loss of what is lacking in them occasions more regret than to have nothing. In this case abundance causes misery ; there is not a collector who has not ex- perienced this. Play is not an amusement for a rich man, but the resource of an idler; and my pleasures would give me too much employment to leave me much time to be so poorly employed. Being solitary and poor, I do not play at all, save sometimes at chess, and this is too much. "\Ve rarely see thinkers who take much pleasure in play, for it suspends this habit, or employs it in dry combina- tions, and so one of the benefits, and perhaps the only one, which a taste for the sciences has produced, is to deaden somewhat this sordid passion. I would be the same in my private life as in my inter- course with the world. I would have my fortune diffuse comfort everywhere, and never create a sense of inequality. The glitter of apparel is an inconvenience in a thousand respects. To preserve among men all possible liberty, I should be dressed in such a way that among all classes I should seem in my place, and that I should be an object of remark in none. The only bond between me and my associates should be mutual attachment, conformity of tastes, and fitness of character. I would enter society simply as a man, and not as a man of wealth. We are never so ridiculous as when acting in set forms. He who can vary his situations and his pleasures effaces to-day the impression of yesterday ; he may go for nobody with other men ; but he enjoys life, for at each 256 fiMILE. hour and in everything he is his own master. My only set form shall be this : in each situation I shall not busy myself with any other, and I shall employ each day on its own account, independently of yesterday or of to-morrow. As I would be one with the people, I shall be a country- man in the country, and when I talk of farming, the peasant will not laugh at me. I shall not go and build me a villa in the country, or expect in the solitude of some province to have the Tuileries before my apartment. On the slope of some pleasant and well-shaded hill I would have a little rustic cottage, a white house with green blinds ; and though a roof of thatch is the best for all seasons, I should prefer, on the score of magnificence, not the gloomy slate, but tile, because it has a more befitting and pleasing appearance than a roof of thatch, and, besides, it recalls somewhat the happy period of my youth, for the houses in my native country were commonly covered with tile. For court-yard I would have a poultry-yard, and for stable a cow-house, in order to have milk, cream, butter, and cheese, of which I am very fond. My garden I would devote to the raising of vegetables, and for a park I would have a fine orchard like the one which I shall mention hereafter. The fruit, at the service of all who pass, shall be neither counted nor picked by my gardener ; and my miserly magnificence shall never dis- play to the eye superb espaliers which one dare scarcely touch. Now this slender prodigality would cost but little, because I should have chosen my retreat in some remote province, poor in money but rich in food, where abundance and poverty prevail. There I would bring together a society, more select than numerous, of friends loving pleasure and knowing how to find it, and of women who can leave their chairs, take part in rustic sports, and sometimes, instead of the MILE FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY. 257 netting-needle and cards, use the line, the lime-twig, the hay-rake, and the vintage-basket. There all the manners of the city would be forgotten, and, having become vil- lagers of the village, we should find ourselves addicted to hosts of different amusements, which each evening would give us the embarrassment of a choice for the morrow. Exercise and an active life would give us a new stomach and new tastes. All our repasts would be feasts, more pleas- ing by their abundance than by their delicacy. Gayety, rustic employments, and frolicsome sports are the prime cooks of the world, and elaborate stews are very ridic- ulous to people who have been up and doing since sun- rise. The table service would have no more order than elegance. The dining-room would be everywhere in the garden, in a boat, under a tree, and sometimes at a dis- tance, near a living spring, on the grass, fresh and green, and under clusters of alders and hazels. A long pro- cession of happy guests would carry the preparations for the feast singing as they went ; the grass would serve for table and chairs, the rim of the spring for a buffet, and the dessert would hang on the trees. The dishes would be served without order, appetite dispensing with manners; for each one, openly preferring himself to others, would find good what every other one also preferred for himself. From this cordial and temperate familiarity would spring, without coarseness, .insincerity, or constraint, a playful contest a hundred times more charming than politeness, and better adapted to unite human hearts. The objection will doubtless be made that such amuse- ments are within the reach of all men, and that one does not need to be rich to enjoy them. This is precisely thd point I wish to make. We have pleasure when we are willing to have it. It is opinion alone which makes everything difficult, which drives happiness from us; 258 and it is a hundred times more easy to be happy than to appear so. A man of taste and fond of pleasure has the necessary riches at his command : all he needs is to be free and his own master. Whoever enjoys health and has the necessaries of life, is rich enough if he plucks from his heart the things which are made good by opinion. This is the aurea mediocritas of Horace. Men who are hoarding their wealth should therefore look for some other use for their riches, for on the score of pleasure they are good for nothing. Emile will not know all this better than I do ; but having a purer and sounder heart he will feel it still more, and all his observations in the world will only confirm him in this belief. "While passing the time in this way we are always looking for Sophie, but we do not find her. It were better that she should not be found so soon, and we have been looking for her where I was very sure she was not.* Finally, the pressing moment comes. It is time to look for her in earnest, for fear he may meet one whom he will take for her, and discover his mistake too late. Adieu to Paris, therefore, city of renown, of noise, of smoke, and of dirt, where women no longer believe in honor, nor men in virtue. Adieu, Paris. As we are look- ing for love, happiness, and innocence, we shall never be too far away from you. * " Who can find a virtuous woman f for her price is far above rubies." Proverbs xxxi, 10. BOOK FIFTH. THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. WE have now reached the last stage of youth, but we are not yet at the denouement. It is not good for man to be alone. Emile is a man. We have promised him a companion, and she must be given to him. This companion is Sophie. In what region is her abode? Where shall we find her? In order to find her we must know her. Let us first know what she is, and then we shall the more easily determine the place where she dwells. And when we have found her all will not yet be done. " Since our young gentleman" says Locke, " is now got within sight of matrimony, it is time to leave him to his mistress. 1 '' And thereupon he finishes his work. For myself, who have not the honor to educate a gentleman, I shall refrain from imitating Locke in this particular. Sophie ought to be a woman, as Emile is a man that is, she should have whatever is befitting the constitution of her species and of her sex, in order to fill her place in the physical and moral world. Let us then begin by ex- amining the conformities and the differences between her sex and ours. All that we know with a certainty is that the only thing in common between man and woman is the species, and that they differ only in respect of sex. Under this 20 059> 260 double point of view we find between them so many re- semblances and so many contrasts, that it is perhaps one of the wonders of Nature that she could make two beings so similar and yet constitute them so differently. These correspondences and these differences must needs have their moral effect. This consequence is ob- vious, is in conformity with experience, and shows the vanity of the disputes as to the superiority or the equality of the sexes ; as if each of them, answering the ends of Nature according to its particular destination, were not more perfect on that account than if it bore a greater re- semblance to the other ! With respect to what they have in common they are equal ; and in so far as they are different they are not capable of being compared. A perfect man and a perfect woman ought no more to re- semble each other in mind than in features ; and per- fection is not susceptible of greater and less. In the union of the sexes each contributes equally toward the common end, but not in the same way. Hence arises the first assignable difference among their moral relations. One must be active and strong, the other passive and weak. One must needs have power and will, while it suffices that the other have little power of resistance. This principle once established, it follows that woman is especially constituted to please man. If man ought to please her in turn, the necessity for it is less direct. His merit lies in his power; he pleases simply because he is strong. I grant that this is not the law of love, but it is the law of Nature, which is anterior even to love. Plato, in his Eepublic, enjoins the same exercises on women as upon men, and in this I think he was right. Having excluded private families from his ideal state, and not knowing what to do with the women, he sees himself compelled to make men of them, This great genius had THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 261 arranged everything, foreseen everything, and had antici- pated objections which perhaps no one would have thought of making ; but he has poorly resolved one which has been raised against him. I do not speak of that ordained community of wives, the censure of which, so often re- peated, proves that those who make it have never read him ; but I speak of that civil intermingling which every- where confounds the two sexes in the same employments, the same duties, and can not fail to engender the most intolerable abuses; I speak of that subversion of the sweetest feelings of nature, sacrificed to an artificial feel- ing. which can not exist save through them. Just as though a natural power were not necessary in order to form conventional ties ! As though the love we have for our neighbors were not the basis of that which we owe the state ! As though it were not through the little com- munity, which is the family, that the heart becomes attached to the great ! And as though it were not the good son, the good husband, and the good father, who makes the good citizen ! The moment it is demonstrated that man and woman are not and ought not to be constituted in the same way, either in character or in constitution, it follows that they ought not to have the same education. In following the directions of Nature they ought to act in concert, but they ought not to do the same things ; their duties have a common end, but the duties themselves are different, and consequently the tastes which direct them. After having tried to form the natural man, let us also see, in order not to leave our work incomplete, how the woman is to be formed who is befitting to this man. Would you always be well guided ? Always follow the indications of Xature. All that characterizes sex ought to be respected or established by her. You are 262 always saying that women have faults which you have not. Your pride deceives you. They would be faults in you, but they are virtues in them ; and everything would not go so well if they did not have them. Prevent these so-called faults from degenerating, but beware of destroy- ing them. All the faculties common to the two sexes are not equal- ly divided, but, taken as a whole, they offset one another. Woman is worth more as a woman, but less as a man ; wherever she improves her rights she has the advantage, and wherever she attempts to usurp ours she remains inferior to us. Only exceptional cases can be urged against this general truth the usual mode of argument adopted by the gallant partisans of the fair sex. To cultivate in women the qualities of the men and to neglect those which are their own is, then, obviously to work to their detriment. The shrewd among them see this too clearly to be the dupes of it. In trying to usurp our advantages they do not abandon their own ; but from this it comes to pass that, not being able to manage both properly on account of their incompatibility, they fall short of their own possibilities without attaining to ours, and thus lose the half of their value. Believe me, judi- cious mother, do not make of your daughter a good man, as though to give the lie to Nature, but make of her a good woman, and you may be sure that she will be worth more for herself and for us. Does it follow that she ought to be brought up in complete ignorance, and restricted solely to the duties of the household ? Shall man make a servant of his com- panion ? Shall he deprive himself of the greatest charm of society ? The better to reduce her to servitude, shall he prevent her from feeling anything or knowing any- thing? Shall he make of her a real automaton? No, THE EDUCATION OP WOMAN. 263 doubtless. Nature, who gives to women a mind so agree- able and so acute, has not so ordered: On the contrary, she would have them think, and judge, and love, and know, and cultivate their mind as they do their form : these are the arms which she gives them for supplement- ing the strength which they lack, and for directing our own. They ought to learn multitudes of things, but only those which it becomes them to know. Whether I con- sider the particular destination of woman, or observe her inclinations, or take account of her duties, everything concurs equally to indicate to me the form of education which befits her. On the good constitution of mothers depends, in the first place, that of children ; on the care of women de- pends the early education of men ; and on women, again, depend their manners, their passions, their tastes, their pleasures, and even their happiness. Thus the whole education of women ought to be relative to men. To please them, to be useful to them, to make themselves loved and honored by them, to educate them when young, to care for them when grown, to counsel them, to con- sole them, and to make life agreeable and sweet to them these are the duties of women at all times, and what should be taught them from their infancy. So long as we do not ascend to this principle we shall miss the goal, and all the precepts which we give them will accomplish nothing either for their happiness or for our own. Little girls, almost from birth, have a love for dress. Not content with being pretty, they wish to be thought so. We see in their little airs that this care already occu- pies their minds ; and they no sooner understand what is said to them than we control them by telling them what people will think of them. The same motive, very indis- creetly presented to little boys, is very far from having 264 EMILE. the same power over them. Provided they are independ- ent and happy, they care very little of what will be thought of them. It is only at the expense of time and labor that we subject them to the same law. From whatever source this first lesson comes to girls, it is a very good one. Since the body is born, so to speak, before the soul, the first culture ought to be that of the body ; and this order is common to both sexes. But the object of this culture is different; in one this object is the development of strength, while in the other it is the development of personal charms. Not that these qualities ought to be exclusive in each sex, but the order is simply reversed : women need sufficient strength to do with grace whatever they have to do ; and men need sufficient cleverness to do with facility whatever they have to do. The extreme lack of vigor in women gives rise to the same quality in men. Women ought not to be robust like them, but for them, in order that the men who shall be born of them may be robust also. In this respect the convents, where the boarders have coarse fare, but many frolics, races, and sports in the open air and in gardens, are to be preferred to the home where a girl, delicately reared, always flattered or scolded, always seated under the eyes of her mother in a very close room, dares neither to rise, to walk, to speak, nor to breathe, and has not a moment's liberty for playing, jumping, running, shout- ing, and indulging in the petulance natural to her age ; always dangerous relaxation or badly conceived severity, but never anything according to reason. This is the way in which the young are ruined both in body and in heart. Whatever obstructs or constrains nature is in bad taste, and this is as true of the ornaments of the body as of the THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 265 ornaments of the mind. Life, health, reason, and com- fort ought to take precedence of everything else. There is no grace without freedom. Delicacy is not languor, and one need not be sickly in order to please. We excite pity when we suffer ; but pleasure and desire seek the fresh- ness of health. Children of the two sexes have many amusements in common, and this ought to be so. Is not the same thing true of them when grown? They have also individual tastes which distinguish them. Boys seek movement and noise drums, tops, carts; but girls prefer what appeals to the sight and serves for ornament mirrors, trinkets, rags, and especially dolls. The doll is the especial amuse- ment of this sex ; and in this case the girl's taste is very evidently determined by her destination. The mechanics of the art of pleasing consists in dress, and this is all of this art that children can cultivate. Observe a little girl spending her time with her doll, constantly changing its attire, dressing and undressing it hundreds of times, continually seeking for new combi- nations of ornaments, well or badly selected, no matter which ; the fingers lack deftness, the taste has not been formed, but the disposition is already seen. In this end- less occupation the time goes on without notice; the hours pass but she takes no note of them ; she even for- gets to eat, and has a greater hunger for dress than for food. But, you will say, she dresses her doll, but not her- self. Doubtless. She sees her doll, but does not see her- self ; she can do nothing for herself ; she has not been developed ; she has neither talent nor strength ; she is all absorbed in her doll, and on it she expends all her coquetry. She will not always devote herself to it, but waits the mo- ment when she shall be her own doll. Here, then, is a very decided primitive taste, and you 266 EMILE. have only to follow it and regulate it. It is certain that the little one wishes with all her heart that she might adorn her doll and adjust its sleeve, its neck- erchief, its furbelows, its lace ; but in all this she is made to depend so rigorously on the pleasure of others that it would be very much easier for her to owe every- thing to her own industry. Thus appears the reason for the first lessons which are given her ; they are not tasks which are prescribed for her, but kindnesses which we feel for her. And, in fact, almost all little girls learn to read and write with repugnance ; but as to holding the needle, they always learn this willingly. They imagine themselves already grown, and take pleasure in thinking that these talents will one day be of service in adorning them. Once opened, this first route is easy to follow ; sew- ing, embroidery, and lace-work will come of themselves. Tapestry is not so much to their liking ; and as furniture is not connected with the person, but with mere opinion, it is too far out of their reach. Tapestry is the amuse- ment of women ; young girls will never take very great pleasure in it. This voluntary progress will easily extend itself to designing, for this art is not immaterial to that of dressing with taste ; but I would not have it applied to landscape, and still less to portrait painting. Foliage, fruits, flowers, draperies, and whatever may serve to give an elegant outline to attire, and to make for one's self a pattern for embroidery when one can not be found to the taste this is sufficient for them. In general, if it is important for men to restrict their studies to knowledge of practical use, this is still more important for women ; for as the life of the latter, though less laborious, is, or ought to be, more devote^ to their duties, and is more interrupted by THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 267 different cares, it does not allow them to devote them- selves by choice to any talent to the prejudice of their duties. Whatever may be said on the subject jokingly, the two sexes are equally endowed in respect of good sense. In general, girls are more docile than boys, and we ought to use even more authority over them, as I shall presently explain ; but it does not follow that we are to require of them anything whose utility they can not see. The art of mothers is to show them the utility of everything which they prescribe for them ; and this is so much easier as the intelligence of girls is more precocious than that of boys. This rule banishes from their sex, as it does from ours, not only all trifling studies which end in nothing good, and even fail to make those who have pursued them more agreeable to others; but even all those which have no utility for children of that age, and whose utility at a later period of life the child can not foresee. If I would not urge a boy to learn to read, for a stronger reason I would not force young girls to do this before I had made them understand the purpose of read- ing ; and according to the usual manner of showing them this utility we follow our own idea much more than theirs. After all, why is it necessary that a girl should learn to read and write at an early age ? Will she have a household to govern so soon ? There are very few who will not abuse rather than use this fatal science ; and all are a little too curious not to learn it without compulsion when they have the leisure and the occasion for it. Per- haps they ought to learn to cipher before everything else, for nothing offers a more obvious utility at all times, requires longer practice, or gives a stronger defense against error than the art of computation. If the little one could have cherries to her taste only through an arithmetical 268 process, I warrant you she would soon know how to cal- culate. Always justify the duties which you impose on young girls, but never fail to impose them. Idleness and indo- cility are their two most dangerous faults, and when once contracted they are cured with the greatest difficulty. Girls ought to be heedful and industrious, and this is not all : they ought early to be brought under restraint. This misfortune, if it is one for them, is inseparable from their sex; and they never rid themselves of it save to suffer others which are much more cruel. As long as they live they will be subject to the most continual and the most severe restraint that which is imposed by the laws of decorum. They must early be trained to restraint, to the end that it may cost them nothing ; and to conquer all their whims, in order to subject them to the wills of others. If they wish always to be at work, they must sometimes be compelled to do nothing. Dissipation, fri- volity, and inconstancy are faults which easily spring from their first tastes which have been corrupted, and then always followed. In order to prevent this abuse, teach them above all else to conquer themselves. By reason of our senseless customs, the life of a good woman is a perpetual combat with herself; and it is just that this sex share the discomfort of the evils which it has caused us. Prevent young girls from becoming tired of their oc- cupations, and from becoming enamored of their amuse- ments, as it always happens in the common style of edu- cation, where, as Fenelon says, all the tedium is put on one side and all the pleasure on the other. The first of these two inconveniences will not occur if we follow the preceding rules, save when the persons who are with them are displeasing to them. A little girl who loves her THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 269 mother or her aunt will work all day at her side without weariness ; her prattle alone will reward her for all her constraint. But if she who governs her is insupportable to her, she will include in the same disgust whatever she does in her presence. It is very difficult for those who are not happier with their mothers than with any one else in the world, ever to turn out well ; but in order to judge of their real feelings we must study them and distrust what they say ; for they are fawning, dissimulating, and soon know how to disguise themselves. Nor ought they to be ordered to love their mothers ; affection does not come through duty, and constraint serves no purpose in this place. Attachment, kind offices, and simple habit will make the mother loved by her daughter if she does nothing to incur her hatred. Even the constraint in which she holds her, when well directed, far