be thoroughly acquainted with the little that other men know. Since
the reverse of every false proposition is a truth, the number of
truths, like the number of errors, is inexhaustible. We have to select
what is to be taught as well as the time for learning it. Of the kinds
of knowledge within our power some are false, some useless, some serve
only to foster pride. Only the few that really conduce to our
well-being are worthy of study by a wise man, or by a youth intended to
be a wise man. The question is, not what may be known, but what will
be of the most use when it is known. From these few we must again
deduct such as require a ripeness of understanding and a knowledge of
human relations which a child cannot possibly acquire; such as, though
true in themselves, incline an inexperienced mind to judge wrongly of
other things.
This reduces us to a circle small indeed in relation to existing
things, but immense when we consider the capacity of the child's mind.
How daring was the hand that first ventured to lift the veil of
darkness from our human understanding! What abysses, due to our unwise
learning, yawn around the unfortunate youth! Tremble, you who are to
conduct him by these perilous ways, and to lift for him the sacred veil
of nature. Be sure of your own brain and of his, lest either, or
perhaps both, grow dizzy at the sight. Beware of the glamour of
falsehood and of the intoxicating fumes of pride. Always bear in mind
that ignorance has never been harmful, that error alone is fatal, and
that our errors arise, not from what we do not know, but from what we
think we do know.[1]
The Incentive of Curiosity.
The same instinct animates all the different faculties of man. To the
activity of the body, striving to develop itself, succeeds the activity
of the mind, endeavoring to instruct itself. Children are at first
only restless; afterwards they are inquisitive. Their curiosity,
rightly trained, is the incentive of the age we are now considering.
We must always distinguish natural inclinations from those that have
their source in opinion.
There is a thirst for knowledge which is founded only upon a desire to
be thought learned, and another, springing from our natural curiosity
concerning anything which nearly or remotely interests us. Our desire
for happiness is inborn, and as it can never be fully satisfied, we are
always seeking ways to increase what we have. This first principle of
curiosity is natural to the heart of man, but is developed only in
proportion to our passions and to our advance in knowledge. Call your
pupil's attention to the phenomena of nature, and you will soon render
him inquisitive. But if you would keep this curiosity alive, do not be
in haste to satisfy it. Ask him questions that he can comprehend, and
let him solve them. Let him know a thing because he has found it out
for himself, and not because you have told him of it. Let him not
learn science, but discover it for himself. If once you substitute
authority for reason, he will not reason any more; he will only be the
sport of other people's opinions.
When you are ready to teach this child geography, you get together your
globes and your maps; and what machines they are! Why, instead of
using all these representations, do you not begin by showing him the
object itself, so as to let him know what you are talking of?
On some beautiful evening take the child to walk with you, in a place
suitable for your purpose, where in the unobstructed horizon the
setting sun can be plainly seen. Take a careful observation of all the
objects marking the spot at which it goes down. When you go for an
airing next day, return to this same place before the sun rises. You
can see it announce itself by arrows of fire. The brightness
increases; the east seems all aflame; from its glow you anticipate long
beforehand the coming of day. Every moment you imagine you see it. At
last it really does appear, a brilliant point which rises like a flash
of lightning, and instantly fills all space. The veil of shadows is
cast down and disappears. We know our dwelling-place once more, and
find it more beautiful than ever. The verdure has taken on fresh vigor
during the night; it is revealed with its brilliant net-work of
dew-drops, reflecting light and color to the eye, in the first golden
rays of the new-born day. The full choir of birds, none silent, salute
in concert the Father of life. Their warbling, still faint with the
languor of a peaceful awakening, is now more lingering and sweet than
at other hours of the day. All this fills the senses with a charm and
freshness which seems to touch our inmost soul. No one can resist this
enchanting hour, or behold with indifference a spectacle so grand, so
beautiful, so full of all delight.
