by surprising them. This is a bad plan, and its effect is contrary to
the one sought: it only makes them more timid than before. Neither
reason nor habit can accustom us to a present danger, the nature and
extent of which we do not know, nor can they lessen our dread of
unexpected things however often we meet with them. But how can we
guard our pupil against such accidents? I think the following is the
best plan. I will tell my Emile, "If any one attacks you at night, you
are justified in defending yourself; for your assailant gives you no
notice whether he means to hurt you or only to frighten you. As he has
taken you at a disadvantage, seize him boldly, no matter what he may
seem to be. Hold him fast, and if he offers any resistance, hit him
hard and often. Whatever he may say or do, never let go until you know
exactly who he is. The explanation will probably show you that there
is nothing to be afraid of; and if you treat a practical joker in this
way, he will not be likely to try the same thing again."
Although, of all our senses, touch is the one most constantly used,
still, as I have said, its conclusions are the most rude and imperfect.
This is because it is always used at the same time with sight; and
because the eye attains its object sooner than the hand; the mind
nearly always decides without appealing to touch. On the other hand,
the decisions of touch, just because they are so limited in their
range, are the most accurate. For as they extend no farther than our
arm's length, they correct the errors of other senses, which deal with
distant objects, and scarcely grasp these objects at all, whereas all
that the touch perceives it perceives thoroughly. Besides, if to
nerve-force we add muscular action, we form a simultaneous impression,
and judge of weight and solidity as well as of temperature, size, and
shape. Thus touch, which of all our senses best informs us concerning
impressions made upon us by external things, is the one oftenest used,
and gives us most directly the knowledge necessary to our preservation.
The Sense of Sight.
The sense of touch confines its operations to a very narrow sphere
around us, but those of sight extend far beyond; this sense is
therefore liable to be mistaken. With a single glance a man takes in
half his own horizon, and in these myriad impressions, and judgments
resulting from them, how is it credible that there should be no
mistakes? Sight, therefore, is the most defective of all our senses,
precisely because it is most far-reaching, and because its operations,
by far preceding all others, are too immediate and too vast to receive
correction from them. Besides, the very illusions of perspective are
needed to make us understand extension, and to help us in comparing its
parts. If there were no false appearances, we could see nothing at a
distance; if there were no gradations in size, we could form no
estimate of distance, or rather there would be no distance at all. If
of two trees the one a hundred paces away seemed as large and distinct
as the other, ten paces distant, we should place them side by side. If
we saw all objects in their true dimensions, we should see no space
whatever; everything would appear to be directly beneath our eye.
For judging of the size and distance of objects, sight has only one
measure, and that is the angle they form with our eye. As this is the
simple effect of a compound cause, the judgment we form from it leaves
each particular case undecided or is necessarily imperfect. For how
can I by the sight alone tell whether the angle which makes one object
appear smaller than another is caused by the really lesser magnitude of
the object or by its greater distance from me?
An opposite method must therefore be pursued. Instead of relying on
one sensation only, we must repeat it, verify it by others, subordinate
sight to touch, repressing the impetuosity of the first by the steady,
even pace of the second. For lack of this caution we measure very
inaccurately by the eye, in determining height, length, depth, and
distance. That this is not due to organic defect, but to careless use,
is proved by the fact that engineers, surveyors, architects, masons,
and painters generally have a far more accurate eye than we, and
estimate measures of extension more correctly. Their business gives
them experience that we neglect to acquire, and thus they correct the
ambiguity of the angle by means of appearances associated with it,
which enable them to determine more exactly the relation of the two
things producing the angle.
Children are easily led into anything that allows unconstrained
movement of the body. There are a thousand ways of interesting them in
measuring, discovering, and estimating distances. "Yonder is a very
tall cherry-tree; how can we manage to get some cherries? Will the
ladder in the barn do? There is a very wide brook; how can we cross
it? Would one of the planks in the yard be long enough? We want to
throw a line from our windows and catch some fish in the moat around
the house; how many fathoms long ought the line to be? I want to put
up a swing between those two trees; would four yards of rope be enough
for it? They say that in the other house our room will be twenty-five
feet square; do you think that will suit us? Will it be larger than
this? We are very hungry; which of those two villages yonder can we
reach soonest, and have our dinner?"