from weaken- ing this attachment, will serve only to increase it, because, dependence being a state natural to women, girls feel that they are made to obey. For the very reason that they have or ought to have little liberty, they carry to excess the liberty which is granted them ; extreme in everything, they abandon themselves to their sports with even greater transport than boys do. This is the second of the inconveniences which I just mentioned. This transport ought to be toned down, for it is the cause of several vices peculiar to women as, among others, caprice and infatuation, by which a woman is to-day carried away with an object which she will not regard to-morrow. The inconstancy of their tastes is as hurtful as their excess, and both come to them from the same source. Do not deny them gayety, laughter, noise, and sportive diversions ; but pre- vent them from being satiated with one and running tu the other ; never suffer them for a single moment of 270 EMILE. their lives to know themselves free from restraint. Ac- custom them to see themselves interrupted in the midst of their sports, and to be recalled to other things without a murmur. Mere habit is still sufficient for this purpose, because it merely supplements nature. There results from this habitual restraint a docility which women need during their whole life, since they never cease to be subject either to a man or to the judg- ments of men, and they are never allowed to place them- selves above these judgments. The first and most im- portant quality of a woman is gentleness. Made to obey a being as imperfect as man, often so full of vices, and always so full of faults, she ought early to learn to suffer even injustice, and to endure the wrongs of a husband without complaint ; and it is not for him, but for herself that she ought to be gentle. The harshness and obsti- nacy of women serve only to increase the wrongs and the bad conduct of husbands ; they feel that it is not with these arms that their wives should conquer them. Heaven has not made them insinuating and persuasive in order to become waspish ; has not made them weak in order to be imperious ; has not given them so gentle a voice in order to use harsh language ; and has not made their features so delicate in order to disfigure them by anger. When they become angry they forget themselves ; they often have reason to complain, but they are always wrong in scolding. , Each one ought to preserve the tone of his sex. The husband who is too mild may make a woman impertinent; but, unless a man is a brute, the gentleness of a wife reforms him, and triumphs over him sooner or later. Let daughters always be submissive, but let not moth- ers always be inexorable. In order to render a young woman docile, it is not necessary to make her unhappy; T1IE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 271 to render her modest, it is not necessary to brutalize her. On the contrary, I should not be sorry if she were some- times indulged in a little adroitness, not to escape punish- ment for her disobedience, but to make her exempt from obeying. It is not proposed to make her dependence painful, but it suffices to make her feel it. Artifice is a talent natural to the sex, and, persuaded that all natural inclinations are good and upright in themselves, I advise the cultivation of this one, as well as of the others ; all that is necessary is to prevent its abuse. As to the truth of this remark, I appeal to every honest observer. I do not wish women themselves to be ex- amined on this point ; our annoying customs may force them to sharpen their temper. I would have the girls examined, the little girls who have only just come into the world, so to speak ; compare them with little boys of the same age, and if the latter do not seem dull, thought- less, and stupid in their presence, I shall be unquestion- ably wrong. I know that austere teachers would have young girls taught neither singing, dancing, nor any other accom- plishment. This seems to me ludicrous. To whom, then, would they have these things taught ? To boys ? To whom does it pertain, by preference, to have these talents: to men, or to women ? To no one, they will reply ; profane songs are so many crimes ; the dance is an invention of the devil ; a young girl ought to have no amusement save her work and her prayers. Strange amusements these for a child of ten ! For myself, I greatly fear that all those little saints who are forced to spend their childhood in praying may spend their youth in something very differ- ent, and, when married, may do their best to redeem the time which they lost while girls. I think that we must have regard to what befits age as well as sex; that a 272 young girl ought not to live like her grandmother, tut ought to be lively, playful, frolicsome ; to sing and dance as much as she pleases, and to taste all the innocent pleas- ures of her age. The time will come only too soon for being sedate and for assuming a more serious deport- ment. We have gone too far in reducing the pleasure-giving talents to arts ; they have been systematized too much ; everything has been reduced to maxim and precept, and we have made very tedious to young persons what ought to be for them only amusements and pleasant diversions. I can imagine nothing more ridiculous than to see an old dancing-master approach with a grim air young persons who want merely to laugh, and, while teaching them his frivolous science, assume a tone more pedantic and magis- terial than if it were their catechism he was teaching. For example, is the art of singing limited to written music ? May not one render his voice flexible and accurate ; learn to sing with taste, and even to accompany an instrument, without knowing a single note? Is the same kind of singing adapted to all voices ? Is the same method adapted to all minds ? I shall never be made to believe that the same attitudes, the same steps, the same movements, the same gestures, and the same dances are equally becoming to a little brunette, lively and keen, and to a tall, beauti- ful blonde with languishing eyes. When, therefore, I see a master giving exactly the same lessons to both, I say that the man follows his routine but understands nothing of his art. It is asked whether the teachers for young girls should be men, or women. I do not know. I wish that neither might be necessary, but that they might be free to learn what they are so much inclined to learn, and that we might not see constantly going about in our cities so THE EDCCATIOX OF WOMAN. 273 many laced buffoons. I have some difficulty in believing that the deportment of these fellows does not do more harm than good to young girls, and that their jargon, their tone, and their airs do not give to their pupils the first taste for those frivolities, so important for their masters, which they will hardly be slow, following theii example, to make their sole occupation. In the arts which are merely pleasure-giving in their purpose everything may serve to teach young persons their father, mother, brother, sister, their friends, their governesses, their mirror, and especially their own taste. We ought not to offer to give them lessons, but they should find it necessary to demand them. We should not turn a reward into a task; and it is especially in studies of this sort that the very condition of success is a desire to succeed. However, if formal lessons are abso- lutely necessary, I shall not decide the sex of those who are to give them. Through industry and talent the taste is formed ; and through the taste the mind is insensibly opened to ideas of the beautiful in all its forms, and finally to the moral notions which are connected with it. This is perhaps one of the reasons why the feeling of propriety and vir- tue is developed sooner in girls than in boys; for, in order to believe that this precocious feeling is the work of governesses, we must be very badly instructed in their style of lessons and in the progress of the human mind. Talent in speaking holds the first place in the art of pleasing, and it is through it alone that we can add new charms to those to which habit accustoms all the senses. It is the mind which not only vivifies the body, but which in some sort renews it; it is through the succession of feelings and ideas that it gives animation and variety to the features ; and it is through the discourse which it in- 274 EMILE. spires that the attention is kept alive and for a long time sustains the same interest on the same object. It is for all these reasons, I presume, that young girls so soon ac- quire an agreeable prattle, that they throw an accent into their speech even before they are conscious of its mean- ing, and that men so soon find amusement in listening to them even before they can be understood by their fair listeners. Men watch the first movement of this intelli- gence in order thus to penetrate the dawn of emotion. Women have a flexible tongue ; they speak sooner, more easily, and more agreeably than men. They are accused also of speaking more. This is proper, and I would willingly change this reproach into a commenda- tion. With them the mouth and the eyes have the same activity, and for the same reason. A man says what he knows, and a woman what is pleasing. In order to speak, one needs knowledge and the other taste ; one ought to have for a principal object things which are useful ; the other, things which are agreeable. In their forms of conversation the only thing in common should be the truth. If boys should not be allowed to ask indiscreet ques- tions, for a still stronger reason they should be forbidden young girls, whose curiosity, when satisfied, or when wrongly evaded, has very different consequences, due to their penetration in anticipating the mysteries which are concealed from them, and to their cleverness in dis- covering them. But, without awaiting their questions, I would have them thoroughly interrogated themselves, would take care to make them talk, and would tease them in order to make them speak easily and to loosen the mind and the tongue, when it could be done without danger. These conversations, always turned into pleas- ing channels, but managed with art and well directed, THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 275 would make a charming amusement for that age, and might carry into the innocent hearts of these young per- sons the first and perhaps the most useful lessons in morals which they will ever learn, by teaching them, through the bait of pleasure and vanity, to what qualities men really accord their esteem, and in what the glory and happiness of a noble woman consist. It is easy to see that if boys are not in a condition to form any true idea of religion, for a still stronger reason the same idea is above the conception of girls. It is on this very account that I would speak to them the earlier on this subject ; for if we must wait till they are in a condition to discuss these profound questions methodi- cally, we run the risk of never speaking to them on this subject. The reason of women is a practical reason, which gives them great skill in finding the means for reaching a known end, but it does not cause them to find the end itself. The social relation of the sexes is admirable. From this association there results a moral personality of which woman is the eye and man the arm, but with such a dependence of one on the other that it is from the man that the woman learns what must be seen, and from the woman that the man learns what must be done. If the woman could ascend to principles as well as the man, and if the man had the same talents for details that she has, always independent of each other, they would live in perpetual discord, and their union could not subsist. But in the harmony which reigns between them every- thing tends to the common end, and we do not know which contributes the most to it, each follows the impul- sion of the other ; each obeys, and both are masters. For the reason that the conduct of woman is subject to public opinion, her belief is subject to authority. Every daughter should have the religion of her mother, 21 276 and every wife that of her husband. Even were this re- ligion false, the docility which makes the mother and the daughter submit to the order of nature expunges in the sight of God the sin of error. As they are not in a con- dition to judge for themselves, women should receive the decision of fathers and husbands as they would the decision of the Church. Not being able to draw from themselves alone the rule of their faith, women can not confine it within the bound- aries of evidence and reason, but, allowing themselves to be carried away by a thousand extraneous impulses, they are always on this side or that of the truth. Always ex- tremists, they are all free-thinkers or devotees ; none of them are able to combine discretion with piety. The source of the evil is not only in the tendency to ex- tremes which characterizes their sex, but also in the badly regulated authority of our own. The looseness in morals makes this authority despised, and the fear of repentance makes it tyrannical ; and this is how we are always doing too little or too much. Since authority ought to regulate the religion of women, it is not so important to explain to them the rea- sons which we have for believing as to expound to them with clearness what we believe ; for the faith which we have in obscure ideas is the primitive source of fanati- cism, and that which we require for absurd things leads to madness or to incredulity. In the first place, in order to teach religion to young girls, never make it a thing of sadness and constraint for them, and never a task or a duty ; consequently, never make them learn by heart anything connected with it, not even their prayers. Be content with saying your own prayers regularly before them, but without forcing them to take part in them. Make them short, according to THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 277 the precepts of Jesus Christ. Always make them with suitable solemnity and respect ; recollect that as we re- quire of the Supreme Being attention in order to listen to us, we are in duty bound to reflect on what we are going to say to him. It is less important that young girls know their re- iigion so soon than that they know it well, and especially that they love it. When you make it burdensome to them, when you always represent God as angry with them, when you impose on them in his name a thousand painful duties which they never see you fulfill, what can they think, save that to know one's catechism and to pray to God are the duties of little girls, and desire except to be grown up in order to be exempt, just as you are, from all this constraint ? Example ! Example ! With- out this we shall never succeed in anything with chil- dren. When you explain to them the articles of faith, let it be in the form of direct instruction, and not by question and answer ; they ought never to answer save what they think, and not what is dictated to them. All the replies of the catechism are on the wrong side it is the pupil who instructs the teacher ; they are even falsehoods in the mouths of children, since they explain what they do not understand, and affirm what they are not able to be- lieve. I wish some man who thoroughly knows the steps of progress in the child's mind would write a catechism for him. This would perhaps be the most useful book that was ever written, and would not be, to my mind, the one which would do the least honor to its author. One thing is very certain : if this book were good, it would bear but little resemblance to those in use. Such a catechism will be good only when, from the 278 fiMILE. questions alone, the child will make for himself the re- plies without, having to learn them, it being understood that he will sometimes take his turn in asking questions. To make what I wish to say understood, a sort of model would be necessary, and I well know what I lack in order to trace it out. It is well to recollect that until the age when the rea- son is illumined, and when dawning emotion causes the conscience to speak, that which is right or wrong for young persons is what the people who surround them have decided to be such. What they are commanded to do is right, what they are forbidden to do is wrong, and here their knowledge ought to end.* From this we see how important it is, and still more so for girls than for boys, to make a choice of the persons who are to approach them and have some authority over them. Finally, the moment comes when they begin to judge of things for themselves, and then it is time to change the plan of their education. To what condition should we reduce women if we make public prejudice the law of their conduct ? Let us not abase to this point the sex which governs us, and which honors us when we have not degraded it. There exists for the whole human - species a rule anterior to opinion. It is to the inflexible direction of this rule that all the others are to be referred. It judges prejudice even ; and it is only so far as the esteem of men accords with it that this esteem ought to constitute authority for us. This rule is the inner moral sense. I shall not repeat what I have previously said on this point. It is sufficient * This reflection should have occurred to Rousseau when he com- posed the dialogue intended to prove that children are incapable of reason. (P.) THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 279 for me to remark, that if these two rules do not co-oper- ate in the education of women, it will always be defective. The moral sense, without opinion, will not give them that delicacy of soul which adorns good manners with universal honor; and opinion, without the moral sense, will never produce anything but artificial and immodest women, who substitute appearance in the place of virtue. It is important, then, to cultivate a faculty which serves as an arbitrator between the two guides, which does not allow the conscience to go astray, and which corrects the errors of prejudice. This faculty is the reason. But at this word how many questions arise ! Are women capa- ble of solid reasoning ? Is it important for them to cul- tivate it? Will they cultivate it with success? Is this culture useful to the functions imposed on them? Is it compatible with the simplicity which is becoming to them? It results from the different ways of approaching and resolving these questions that, going to opposite extremes, some restrict woman to sewing and spinning in her house- hold with her servants, and thus make of her but the head servant of the master ; while others, not content with se- curing her rights, go farther, and make her usurp our own. For, to place her above us in the qualities peculiar to her sex, and to render her our equal in everything else, what is this but to transfer to the wife the primacy which nature gives to the husband ? The reason which leads man to the knowledge of his duties is not very complex ; and the reason which leads woman to the knowledge of hers is still simpler. The obedience and fidelity which she owes to her husband, the tenderness and care which she owes to her children, are such natural and obvious consequences of her condition, that she can not, without bad faith, refuse her consent to 280 EMILE. the inner sense which guides her, nor fail to recognize her duty in the inclination which has not yet been per- verted. If a woman were wholly restricted to the tasks of her sex, and were left in profound ignorance of everything else, I would not indulge in indiscriminate censure ; but this would require a very simple and wholesome state of public morals, or a very retired manner of living. In large cities and among corrupt men such a woman would be too easily led astray, and in this philosophical age she must be above temptation ; she must know in advance what may be said to her, and what she ought to think of it. Moreover, subject to the judgment of men, she ought to merit their esteem ; she ought, above all, to secure the esteem of her husband ; she ought not only to make him love her person, but make him approve her conduct ; she ought to justify before the public the choice which he has made, and make her husband honored with the honor which is paid his wife. Now, how shall she go about all this if she is ignorant of our institutions, if she knows nothing of our usages and our social customs, if she knows neither the source of human judgments nor the passions which determine them ? When she depends at once on her own conscience and the opinions of others, she must learn to compare these two rules, to reconcile them, and to prefer the first only when they are in opposition. She becomes the judge of her judges ; she decides when she ought to submit to them and when she ought to challenge them. Before rejecting or admitting their prejudices she weighs them ; she learns to ascend to their source, to an- ticipate them, and to render them favorable to her ; she is careful never to draw censure upop herself when her duty permits her to avoid it. Nothing of all this can be well done without cultivating her mind and her reason. THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 281 The search for abstract and speculative truths, princi- ples, and scientific axioms, whatever tends to generalize ideas, does not fall within the compass of women ; all their studies ought to have reference to the practical ; it is for them to make the application of the principles which man has discovered, and to make the observations which lead man to the establishment of principles. All the re- flections of women which are not immediately connected with their duties ought to be directed to the study of men and to that pleasure-giving knowledge which has only taste for its object ; for as to works of genius, they are out of their reach, nor have they sufficient accuracy and attention to succeed in the exact sciences ; and as to the physical sciences, they fall to that one of the two which is the most active, the most stirring, which sees the most objects, which has the most strength, and which exercises it most in judging of the relations of sensible beings and of the laws of nature. Woman, who is weak, and who sees nothing external, appreciates and judges the motive pow- ers which she can set to work to offset her weakness, and these motive powers are the passions of man. Whatever her sex can not do for itself, and which is necessary or agreeable to her, she must have the art of making us de- sire. She must therefore make a profound study of the mind of man, not the mind of man in general, through abstraction, but the mind of the men who surround her, the mind of the men to whom she is subject, either by law or by opinion. She must learn to penetrate their feelings through their conversation, their actions, their looks, and their gestures. Through her conversations, her actions, her looks, and her gestures she must know how to give them the feelings which are pleasing to her, without even seeming to think of them. They will philosophize better than she can on the human heart, but she will read better 282 than they can in the hearts of men. It is for women to discover, so to speak, an experimental ethics, and for us to reduce it to a system. Woman has more spirit and man more genius; woman observes and man reasons. From this concurrence there result the clearest light and the most complete science which the human mind can acquire of itself the surest knowledge, in a word, of one's self and others which is within the scope of our species. And this is the way in which art may incessantly tend to per- fect the instrument given by nature. The world is woman's book ; when she reads it wrong, it is her fault or some passion blinds her. However, the real mother, far from being a woman of the world, is hardly less a recluse in her house than a nun in her clois- ter. We must then do for young women who marry just as we do or ought to do for those who are placed in con- vents show them the pleasures which they part with before allowing them to renounce them, for fear that the false image of those pleasures, which are unknown to them, may one day come to lead their hearts astray and disturb the happiness of their retreat. In France girls live in convents and women travel the world over. Among the ancients it was just the contrary : girls, as I have said, indulged in sports and public festivals, while the women lived in retirement. This custom was the more reason- able and better maintained the public morals. A sort of coquetry is granted to marriageable girls ; their chief business is to enjoy themselves. Women have other cares at home, and no longer have to search for husbands. Mothers, at least make companions of your daughters. Give them a sense of uprightness and a soul of honor, and then conceal nothing from them, nothing which a chaste eye may look at. Balls, banquets, games, even the theatre, everything which, wrongly viewed, makes the charm of THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 233 unadvised youth, may be offered without risk to uncor- rupted eyes. The better they see these noisy pleasures the sooner will they be disgusted with them. I hear the clamor which is raised against me. What girl will resist this dangerous example ? They have no sooner seen the world than all their heads are turned ; not one of them is willing to abandon it. This may be ; but before offering them this deceptive picture, have you pre- pared them well for seeing it without emotion? Have you clearly announced to them the objects which it rep- resents ? Have you really painted them just as they are ? Have you thoroughly armed them against the illusions of vanity ? Have you put in their young hearts a taste for the true pleasures which are not found in this tumult ? What precautions, what measures, have you taken to pre- serve them from the false taste which is leading them astray ? Far from offering any opposition to the power of public prejudice which sways their minds, you have nourished it there ; you have made them love in advance all the frivolous amusements which they find. You make them love them still more by surrendering them to them. Young women entering society have no other governess than a mother who is often more senseless than they are, and who can show them objects only as she sees them. Her example, stronger even than reason, justifies them in their own eyes, and the authority of the mother is for the daughter an unanswerable excuse. When I advise a mother to introduce her daughter into society, it is on the supposition that she will make her see it just as it is. The evil begins still earlier. The convents are veri- table schools of coquetry not of that honest coquetry of which I have spoken, but of that which produces all the caprices of women and makes the most extravagant female fops. On leaving them to enter at once into the din of social life, young women at first feel that they are in their place. They have been educated to live there, and need we be astonished if they find themselves at home ? I do not put forward what I am going to say without fear of taking a prejudice for an observation; but it seems to me that, in general, Protestant countries have more family affection, more worthy wives, and more tender mothers than Catholic countries ; and if this is true, we can not doubt that this difference is due in part to the education of convents. In order to love the peaceful life of the home, we must know it; we must have felt its charms from infancy. It is only under the paternal roof that we contract a taste for our own home, and a woman who has not been educated by her mother will not love to educate her children. Unfortunately, private education in our large cities no longer exists. Society there is so general and so mixed that there is no longer an asylum for retreat, and we live in public even at home. By reason of living with everybody we no longer have a family, we hardly know our parents, we see them as strangers, and the simplicity of domestic manners has become extinct along with the sweet familiarity which constituted its charm. It is thus that with our milk we imbibe a taste for the pleasures of the world and for the maxims which we see prevailing there. An apparent restraint is imposed on girls to order to find dupes who will marry them on the strength of their deportment. But study these young persons for a mo- ment. Under an air of constraint they poorly disguise the lust which devours them, and already we read in their eyes the ardent desire to imitate their mothers. What they covet is not a husband, but the license of marriage. THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 285 All these different educations equally create in young persons a taste for the pleasures of gay society, and to the passions which soon spring from this taste. In the large cities the depravation begins with life, and in the small it begins with reason. Young women from the provinces, taught to despise the happy simplicity of their manners, make haste to come to Paris to share the cor- ruption of ours ; the vices adorned with the fine name of talents are the sole object of their journey ; and, ashamed on arriving to find themselves so far from the noble free- dom of city women, they are not slow in deserving to be considered residents of the capital. In your opinion, where does the evil begin in the place where it was conceived, or in the place where it was accomplished ? I would not have a sensible mother take her daugh- ter from the provinces to Paris in order to show her these sights so pernicious to others ; but I say that if this is done, either that daughter has been badly educated or these sights will have little danger for her. With taste, sense, and love for things honorable, we do not find them so attractive as they are for those who allow themselves to be charmed by them. At Paris we may observe young, hare-brained girls, who have come in haste to copy the manners of the city and have devoted themselves to the fashions for six months, only to make themselves hissed for the rest of their lives ; but who takes notice of those who, disgusted by all this hubbub, return to their prov- ince content with their lot, after having compared it with that which is the envy of others ? How many young women I have seen brought to the capital by their good- natured husbands, and at liberty to stay there, who dis- suaded their husbands from this purpose, departed more willingly than they had come, and feelingly said, on. the eve of their departure : " Ah, let us return to our humble 286 EMILE. home ; life is much happier there than in the palaces of Paris." We do not know how many good people there still are who have not bent the knee before the idol and who despise his senseless worship. Only fools are loud in their conduct ; women who are wise create no sensa- tion. It is not necessary to disgust young girls with your long sermons nor to retail to them your dry moralities. For both sexes these moral lectures are the death of all good education. Gloomy lessons serve only to involve in hatred both those who give them and all that they say. It is not necessary, in speaking to young women, to make them afraid of their duties, nor to make more grievous the yoke which is imposed on them by nature. In setting forth their duties, be precise and affable ; do not allow them to think that the discharge of duty is disagreeable ; do not wear an air of displeasure or of solemnity. All that is to go to the heart ought to come from it ; their moral catechism ought to be as short and as clear as their religious catechism, but it ought not to be as grave. Show them that the source of their pleasures and the basis of their rights lie in the same duties. Is it so pain- ful to love in order to be loved, to make oneself amiable in order to be loved, to make oneself estimable in order to be obeyed, and to make oneself honorable in order to be honored ? Would you, then, inspire young women with a love for good morals ? Without saying to them constantly, Be dis- crete, create in them a strong interest in being so ; make them feel all the value of discretion, and you will make them love it. It is not enough to place this interest in a distant future ; show it to them in the present moment, in current events, and in the character of their admirers. Depict to them the man of probity, the man of merit, THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 287 and prove to them that when they are loved, only such a man can make them happy. Encourage virtue through an appeal to reason ; make them feel that the power of their sex and all its advantages do not depend solely on their good conduct and morals, but also on those of men ; that they have little hold on vile and low natures, and that a man can serve his sweetheart only so far as he can serve virtue. You may then be sure that, by depicting to them the manners of the day, you will inspire them with a sin- cere disgust for them ; and that, by showing them the men of fashion, you will make them despise them ; you will give them only dislike for their maxims, an aversion for their sentiments, and a disdain for their vain compli- ments ; you will cause to spring up in them a nobler am- bition that of reigning over grand and powerful souls that of the women of Sparta, which was to command men. Sophie is well born and has a good disposition ; she has a very sensitive heart, and this extreme sensibility sometimes gives her an activity of imagination difficult to control. She has a mind less accurate than penetrat- ing ; a temper that is yielding and yet unequal ; a figure plain but agreeable ; a physiognomy which bespeaks a soul and does not lie ; people may approach her with indifference, but can not leave her without emotion. Others have good qualities which she lacks ; others have in a larger measure those which she has ; but no one has qualities better suited for producing a happy character. She knows how to derive advantage even from her faults ; and if she were more perfect she would be less pleasing. Sophie is not beautiful ; but in her presence men for- get beautiful women, and beautiful women are discon- tented with themselves. At first sight she is hardly pretty, but the more we see her the more beautiful she 288 EMILE. looks ; she gains where so many others lose, and what she gains she does not afterward lose. We may see more beautiful eyes, a finer mouth, and a more imposing pres- ence ; but no one can have a more finely shaped figure, a more beautiful complexion, a whiter hand, a more dainty foot, a sweeter smile, or a more touching countenance^ She interests without dazzling ; she charms, but no one can tell why. Sophie loves dress, and is a good judge of it; her mother has no other waiting-maid ; she has much taste in dressing herself to advantage, but she hates rich gar- ments, and in what she wears we always see simplicity united with elegance ; she does not love what glitters but what is becoming ; she does not know what the fashion- able colors are, but she knows perfectly which are becom- ing to her. There is no young woman who seems dressed with less study, yet whose attire is more elegant ; there is not a single article of her clothing chosen at random, yet in no one of them is there the appearance of art. Her attire is very modest in appearance but very coquettish in effect ; she does not display her charms, she covers them ; but in covering them she knows how to make them im- agined. Sophie has natural talents ; she is conscious of them, and has not neglected them ; but not having been in a condition to devote much art to their culture, she has been content to exercise her fine voice in singing with accuracy and taste, her little feet in walking trippingly, easily, and gracefully, and in making courtesies in all sorts of situations without embarrassment or awkwardness. Moreover, she has had no teacher of singing save her father, and no dancing-master but her mother ; an organ- ist of the neighborhood has given her a few lessons in accompaniment on the harpsichord, which she has since THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN". 289 practiced by herself. At first her only thought was to exhibit her hand to advantage on the black keys ; next she discovered that the sharp and thin sound of the harpsichord made the sound of her voice more melodi- ous ; little by little she became sensitive to the harmony ; and finally, as she grew up, she began to feel the charms of expression and to love music for itself. But this is a taste rather than a talent ; she is unable to play a tune by note. What Sophie knows best, and what has been taught her with the most care, is the work of her sex, even those kinds which are not usually considered, like cutting and making her dresses. There is no kind of needle-work which she does not know how to do, and which she does not do with pleasure ; but the work which she prefers to all others is lace-making, because there is none which affords a more pleasing attitude and in which the fingers are exercised with more grace and deftness. She has also devoted herself to all the details of housekeeping. She is acquainted with the kitchen and the pantry ; she knows the price of provisions, and also their qualities ; she has a thorough knowledge of book-keeping, and serves her mother as housekeeper. Destined one day to become the head of a family, by directing the father's household she learns to direct her own. She can take the place of servants, and always does so willingly. We can never order a thing done properly which we do not know how to do ourselves ; this is the reason why Sophie's mother employs her in this way. But Sophie does not look so far ahead ; her first duty is that of daughter, and it is now the only one which she thinks of fulfilling. Her simple purpose is to serve her mother, and to relieve her of a part of her cares. It is true, however, that she does not dis- charge all these duties with equal pleasure. For example, 290 though she is fond of eating, she does not love cooking ; its details have something of disgust for her ; she never finds sufficient neatness in it. On this point she has an extreme delicacy, and this delicacy, carried to an extreme, has become one of her faults ; she would rather let the whole dinner burn up than soil a ruffle. For the same reason, she has never been willing to oversee the garden the earth seems unclean to her. She owes this fault to the lessons of her mother. According to her, among the duties of woman, one of the first is cleanliness a duty' that is special, indis- pensable, and imposed by nature. There is no more disgusting object in the world than a slovenly woman, and a husband who is disgusted with her is never wrong. She has preached this duty to her daughter so much from her childhood, she has exacted of her so much cleanliness with respect to her person, her clothing, her apartment, her work, and her toilet, that all these attentions, con- verted into habit, take up quite a large part of her time, and even encroach on the remainder ; so that to do well whatever she does is but the second of her cares ; the first is always to do it neatly. Nevertheless, all this has not degenerated into vain affectation nor into want of spirit, and the refinements of luxury play no part in it. Only simple water will ever enter her apartment ; she knows no other perfume than that of flowers, and her husband will never breathe one sweeter than her breath. Finally, the affection which she bestows on the exterior does not make her forget that she owes her life and her time to nobler duties. She ignores or disdains that excessive cleanliness of body which soils the soul. Sophie is much more than clean she is pure. I have said that Sophie was fond of eating ; she was so naturally ; but she has become temperate by habit, and is THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 291 now so by virtue. It is not with girls as with boys, who can be governed up to a certain point by their appetite. This inclination has its consequences for the sex ; it is too dangerous to go unchecked. The little Sophie, in her girlhood, going alone into her mother's pantry, did not always come back empty-handed, and her fidelity with respect to sugar-plums and bonbons was not above sus- picion. Her mother detected her, reproved her, punished her, and made her fast. At last she succeeded in per- suading her that bonbons spoiled the teeth, and that eat- ing too much made one stout. In this way Sophie re- formed. As she grew up she contracted other tastes, which have turned her aside from this low sensuality. In women, as in men, as soon as the heart grows warm gluttony is no longer a dominant vice. Sophie has pre- served the characteristic taste of her sex : she likes milk, butter, cream, and sweetmeats ; is fond of pastry and des- sert, but eats very little meat ; she has never tasted either wine or intoxicating liquors. Moreover, she eats very moderately of everything; her sex, less laborious than ours, has less need to repair its waste. In everything she likes what is good, and knows how to enjoy it ; she also knows how to put up with what is not so, without allowing this privation to cost her anything. Sophie has a mind pleasing without being brilliant, and solid without being profound a mind of which people say nothing, because they never observe in it either more or less than in their own. She always has a mind which pleases the people who speak to her, although it is not copiously adorned according to the notion which we have of the intellectual culture of women ; for hers has not been formed by reading, but only by the conver- sations of her father and mother, by her own reflections, and by the observations which she has made in the little, 23 292 EMILE. of the world which she has seen. Sophie is naturally gay she was even frolicsome in her childhood ; but little by little her mother has taken care to repress her giddy airs, for fear that too sudden a change might ere long apprise her of the moment which had rendered it neces- sary. She has therefore become modest and reserved even before the time for being so ; and now that this time has come, it is easier for her to preserve the tone she has taken, than it would have been to take it without indi- cating the reason for this change. It is a pleasant thing to see her occasionally abandoning herself, through a residuum of the habit, to the vivacities of childhood, and then suddenly come to herself, grow silent, lower her eyes, and blush. The intermediate term between the two ages must necessarily partake somewhat of each. Sophie has too great a sensibility to preserve a perfect evenness of disposition ; she has too much sweetness for this sensibility to be very annoying to others ; it is to her- self alone that she does wrong. Let a single word be spoken which wounds her, and she does not pout, but her heart swells, and she tries to escape in order to go and weep. But if, in the midst of her tears, she is recalled by her father or her mother, she instantly appears, cheer- ful and smiling, while drying her eyes and trying to stifle her sobs. Nor is she wholly exempt from caprice ; her temper, if provoked a little too much, degenerates into unruliness, and then she is liable to . forget herself. But allow her time to come to herself, and her manner of making amends for her fault will make it almost meritorious. When pun- ished, she is docile and submissive, and we see that her shame arises not so much from her chastisement as from the fault. If nothing is said to her, she never fails to make reparation of her own accord, but so frankly and THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 293 with such good grace that it is not possible to bear any ill-will. She would kiss the ground before the meanest domestic, and yet this abasement would not cause her the least pain, and the moment she is pardoned she shows by her joy and her caresses of what a weight her good heart has been relieved. In a word, she suffers the wrongs of others with patience, and repairs her own with pleasure. Such is the lovable nature of her sex before we have spoiled it. Woman is made to submit to man, and even to endure his injustice. You will never reduce young boys to the same point ; in them the inner sense rises in revolt against injustice ; nature has not made them for tolerating it. Sophie is religious, but her religion is reasonable and simple, with few dogmas and fewer practices of devotion ; or rather, knowing no essential practice save morality, she devotes her whole life to serving God by doing good. In all the instructions which her parents have given her on this subject they have accustomed her to a respectful sub- mission, by always saying to her : " My daughter, this knowledge is beyond your years ; your husband will in- struct you in it when the time comes." However, in place of pious discourses long drawn out, they content themselves with preaching piety to her through their ex- ample, and this example is graven on her heart. Sophie loves virtue, and this love has become her ruling passion. She loves it because there is nothing so beautiful as virtue ; she loves it because virtue constitutes the glory of woman, and a virtuous woman seems to her almost equal to an angel ; she loves it as the only road to true happiness, and because she sees only misery, deser- tion, misfortune, opprobrium, and ignominy in the life of a corrupt woman ; finally, she loves it because it is dear to her venerated father and to her tender and honored moth- er. Not content with being happy in their own virtue, 294 EMILE. they wish also to be happy in hers ; and her chief happi- ness is the hope of making them happy. All these feel- ings inspire her with an enthusiasm which exalts her soul, and holds all her lower inclinations in subjection to such a noble passion. Sophie will be chaste and upright even to her last breath ; she has sworn it in the depths of her soul, and at a time when she felt all that such an oath might cost her to keep ; she has sworn it when she might have revoked the engagement if her senses had been made to reign over her. Sophie has not the honor of being an amiable French woman, cold by temperament and coquettish by vanity, wishing rather to shine than to please, and seeking amuse- ment rather than pleasure. The one need of loving de- vours her, and comes to distract and trouble her heart in the midst of her enjoyments; she has lost her old-time gayety ; her playful amusements are no longer enjoyed by her; far from fearing the irksomeness of solitude, she seeks it ; she there thinks of the one who is to make it agreeable to her. All the indifferent displease her ; she does not desire a courtship, but a lover ; she would rather please a single good man, and please him always, than to excite in her favor the applause of the world, which lasts a day and then is turned into jeers. The judgment is developed sooner in women than in men ; being on the defensive almost from their child- hood, and charged with a treasure difficult to guard, good and evil are necessarily sooner known to them. As her temperament inclines her to be precocious in everything, the judgment is developed earlier in Sophie than in other girls of her age. There is nothing very extraordinary in this, for maturity is not everywhere the same at the same Sophie is instructed in the rights and duties of her sex THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 295 and of ours. She knows the faults of men and the vices of women ; she also knows the good qualities, the oppo- site virtues, and has them all imprinted in the depth of her heart. One can not have a higher idea of a noble woman than she has conceived of her, and this idea does not frighten her ; but she thinks with more complacency of the noble man, the man of merit ; she feels that she is made for such a man, that she is worthy of him, that she can return to him the happiness which she will receive from him, and she feels that she will be perfectly able to recognize him ; it is merely a question of finding him. Women are the natural judges of the merits of men, as men are of the merits of women ; this is a mutual right, and neither sex is ignorant of it. Sophie is conscious of this right, and makes use of it, but with the modesty befitting her youth, her inexperience, and her station ; she judges only of things which are within her comprehen- sion, and she judges of them only when this serves to develop some useful rule of conduct. She speaks of the absent only with the greatest circumspection, especially if they are women. She thinks that what makes them slan- derous and satirical is the habit of speaking of their own sex ; for as long as they restrict themselves to speaking of ours they are only just. Sophie, then, limits herself to this. As to women, she never speaks of them save to say of them the good which she knows it is an honor which she thinks she owes to her sex ; and of her of whom she knows nothing good to say, she says nothing at all, and this is understood. Sophie is little versed in the ways of the world ; but she is obliging, attentive, and puts an air of grace into everything she does. A happy disposition serves her better than much art. She has a certain politeness of her own which does not depend on formulas, which is not 296 EMILE. subject to fashion, which does not change with it, which does nothing through custom, but which comes from a true desire to please, and which does please. She knows nothing of trivial compliments, and does not go out of her way to invent them ; she does not say that she is greatly obliged, that one does her great honor, that one need not take the trouble, etc. Much less does she think of exchanging compliments. To a courtesy, or to a formal act of politeness, she replies by a bow or by an / thank you ; but this word from her mouth is worth many others. For a real serv- ice she lets her heart speak, and it is not a compliment that it dictates. She has never allowed French customs to subject her to the yoke of affectation, as in giving her arm, while going from one room to another, to an old man of sixty whom she might the rather desire to assist. When a perfumed gallant offers her this impertinent serv- ice she leaves this officious aid on the stairs, and trips into the parlor, saying that she is not lame. In fact, although she is not tall, she has never wished for high heels ; she has feet that are small enough to do without them. She not only maintains a silent and respectful bearing in the presence of women, but even in the presence of married men, or those much older than she is ; she will never accept a place above them save through obedience, and will resume her own place below them the moment she is able to do so ; for she knows that age has prece- dence over sex, as it carries with it the presumption of wisdom, which ought to be honored before everything else. "With young men of her age it is different. She has need of a different manner in order to impress them, and she can assume it without forsaking the modest air which becomes her. If they are modest and reserved them- THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 