Carried away by such a sight, the teacher is eager to impart to the
child his own enthusiasm, and thinks to arouse it by calling attention
to what he himself feels. What folly! The drama of nature lives only
in the heart; to see it, one must feel it. The child sees the objects,
but not the relations that bind them together; he can make nothing of
their harmony. The complex and momentary impression of all these
sensations requires an experience he has never gained, and feelings he
has never known. If he has never crossed the desert and felt its
burning sands scorch his feet, the stifling reflection of the sun from
its rocks oppress him, how can he fully enjoy the coolness of a
beautiful morning? How can the perfume of flowers, the cooling vapor
of the dew, the sinking of his footstep in the soft and pleasant turf,
enchant his senses? How can the singing of birds delight him, while
the accents of love and pleasure are yet unknown? How can he see with
transport the rise of so beautiful a day, unless imagination can paint
all the transports with which it may be filled? And lastly, how can he
be moved by the beautiful panorama of nature, if he does not know by
whose tender care it has been adorned?
Do not talk to the child about things he cannot understand. Let him
hear from you no descriptions, no eloquence, no figurative language, no
poetry. Sentiment and taste are just now out of the question.
Continue to be clear, unaffected, and dispassionate; the time for using
another language will come only too soon.
Educated in the spirit of our principles, accustomed to look for
resources within himself, and to have recourse to others only when he
finds himself really helpless, he will examine every new object for a
long time without saying a word. He is thoughtful, and not disposed to
ask questions. Be satisfied, therefore, with presenting objects at
appropriate times and in appropriate ways. When you see his curiosity
fairly at work, ask him some laconic question which will suggest its
own answer.
On this occasion, having watched the sunrise from beginning to end with
him, having made him notice the mountains and other neighboring objects
on the same side, and allowed him to talk about them just as he
pleases, be silent for a few minutes, as if in deep thought, and then
say to him, "I think the sun set over there, and now it has risen over
here. How can that be so?" Say no more; if he asks questions, do not
answer them: speak of something else. Leave him to himself, and he
will be certain to think the matter over.
To give the child the habit of attention and to impress him deeply with
any truth affecting the senses, let him pass several restless days
before he discovers that truth. If the one in question does not thus
impress him, you may make him see it more clearly by reversing the
problem. If he does not know how the sun passes from its setting to
its rising, he at least does know how it travels from its rising to its
setting; his eyes alone teach him this. Explain your first question by
the second. If your pupil be not absolutely stupid, the analogy is so
plain that he cannot escape it. This is his first lesson in
cosmography.
As we pass slowly from one sensible idea to another, familiarize
ourselves for a long time with each before considering the next, and do
not force our pupil's attention; it will be a long way from this point
to a knowledge of the sun's course and of the shape of the earth. But
as all the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies are upon the same
principle, and the first observation prepares the way for all the rest,
less effort, if more time, is required to pass from the daily rotation
of the earth to the calculation of eclipses than to understand clearly
the phenomena of day and night.
Since the sun (apparently) revolves about the earth, it describes a
circle, and we already know that every circle must have a centre. This
centre, being in the heart of the earth, cannot be seen; but we may
mark upon the surface two opposite points that correspond to it. A rod
passing through these three points, and extending from one side of the
heavens to the other, shall be the axis of the earth, and of the sun's
apparent daily motion. A spherical top, turning on its point, shall
represent the heavens revolving on their axis; the two extremities of
the top are the two poles. The child will be interested in knowing one
of them, which I will show him near the tail of Ursa Minor.
This will serve to amuse us for one night. By degrees we shall grow
familiar with the stars, and this will awaken a desire to know the
planets and to watch the constellations.