As the sense of sight is the one least easily separated from the
judgments of the mind, we need a great deal of time for learning how to
see. We must for a long time compare sight with touch, if we would
accustom our eye to report forms and distances accurately.
Without touch and without progressive movement, the keenest eye-sight
in the world could give us no idea of extent. To an oyster the entire
universe must be only a single point. Only by walking, feeling,
counting, and measuring, do we learn to estimate distances.
If we always measure them, however, our eye, depending on this, will
never gain accuracy. Yet the child ought not to pass too soon from
measuring to estimating. It will be better for him, after comparing by
parts what he cannot compare as wholes, finally to substitute for
measured aliquot parts others, obtained by the eye alone. He should
train himself in this manner of measuring instead of always measuring
with the hand. I prefer that the very first operations of this kind
should be verified by actual measurements, so that he may correct the
mistakes arising from false appearances by a better judgment. There
are natural measures, nearly the same everywhere, such as a man's pace,
the length of his arm, or his height. When the child is calculating
the height of the story of a house, his tutor may serve as a unit of
measure. In estimating the altitude of a steeple, he may compare it
with that of the neighboring houses. If he wants to know how many
leagues there are in a given journey, let him reckon the number of
hours spent in making it on foot. And by all means do none of this
work for him; let him do it himself.
We cannot learn to judge correctly of the extent and size of bodies
without also learning to recognize their forms, and even to imitate
them. For such imitation is absolutely dependent on the laws of
perspective, and we cannot estimate extent from appearances without
some appreciation of these laws.
Drawing.
All children, being natural imitators, try to draw. I would have my
pupil cultivate this art, not exactly for the sake of the art itself,
but to render the eye true and the hand flexible. In general, it
matters little whether he understands this or that exercise, provided
he acquires the mental insight, and the manual skill furnished by the
exercise. I should take care, therefore, not to give him a
drawing-master, who would give him only copies to imitate, and would
make him draw from drawings only. He shall have no teacher but nature,
no models but real things. He shall have before his eyes the
originals, and not the paper which represents them. He shall draw a
house from a real house, a tree from a tree, a human figure from the
man himself. In this way he will accustom himself to observe bodies
and their appearances, and not mistake for accurate mutations those
that are false and conventional. I should even object to his drawing
anything from memory, until by frequent observations the exact forms of
the objects had clearly imprinted themselves on his imagination, lest,
substituting odd and fantastic shapes for the real things, he might
lose the knowledge of proportion and a taste for the beauties of
nature. I know very well that he will go on daubing for a long time
without making anything worth noticing, and will be long in mastering
elegance of outline, and in acquiring the deft stroke of a skilled
draughtsman. He may never learn to discern picturesque effects, or
draw with superior skill. On the other hand, he will have a more
correct eye, a truer hand, a knowledge of the real relations of size
and shape in animals, plants, and natural bodies, and practical
experience of the illusions of perspective. This is precisely what I
intend; not so much that he shall imitate objects as that he shall know
them. I would rather have him show me an acanthus than a finished
drawing of the foliation of a capital.
Yet I would not allow my pupil to have the enjoyment of this or any
other exercise all to himself. By sharing it with him I will make him
enjoy it still more. He shall have no competitor but myself; but I
will be that competitor continually, and without risk of jealousy
between us. It will only interest him more deeply in his studies.
Like him I will take up the pencil, and at first I will be as awkward
as he. If I were an Apelles, even, I will make myself a mere dauber.
I will begin by sketching a man just as a boy would sketch one on a
wall, with a dash for each arm, and with fingers larger than the arms.