297 selves, she will willingly continue with them the pleasing familiarity of youth ; their conversations, full of inno- cence, will be playful but decent ; if they become serious, she tries to make them useful ; if they degenerate into insipidity, she will soon bring them to a close ; for she has a supreme contempt for the petty cant of gallantry as very offensive to her sex. She well knows that the man whom she seeks does not indulge in this cant, and she never willingly suffers from another what is improper for him whose character is imprinted in the depths of her heart. The high opinion which she has of the rights of her sex, the pride of soul which gives her the purity of her feelings, that energy of virtue which she feels in herself and which makes her respectable in her own eyes, make her listen with indignation to the mawkish speeches with which people presume to amuse her. She does not receive them with an anger that is apparent, but with an ironical applause which is disconcerting, or with a cool- ness of manner which is unexpected. Let a loquacious beau pay her compliments, extol her in high terms for her wit, for her beauty, her graces, and for the priceless happiness of pleasing her, and she promptly interrupts him by saying politely : " Sir, I am very much afraid that I know those things better than you do, and if we have nothing more interesting to talk about, I think we had better cut short our conversation at this point." To ac- company these words with a grand courtesy, and then to find herself twenty paces from him, is to her but the work of an instant. Ask your fops if it is easy to show off their wit at any length before a character as testy as this one. This is not saying, however, that she does not greatly love to be praised, provided it is in earnest, and that she can believe that what is said of her is really sincere. In 298 EMILE. order to appear affected by her merits we must begin by showing some ourselves. Homage founded on esteem may flatter her haughty spirit, but all gallant quizzing is always repelled ; Sophie was not made to practice the little arts of a stage-dancer. With such a great maturity of judgment, and devel- oped in all respects like a girl of twenty, Sophie at fifteen will not be treated by her parents as a child. They no sooner observe in her the first restlessness of youth than they hasten to provide for it before it progresses further ; they will hold tender and sensible conversations with her. These conversations are adapted to her age and character. If this character is such as I have imagined it to be, why might not her father address her somewhat as follows ? " Sophie, you are now a large girl, and it is not always to remain a girl that you have become such. We wish you to be happy, and it is for our sakes that we wish this, because our happiness depends on yours. The happiness of a noble girl consists in making a good man happy. We must therefore think of your marriage, and we must think of it thus early, for on marriage depends the des- tiny of life, and there is never too much time for think- ing of this. " Nothing is more difficult than the choice of a good husband, save, perhaps, that of a good wife. Sophie, you shall be that rare woman. You shall be the glory of our life and the happiness of our old age ; but with what- ever accomplishments you may be endowed, the world will never be lacking in men who are still more accom- plished than you are. There is not one who ought not to feel honored by honoring you, but there are many who would honor you more. Of this number it is your task to find one who is fit for you, and to make yourself acquainted with him, and him acquainted with you, THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 299 " Your mother was of good family, and I was rich ; and these were the sole considerations which induced our parents to unite us I have lost my property and she has lost her rank. Forgotten by her family, of what use is it to her to-day to have been born a lady ? In our mis- fortunes the union of our hearts has consoled us for all our losses ; conformity of tastes has made us choose this retreat. We live here happy in our poverty, and what each is to the other takes the place of all besides. Sophie is our common treasure. We thank Heaven for having given her to us and for having taken from us everything else. See, my child, where Providence has led us. The considerations which led to our marriage have disap- peared, and we are happy only by reason of those which then counted for nothing. " Husband and wife must be matched. Mutual in- clination ought to be their first bond. Their eyes and their hearts ought to be their first guides ; for as their first duty, when united, is to love each other, as loving or not loving does not depend on ourselves, this duty neces- sarily involves another, and this is to begin by loving each other before becoming united. This is the law of nature, which nothing can abrogate ; and those who have ob- structed its action by so many civil laws, have had more regard for apparent order than for the happiness of mar- riage and the morals of citizens. You see, my Sophie, that we are not preaching to you a difficult morality. It tends merely to make you mistress of yourself, and to bring us into consultation with you on the choice of your husband. " After having stated to you our reasons for granting you entire liberty, it is just to speak to you also of the reasons why you should use this liberty with wisdom. If equality of merit were the only question, I do not kno^v 300 EMILE. what limit I ought to place on your hopes ; but do not raise them above your fortune, and do not forget that it is of the lowest rank. Although a man worthy of you does not count this inequality as an obstacle, you ought to do in that case what he will not do. Sophie ought to imitate her mother, and enter only a family which feels honored by her. You have not seen our opulence. You were born during our poverty, and you have made it sweet to us by sharing it without complaint. Believe me, Sophie, never seek property, of which we thank Heaven for having relieved us. We never tasted happiness until after having lost our wealth. " You will be sought for, and doubtless by persons who will not be worthy of you. If they appeared to you as they really are, you would estimate them for what they are worth; all their display would not long impose on you ; but, although you have good judgment and know your own merits, you are lacking in experience, and do not know to what extent men can disguise themselves. An adroit rascal may study your tastes in order to lead you astray, and in your presence feign virtues which he does not have. This one might ruin you, Sophie, before you were aware of it, and you would become conscious of your error only to weep over it. The most dangerous of all snares, and the only one which reason can not avoid, is that of the senses. If you ever have the misfortune to fall into it, you will see nothing but illusions and idle fancies ; your eyes will be fascinated, your judgment will be unsettled, your will will be corrupted, and you will cherish even your illusion, and when you are in a con- dition to be conscious of it you will not disown it. My daughter, it is to Sophie's reason that I confide you, but I do not confide you to the inclinations of her heart. As long as you are cool-headed, remain your own judge ; but THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 301 as soon as you are in love, then trust the care of yourself to your mother. " I propose to you an agreement which indicates to you our esteem and reestablishes the order of nature be- tween us. Parents choose a husband for their daughter and consult her only as a matter of form ; this is the custom. But between ourselves, we shall do just the con- trary you shall choose, and we shall be consulted. Exer- cise your right, Sophie ; exercise it freely and wisely. The husband who is fit for you ought to be your choice, and not ours ; but it is for us to judge whether you are not deceived as to what is best, and whether, without knowing it, you are not doing something different from what you intend. Birth, wealth, rank, opinion, will not enter at all into our reasons. Choose an honorable man, whose person pleases you and whose character is adapted to you, and, whatever he may be in other respects, we shall accept him as our son-in-law. His wealth will always be great enough if he has hands, good morals, and loves his family. His rank will always be sufficiently illustrious if he ennobles it by virtue. Were the whole world to blame us, what matters it ? We are not seeking the approbation of the public, but are satisfied if you are happy." Readers, I do not know what effect such a conversation would have on girls educated in your way. As to Sophie, she will not be able to reply to it in words ; shame and emotion will not allow her easily to express herself ; but I am very sure that it will remain graven in her heart as long as she lives, and that if we can count on any humar resolution, it is on that which she will make of being worthily esteemed of her parents. Man in a state of nature is hardly a thinker. Think- ing is an art that is learned, as other arts tire, and even 302 with more difficulty. In the two sexes I know of but two classes that are really distinct people who think and people who do not think ; and this difference depends al- most wholly on education. A man belonging to the first of these two classes ought not to form an alliance with the second ; for the greatest charm of companionship fails him when, having a wife, he is reduced to thinking alone. Men who devote their whole lives to working for a living have no other idea than that of their work or their inter- ests, and their whole mind seems to be at the ends of their fingers. This ignorance is hurtful neither to probity nor io manners ; often it 'is serviceable to them. We often compromise with duty by reflecting on it, and in the end we substitute talk for things. The conscience is the clear- est of philosophers, and we need not know Cicero's Offices in order to be a man of worth ; and the most honorable woman in the world has perhaps the least idea of what honor is. But it is none the less true that only a culti- vated mind can make companionship agreeable ; and it is a sad thing for the father of a family who loves his home to be compelled to shut himself up there alone, unable to make himself understood by any one. Moreover, how shall a woman who has not the habit of reflection educate her children? How shall she dis- cover what is best for them ? How shall she incline them to virtues which she does not know, and to attainments of which she has no idea? She will be able only to humor or to threaten them, to make them insolent or timid ; she will make of them affected apes or rattle- headed rogues, but never children of good minds or amia- ble dispositions. It is then not meet for an educated man to take a wife who is uneducated, nor, consequently, to marry into a class where education is impossible. But I would a THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 303 hundred times prefer a simple girl, rudely brought up, to a girl of learning and wit who should come to establish in my house a literary tribunal of which she should make herself the president. A woman of wit is the scourge of her husband, her children, her friends, her servants, of everybody. In the sublime elevation of her fine genius she disdains all the duties of woman, and always begins by making a man of herself, after the example of Made- moiselle de 1'Enclos. Away from home she is always the subject of ridicule, and is very justly criticised, as one never fails of being the moment she leaves her proper station and enters one for which she is not adapted. All this pretense is unworthy of an honorable woman. "Were she the possessor of real talents, her pretension would abase them. Her dignity is in leading a retired life ; her glory is in the esteem of her husband ; her pleasures are in the happiness of her family. Readers, I appeal to you on your honor which gives you the better opinion of a woman as you enter her room, which makes you approach her with the greater respect : to see her occupied with the duties of her sex, with her house- hold cares, the garments of her children lying around her ; or, to find her writing verses on her dressing-table, surrounded with all sorts of pamphlets and sheets of note- paper in every variety of color ? If all the men in the world were sensible, every girl of letters would remain un- married all her life. It is asked whether it is good for young men to travel, and the question is in great dispute. If it were differently stated, and it were asked whether it is good for men to have traveled, perhaps there would not be so much dis- cussion. The abuse of books kills science. Thinking they know "what they have read, men think they can dispense 304 with learning it. Too much reading serves only to make presumptuous ignoramuses. Of all the centuries of litera- ture there is not one in which there has been so much reading as in this, and not one in which men have heen less wise ; of all the countries of Europe, there is not one where so many histories and travels have been printed as in France, and not one where less is known of the genius and customs of other countries. So many books make us neglect the book of the world ; or, if we still read in it, each one confines himself to his leaf. A Parisian fancies he knows men, while he knows only Frenchmen. In his city, always full of strangers, he regards each foreigner as an extraordinary phenomenon which has no fellow in the rest of the universe. We must have had a near view of the citizens of that great city, we must have lived with them, in order to believe that with so much spirit they can also be so stupid. The queer thing about it is, that each of them has read, perhaps ten times, the description of the country one of whose inhabi- tants has filled him with so much wonder. It is too much to have to wade through at the same time the prejudices of authors and our own in order to arrive at the truth. I have spent my life in reading books of travel, and I have never found two of them which gave me the same idea of the same people. On comparing the little which I was able to observe with what I had read, I have ended by abandoning travelers, and by regretting the time which I had spent in order to instruct myself in their reading, thoroughly convinced that in respect of observations of all sorts we must not read, but see. This would be true even if all travelers were sincere, if they related only what they have seen or what they believe, and if they disguised the truth only by the false colors which it takes in their eyes. What must it be when, in THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 305 addition, we have to discern the truth through their false- hoods and their bad faith ? Let us, then, abandon the expedient of books which are commended to us, to those who are made to be contented with them. Like the art of Raymond Lully,* they are useful for teaching us to prate about what we do not know. They are useful for preparing Platos of fifteen for philosophizing in clubs, and for instructing a company on the customs of Egypt and India, on the faith of Paul Lucas or of Tavernier. I hold it for an incontestable maxim, that whoever has seen but one people, instead of knowing men, knows only those with whom he has lived. Hero, then, is still another way of stating the same question of travels. Is it sufficient for a well-educated man to know only his own countrymen, or is it important for him to know men in general ? There no longer remains dispute or doubt on this point. Observe how the solution of a difficult question sometimes depends on the manner of stating it. But, in order to study men, must we make the tour of the whole earth ? Must we go to Japan to observe Euro- peans ? In order to know the species, must we know all the individuals ? No ; there are men who resemble one another so closely that it is not worth the trouble to study them separately. He who has seen ten Frenchmen has seen them all. Although we can not say the same of the English and of some other peoples, it is nevertheless cer- tain that each nation has its peculiar and specific char- acter, which is inferred by induction, not from the obser- vation of a single one of its members, but of several. He * An allusion to the Ars Magna of Raymond Lully, a sort of verbal and syllogistic mechanism or machine for forming proposi- tions. (Souquet). who has compared ten peoples knows mankind, just as he who has seen ten Frenchmen knows the French. For purposes of instruction it is not sufficient to stroll through countries, but we must know how to travel. In order to observe, we must have eyes, and must turn them toward the object which we wish to examine. There are many people whom travel instructs still less than books, because they are ignorant of the art of thinking ; whereas in reading, their mind is at least guided by the author, while in their travels they do not know how to see anything for themselves. Others are not instructed because they do not wish to be instructed. Their object is so different that this hardly affects them. It is very doubtful whether we can see with exactness what we are not anxious to observe. Of all the people in the world, the Frenchman is he who travels the most ; but, full of his own ways, he slights indiscriminately everything which does not resem- ble them. There are Frenchmen in every corner of the world. There is no country where we find more people who have traveled than we find in France. But notwith- standing all this, of all the people of Europe, the one that sees the most of them knows them the least. The Eng- lish also travel, but in a different way ; and it seems that these two nations must be different in everything. The English nobility travel, the French nobility do not travel ; the French people travel, the English people do not travel. This difference seems to me honorable to the latter. The French have almost always some personal interest in their travels ; but the English do not go to seek their fortune abroad, unless it is through commerce, and with full pockets. When they travel, it is to spend their money abroad, and not to live there on the fruits of their indus- try ; they are too proud to go prowling about away from home. This also causes them to learn more from for- THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 307 eigners than the French do, who have a totally different object in view. The English, however, have their national prejudices also, and even more of them than any one else ; but these prejudices are due less to ignorance than to passion. The Englishman has the prejudices of pride, and the Frenchman those of vanity. There is a great difference between traveling to see the country and traveling to see the people. The first object is always that of the curious, while the other is only inci- dental for them. It ought to be the very opposite for one who wishes to philosophize.. The child observes things, and waits until he can observe men. The man ought to begin by observing his fellows, and then he can observe things,, if he has the time. It is bad reasoning to conclude that travels are useless because we travel in the wrong way. But, admitting the utility of travels, does it follow that they are best for everybody ? Far from it ; on the contrary, they are good for only a very few people ; they are good only for men who have sufficient self-control to listen to the lessons of error without allowing themselves to go astray, and to see the example of vice without permitting themselves to be drawn into it. Travel develops the natural bent of char- acter, and finally makes a man good or bad. Whoever re- turns from a tour of the world is, on his return, what he will be for the rest of his life. Of those who return, more are bad than good, because more of those who start out are inclined to evil rather than good. Badly educated and badly trained young men contract during their trav- els all the vices of the peoples whom they visit, but not one of the virtues with which these vices are mingled ; but those who are happily born, those whose good-nature has been well cultivated, and who travel with the real purpose of becoming instructed, all return better ancl 33 308 wiser than when they started out. It is thus that my Emile shall travel. Whatever is done through reason ought to have its rules : Travels, considered as a part of education, ought to have theirs. To travel for the sake of traveling, is to be a wanderer, a vagabond ; to travel for the sake of in- struction, is still too vague an object, for instruction which has no determined end amounts to nothing. I would give to the young man an obvious interest in being instructed ; and this interest, if well chosen, will go to determine the nature of the instruction. This is always the method which I have attempted to put in practice. Now, after having considered my pupil through his physical relations with other creatures, and through his moral relations with other men, it remains to consider him through his civil relations with his fellow-citizens. For this purpose he must begin by studying the nature of government in general, the different forms of govern- ment, and, finally, the particular government under which he lives. APPENDIX. THE following quotations are taken from John Grand Carteret's J. J. Rousseau juge par les Fran9ais d'aujour- d'hui (Paris, 1890), and they doubtless represent the mature judgments of the most eminent French writers of to-day respecting their enigmatical countryman. As frequently happens, Rousseau's earliest and most enthusiastic ad- mirers and disciples were not Frenchmen, but Germans and Englishmen, and it was not till within a recent period that this prophet found honor in his own country. For the last one hundred years there has not been a single re- form which we may not see formulated in some one of Rousseau's works. All our current political theories are contained in the Contrat Social. All our aspirations after justice are in the Discours sur L'inegalite. All our programmes of instruction and education' are found an- nounced in the Emile. All attempts at religious renovation are traceable to the Profes- sion de Foi du Vicaire Savoyard. JOHN GRAND CARTERET. The Emile is the most complete monument of Rousseau's phi- losophy. Under the pretext of education, he grasps at their very origin the principles of religion and morals, and follows them in all their applications to society and to human life. The fundamental idea is the one announced in his other works that man is naturally good, but that he has been depraved by society. The ordinary edu- (309) 310 SMILE. cation is the instrument of this depravation ; it substitutes our prejudices and acquired vices for the original rectitude of nature. The only good education is a " negative education," which does not produce the virtues, but prevents vices ; which does not teach the truth, but preserves from error. All foreign influence being avoided or paralyzed, the child must be allowed to grow up and develop in his natural liberty ; isolated and handed over to himself, he will in- vent in succession the arts and sciences, religion and morals ; he will learn to know the world and will find God. Each one must there- fore reproduce for his own use the work of the centuries, and redis- cover for himself whatever has a real value in the acquisitions of humanity. This isolation from society and its traditions, and from the progress which they summarize, or of the errors which they transmit, is a chimera which, by a flagrant contradiction, the pre- ceptor of Emile abandons almost constantly in practice. Within the compass of the most artificial system that can be imagined there are developed, one after another, with an equal elo- quence, the strangest paradoxes and the truest observations, the eccentricities of the partisan and the most sensible reforms. We everywhere feel ourselves in the presence of a thinker and writer who propagates ideas less through their truth than through senti- ment, and who addresses himself less to reason than to passion. While others devote themselves body and soul to the ardent task of breaking in pieces the religion of the past, and destroying the political and social order which rests upon it, he feels the need of reconstructing, in the midst of the ruins about him, a new society, where man, regenerated, may be both better and happier. He traces the plan of this in all its details with as much of imagination as of logic and of sentiment. After the grand philosophic dreamers the Platos, the Thomas Mores, and the Fenelons he opens the way and gives the inspiration to all modern Utopians. In place of humanity as it is, and as it has been created from day to day by the necessities of history and of life, he requires a new man for the society of his dreams, and fashions one as chimerical as the other, and both conform to his ideal. He who did not always take into account the duties of ordinary life, but accused himself indiscreetly of so many acts of baseness, would fashion and subject by authority all men to the highest and most formal perfection. To the service of his personal ideas he brings the magic of a style of a new order, and an eloquence full of movement and passion, APPENDIX. 