We have seen the sun rise at midsummer; we will also watch its rising
at Christmas or some other fine day in winter. For be it known that we
are not at all idle, and that we make a joke of braving the cold. I
take care to make this second observation in the same place as the
first; and after some conversation to pave the way for it. One or the
other of us will be sure to exclaim, "How queer that is! the sun does
not rise where it used to rise! Here are our old landmarks, and now it
is rising over yonder. Then there must be one east for summer, and
another for winter." Now, young teacher, your way is plain. These
examples ought to suffice you for teaching the sphere very
understandingly, by taking the world for your globe, and the real sun
instead of your artificial sun.
Things Rather than their Signs.
In general, never show the representation of a thing unless it be
impossible to show the thing itself; for the sign absorbs the child's
attention, and makes him lose sight of the thing signified.
The armillary sphere[2] seems to me poorly designed and in bad
proportion. Its confused circles and odd figures, giving it the look
of a conjurer's apparatus, are enough to frighten a child. The earth
is too small; the circles are too many and too large. Some of them,
the colures,[3] for instance, are entirely useless. Every circle is
larger than the earth. The pasteboard gives them an appearance of
solidity which creates the mistaken impression that they are circular
masses which really exist. When you tell the child that these are
imaginary circles, he understands neither what he sees nor what you
mean.
Shall we never learn to put ourselves in the child's place? We do not
enter into his thoughts, but suppose them exactly like our own.
Constantly following our own method of reasoning, we cram his mind not
only with a concatenation of truths, but also with extravagant notions
and errors.
In the study of the sciences it is an open question whether we ought to
use synthesis or analysis. It is not always necessary to choose
either. In the same process of investigation we can sometimes both
resolve and compound, and while the child thinks he is only analyzing,
we can direct him by the methods teachers usually employ. By thus
using both we make each prove the other. Starting at the same moment
from two opposite points and never imagining that one road connects
them, he will be agreeably surprised to find that what he supposed to
be two paths finally meet as one.
I would, for example, take geography at these two extremes, and add to
the study of the earth's motions the measurement of its parts,
beginning with our own dwelling-place. While the child, studying the
sphere, is transported into the heavens, bring him back to the
measurement of the earth, and first show him his own home.
The two starting-points in his geography shall be the town in which he
lives, and his father's house in the country. Afterward shall come the
places lying between these two; then the neighboring rivers; lastly,
the aspect of the sun, and the manner of finding out where the east is.
This last is the point of union. Let him make himself a map of all
these details; a very simple map, including at first only two objects,
then by degrees the others, as he learns their distance and position.
You see now what an advantage we have gained beforehand, by making his
eyes serve him instead of a compass.
Even with this it may be necessary to direct him a little, but very
little, and without appearing to do so at all. When he makes mistakes,
let him make them; do not correct them. Wait in silence until he can
see and correct them himself. Or, at most, take a good opportunity to
set in motion some thing which will direct his attention to them. If
he were never to make mistakes, he could not learn half so well.
Besides, the important thing is, not that he should know the exact
topography of the country, but that he should learn how to find it out
by himself. It matters little whether he has maps in his mind or not,
so that he understands what they represent, and has a clear idea of how
they are made.
Mark the difference between the learning of your pupils and the
ignorance of mine. They know all about maps, and he can make them.
Our maps will serve as new decorations for our room.
Imparting a Taste for Science.
Bear in mind always that the life and soul of my system is, not to
teach the child many things, but to allow only correct and clear ideas
to enter his mind. I do not care if he knows nothing, so long as he is
not mistaken. To guard him from errors he might learn, I furnish his
mind with truths only. Reason and judgment enter slowly; prejudices
crowd in; and he must be preserved from these last. Yet if you
consider science in itself, you launch upon an unfathomable and
boundless sea, full of unavoidable dangers. When I see a man carried
away by his love for knowledge, hastening from one alluring science to
another, without knowing where to stop, I think I see a child gathering
shells upon the seashore. At first he loads himself with them; then,
tempted by others, he throws these away, and gathers more. At last,
weighed down by so many, and no longer knowing which to choose, he ends
by throwing all away, and returning empty-handed.