By and by one or the other of us will discover this disproportion. We
shall observe that a leg has thickness, and that this thickness is not
the same everywhere; that the length of the arm is determined by its
proportion to the body; and so on. As we go on I will do no more than
keep even step with him, or will excel him by so little that he can
always easily overtake and even surpass me. We will get colors and
brushes; we will try to imitate not only the outline but the coloring
and all the other details of objects. We will color; we will paint; we
will daub; but in all our daubing we shall be continually peering into
nature, and all we do shall be done under the eye of that great teacher.
If we had difficulty in finding decorations for our room, we have now
all we could desire. I will have our drawings framed, so that we can
give them no finishing touches; and this will make us both careful to
do no negligent work. I will arrange them in order around our room,
each drawing repeated twenty or thirty times, and each repetition
showing the author's progress, from the representation of a house by an
almost shapeless attempt at a square, to the accurate copy of its front
elevation, profile, proportions, and shading. The drawings thus graded
must be interesting to ourselves, curious to others, and likely to
stimulate further effort. I will inclose the first and rudest of these
in showy gilded frames, to set them off well; but as the imitation
improves, and when the drawing is really good, I will add only a very
simple black frame. The picture needs no ornament but itself, and it
would be a pity that the bordering should receive half the attention.
Both of us will aspire to the honor of a plain frame, and if either
wishes to condemn the other's drawing, he will say it ought to have a
gilt frame. Perhaps some day these gilded frames will pass into a
proverb with us, and we shall be interested to observe how many men do
justice to themselves by framing themselves in the very same way.
Geometry.
I have said that geometry is not intelligible to children; but it is
our own fault. We do not observe that their method is different from
ours, and that what is to us the art of reasoning should be to them
only the art of seeing. Instead of giving them our method, we should
do better to take theirs. For in our way of learning geometry,
imagination really does as much as reason. When a proposition is
stated, we have to imagine the demonstration; that is, we have to find
upon what proposition already known the new one depends, and from all
the consequences of this known principle select just the one required.
According to this method the most exact reasoner, if not naturally
inventive, must be at fault. And the result is that the teacher,
instead of making us discover demonstrations, dictates them to us;
instead of teaching us to reason, he reasons for us, and exercises only
our memory.
Make the diagrams accurate; combine them, place them one upon another,
examine their relations, and you will discover the whole of elementary
geometry by proceeding from one observation to another, without using
either definitions or problems, or any form of demonstration than
simple superposition. For my part, I do not even pretend to teach
Emile geometry; he shall teach it to me. I will look for relations,
and he shall discover them. I will look for them in a way that will
lead him to discover them. In drawing a circle, for instance, I will
not use a compass, but a point at the end of a cord which turns on a
pivot. Afterward, when I want to compare the radii of a semi-circle,
Emile will laugh at me and tell me that the same cord, held with the
same tension, cannot describe unequal distances.
When I want to measure an angle of sixty degrees, I will describe from
the apex of the angle not an arc only, but an entire circle; for with
children nothing must be taken for granted. I find that the portion
intercepted by the two sides of the angle is one-sixth of the whole
circumference. Afterward, from the same centre, I describe another and
a larger circle, and find that this second arc is one-sixth of the new
circumference. Describing a third concentric circle, I test it in the
same way, and continue the process with other concentric circles, until
Emile, vexed at my stupidity, informs me that every arc, great or
small, intercepted by the sides of this angle, will be one-sixth of the
circumference to which it belongs. You see we are almost ready to use
the instruments intelligently.
In order to prove the angles of a triangle equal to two right angles, a
circle is usually drawn. I, on the contrary, will call Emile's
attention to this in the circle, and then ask him, "Now, if the circle
were taken away, and the straight lines were left, would the size of
the angles be changed?"
It is not customary to pay much attention to the accuracy of figures in
geometry; the accuracy is taken for granted, and the demonstration
alone is regarded. Emile and I will pay no heed to the demonstration,
but aim to draw exactly straight and even lines; to make a square
perfect and a circle round. To test the exactness of the figure we
will examine it in all its visible properties, and this will give us
daily opportunity of finding out others. We will fold the two halves
of a circle on the line of the diameter, and the halves of a square on
its diagonal, and then examine our two figures to see which has its
bounding lines most nearly coincident, and is therefore best
constructed. We will debate as to whether this equality of parts
exists in all parallelograms, trapeziums, and like figures. Sometimes
we will endeavor to guess at the result of the experiment before we
make it, and sometimes to find out the reasons why it should result as
it does.