311 scholarly and forceful, fanciful and personal, sonorous and colored, and of irresistible power. G. VAPEREAU. Rousseau has extolled the state of Nature, both for society and for the individual, and has pushed his indictment against the vices of civilization and the refinements of culture so far, that it has been held that he presumed to relegate men to the state of communism and barbarism. This is an error founded on a superficial or partial examination of his writings. Rousseau was not a pure theorist, proceeding by a + b and sub- jecting society without pity to the bed of Procrustes, nor a system- atic philosopher, obedient only to cold logic ; but was truly and above all else a man, with a heart profoundly human and reflective, and hence an impassioned moralist. Whatever may have been the sophisms, the contradictions, and the faults of Jean Jacques, it is nevertheless undeniable that he loved the true, the beautiful, and the good with an ardent affection, and that he bitterly repented whenever he allowed himself to be in- duced to betray them. This is true even of the deplorable abandon- ment of his children. It is certain that he preached and practiced the cult of friendship, country, and humanity. A. ESCHENAUER. Rousseau was never more than a man of the woods out of his native element. Obstinately opposed to civilized life, he pined in the midst of his fellows as though in an enemy's country, and he remained an unconquerable savage. He responded to friendship by suspicion, and to love by defiance ; "never saw fortune pass his door without thinking of a snare, and was always somber and, restless like a captive wolf. . No one felt to the same degree the worship of Nature. He who scorned to cut his beard in order to appear before the King of France, sprang from his bed at dawn in order to go to salute in the forest an early flower or a spring bird. Nature was his grand inspiration, and consoled him for his contact with men. Seated at the entrance of a solitary valley he found himself in his real country; he reposed with delight on grass untouched by human feet, forgot his bitter thoughts, and became good and tender-hearted ; a ray of the sun caused him to shed gentle tears, and his genius was called into life. Always and everywhere he loves Nature ; but his preferences are well known ; his ardent and restless imagination prefers to monotO' 312 nous pictures the sight of contrasts and convulsions. " I have need of torrents, fir-trees, rocks, dark woods, rugged paths, and precipices which strike me with fear." JULES DE GLOUVET. *> The essential element in Rousseau's genius was imagination, and hence his striking originality. He might be defined as an impas- sioned, exalted imagination, a marvelous subjective imagination. This imagination was due to an extraordinary sensibility, to an excessive impressibility of the sensitive apparatus and nervous system, so that there was a continuous flow to his brain of innu- merable vivid and subtile emotions and of intense and sparkling pictures. Profoundly affected by praise and blame, but little sure of himself by reason of his febrile temperament and incomplete education, Jean Jacques was at the same time very conceited and very timid. He lacked the quality which, according to himself, was essential to a hero, namely, power of soul or action. He therefore became a philosopher and a novelist. Weak, poor, ignorant, timid, scarcely possessing an exact sense of reality, having but little direct hold on the world, and not being able to satisfy in person his double ad- vocacy of love and virtue, he satisfied it through cerebral invention, through books. Instead of furnishing sensations and affections, his imagination produced ideas. Not being able to adapt himself to people and to things, this thinker remade people and things according to his need. This same man, so weak and so powerless when it was necessary to act, became all-powerful the moment he was not trammeled by ponderous matter. And it is not in the air that he builds. He does not relegate the ideal to heaven, but logically and mathematically he builds upon the earth for a living humanity. Having the genius of imagination, he is naturally a man of all contrasts as of all harmonies. He resolutely traverses the paradox in order to arrive at the truth. Artist and philosopher, he revolts against art and civilization the moment he sees that through their excessive development, civilization and art, like a parasitic vegeta- tion, mask, pervert, and sterilize Nature and humanity. A revolution is the advent of a new moral force. In the eight- eenth century he created a new faith. Without him the United States of America would probably not be a republic. He is the sou\ of the French Revolution. This whole epoch is impregnated with APPENDIX. 313 him. Mirabeau interprets him, and Madame Roland is his Julie in power. Rousseau developed a superior ideal of society by conciliating the principles of authority and of liberty through the association of souls, wills, and interests, and a higher ideal of religion by con- ciliating reason and faith through the culture of the beautiful. This is his highest glory and his best title to the eternal gratitude of mankind. For divine right he substituted human right. The republic is no longer the ancient closed city, so narrow and so jealous, founded on paternal right and slavery. He would have each one find in it his share of liberty and of happiness. In order to place his work above all dispute, he rehabilitates the people. Full of a generous unselfishness, has not the people a supreme degree of moral power, and is not moral power as necessary to progress as intellectual power! By this superiority of the humble, Rousseau has justified the sovereignty of all, and has con- secrated universal suffrage. Then, feeling the importance of the education of a people which has become sovereign, he has shown that no one must be allowed the license to corrupt a multitude, as Villeroy corrupted Louis XV when a child, and that a government ought, above everything else, to be a system of national education. EMILE BLEMOXT. Rousseau is immortal ; his name will never perish. We may imagine and even predict that a day will come when there will no longer be a single man in the world who has opened a single volume of Voltaire ; but Rousseau ! As long as the French language shall resound in the world, his works will remain an integral part of the soul of France. The moment we scrutinize his system of morals and come into close relations with it, it stands the test no better than his philoso- phy or his politics. The form is a marvel, but the substance is only an incoherent jumble of maxims, relatively true, but often false in their application. His intelligence was no sounder than his morality. Admirable as an intellectual machine, it produced only false ideas. If the in- telligence, as the etymology of the word indicates, is the faculty of tying together accordant ideas in order to form a clear and true conception of things, there is nothing more directly opposed to the intelligence than the paradox. Just as the paradox is ingenious and 314: startling when it is used to enforce a misconceived truth, so it is in- sufferable the moment it is reduced to a simple jeu cT esprit. Now, taking Rousseau's works from beginning to end, save descriptions of Nature and certain pictures of sentiment, we shall noi^fmd in them a line which is anything else than a paradox, eternally reproduced under all its forms. Whatever can decry, humiliate, disconcert, insult, revolt, or excite hatred and disgust, he sees everywhere, ex- hibits it at every word, and with a warmth and enthusiasm and an eloquence which does not leave the least doubt as to his sincerity. He sees the wrong side of everything that is, everything wrong side out; he does not see the right side, and he is not in a condition to see where it is. He does not perceive that all he has to do is to turn the fabric over. His mind was deformed from infancy, and could never be repaired. No ; he withdraws from the real world, and with the ink and paper of the old books with which he has stuffed his head he builds a moral and philosophic world, where imaginary men play a sort of fairy scene of ideal virtue. These are the models of reason and virtue that he presents to his contemporaries ; and, to crown all, it is always in the name of Nature and truth that he prof esses to speak. But this is not all ; for the more this frightful paradox is de- veloped and confirmed, the clearer the evidence becomes of another paradox, not less alarming, and one which we are constrained to acknowledge. It is this : if Rousseau, instead of the imaginary ideas which disturbed his intelligence, and instead of the moral de- rangement which upset his heart, had possessed only a mind that was sound and strong, and a heart that was pure and upright, there would have been one more honest man in the eighteenth century, but one less great man. This honest man would have brought up his children, instead of sending them to the hospital ; would have made watches and clocks of honest and merchantable quality ; would have had no enemies ; would have lived happy, and would have died in peace. As a great man this is what he has done : He brought back to a respect for God and virtue a society corrupted by irreligion and debauchery; he restored to the family the feeling of that simple fireside poesy which in the most humble condition can make of life an endless felicity ; he led man back to Nature, making him drink of its sweetness and revere its power ; he revealed to him, in the order and magnificence of creation, the eternal source of all justice APPENDIX. 315 and all truth ; in order to enjoy the grand spectacles of life and Nature, he taught him reverie as a new art for we may boldly say that before Rousseau humanity did not know how to dream. A martyr to all the exquisite and devouring passions of the human soul, it is in the midst of these flames that he raised to Heaven those cries of suffering or of love which after more than a century we can not hear without a shudder. For his reward, he lived the most unhappy of men, and died, God knows how ! Even his memory has found no repose ; as unfortunate as his life, it has been dragged from pinnacle to gutter and from gutter to pinnacle, by enemies or by admirers equally furious. That which gives to the work, as to the life of Rousseau, this savage violence, this childish rage, this drunkenness of morals or of reason, this blind zeal in error, this faith in things of which he is ignorant, is that heart of the workman which beats under the coat of the man of the world. It is that popular fiber which nothing can enervate, but which beats forever. This fact has not been sufficiently noticed, and perhaps has not been mentioned be- fore. As the miseries of this poor man have now been buried with him, it is time that death, which absolves even assassins, should 'finally and forever put an end to that inquest which has too long held in suspense the justice of posterity. The man is dead let him rest in peace ; but his genius survives, and whatever may be said of it by some ingrates and by some literary dolts, this genius is full of life, and still animates with its breath that art of writing which is the first of arts. We may boldly declare that it is Rousseau who has created the literature of the nineteenth century. He has cre- ated it by his inspiration, and has given it the blood and the nerves of the modern man, and the heart and the soul of France. He has also created it by his toil. He is the most consummate of dialecti- cians and the most potent of the artists who have explored, ex- tended, and elevated the science of thought. EUGENE MOUTON. In addition to his own Confessions, we have a thousand grounds for believing that his entire life was disordered by a wretched state of health, and by moral crises often bordering on madness. If he was not a madman, he certainly had a mind that was addicted to hyperbole and exaggeration, and a romantic imagination delighting in fictions and in delusive narrations. Men, things, and circum- 316 lliMILE. stances developed beyond measure the original characteristics of his mental personality. Would Jean Jacques have risen to the admirable heights which he has attained if, in order to facilitate his flight, he had not ex- perienced the reaction which follows the phases of physical enfee- blement and moral concentration? Would he have become our Rousseau if he had been the father of a family, tied down to an orderly and sedentary life by cares for his children and by the neces- sities of daily bread 1 Certainly not. But he would probably have remained an excellent engraver. Endowed with the analytic sense, he discovered the source of public ills in the bad education of children by ignorant parents, and in the bad education of the people by a nobility heedless of the rights of man as well as of the grand duties of the social compact. DR. J. ROUSSEL. It is the idea of the sovereignty of the people, proclaimed by the author of the Contrat social, as the only natural and legitimate basis of political power and national life, which made possible the Revolu- tion, by furnishing it at once with a flag, a motive of action, an ideal to realize, and an end to attain. CH. FAUVETY. Rousseau is far from having disregarded the importance of heredity in biology ; but he had a profound intuitive faith in the omnipotence of a rational education for the eradication of the morbid germs of body and mind. The Emile, burned at Paris and at Geneva, condemned in 1762 by the faculty of theology, is a book clearly conceived and expressed a sort of memorandum of the griefs of childhood, in which Rous- seau eloquently demands for the little creature the right to the maternal bosom, and banishes without return swaddling-clothes, lead- ing-strings, memorizing, artificial prematurity, and that educational overpressure which Locke had just stigmatized in England. The first in our country to amplify the ideas of the great English philosopher, Rousseau dared to demand a little more art and less science in education. The Emile was the pedagogic gospel which preceded the doctrine of the Froebels and Pestalozzis, the declara- tion of rights of infancy, the real seed of new ideas and hygienic progress. DR. E. MONIN. APPENDIX. 317 Of all the great writers belonging to the cycle of modern civiliza- tion, Rousseau is, with Shakespeare, the one who has the most loved and the best understood music. OSCAR COMETTANT. The literary fortune of Rousseau is one of the most extraor- dinary in history. No writer is better informed than he ; none has better understood all the resources of the French language, so difficult to handle ; none has pursued with a more delicate taste and a more tenacious patience the perfection of form. To the appeal to reason Rousseau has added an appeal to passion ; it is with passion particularly that he brought the old regime to trial. Others, in fact, resigned themselves to the existing evil. They adapted themselves to that society which nursed them. Rousseau, on his part, hates this society with all his soul. He hates it because there is no place in it worthy of him ; he hates it because he is poor ; he hates it because he is misunderstood and humiliated. He has known hunger and cold, physical and moral sufferings. He was born susceptible, proud, jealous, envious. He carries within him appetites and lusts which he can not satisfy ; and his rancor makes an appeal not only to justice, which condemns the present state of things, but also to the lusts and appetites of all the disin- herited. He shows them the banquet where others are seated, and where, nevertheless, their place was marked. CHARLES BIGOT. According to Rousseau, the nature of man had been poorly un- derstood until he appeared ; the human intelligence had been developed to an extreme degree ; by going back to the culture of the body, humanity will find its primitive virtue. In reality, this mag- nificent system carries us back to the innocence of brutes ; the ideal proposed to us is the triumph of instinct, life without thought, and the unvarying toil of the beaver, the ant, and the bee. Since the great evil which the philosopher makes war against the inequality of human conditions is caused by the inequality of education, the less men think the more nearly equal they will be. It was once believed that the real sign of man's superiority, that which dis- tinguished him from animals, was the faculty of reflecting. This was a mistake ; the evil begins with reflection. The man who thinks is a depraved animal; the moment he reflects he is lost he leaves the state of Nature, and introduces inequality into the world through the disproportion of intelligences. The last word of the 318 ** reform inaugurated with such pomp and so solemnly announced, is to invite humanity to adopt henceforth for a type a well-conditioned Shall Rousseau's errors make us insensible to the puissant quali- ties of his mind, to the force of his language, to so many noble sentiments which he often expresses with eloquence, and sometimes with charm ? Has he not understood, better than any one else in Prance, the life of Nature and the mysterious poesy of fields and woods ? Was he not the first to hear that universal voice which rises at certain hours from the bosom of the earth and which speaks of infinity? And the soul which is moved so profoundly by the spectacle of Nature, and which from tree or flower ascends with- out effort to Him who has created them, does it not preserve, not- withstanding its stains, a luminous trace of its divine origin ? It will be the eternal honor of Rousseau that he brought back in triumph, in the midst of a frivolous and incredulous society, sentiments which worldly irony had banished from it. The Emile introduces us into a moral world which has not yet the beauty of the Christian world, but which no longer has the frivolity of the century ; it speaks to us of duty and order, while we heard yesterday only of inclination and pleasure. ED. MEZIERES. Though Rousseau was born at Geneva, he belongs to France by his life and his death. Switzerland was his cradle, but France has his tomb. It is in France that he passed the greater part of his life ; it is with us that he suffered and struggled, and with us and for us that he wrote ; it was here that he was loved and hated, defended and persecuted. Rousseau is the ancestor of all of us who participate in political and literary life. In the largest and grandest sense of the term he was one of the fathers of the Revolution. He saw clearly that in order to build up a new society new men were necessary, and so he begins all his reforms, so to speak, ab ovo. In order to have in his state the citizens which he fancies, he must reform the whole education of his time. He takes the child at birth, in order to make of him a man absolutely different from what he had been in the past ; and he writes the l5mile, a powerful book, full of ideas, even to repletion, a book prodigiously fruitful, in which there is a complete renewal of the society which saw the end of the eighteenth century. APPENDIX. 319 His theories must not be interpreted literally, but must be adapt- ed to the situation, to the time, and to everything which, exterior to ourselves, modifies and sometimes binds our nature. But it is undeniable that Rousseau's books have been an inexhaustible mine of reforms, and even before the Revolution he exercised an astonish- ing influence on habits and manners. GUSTAVE RIVET. No one has raised a louder voice than Rousseau in behalf of ab- stract justice in favor of the poor and the oppressed ; no one has protested more strongly against human inequalities, even against those which result from the nature of things. To the definite but stationary and conservative notion of social utility, so dear to estab- lished governments, he opposes the higher doctrine, more favorable to progress, but also more equivocal and dangerous, of social justice, always ready to overthrow them. He was the ancestor and the pre- cursor of the socialists, so powerful in modern states. M. BERTHELOT. There is no book in the world so worthy of commendation as tha,t in which there is traced a plan of education. Read or reread the Emile, observe all that we are doing, the manner in which we train the child and conduct his instruction, and you will be con- vinced that our master is Rousseau. EDGAR MONTEIL. ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. BOOK FIRST. PAGE Whatever is natural is good, but whatever passes through the hands of men degenerates 1 Human weakness makes education necessary. All that we do not have at our birth, but which we need when grown, is given us by education. This education is derived from nature, from men, or from things. We thus derive our training from three sorts of teachers ; and we are well edu- cated only when there is harmony in these three disciplines. The education derived from men is the only one under our control ; hence our success can be only partial . . . 2, 3 Education must be natural in the sense that it must be based on the permanent elements in our constitution ... 4 As things go, the man and the citizen are incompatible ; and our only course is to form the man, for manhood is the stuff out of which the citizen is made 5 The Republic presents an ideal of public education ; but such an education is impossible in France, because we no longer have a country ; . . . 6 In order to determine what education should be, we must form a conception of what man is in his natural state ... 9 Education must make men superior to the accidents of life, and must be based on what is permanent and universal . . 10 That man has lived most who has felt most, not he who has numbered the most years 10 Society is a system of servitude ; but education should end in freedom 10 Children should be subjected to no artificial restraints ; and mothers should perform all their natural duties . . .11 (821) 822 PAG? Children should be allowed to suffer the natural consequences of their own acts, and should be schooled to suffering . 13 A child's cries should invite us to help him when he is in i-eal need, but should not make us servile to his whims . . 14 The child's natural teachers are his parents, and there is no real education outside of the family ; but if parents can not, or will not, assume this charge, a tutor must be found, and his highest qualification is that he is a man . . . .15 Experience has shown that I have no fitness for teaching ; but I venture to write this book as a guide for others . . .18 The tutor should be young, and should have had no other pupil, 19 The pupil whose education is described in this book is wealthy, of noble birth, sound in health, and an orphan ; and he and his tutor must be inseparable companions . . . 20, 21 Physical soundness is a postulate, for there can not be a vigor- ous soul in a feeble body. Medicine is an evil, and doctors are a pernicious tribe, Emile's only physicians shall be temperance and labor 21-23 Real men can not be grown in cities, and so Emile must be reared in the country 24 Baths are necessary, and should vary in temperature from cold to hot. All such artificial aids as swaddling-clothes, go- carts, etc., should be discarded 24 The only habit a child should have is to contract no habit whatever 26 Education should begin at birth, and children should be accus- tomed to see ugly objects, masks, etc., to hear alarming sounds, and to walk in dark places . . . 27, 28 Children should find resistance only in things, never in human wills 29 When they cry for an object, it is better to carry them to this object than to bring the object to them . . . .30 When a child is bad, it is because he is weak ; to keep him good, therefore, add to his power. When he destroys or hurts, it is not because he is bad, but because his surplus activity must be expended 31 We must supply the real needs of children in the way of in- telligence and strength, but must grant nothing to caprice, 32, 33 Children left in freedom will cry less than others ; but when ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 323 PAGE they cry their tears should not make them lord it over us. When they cry from obstinacy, pay no heed to their tears, but try to divert their attention. Give children no bells or toys, but simple things, like flowers and poppy-heads . 34, 35 Use language that is simple and phin, and be in no haste to make children talk. Country children speak more distinct- ly than others, because they must make a greater effort to hear and to be heard. Let children throw accent into their speech, and avoid all affectation in manner and language. Restrict them to the use of a few words, and let these words express real thoughts 37-40 BOOK SECOND. When children begin to speak they cry less ; articulate language takes the place of signs. Make their tears useless by pay- ing no attention to them 41 Make no ado over slight injuries, but teach the child to endure pain with composure. Allow mile to profit by the slight accidents that befall him, and thus teach him caution and prudence 42, 43 As a child's life is uncertain, do not sacrifice his present happi- ness for the supposed good of a future that may never come 44 As suffering is the lot of humanity, allow fimile to suffer when necessary, and do not protect him from the accidents inci- dent to childhood . 44 Let childhood have its own proper happiness ; let children be children ; and lengthen as much as possible the period of innocent enjoyment 45 In human life there is more suffering than enjoyment; and as our unhappiness depends on the excess of our desires over our power to gratify them, labor for the child's happiness by adding to his power and contracting his desires . . 