In our early years time passed slowly; we endeavored to lose it, for
fear of misusing it. The case is reversed; now we have not time enough
for doing all that we find useful. Bear in mind that the passions are
drawing nearer, and that as soon as they knock at the door, your pupil
will have eyes and ears for them alone. The tranquil period of
intelligence is so brief, and has so many other necessary uses, that
only folly imagines it long enough to make the child a learned man.
The thing is, not to teach him knowledge, but to give him a love for
it, and a good method of acquiring it when this love has grown
stronger. Certainly this is a fundamental principle in all good
education.
Now, also, is the time to accustom him gradually to concentrate
attention on a single object. This attention, however, should never
result from constraint, but from desire and pleasure. Be careful that
it shall not grow irksome, or approach the point of weariness. Leave
any subject just before he grows tired of it; for the learning it
matters less to him than the never being obliged to learn anything
against his will. If he himself questions you, answer so as to keep
alive his curiosity, not to satisfy it altogether. Above all, when you
find that he makes inquiries, not for the sake of learning something,
but to talk at random and annoy you with silly questions, pause at
once, assured that he cares nothing about the matter, but only to
occupy your time with himself. Less regard should be paid to what he
says than to the motive which leads him to speak. This caution,
heretofore unnecessary, is of the utmost importance as soon as a child
begins to reason.
There is a chain of general truths by which all sciences are linked to
common principles and successively unfolded. This chain is the method
of philosophers, with which, for the present, we have nothing to do.
There is another, altogether different, which shows each object as the
cause of another, and always points out the one following. This order,
which, by a perpetual curiosity, keeps alive the attention demanded by
all, is the one followed by most men, and of all others necessary with
children. When, in making our maps, we found out the place of the
east, we were obliged to draw meridians. The two points of
intersection between the equal shadows of night and morning furnish an
excellent meridian for an astronomer thirteen years old. But these
meridians disappear; it takes time to draw them; they oblige us to work
always in the same place; so much care, so much annoyance, will tire
him out at last. We have seen and provided for this beforehand.
I have again begun upon tedious and minute details. Readers, I hear
your murmurs, and disregard them. I will not sacrifice to your
impatience the most useful part of this book. Do what you please with
my tediousness, as I have done as I pleased in regard to your
complaints.
The Juggler.
For some time my pupil and I had observed that different bodies, such
as amber, glass, and wax, when rubbed, attract straws, and that others
do not attract them. By accident we discovered one that has a virtue
more extraordinary still,--that of attracting at a distance, and
without being rubbed, iron filings and other bits of iron. This
peculiarity amused us for some time before we saw any use in it. At
last we found out that it may be communicated to iron itself, when
magnetized to a certain degree. One day we went to a fair, where a
juggler, with a piece of bread, attracted a duck made of wax, and
floating on a bowl of water. Much surprised, we did not however say,
"He is a conjurer," for we knew nothing about conjurers. Continually
struck by effects whose causes we do not know, we were not in haste to
decide the matter, and remained in ignorance until we found a way out
of it.
When we reached home we had talked so much of the duck at the fair that
we thought we would endeavor to copy it. Taking a perfect needle, well
magnetized, we inclosed it in white wax, modelled as well as we could
do it into the shape of a duck, so that the needle passed entirely
through the body, and with its larger end formed the duck's bill. We
placed the duck upon the water, applied to the beak the handle of a
key, and saw, with a delight easy to imagine, that our duck would
follow the key precisely as the one at the fair had followed the piece
of bread. We saw that some time or other we might observe the
direction in which the duck turned when left to itself upon the water.
But absorbed at that time by another object, we wanted nothing more.