Geometry for my pupil is only the art of using the rule and compass
well. It should not be confounded with drawing, which uses neither of
these instruments. The rule and compass are to be kept under lock and
key, and he shall be allowed to use them only occasionally, and for a
short time, lest he fall into the habit of daubing. But sometimes,
when we go for a walk, we will take our diagrams with us, and talk
about what we have done or would like to do.
Hearing.
What has been said as to the two senses most continually employed and
most important may illustrate the way in which I should exercise the
other senses. Sight and touch deal alike with bodies at rest and
bodies in motion. But as only the vibration of the air can arouse the
sense of hearing, noise or sound can be made only by a body in motion.
If everything were at rest, we could not hear at all. At night, when
we move only as we choose, we have nothing to fear except from other
bodies in motion. We therefore need quick ears to judge from our
sensations whether the body causing them is large or small, distant or
near, and whether its motion is violent or slight. The air, when in
agitation, is subject to reverberations which reflect it back, produce
echoes, and repeat the sensation, making the sonorous body heard
elsewhere than where it really is. In a plain or valley, if you put
your ear to the ground, you can hear the voices of men and the sound of
horses' hoofs much farther than when standing upright. As we have
compared sight with touch, let us also compare it with hearing, and
consider which of the two impressions, leaving the same body at the
same time, soonest reaches its organ. When we see the flash of a
cannon there is still time to avoid the shot; but as soon as we hear
the sound there is not time; the ball has struck. We can estimate the
distance of thunder by the interval between the flash and the
thunderbolt. Make the child understand such experiments; try those
that are within his own power, and discover others by inference. But
it would be better he should know nothing about these things than that
you should tell him all he is to know about them.
We have an organ that corresponds to that of hearing, that is, the
voice. Sight has nothing like this, for though we can produce sounds,
we cannot give off colors. We have therefore fuller means of
cultivating hearing, by exercising its active and passive organs upon
one another.
The Voice.
Man has three kinds of voice: the speaking or articulate voice, the
singing or melodious voice, and the pathetic or accented voice, which
gives language to passion and animates song and speech. A child has
these three kinds of voice as well as a man, but he does not know how
to blend them in the same way. Like his elders he can laugh, cry,
complain, exclaim, and groan. But he does not know how to blend these
inflections with the two other voices. Perfect music best accomplishes
this blending; but children are incapable of such music, and there is
never much feeling in their singing. In speaking, their voice has
little energy, and little or no accent.
Our pupil will have even a simpler and more uniform mode of speaking,
because his passions, not yet aroused, will not mingle their language
with his. Do not, therefore, give him dramatic parts to recite, nor
teach him to declaim. He will have too much sense to emphasize words
he cannot understand, and to express feelings he has never known.
Teach him to speak evenly, clearly, articulately, to pronounce
correctly and without affectation, to understand and use the accent
demanded by grammar and prosody. Train him to avoid a common fault
acquired in colleges, of speaking louder than is necessary; have him
speak loud enough to be understood; let there be no exaggeration in
anything.
Aim, also, to render his voice in singing, even, flexible, and
sonorous. Let his ear be sensitive to time and harmony, but to nothing
more. Do not expect of him, at his age, imitative and theatrical
music. It would be better if he did not even sing words. If he wished
to sing them, I should try to invent songs especially for him, such as
would interest him, as simple as his own ideas.
The Sense of Taste.
Of our different sensations, those of taste generally affect us most.