46 Keep the child dependent on things ; gratify only his actual needs ; supply power when needed ; grant nothing to mere importunity 47 Make the child sincere in all he says and does, and do not allow him to use empty formulas of politeness .... 48 24 324: EMILE. PACK Avoid all excesses both of severity and of indulgence. Grant the child reasonable liberty, even at the expense of bodily discomfort and suffering, but stop short of exposing life and health 49, 50 A man who has not experienced suffering knows neither hu- man tenderness nor the sweetness of commiseration . . 50 The surest way to make a child miserable is to accustom him to obtain whatever he desires. If his infancy is made wretched in this way, what will be his condition as a man ? . .50 As there is nothing in the world more helpless or more pitiable than an infant, so there is nothing more shocking than a haughty and stubborn child lording it over his protectors. But it is barbarous to add to this helplessness by the exer- cise of our own caprices, as when we deprive children of the liberties which they can so little abuse. Before tutors and parents insist on their own methods, let them learn the method of Nature 51 The child should not hear the terms duty and obligation, for he can not comprehend their meaning; but as he should be obedient only to necessity, he can understand what is meant by force, impotency, and constraint . . . .52 As mere children are incapable of reason, it is folly to argue with them ; they must be governed by necessity . . .52 To know good and evil, and to understand the reason of human duties, is not the business of a child. I would as soon have a child be five feet in height as to have judgment at the age of ten . ' . 53, 54 Jn order to please you, children will pretend to be governed by reason, but this intimidation makes them weak and deceit- ful, insincere and untruthful. Employ force with children and reason with men, for this is the order of Nature . 54, 55 Never command a child to do anything ; never allow him even to suspect that you assume any authority over him ; but let him feel that he is weak, and that he is subject to the law of necessity which lies in things and not in human caprice ; keep him from doing wrong by preventing the opportunity for doing it. In this way you will make the child patient, calm, resigned, and peaceable 55. 5C Children have been depraved by making emulation, jealousy, ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 325 envy, vanity, and covetousness their motives of conduct. All instruments have been tried save one well-regulated liberty . 56, 57 Give your pupil no sort of verbal lesson ; inflict on him no sort of punishment ; and never make him ask your pardon. As there is no moral quality in his actions, he can do nothing wrong 57 Children who live in perpetual constraint abuse their liberty when it is once gained. Two city children will do more mischief in the country than the youth of a whole vil- lage , 58 The most important, the most useful, rule in all education is not to gain time, but to lose it. The most dangerous period in human life is the interval between birth and the age of twelve. The soul must have leisure to perfect its powers before it is called on to use them .... 58 The first education should be purely negative; it should not consist in teaching virtue and truth, but in shielding the heart from vice and the mind from error . . . .59 Follow the very reverse of the current practice and you will al- most always do right. Be reasonable, and do not reason at all with your pupils. Exercise his body, his senses, his organs, his powers, but keep his soul lying fallow as long as you can . .60 Take time to discover the bent of a child's mind before you pro- ceed to instruct him. Sacrifice time which you will regain with interest at a later period 60, 61 Another reason why femile should be brought up in the country is that his tutor will thus have more complete control over him, and he will not be corrupted by vicious servants . . 62 Much more harm than good is done by your ceaseless preach- ing, moralizing, and pedantry. Children are confused by your verbiage, pervert your meaning, and draw conclusions directly contrary to your intent 63 Teachers should be simple, discreet, reserved, and never in haste save to prevent others from interfering .... 63 If your child is inclined to destroy property, let him learn wis- dom by suffering the natural consequences of his acts. If he break the windows of his chamber, do not mend them, 326 PAGE but. let the cold wind blow on him day and night. It is better that he should take a cold than be a fool . 63, 64 Punishment should never be visited on children simply as pun- ishment, but solely as the natural and necessary conse- quence of their wrong-doing , . 65 I would not exact the truth from children for fear they may conceal it ; nor would I require them to make promises which they might be tempted not to keep . . . .65 Children are sometimes taught liberality by having them give away things which they do not value, or by holding out the prospect of a larger return. This is Locke's theory, and is a sample of the current manner of teaching the solid virtues ! C6 As it is difficult to foretell the genius of a child, be in no haste to judge of him either for good or for evil. Be in no haste, and allow Nature to have her way. Apparently we are los- ing time ; but is it nothing for a child to run and jump and play the livelong day ? Is it nothing to be happy ? In ancient Greece and Rome children and youth spent much of their time in play ; were they less useful as men on this ac- count! . . . . 67, 68 The facility with which children learn memory-lessons is decep- tive. Words are learned, but the ideas they represent are merely reflected. There can be no real memory without reason ; and before the use of reason the child does not re- ceive ideas, but images. Images are but the pictures of sen- sible objects, while ideas are general notions derived from the comparison of objects 69 As children are incapable of judgment, they have no real mem- ory. They seem to learn geometry, but in fact their mind grasps only the lines and angles of the figures used in their supposed demonstrations 70 I do not deny that children have some capacity for reasoning ; but this process is limited to what falls within the grasp of the senses. All studies that transcend their actual experi- ence are premature 71, 72 To display their skill, pedagogues prefer subjects that involve merely the verbal memory of their pupils. Hence their preference for geography, history, and the languages . . 73 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 327 PAGE If the study of languages were but the study of words, it might be suitable for children ; but as each language has its own peculiar form of thought, and as this form can be acquired only through the habits of a lifetime, I deny that a child can learn more than one language. He may indeed learn several vocabularies Greek, Latin, French, German, and Italian but he can speak but one tongue, that in which he was born 73, 74 Pedants have to show off the proficiency of their pupils in the classics because, these being dead languages, there is no one to question their success 74, 75 As words are of no value unless connected with the ideas they represent, mere verbal teaching, as in geography, is fruit- less, if not pernicious. In this way a child is likely to be- lieve that the world is a globe of pasteboard. The same vice runs through the study of history; we fancy we are teaching historical facts, while in reality we are teaching only empty words 75 lie who says these things is neither a scholar nor a philosopher, but a plain man, a friend to truth, and committed to no party or system. His arguments are founded less on prin- ciples than on facts which he has observed . . . .76 Once at a dinner party 1 heard a child recite the history lesson which had just been taught him by his tutor. The main incident of the lesson was the famous one where Alexander drank the supposed poison presented to him by Philip. I suspected that this child was reciting mere words, and, dur- ing our after-dinner walk, I asked him what he so much ad- mired in Alexander's conduct, and he replied that it was the courage he displayed in drinking the disagreeable potion ! 77, 78 Without ideas there is no real memory, and it is useless to in- scribe in the heads of children a list of words that represent nothing. In learning things, however, will they not also learn signs ! Then why need they be troubled to learn them twice ? By learning mere words on the authority of teachers, children early fall into snares and sacrifice their own judgment 78 Nature intended the mind to be a storehouse not of words but of ideas, which may serve for self-conduct during the 328 SMILE. MMB whole life. Without the aid of books memory thus be- comes the register of all that the child observes ; and the art of the teacher consists both in presenting what his pupil ought to know, and in concealing from him what he should not know 79 Emile shall learn nothing by heart, not even fables, for fables may instruct men, but not children ; because they can not understand them. Even if they could be understood by children the case would be still worse, for they would in- cline them to vice rather than to virtue . . . 80, 81 In the Ant and the Cricket you fancy that the poor cricket receives the child's sympathy, but his whole thought is centered on the miserly ant, and he learns to make niggard- liness a virtue 81 Heading is the scourge of infancy, and at the age of twelve Emile will hardly know what a book is. Until he learns how reading may be useful to him, books serve only to annoy him 81 Children should learn nothing of which they'can not see the actual and present advantage, and it is because children have been made to learn to read against their wills that books have become their torment .82 Various schemes have been invented to teach children how to read, but the surest has been forgotten. Give the child a desire to read, and you may lay aside all other devices ; every method will then be a good one 82 Present interest is the grand spring of action, the only one which with certainty leads to great results. Emile some- times receives notes of invitation for a dinner, or a boat- ride, and as he feels a pressing interest in deciphering them, he soon learns how to read 82, 83 We usually obtain very surely and very quickly what we are in no haste to obtain ; and I feel sure that Emile will know how to read and write perfectly before the age of ten, simply because I do not care to have him learn these things before he is fifteen 83 If you interest your pupil in things which immediately affect him, rather than in things which -are remote, you will always find him capable of perception, memory, and even ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAOB of reasoning. This is the order of Nature. But this method will stultify him if you are always telling him what to do. If your head is always directing his arms, his own head will become useless 83, 84 The body and the mind should move in concert, and the second should direct the first. Your pupil should learn the art of self-conduct, but if you are forever prescribing this and that you leave him no opportunity to manage his own affairs. Assured of your foresight on his account, what need has he of any I 84, 85 fimile is early trained to rely on himself as much as possible. He receives his lessons from Nature and not from men, and thus acquires a large experience at an early age. His body and his mind are called into exercise at the same time, and he thus comes into possession of two things which are thought to be incompatible strength of body and strength of mind, the reason of a sage and the strength of an athlete . 85, 85 1 know I am preaching a difficult art that of governing with- out precept, and of doing all while doing nothing. You will never succeed in making scholars if you do not first make them rogues. This was the education of the Spartans 86 In the ordinary education the teacher commands and fancies that he governs ; but, in fact, it is the child who governs. Your government is a system of treaties, which you propose in your way but which your pupil executes in his own, 86, 87 Try an opposite course with your pupil. While you really govern, let him always fancy that he is the master. There is no subjection so perfect as that which preserves the ap- pearance of liberty. Doubtless your pupil ought to do only what he chooses, but he ought to choose only what you wish to have him do 87 Under these conditions there may be free indulgence in physical exercise without any unhappy effect on the mind or character, fimile will turn all his surroundings to profit- able account, while pleasing himself will do only what he ought, will mature his judgment, and will become truth- ful and confiding , , , 88 330 tiMILE. PAGE The so-called caprices of children do not come from Nature, but are the results of bad training 88 This free intercourse with Nature gives the child the only kind of reason of which he is capable. This school of experience is worth more to the child than the lessons learned in class- rooms 89 As man must measure himself with his environment, his first study is a sort of experimental physics for purposes of self- preservation. Our first teachers of philosophy are our feet, our hands, and our eyes, and to substitute books for these is not to teach us to reason, but to use the reason of others, 90 As our limbs, our organs, and our senses are the instruments of our intelligence, they must be exercised and trained in order that we may learn to think. To make the processes of the mind facile and sure, the body must be kept strong and robust . . 90 The child's dress should permit the full movement of his limbs and not so close-fitting as to produce stagnation of the bodily humors 90 Children should wear little or no head-dress at any time of the year, and they should be inured to cold by wearing scanty clothing. The whole body should be subjected to a process of physical hardening 91, 92 Growing children require long periods of sleep. If Emile were Nature's own, his sleep should be uninterrupted ; but the requirements of civilized life demand that he should be able to go to bed late, to rise early, to be abruptly awak- ened, and even to sit up all night 93 fimile should be accustomed to hard beds, for he can not always sleep on down. If he does not sleep enough, I allow him to foresee for the next day a tedious forenoon. If he sleeps too late, I tell him of some amusement he has lost . . 94 If fimile were simply a child of Nature he would not be shielded from the danger of small-pox by inoculation ; but as he must live in society he may be inoculated or not as time, place, and circumstance may determine . . . .95 5Tour pupil must be familiarized with peril, and for this reason he should learn to swim. By taking proper precautions you may teach him this art without exposing his life , . 96 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 331 PAGE We neither know how to touch, to see, nor to hear, save as we have been taught. Therefore, do not exercise the child's strength alone, but call into exercise all the senses which direct it 97 Children should learn to determine the required length of levers by trial, and to estimate the weight of masses by sight. When in a dark room they may learn their place by echoes or by the movements of the air as it strikes their faces . 98 To accustom children to darkness, they should have many sports by night. Do not try to dissipate the fear of darkness by reasoning, but take children into dark places, and while there make them laugh and play 98, 99 To accustom children to unforeseen encounters at night, teach them to be cool and firm, and to give blow for blow. The result will usually show that there was no real danger . 100 To arm fimile against unforeseen accidents, let him spend his mornings in running about everywhere barefoot. Let him learn to take risks by climbing trees, scaling rocks, leaping over brooks, etc 100, 101 It is easy to interest children in estimating and measuring dis- tances by appealing to some ready motive. We wish to make a swing between two trees : will a rope twelve feet long answer the purpose! 101 I once succeeded in interesting an indolent boy in athletic sports by letting him see two boys run for a small prize. After many trials he caught the contagion, and became as sensible as ordinary boys. Incidentally he was taught to be gener- ous, and he acquired great skill in estimating distances, 102-105 The intuitions of sight must be corrected and perfected by the sense of touch. Between mere estimates by the eye and absolute measurements by the hand there should come relative measurements by well-known objects, as trees or houses ........... 106 Children should learn to draw not merely for the art itself, but for rendering the eye accurate and the hand deft. They should have no master but Nature, and no models but ob- jects. In this way pupils will scrawl for a long time, but by this steady imitation of objects they will come to know them, I will encourage my pupil by blundering as he does. 332 6MILE. PAGE Were I an Apelles, I would appear to be no more than a dauber . 107-109 As we were in need of ornaments for our chamber, I make this a motive for ISmile to produce good pictures ; and to en- courage him still further I arrange his several copies of the same object in a series, in order to show him his progress. "On his best pictures I put a very plain frame, and on his poorest a fine gilt frame, thus teaching him that what is intrinsically the best needs nothing else to commend it . 109 Geometry may be made a study suitable for children by treating it as a system of exact measurements. The properties of figures are not to be demonstrated a priori, but simply found by careful observation 110-112 Children should not be restricted to sports and exercises that are merely childish ; but, in order to draw out their powers. we must presume somewhat on their strength and endur- ance. To acquire skill they must incur some risk . 113, 114 The physical training we give children should be for them but play, the facile and voluntary direction of the movements which Nature demands of them without the least appear- ance of that constraint which turns them into labor . . 115 A perfect music unites the articulated, the melodious, and the modulated or impassioned voice, but children are incapable of this music. There is but little accent in their conversa- tion, and no modulation in their voice. Do not trust your pupil to declaim, for he can not express sentiments he has never felt. Teach him to speak simply and clearly, to ar- ticulate correctly, and to pronounce accurately, but without affectation. And in singing make*his voice accurate, uni- form, flexible, sonorous, and his ear sensible to measure and harmony, but nothing more 115, 116 A child may consistently learn his notes before learning his let- ters, because in speaking we render our own ideas, while in singing we do hardly more than render the ideas of others .116 Appetite is the surest guide to what we ought to eat, the food that is most agreeable being, in general, the most whole- some. Children having free access to the pantry are not likely to become gluttons, and there is no reason why a good ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 333 PAGE dinner may not be a reward of merit. Accustom children to common and simple dishes, and they may eat as much as they will without danger of indigestion. Should the appe- tite become inordinate, amusements may distract the mind from eating 117-120 By the method of Nature our pupil has now been led across the region of the sensations up to the confines of juvenile reason ; but, before advancing to the next period of life, let us re- view the stage already passed. We have heard much of the grown man ; let us consider for a moment what a grown child is. The spectacle will be newer, but no less interesting. 121 Why is it that the spring-time fills us with hope and delight, while the aspect of autumn produces sadness and gloom f It is because the spring is to pass into the glories of sum- mer, while autumn is to be followed by the dreariness of winter. So the aspect of childhood and youth is pleasing, because there is the promise of the riper and more beautiful manhood ; but the contemplation of old age is unlovely, be- cause beyond it is decrepitude and death. I contemplate the child and he pleases me ; I imagine the man and he pleases me more ; his ardent blood seems to add warmth to my own ; I seem to live with his life, and his vivacity makes me young again 121, 122 The clock strikes, an austere man summons him to his books, and what a change ! In a moment his eye grows dull, his mirth ceases, and his heart is heavy with sighs which he dares not utter 122 But come, my fitnile, thou who hast nothing to fear like this, and by thy presence console me for the departure of this unhappy youth ! He comes, and at his approach 1 am con- scious of feelings of joy which I see that he shares with me, for it is his friend, his comrade, his playfellow, that he ap- proaches ' 123 finaile is self-assured and content, and is the picture of health and youthful vigor. All his movements bespeak firmness and resolution. He is open and frank, without insolence or vanity 124 You need not tremble for him in the presence of company, for he will be self-possessed, candid, manly, and without affec- 334 EMILE. tation. He does not say much, but he always speaks to the point. His knowledge is limited, but he is sure of what he knows. He has more judgment than memory, speaks but one language, but speaks this well. In his speech he fol- lows no set formulas, but speaks and acts just as seems to him best. His moral ideas are limited to his actual condi- tion, and beyond these he professes to know nothing. He will do anything to please you, but nothing because you commend it. He would ask information from a king just as he would from a servant, for in his eyes all men are equal. He is neither cringing nor imperious, but is mod- estly confident and sweetly conscious of his dependence on others. Refusals do not offend him, for he sees in them the law of necessity 125, 126 When left to himself in perfect liberty you will observe that all his acts are prompt and have a definite purpose. Before seeking information from others he will try to obtain it for himself. If he falls into unforeseen difficulties he will be less disturbed than others. As he sees only what is real he estimates dangers only for what they are worth. He has borne the yoke of necessity from his birth, and is not dis- couraged at the inevitable 127 Whether at work or at play he is equally content. His sports are his occupations, and he sees no difference between them. What more charming sight than a pretty child with bright and merry eye, with pleased and placid mien, doing the most serious things under the guise of play, or profoundly occupied with the most frivolous amusements? . . 127, 128 Judged by comparison, Emile is superior to other children in dexterity, in strength, in judgment, in reason, and in fore- sight. It is so easy for him to make everything bend to his will that all Nature, so to speak, is at his command. He is born to guide and go,vern, for talent and experience serve him instead of law and authority 128 Eraile has lived the life of a child, and has not bought his per- fection at the cost of his happiness. Were he now to die we should find consolation in the thought that he has at least enjoyed his childhood, and that we have caused him to lose nothing that Xature had given him . , . 128, 129 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 335 PAGE The great disadvantage of this mode of education is that none but the clear-sighted can appreciate it. Ordinary teachers think of themselves rather than of their pupils, and so prize in their education only what can be exhibited. Emile has nothing to exhibit but himself, and we can no more see a child in a moment than a man 129 Too many questions weary a child, and his attention soon flags. It therefore requires good judgment in us in order to ap- preciate the judgment of a child. As the late Lord Hyde was one day walking with his son, a boy of nine or ten, they observed some boys who were flying their kites, and the father said to his son, " Where is the kite whose shadow we see yonder?" Without raising his head, the child re- plied, "In the highway." And, in fact, added Lord Hyde, the highway was between us and the sun .... 130 BOOK THIRD. INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. Man's weakness comes from the excess of his desires over his power to gratify them, and he becomes relatively strong when his growth in power surpasses the growth of his needs. This is the third stage of childhood, and the one now to be discussed 131 I shall be told that a child of this age has less relative power than I ascribe to him ; but I am speaking of my own pupil, and not of those made-up creatures who faint at the least effort. In the country I see boys of twelve or thirteen who do the work of men. This is true also of the mental power which gives direction to the bodily powers . . . . 132 This interval is the most precious period of life; it is short, it comes but once, and it must be well employed. It is the period of labor, instruction, and study, and its net acquisi- tion must be kept in store for future use .... 