That evening, having in our pockets bread prepared for the occasion, we
returned to the fair. As soon as the mountebank had performed his
feat, my little philosopher, scarcely able to contain himself, told him
that the thing was not hard to do, and that he could do it himself. He
was taken at his word. Instantly he took from his pocket the bread in
which he had hidden the bit of iron. Approaching the table his heart
beat fast; almost tremblingly, he presented the bread. The duck came
toward it and followed it; the child shouted and danced for joy. At
the clapping of hands, and the acclamations of all present, his head
swam, and he was almost beside himself. The juggler was astonished,
but embraced and congratulated him, begging that we would honor him
again by our presence on the following day, adding that he would take
care to have a larger company present to applaud our skill. My little
naturalist, filled with pride, began to prattle; but I silenced him,
and led him away loaded with praises. The child counted the minutes
until the morrow with impatience that made me smile. He invited
everybody he met; gladly would he have had all mankind as witnesses of
his triumph. He could scarcely wait for the hour agreed upon, and,
long before it came, flew to the place appointed. The hall was already
full, and on entering, his little heart beat fast. Other feats were to
come first; the juggler outdid himself, and there were some really
wonderful performances. The child paid no attention to these. His
excitement had thrown him into a perspiration; he was almost
breathless, and fingered the bread in his pocket with a hand trembling
with impatience.
At last his turn came, and the master pompously announced the fact.
Rather bashfully the boy drew near and held forth his bread. Alas for
the changes in human affairs! The duck, yesterday so tame, had grown
wild. Instead of presenting its bill, it turned about and swam away,
avoiding the bread and the hand which presented it, as carefully as it
had before followed them. After many fruitless attempts, each received
with derision, the child complained that a trick was played on him, and
defied the juggler to attract the duck.
The man, without a word, took a piece of bread and presented it to the
duck, which instantly followed it, and came towards his hand. The
child took the same bit of bread; but far from having better success,
he saw the duck make sport of him by whirling round and round as it
swam about the edge of the basin. At last he retired in great
confusion, no longer daring to encounter the hisses which followed.
Then the juggler took the bit of bread the child had brought, and
succeeded as well with it as with his own. In the presence of the
entire company he drew out the needle, making another joke at our
expense; then, with the bread thus disarmed, he attracted the duck as
before. He did the same thing with a piece of bread which a third
person cut off in the presence of all; again, with his glove, and with
the tip of his finger. At last, going to the middle of the room, he
declared in the emphatic tone peculiar to his sort, that the duck would
obey his voice quite as well as his gesture. He spoke, and the duck
obeyed him; commanded it to go to the right, and it went to the right;
to return, and it did so; to turn, and it turned itself about. Each
movement was as prompt as the command. The redoubled applause was a
repeated affront to us. We stole away unmolested, and shut ourselves
up in our room, without proclaiming our success far and wide as we had
meant to do.
There was a knock at our door next morning; I opened it, and there
stood the mountebank, who modestly complained of our conduct. What had
he done to us that we should try to throw discredit on his performances
and take away his livelihood? What is so wonderful in the art of
attracting a wax duck, that the honor should be worth the price of an
honest man's living? "Faith, gentlemen, if I had any other way of
earning my bread, I should boast very little of this way. You may well
believe that a man who has spent his life in practising this pitiful
trade understands it much better than you, who devote only a few
minutes to it. If I did not show you my best performances the first
time, it was because a man ought not to be such a fool as to parade
everything he knows. I always take care to keep my best things for a
fit occasion; and I have others, too, to rebuke young and thoughtless
people. Besides, gentlemen, I am going to teach you, in the goodness
of my heart, the secret which puzzled you so much, begging that you
will not abuse your knowledge of it to injure me, and that another time
you will use more discretion."
Then he showed us his apparatus, and we saw, to our surprise, that it
consisted only of a powerful magnet moved by a child concealed beneath
the table. The man put up his machine again; and after thanking him
and making due apologies, we offered him a present. He refused,
saying, "No, gentlemen, I am not so well pleased with you as to accept
presents from you. You cannot help being under an obligation to me,
and that is revenge enough. But, you see, generosity is to be found in
every station in life; I take pay for my performances, not for my
lessons."