We are more interested in judging correctly of substances that are to
form part of our own bodies than of those which merely surround us. We
are indifferent to a thousand things, as objects of touch, of hearing,
or of sight; but there is almost nothing to which our sense of taste is
indifferent. Besides, the action of this sense is entirely physical
and material. Imagination and imitation often give a tinge of moral
character to the impressions of all the other senses; but to this it
appeals least of all, if at all. Generally, also, persons of
passionate and really sensitive temperament, easily moved by the other
senses, are rather indifferent in regard to this. This very fact,
which seems in some measure to degrade the sense of taste, and to make
excess in its indulgence more contemptible, leads me, however, to
conclude that the surest way to influence children is by means of their
appetite. Gluttony, as a motive, is far better than vanity; for
gluttony is a natural appetite depending directly on the senses, and
vanity is the result of opinion, is subject to human caprice and to
abuse of all kinds. Gluttony is the passion of childhood, and cannot
hold its own against any other; it disappears on the slightest occasion.
Believe me, the child will only too soon leave off thinking of his
appetite; for when his heart is occupied, his palate will give him
little concern. When he is a man, a thousand impulsive feelings will
divert his mind from gluttony to vanity; for this last passion alone
takes advantage of all others, and ends by absorbing them all. I have
sometimes watched closely those who are especially fond of dainties;
who, as soon as they awoke, were thinking of what they should eat
during the day, and could describe a dinner with more minuteness than
Polybius uses in describing a battle; and I have always found that
these supposed men were nothing but children forty years old, without
any force or steadiness of character. Gluttony is the vice of men who
have no stamina. The soul of a gourmand has its seat in his palate
alone; formed only for eating, stupid, incapable, he is in his true
place only at the table; his judgment is worthless except in the matter
of dishes. As he values these far more highly than others in which we
are interested, as well as he, let us without regret leave this
business of the palate to him.
It is weak precaution to fear that gluttony may take root in a child
capable of anything else. As children, we think only of eating; but in
youth, we think of it no more. Everything tastes good to us, and we
have many other things to occupy us.
Yet I would not use so low a motive injudiciously, or reward a good
action with a sugar-plum. Since childhood is or should be altogether
made up of play and frolic, I see no reason why exercise purely
physical should not have a material and tangible reward. If a young
Majorcan, seeing a basket in the top of a tree, brings it down with a
stone from his sling, why should he not have the recompense of a good
breakfast, to repair the strength used in earning it?
A young Spartan, braving the risk of a hundred lashes, stole into a
kitchen, and carried off a live fox-cub, which concealed under his
coat, scratched and bit him till the blood came. To avoid the disgrace
of detection, the child allowed the creature to gnaw his entrails, and
did not lift an eyelash or utter a cry.[23] Was it not just that, as a
reward, he was allowed to devour the beast that had done its best to
devour him?
A good meal ought never to be given as a reward; but why should it not
sometimes be the result of the pains taken to secure it? Emile will
not consider the cake I put upon a stone as a reward for running well;
he only knows that he cannot have the cake unless he reaches it before
some other person does.
This does not contradict the principle before laid down as to
simplicity in diet. For to please a child's appetite we need not
arouse it, but merely satisfy it; and this may be done with the most
ordinary things in the world, if we do not take pains to refine his
taste. His continual appetite, arising from his rapid growth, is an
unfailing sauce, which supplies the place of many others. With a
little fruit, or some of the dainties made from milk, or a bit of
pastry rather more of a rarity than the every-day bread, and, more than
all, with some tact in bestowing, you may lead an army of children to
the world's end without giving them any taste for highly spiced food,
or running any risk of cloying their palate.
Besides, whatever kind of diet you give children, provided they are
used only to simple and common articles of food, let them eat, run, and
play as much as they please, and you may rest assured they will never
eat too much, or be troubled with indigestion. But if you starve them
half the time, and they can find a way to escape your vigilance, they
will injure themselves with all their might, and eat until they are
entirely surfeited.
Unless we dictate to our appetite other rules than those of nature, it
will never be inordinate. Always regulating, prescribing, adding,
retrenching, we do everything with scales in hand. But the scales
measure our own whims, and not our digestive organs.
To return to my illustrations; among country folk the larder and the
orchard are always open, and nobody, young or old, knows what
indigestion means.