133 As the human intelligence is limited it can not know every- thing, and if it could there is much that is not worth know- ing. Our pupil must be restricted to what is really useful. And from things useful we must eliminate whatever falls outside the compass of the child's intelligence. This circle 336 PAM is very small compared with the whole domain of knowl- edge, but how immense with respect to the mind of a child! 133, 134 Curiosity is the grand spring of action at this age not that arti- ficial curiosity which springs from opinion or fashion, but that nobler passion which stimulates the child to know whatever is connected with his well-being. We must reject from a child's studies all those for which he has not a natu- ral taste . . 135, 136 In our state of feebleness we are wrapped up in what concerns our physical well-being; but in our state of potency we reach but after what is beyond us. In this new period of the child's life the earth and the sun are the two objects that enlist his attention. Draw his attention to these nat- ural phenomena and you will make him curious; but to nourish this curiosity do not satisfy it. Emile is not to learn science, but to discover it 136, 137 In teaching geography, maps and globes are useless machines. Take the child where he can see the glories of the sun's rising and setting, and feel the charms of the morning and the evening. Do not pour into his ears your own descrip- tions of these natural phenomena, but allow him to see, and feel, and reflect 138, 139 Educated in this spirit, your pupil will long reflect in silence before asking aid from others. If, after some days of un- rest, he is not able to understand the earth's diurnal revolu- tion, and the cause of day and night, address to him some question which will put him in the way of a correct solu- tion 140, 141 In general, never substitute the sign for the thing itself save when it is impossible to show the thing. The machines for teaching astronomical facts are misleading, for they distort actual proportions, and absorb the attention which would otherwise be applied to the real objects of study . . . 141 It is a disputed question whether we should resort to analysis or to synthesis in the study of the sciences. We may em- ploy either or both. In geography, we may start from the child's home and go out toward the entire globe by suc- cessive additions, or we may begin with the artificial globe ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTEXTS. 337 PAGE and meet the child as he is coming toward us. This unex- pected meeting will be an agreeable surprise . . . 142 Let the child construct maps of these observations, first very simple, but gradually elaborated as he finds new facts to register 143 The spirit of my system is not to teach the child many things, but to give him a few clear ideas on essential topics, and, above all, to shield his mind from error. This peaceful epoch of the intelligence is so short that we must improve it to the uttermost. We can not teach him the sciences, but we can inspire him with a taste for them, and this is the economic principle of all sound education . . 143, 144 Emile must do nothing against his will. It is necessary, in- deed, that he learn to give consecutive attention to the same thing, but his motive should be pleasure, and never constraint. If he asks questions, let your replies merely stimulate his curiosity ; and if you discover that he asks questions merely to pass the time or to annoy you, pay no attention to them 144, 145 Emile shall not learn the ready-made science of the philosophers, but shall proceed from fact to fact by the method of dis- covery. For example, to teach him the elements of elec- tricity, I take him to a fair where a juggler performs amus- ing tricks with an artificial duck floating in a basin of water. Emile experiences various chagrins, but in the end he learns in the school of experience what I wished to teach him 145-150 Following the same general plan, Emile will learn the effects of temperature on solids and liquids, will discover the prin- ciple of the thermometer, the barometer, the siphon, etc., and will finally comprehend the laws of statics and hydro- statics. He will not resort to ready-made instruments, but will gradually invent and perfect simple apparatus to ver- ify his own discoveries 150, 152 Our clearest and most valuable knowledge is that which we gain from our own independent observations, and anything which relieves us of necessary effort does us a positive in- jury. The artificial instruments we use disqualify us for using our own senses and organs . . . . . 152, 153 338 PAGE In order that the child's knowledge may be firmly held and comprehended, it must gradually be reduced to scientific form on general principles. Always begin with the sim- plest and most obvious phenomena, and merge them into higher and higher generalizations . . 153 As the child advances in intelligence, and learns what is best and what is -not best for him, it is time for him to distin- guish between work and play, and to exercise foresight with respect to all that involves his real good . . . 154 Do not expect your pupil to work toward some supposed good which you vaguely set before him, but some good which is present and tangible. A child can not have a man's fore- sight, and a man's knowledge will not suffice for him . 155, 156 The word useful is the key to the whole situation. What is this good for ? should be the question ever on the child's tongue. He will thus ask questions as Socrates did. It is of little importance whether he learns little or much, pro- vided he sees the clear utility of it . . . . 156, 15? Avoid discursive explanations, for young people will run away from them. Do not expatiate on the use of knowing how to find the points of the compass, but take your pupil into some forest, allow him to become lost, and then by sugges- tions teach him how to find his way home . . . 157-160 Never direct the child's attention to anything he can not see. At the age of fifteen we see the happiness of a wise man just as at thirty we see the glory of paradise. While think- ing of what would be useful to your pupil at another age, speak to him only of that whose utility he sees at present. Moreover, never compare him with other children, lest you excite him to jealousy ; but teach him to excel himself, and thus make of him his own rival 161 Books merely teach us to talk of what we do not know. In- stead of aiding the memory, they teach us to do without it. Still there is one book which shall constitute Smile's whole library a book which invents a situation where all the nat- ural needs of man are exhibited, and where the means of providing for these needs are successively developed ; this wonderful book is Robinson Crusoe .... 162-164 The division of labor, which is a product of civilization, makes ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 339 PAGE men mutually dependent; and when the time comes to teach Emile this mutual dependence, teach it in its indus- trial and not in its moral aspect. Go with him from shop to shop, become a laborer with him ; for in this way you can teach him more in an hour than he can learn from a day of explanations 165 To shield your pupil from the false opinions of men, and to guard him against the snares set by evil men, show him things as they really are, and thus teach him how to distin- guish the true from the false, the good from the bad . . 166 fimile knows little or nothing of the relations of man to man, but he knows his own place and keeps it. He is not yet bound by social laws, but by the laws of necessity. He esti- mates the value of men and things solely as they affect his happiness or his interests. In his eyes iron is more valuable than gold, and a pastry-cook a more important person than an academician 167 The industries which minister to the most pressing wants of mankind are the most honorable ; and of all the arts, agri- culture is the first and the most respectable. I would place the forge in the second rank, carpentry in the third, and so on ; and a child who has not been perverted by prejudice will estimate them in the same way 168 In the practice of these arts the manual dexterity acquired is less important than the mental and moral qualities which are induced, such as curiosity, invention, and foresight. The child's tastes may not be yours ; he should be wholly absorbed in his occupation, and you should be absorbed in him 169 You may explain to your pupil the obvious nature and need of money as a standard of values and a medium of exchange ; but do not confuse him by going further than this, as in at- tempting to explain the moral effects of this institution. 169, 170 In this way we may turn the curiosity of our pupil in many di- rections without leaving the domain of his real and material relations. At a dinner-party how many things there are to interest and instruct a thoughtful child the conversa- tion, the table-service, and the viands coming from so many sources! 170-172 25 340 tiMILE. PACK It will now be easy to teach Emile the necessity and value of mutual exchanges in instruments and products, and so of the distribution of men into societies and trades. This is the basis of our civilization. On this principle no one can remain an isolated being 172, 173 fimile thus learns some notions of men's social relations even before he becomes a member of society. Each man has the right to live, and he must derive some assistance from organized society ; but he must also make some return to society for the benefit he has received .... 173, 174 Emile's- education shall be directed according to what is uni- versal in human life. Generally speaking, all men have the same wants, the same destiny, and the same powers of body and mind, and men should be educated so as to live under all states of fortune. But by training a child to live in one special state he becomes unfitted to live in any other. Human society is in a state of perpetual flux, and no one can be assured of a permanent future. The solidarity of society must be respected, and each man owes to it a debt which must be discharged in person .... 175-177 Of all human conditions the most independent of fortune is that of the artisan, and so Emile shall learn a trade. A trade does not degrade him who follows it, but raises him to the rank of manhood. A trade is to be learned not so much for it- self, as for overcoming the prejudices that despise it. In order to put fortune in subjection to you, begin by making yourself independent of it 177, 178 It is not an accomplishment that I require, but a trade, a purely mechanic art, where the hand toils rather than the head, which does not lead to fortune, but which can dispense with it. The professions are capricious, and may land you in distress, but with a trade you are always sure of an honor- able maintenance 178, 179 Emile must choose an honorable calling, but let us recollect that there is no honor without utility. I would rather have him a cobbler than a poet ; nor do I want him to be a musician, a comedian, or an author. In making his choice Emile must not be governed by passing whims, but by real aptitudes. In fact, his trade is already half learned, for ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 341 PAGE be has acquired much manual dexterity. All that is needed is to devote enough time to any one of the manual arts to make himself dexterous in it. All things considered, the trade that I would have Emile learn is that of cabinet- maker. It is cleanly, is useful, may be practiced at home, keeps the body in exercise, and requires skill and inge- nuity 180-183 When Emile learns his trade I must learn it with him. We must both be apprentices, not in sport, but in earnest. The Czar Peter worked at the bench ; why may not we f . 183, 184 In this apprenticeship body and mind must work in concert, and my pupil must insensibly form a taste for reflection and meditation. The great secret of education is to make the exercises of the body and the mind always serve as a recreation for each other 184 We have thus far trained the body and the senses, the mind and the judgment of our pupil, and have connected with the use of his limbs the use of his faculties ; and nothing more is left for us, in order to make a complete man, than to make of him a being who lives and feels that is, to per- fect the reason through the feelings. But before entering on this new field let us see just what point we have reached 184, 185 At first our pupil had only sensations all he did was to feel ; but now he judges. The mind is characterized by its manner of forming ideas. A strong mind is one that forms its ideas on real relations ; the one that is satisfied with ap- parent relations is a superficial mind ; that which sees relations just as they are is an accurate mind ; that which estimates their value imperfectly is an unsound mind ; he who invents relations purely imaginary is a lunatic ; while he who does not compare at all is an imbecile . . . 185 Nature never deceives us, but inferences from our sensations are sometimes false. As all our errors come from our judg- ment, it is clear that if we never needed to judge we should have no need to learn ; and since the more men know the more they are deceived, the only means of shunning error is ignorance. The man of Nature is profoundly indifferent to everything except a small number of immediate rela- 342 SMILE. tions which things have with him. The philosopher has great curiosity, but the savage none. Emile is not a savage to be banished to a desert, but a savage made to live in cities. He is cautious in his replies to my questions, and takes time to examine them. Neither of us is in a fret to know the truth of things, but only not to fall into error. Our familiar phrases are : I do not know ; Let us consider. Emile will not know what a microscope or a telescope is ; but before using them I will have him invent them. This is the spirit of my whole method. I have not taught him many things, but have shown him the route to learning, easy, in truth, but long, boundless, and slow to traverse, 185-188 Compelled to learn for himself, he uses his own reason and not that of others. Prom this continual exercise there must result a vigor of mind similar to that which is given the body by labor and exercise. Another advantage is that we advance only in proportion to our strength . . . 188 Emile has little knowledge, but what he has is really his own ; he knows nothing by halves. He has a mind that is univer- sal, not through its knowledge but through its facility of acquiring it. My purpose is not at all to give him knowl- edge, but to teach him how to acquire it when necessary, 188, 189 Emile has only natural and purely physical knowledge. He does not know even the name of history, nor what metaphys- ics and ethics are. He knows the essential relations of man to things, but nothing of the moral relations of man to man 189, 190 Emile is industrious, temperate, patient, firm, and full of cour- age. He is sensible to few evils, and knows how to suffer with constancy because he has not learned to contend against destiny. In a word, Emile has every virtue which is re- lated to himself. He has no faults, or only those which are inevitable to man. He has a sound body, agile limbs, a just and unprejudiced mind, and a heart that is free and with- out passions 190, 191 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 343 BOOK FOURTH. MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. PAGE Our passage over the earth is so swift, that life is almost gone before we know how to live. We have two births, one for the species and the other for the sex. This second period is foretold by the rise of the passions ; this is our second birth, and it is here that we really begin to live. Ordinary education ends at this period, but it is here that ours ought to begin 192, 193 The wish to destroy the passions is vain and impious, for they are the instruments of our conservation, and the source of our passions is the love of self. This passion is always good, for we must love ourselves in order to preserve ourselves. The first feeling of a child is to love himself, and his next to love those who come near him as his protectors. A child is thus naturally inclined to benevolence ; but as his rela- tions to others become extended he comes to have a feeling of his duties and preferences, and then he becomes jealous and imperious love of self, a benevolent passion, passes into self-love, a malevolent passion 193-195 Up to this point Emile's study has been his relations with things, but henceforth his occupation must be the study of his re- lations with men. As soon as he has need of a companion he is no longer an isolated being, and his first passion calls him into relations with his species 196 The instructions of Nature are slow and tardy, while those of men are almost always premature, the imagination giving a precocious activity to the senses ; but as the age at which man becomes conscious of sex depends on education as much as on Nature, it follows that this peiiod maybe hast- ened or retarded by the manner of the child's training; and the longer this critical period can be delayed, the greater will be the amount of physical vigor and power . . 196, 197 So far as possible, we should prevent the rise of the child's curiosity ; and when he asks questions which we are not compelled to answer, it is better to say nothing than to say what is false ; but if we decide to reply, let it be done with the greatest simplicity, without mystery and without hesi- 344 EMILE. tation. Absolute ignorance of certain things is no doubt bst for children ; but they should learn at an early hour what can not always be concealed from them. Do not affect too great refinement in your language, but speak plainly, simply, and directly. The way to preserve the innocence of chil- dren is not to give them lessons in modesty, but to surround them with those who love and respect innocency. Children are often corrupted by the books they read, and by vile do- mestics and nurses 196-200 To subject to order and control the rising passions, prolong the time during which they are developed, so that they may gradually adjust themselves without danger. To feel our true relations both to the species and the individual, and to order all the affections of the soul according to these rela- tions this is the sum of human wisdom in the use of the passions 200, 201 In order to arouse the nascent sensibility and turn the character toward benevolence and goodness, do not excite the young man's pride, vanity, and envy by showing him the exterior of grand society; but show him what men really are by nature that they are neither kings nor millionaires, but that they are born naked and poor, are subject to chagrins, evils, and sorrows, and, finally, that all are condemned to death . 201 If your children are not capable of this humane culture you are to blame for it you have either taught them not to feel or have caused them to counterfeit feeling ; but my mile has neither felt nor feigned, for, having reflected little on sen- tient beings, he will be late in knowing what it is to suffer and die. But complaints and cries will soon begin to agitate his feelings, and the convulsions of a dying animal will give him untold agony before he knows the source of these new emotions. Thus arises pity, the first related feel- ing that touches the human heart. We suffer only as much as we judge the animal suffers. In order to nourish this nascent sensibility and to guide it in its natural course, we must offer to the young man objects on which he may exert the expansive force of his feelings, and which will give ex- tension to his sympathies. Do not let him look down on the afflictions of the unfortunate with feelings of superior- ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 345 ity, but teach him that their lot may one day be his own ; teach him to count neither on birth, nor on health, nor on riches . 203, 204 With pupils of this age the skillful teacher may become an ob- server and a philosopher in the art of exploring the recesses of the human heart and in devising means to mold the human character. Possibly my pupil may be less agreeable because he has not learned to imitate conventional man- ners, but he will certainly be more affectionate, and I can not think that his regard for others will render him the less agreeable on this account 205 When this critical age comes, offer to the young not sights that excite and influence their passions, but those which check and soothe; take them from large cities to their early homes, where the simplicity of country life allows the pas- sions to develop less rapidly; carefully select their com- pany, their occupations, and their pleasures ; let them know the lot of man and the miseries of their fellows, but do not let them be seen too often ; be sparing of words ; make a choice of times, places, and persons ; give all your lessons by example, and you may be sure of their effect . . 205, 206 Teachers complain that the ardor of this age makes the young ungovernable, and I can see why this may be true. When this ardor has been allowed to expend itself through the senses, can it be expected that the sermons of a pedant will efface from the mind the images of pleasure that have been impressed on it ? Doubtless, by being compliant we may maintain a show of authority ; but no good purpose is served by a supremacy gained by fomenting the passions of your pupil 207 But this ardor may give you a hold on the human heart, and it is through it that education is to be perfected. The young man's affections are the reins by which he is to be guided ; they are the bonds which unite him to his species. In be- coming capable of attachment he becomes sensible of the attachment of others, and you have so many chains which you may throw around his heart without his perceiving them. If you have not destroyed the feeling of gratitude by your own fault, you will have o, new hold on your pupil 346 EMILE. MM as he begins to see the value of your services ; but beware of extolling them, lest they become insupportable to him. In order to make him docile, leave him in complete lib- erty, and conceal yourself ill order that he may look for you 208, 209 We now enter on the moral order, and come to the second stage of manly culture. I would have Emile feel that goodness and justice are not mere abstract terms, but real affections of the soul enlightened by reason. So far he has regarded only himself, but now that he comes to throw his first look over his fellows this comparison excites a desire to surpass them, and thus gives rise to the selfish passions. It now becomes important to determine to what place he shall as- pire among men, and so it becomes necessary to show him what man really is. Society must be studied through men, and men through society . . . . . 210, 211 Men must not be shown through their masks, but must be painted just as they are, to the end that the young may not hate them, but pity them and avoid resembling them. Let him know that man is naturally good, but that society depraves him ; let him be induced to esteem the individual, but to despise the masses ; let him see that nearly all men wear the same mask, but let him also know that there are faces more beautiful than the mask which covers them, 211, 212 This method of study has the disadvantage of tending to make the heart cynical and unfeeling, and a corrective must be found in the study of history ; for in history we see men simply as spectators, without interest or passion as their judge, and not as their accomplice or their accuser. But it is a vice of history to show us men by their bad qualities rather than by their good ; to occupy itself with wars and revolutions, and to portray peoples in a state of decadence rather than during periods of growth. The worst histo- rians are those who judge. But, wisely selected, a course in historical reading is a course in practical philosophy, better than all the vain speculations of the schools . . 212-217 But self-love is a dangerous instrument, and often wounds the hand that uses it. In considering his place in human so- ciety nrile will be tempted to give all the credit to his own ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 347 PAGE wisdom, and if he were to remain in this condition we should have done him but little good ; but there is no vice, save vanity, which may not be cured m any man who is not a fool. Do not use arguments to prove to your pupil that he is a man subject to the same weaknesses as other men, but make him feel this, if need be, by exposing him to the arts of knaves and sharpers 217, 218 Teachers should not assume a false dignity and play the sage by affecting a vast superiority over their pupils. On the con- trary, they should exalt the purposes and ambitions of the young, and if they can not ascend to you, descend to them. This does not mean that teachers should appear on an equal- ity with their pupils in respect of intelligence and learn- ing, for this would be to sacrifice their confidence and respect 219, 220 If your pupil falls into mistakes do not reproach him with them, for this would make his self-love rebel. The lesson which revolts does not profit. Give him, rather, your consolation, and you will correct him by seeming to pity him . . 220, 221 The time of faults is the time for fables. By censuring the wrong-doer under an unknown mask we instruct without offending him. The moral of a fable should not be an- nounced, but the pupil should be left to discover it for himself; for if he does not understand the fable without this explanation, he will never understand it at all. Again, fables should be arranged in a more rational order than in the usual collections 221-223 It is not through speculative studies that the young can be pre- pared for complete living, fimile has been taught to live by himself and to earn his daily bread, but this is not enough ; he must know how to get on with men, and must know the instruments that give him a hold on them. He must be taught to be beneficent. It is by doing good that we learn to be good. Interest your pupil in all the good deeds that are within his reach. Let the cause of the poor always be his own. To this end he need not meddle in pub- lic affairs, but will do only what he knows to be useful and good. He will never seek a quarrel, but if he is insulted he will have the resolution to defend his honor. If be sees 34:8 EMILE. PAGE discord prevailing among his companions he will try to reconcile them 226-228 It can not be repeated too often that all lessons given to young men should be in actions rather than in words. Let them learn nothing in books that can be taught them by experience. I am convinced that by putting beneficence in action, and drawing from our good or bad success reflec- tions on their causes, there is little useful knowledge which can not be cultivated in the mind of a young man with re- spect to the usages of life. The true principles of the just, the true models of the beautiful, all the moral relations of existence, and all the ideas of order, are engraved in his understanding ; and, without having experienced the hu- man passions, he knows their illusions. While thus trying to form the man of Nature, it is not proposed to make a savage of him and banish him to the woods, but to fit him to live in the social vortex without being seduced by the passions or the opinions of men 228, 229 Locke would have us begin with the study of the mind, and pass thence to the study of the body ; but this is the method of superstition, prejudice, and error, and not that of reason, nor of Nature. We must have studied the body for a long time in order to form a correct notion of the mind . 229, 23(? So far nothing has been said to fimile on the subject of. religion. At the age of fifteen he did not know that he had a soul, and perhaps at eighteen it is not yet time for him to learn it. The truth should not be announced to those who are not able to understand it, for this is equivalent to substi- tuting error for it. It is much better to have no ideas of God, than to have ideas which are low, fanciful, or un- worthy. If children form such notions they retain them for life. Emile is so accustomed to refuse his attention to whatever is beyond his reach, and is so indifferent to what he does not understand, that this reserve in speaking to him of religion is attended with no risk. While Nature has been forming the physical man, we have been trying to form the moral man ; but while the body has become strong and robust, the soul is still languishing and feeble. Our aim has been to hold the senses in check, and to stimu- ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 34.9 rum late the intellect. It is easy to rise from the study of Na- ture to the search for its Author. When we have reached this point what new holds we have gained on our pupil! 230-233 The critical moment finally comes, as it must, and your former manner of treating your pupil must be abandoned. He is still your disciple, but no longer your pupil. He is a man, and must be treated as such. Up to this time he has been held in check by his ignorance, but he must now be con- trolled by his intelligence. So far he has remained in his primitive innocence, but now he must be instructed in the mysteries that have so long been concealed from him. Young men who are wise on these subjects have not gained their knowledge with impunity. So long as my pupil con- tinues to keep his heart open to me I have nothing to fear. His chief perils are reading, solitude, idleness, and an aimless life ; but by keeping his body at painful labor I arrest the activity of his imagination, and thus avoid these dangers. As his trade has become a routine, this will not answer my purpose, and nothing better can be devised than hunting 233-237 Never employ dry reasoning with the young, but cause the lan- guage of the intellect to pass through the heart in order that it may be understood. Cold arguments may deter- mine our opinions but not our actions. So I will not be tedious and diffuse by the use of lifeless maxims, but my speech will abound in emotion. I will make his young heart burn with feelings of friendship, generosity, and grati- tude, and will press him to my heart while shedding tears of tenderness ; and if I am discreet in my use of this method, I do not doubt for an instant that my Emile will come of himself to the point where I wish to lead him. How nar- row must one be to see in the nascent desires of a young man only an obstacle to the lessons of reason ! We have no hold on the passions save through the passions . 237-240 jjhnile now knows men in general, and it remains for him to know them as individuals. It is time to show him the ex- terior of that grand stage whose concealed workings he al- ready knows. As there is a proper age for studying the 350 EMILE. PAGE sciences, there is also one for properly apprehending the use of the world. Give me a child of twelve years who knows nothing at all, and at fifteen I will guarantee to make him as wise as he whom you have instructed from infancy. So, also, introduce a young man of twenty into the world, and, if well trained, he will in one year be more amiable and better polished than he whom you have reared there from infancy. However, we must not wait too long, for it is hard to escape from manners hardened into habit . 240-242 fimile must now have a companion, and he must be enamored of her before he knows the object of his affections. The picture I draw of her may be imaginary, but it is enough that it disgusts him with those who might tempt him, and that he everywhere finds comparisons which make him pre- fer his dreams to the real objects which excite his atten- tion. For what is real love itself if not a dream, a fiction, an illusion I I will not deceive him by pretending that the object depicted really exists; but if he is pleased with the picture, he will soon wish for the original . . 242, 243 iEmile is now sufficiently trained 10 be docile. I grant him, it is true, the appearance of independence, but he was never in more complete subjection, for his obedience is the result of his will. Into whatever society he may be introduced, his first appearance will be simple and without display. His manner of presenting himself is neither modest nor vain, but natural and true. He speaks little, because he does not care to occupy the attention of others. Although, on entering society, he is in absolute ignorance of its usages, he is not on this account timid and nervous, but calm and cool. Doubtless Emile will not be like other people, and may God preserve him from ever being so ! He will never be feted in society as a popular man, but people will love him without knowing why. He is a man of good sense, and wishes to be nothing else 244-247 ifimile is not indifferent to the opinion of others, but he would have this good opinion founded on the good he does, rather than on the mere opinions of others, and he will love those most who resemble him most. As he studies men through their manners in society, he must needs philoso- ANALYTICAL TABLE OP CONTENTS. PACK phize on the principles of taste, and this is his proper study during this period. At Paris the general taste is bad, but it is here that one should come if he has a spark of genius to cultivate. This is also the period for literary criticism, and by the reading of good books fimile shall be made sen- sible to the beauties of eloquence and diction. In order that he may learn simplicity of taste, he must study the writings of the ancients ; and he shall go to the theatre in order that he may acquire a taste for poetry. My object in teaching him to feel and love the beautiful in all its forms, is to fix on it his affections and tastes, so that his natural appetites may not be corrupted by lower pleasures . 247-252 Leaving Emile for the moment, I will seek in myself a more obvious and familiar example of the tastes and manners which I wish to commend to the reader : were I rich, I would use my wealth to purchase leisure and liberty; and as health is not possible without temperance, I would be temperate for sensual reasons. I would keep as near to Nature as possible, and always take her for a model. I would draw from each season whatever is agreeable in it. I would have but few servants ; my house should be small and its furniture simple. I would be plain in my dress and living, and men of all conditions should feel at home with me. I would cultivate rustic enjoyments, and find happi- ness in modes of life unaffected by human opinion . 253-258 But it is now time to look for Sophie in earnest ; and as we are looking for love, happiness, and innocence, we must bid adieu to Paris ...... ... 258 BOOK FIFTH. THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN. It is not good for man to be alone, and, as fimile is now a man, he must have a companion ; and as fimile is a man, Sophie, his companion, must be a woman that is, she should have whatever is befitting the constitution of her species and of her sex ........... 259 The only thing in common between man and woman is the species, and they differ only in respect of sex ; and it is one 352 of the marvels of Nature that she could constitute two be- ings so similar and yet so different. With respect to what they have in common they are equal, and in so far as they are different they can not be compared. In the union of the sexes each contributes equally toward the common end, but not in the same way. One must be active and strong, the other passive and weak ; one must have power and will, while it suffices that the other have little power of resist- ance. Hence it follows that woman is especially constituted to please man ........ 259, 260 Plato, in his Republic, by enjoining the same duties on woman as on man, subverts the sweetest feelings of Nature and sacrifices them to an artificial feeling which can not exist without them. Now, the moment it is admitted that man and woman are not and ought not to be constituted in the same way, it follows that they ought not to be educated in the same way ........ 260, 2C1 Nature should be followed in all that characterizes sex. To cul- tivate in women the qualities of men, and to neglect those which are properly their own, is obviously to work to their detriment. Does it follow that woman ought to be brought up in complete ignorance, and restricted solely to the duties of the household t No, doubtless. On the contrary, Na- ture would have her think, and judge, and love, and know, and cultivate her mind as she does her form. She ought to learn multitudes of things, but only those which it befits her to know. The whole education of women ought to be relative to men to please them, to be useful to them, to make them happy ........ 260-263 In both sexes the first culture ought to be that of the body. Women need sufficient strength to do with grace whatever they have to do, and men need sufficient cleverness to do with facility whatever they have to do. Women should be robust, in order that the men who shall be born of them may be robust also. Delicacy is not languor, and one need not be sickly in order to please ..... 263-265 Children of the two sexes have many amusements in common, but boys prefer movement and noise, and girls what appeals to sight and serves to please. For the present the little ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 353 MM girl is absorbed in her doll, but she waits the moment when she shall be her own doll. This is a decided primitive taste, and in order to regulate it we have only to follow it. The adornment of her doll will naturally lead to sewing, em- broidery, lace-work, designing, etc 265, 266 In respect of good sense, the two sexes are equally endowed, and trifling studies should be banished from the education of both. There is no reason why a girl should learn to read and write at an early age. There are very few who will not abuse this fatal science. Girls should be obedient and industrious, and must be trained to restraint in order that it may cost them nothing. Maternal affection should attach them to their duties, and make necessary constraint easy. Their disposition to go to extremes should be toned down, and their natural inconstancy checked . . 267-269 The first and most important quality of woman is gentleness, and she ought early to learn to suffer every injustice, and to en- dure the wrongs of a husband without complaint. But in order to make a young woman docile, it is not necessary to make her unhappy, and she should be indulged in all inno- cent amusements, such as dancing and singing. Her best teachers may often be her father, mother, brother, sister, friend ; but when formal lessons are needed her teachers may be of either sex 270-273 Women speak sooner, more easily, and more agreeably than men. A man says what he knows, and a woman what will please, and so one needs knowledge and the other taste. In the use of speech girls should be trained to be discreet and pleasing, 274 It is even more difficult for girls than for boys to form a true idea of religion. Women have great skill in finding the means for reaching a known end, but very little in finding the end itself. For this reason every daughter should have the religion of her mother, and every wife that of her husband. Naturally, women are either free-thinkers or devotees, and their religion should be regulated by au- thority 275,276 Religious duties should be made pleasing to girls, and never a burden, and the mother's example is the best guide. In explaining the articles of faith, do not proceed by question PAOJ and answer, but by direct instruction. A proper catechism for children is yet to be written. It will have but little resemblance to those in use. The questions should be so framed that the child can formulate his own answers. Until the age of reason comes, that which is right or wrong for the young is what they are commanded to do or not to do by those who surround them. Hence the im- portance of a right choice of associates . . . 277, 276 The inner moral sense should co-operate with public opinion in the education of women, but a counterpoise to each of these forces should be found in the cultivation of the reason. Between a slavery to her domestic duties and the usurpation of man's prerogatives there is a middle ground where woman may cultivate her reason, and thus protect herself against the prejudices of society . . . 278-280 Women should make a profound study of the men who sur- round them, and should learn to govern them by knowing what will please men. Woman has more spirit and man more genius ; woman observes and man reasons. Counseled by their mothers, girls should enter society in order to dis- cover its illusions, and thus be protected from them. Con- vents are schools of coquetry, and in Protestant countries there is a higher type of womanhood than in Catholic countries. In order to love the peaceful life of the home it must be known, and to this end domestic education is recommended. Mothers are warned against bringing their daughters to Paris to learn the manners of the gay capital ' 281-285 Dry moral lectures and gloomy lessons disgust the young. In order to teach young women to be discreet, create in them a strong interest in being so ; and this interest should not be placed in a distant future, but in the present moment and in current events. Encourage virtue by an appeal to reason, and make girls feel that the power of their sex does not depend alone on their own good conduct and morals, but also on those of men that they can have but little hold on vile and low natures 286, 287 Sophie's disposition, qualities, appearance, tastes, dress, talents, accomplishments, and faults described .... 287-298 ANALYTICAL TABLE OP CONTENTS. 355 PAGE Admonitions to Sophie by her father 298-301 Thoughtful men should not many women incapable of think- ing, but a simple girl, rudely brought up, is preferable to a wife of learning and wit, who would make of her house a literary bureau 301-308 The reading of books is not a substitute for travel, but it is not necessary to know all the individuals in order to know the species. We must know how to travel in order to profit by it But travels are good for only a few people only for those who have sufficient self-control to listen to the lessons of error without allowing themselves to go astray . 304-308 2ft SYLLABUS OF ROUSSEAU'S &V1ILE. Pages i to 40. 1. FROM what three sources is education derived? 2. In what sense does nature consist in habits? 3. What constitutes the "training for manhood " that Rousseau deems the sole education ? 4. What general principle underlies the right care of the infant ? 5. Has the young man as teacher more sympathy with childhood and youth than the older teacher ? 6. Can Rousseau's treatment of his ideal child directly guide one in the care and training of children in real life ? 7. What is meant by the assertion that the child should be allowed to contract no habit ? 8. To what extent is it wise to permit liberty of action to the impulses of the child's mind and body ? Page 41 to 67. 9. Is it wise to ignore a child's slight sufferings in order to make him more patient and courageous ? 10. Should the end of education be found in future or in present happiness ? ir. To what extent should parent or teacher follow the maxim, " Keep the child dependent on things alone " ? 12. Are the formulas of politeness in any sense condu- cive to false education ? 13. What valuable benefits may result from early suffer- ing ? Are they certain to result ? 357 358 SYLLABUS OF ROUSSEAU'S EMILE. 14. Are children at the age of ten utterly incapable of reasoning upon questions of good and evil ? 15. Does the practice of reasoning with children upon their conduct generally tend to make them deceit- ful and untruthful ? 16. In what respects is it important in education to lose time rather than to gain it ? 17. Can we discover the bent of a child's mind before beginning to instruct him ? 18. Can punishments be limited to the direct conse- quences of wrong-doing ? Pages 67 to 100. 19. Would it be wise to leave a child untaught from a fear that he might be taught wrong ? 20. May it be right sometimes to require memory-work beyond the child's full grasp of the ideas in- volved ? 21. How early may it be wise to instruct a child in a language other than his mother tongue ? 22. May the instruction given to children be limited to that of which they can see the actual and present advantage ? 23. Can school government be based on other founda- tion than the authority and direct command of the teacher ? 24. Under home influences alone, would Rousseau's scheme of government prove successful ? 25. How can the lessons learned upon the playground be made use of in increasing the value of lessons learned from books ? 26. What general principle as regards clothing might avoid the evils from which Rousseau warns us, as SYLLABUS OF ROUSSEAU'S EMILE. 359 well as those to which his directions would be likely to lead us? 27. What argument for manual training, as a branch of school work, may be drawn from the plea for the exercise of all the senses ? Pages 100 to 130. 28. How are children to be practically trained in school so as to " arm them against unforeseen accidents " ? 29. Can a teacher be justified in adopting a willful de- ception in order to promote in a child that acute- ness of perception that will detect the deception ? 30. What relation has the sense of sight to that of touch in its earliest development ? 31. What is the especial great advantage in drawing from objects rather than from copy? 32. What is the argument for combining drawing from the copy with object drawing ? 33. What advantages has experimental geometry, as suggested for Emile, over the geometry as com- monly presented by theorem and formal demon- stration ? 34. When should the latter properly come in to supple- ment the former ? 35. To what extent should the physical exercises of the schoolroom have for their purpose muscular dex- terity and agility ? 36. For what chief purpose are the arts of recitation and singing to be included in the training of youth ? 37. From the age of five to twelve can all needed in- struction be acquired through experience and the senses under any conditions that can be assumed ? 360 SYLLABUS OF ROUSSEAU'S EMILE. Pages i}i to 1 60. 38. Is the normal boy, at the age of twelve to fifteen, possessed of physical and mental strength rela- tively greater than his desires ? 39. Is Rousseau right in ascribing the exception to such rule to faults in educational training ? 40. In what sense is it true, that it is only necessary to know that which is useful ? 41. What are the necessary objections to the doctrine that the child " is not to learn science, but to dis- cover it " ? 42. Can the child who does not read think more clearly than the child who reads ? 43. How may Rousseau's doctrine concerning the sign and the thing be best observed in modern school work? 44. What prevalent error violates his " fundamental prin- ciple " concerning the teaching of sciences ? 45. What are the advantages in using simple and " home- made " apparatus rather than that which is more elaborate ? Pages 161 to 191. 46. Is the stimulus of emulation necessarily harmful in dealing with children from twelve to fifteen years of age ? 47. What objection is there to making the state of Rob- inson Crusoe the ideal state with reference to which the elements of early education are to be chosen ? 48. In what manner may the instruction of children be extended from the material relations of life to the social and spiritual relations ? SYLLABUS OF ROUSSEAU'S EMILE. 361 49. What is the most forcible argument in favor of teach- ing a trade to the young man whose circumstances indicate that he may never have occasion to resort to it for a livelihood ? 50. Should manual training in the public schools have reference to artisan skill or to general mental de- velopment ? 51. Does Rousseau's scheme give to the boy of fifteen years all of knowledge and of culture that should be acquired at that age ? Pages 192 to 224. 52. How can the right self-love be kept distinct in the training of children from the evil self-love ? 53. Can love of self be used as a basis of benevolence in the mind of a child ? 54. How may the developing boy or girl be best guarded from the effects of evil imagination ? 55. Is the thought that any given suffering may come to himself necessary to the awakening of pity for a sufferer ? 56. Will all right feelings arise spontaneously in the heart of the child, or must there be direct effort to call them forth ? 57. Can the author's distinction between man as indi- vidually good and man in society as evil be main- tained ? 58. Is history a better field for the study of human na- ture than is current experience ? 59. How may tables be most successfully made use of in the moral instruction of youth ? 362 SYLLABUS OF ROUSSEAU'S EMILE. Pages 224 to 258. 60. How is a youth best taught to be in sympathy with humanity ? 61. Should the apparent tendency of many boys to little acts of cruelty toward the lower animals be dealt with as an acquired or as a natural trait ? 62. Is it possible to acquire all the good lessons of ex- perience in social relations without any of the evil ? 63. If all thought of God and of religion be kept from the child and the youth, can the man acquire a truer conception of divine things? 64. Is the young man who has been restrained through ignorance more likely to be controlled by intelli- gence when the ignorance can be no longer main- tained ? 65. Can the " child of twelve years who knows nothing " be well instructed at the age of fifteen ? 66. Is the young man at twenty likely to become more " amiable and polished " in society because of not having any early contact with social requirements and customs ? 67. How much of Rousseau's scheme of education and training commends itself as practicable? 68. What would be the marked weaknesses or faults in a youth trained as this work suggests ? Pages 259 to 308. 69. Is it in any sense true that while the perfect man should be active and strong, the perfect woman should be passive and weak ? SYLLABUS OF ROUSSEAU'S EMILE. 363 70. Within the limits of school life is there any right education for the young man that is not right edu- cation also for the young woman ? 71. Do the boy's love of noisy toys and the girl's love of dolls and ornament mark a natural or an ac- quired difference in their tendencies ? 72. Is restraint, leading up to self-control, more impor- tant in the training of a girl than in the training of a boy ? 73. Do women differ from men in the scope and power of the reasoning faculty ? 74. Is marriage an end in life to be more definitely sought and prepared for by the young woman than by the young man ? 75. What is your final judgment of Rousseau's scheme for the education of Emile ? (22) THE END. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. A!, UNIVERP 1 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 690 525 1