BOOK II

We have now reached the second phase of life; infancy, strictly

so-called, is over; for the words infans and puer are not

synonymous. The latter includes the former, which means literally

"one who cannot speak;" thus Valerius speaks of puerum infantem.

But I shall continue to use the word child (French enfant) according

to the custom of our language till an age for which there is another

term.

When children begin to talk they cry less. This progress is quite

natural; one language supplants another. As soon as they can say

"It hurts me," why should they cry, unless the pain is too sharp

for words? If they still cry, those about them are to blame. When

once Emile has said, "It hurts me," it will take a very sharp pain

to make him cry.

If the child is delicate and sensitive, if by nature he begins to

cry for nothing, I let him cry in vain and soon check his tears at

their source. So long as he cries I will not go near him; I come

at once when he leaves off crying. He will soon be quiet when he

wants to call me, or rather he will utter a single cry. Children

learn the meaning of signs by their effects; they have no other

meaning for them. However much a child hurts himself when he is

alone, he rarely cries, unless he expects to be heard.

Should he fall or bump his head, or make his nose bleed, or cut

his fingers, I shall show no alarm, nor shall I make any fuss over

him; I shall take no notice, at any rate at first. The harm is done;

he must bear it; all my zeal could only frighten him more and make

him more nervous. Indeed it is not the blow but the fear of it which

distresses us when we are hurt. I shall spare him this suffering

at least, for he will certainly regard the injury as he sees me

regard it; if he finds that I hasten anxiously to him, if I pity

him or comfort him, he will think he is badly hurt. If he finds I

take no notice, he will soon recover himself, and will think the

wound is healed when it ceases to hurt. This is the time for his

first lesson in courage, and by bearing slight ills without fear

we gradually learn to bear greater.

I shall not take pains to prevent Emile hurting himself; far from

it, I should be vexed if he never hurt himself, if he grew up

unacquainted with pain. To bear pain is his first and most useful

lesson. It seems as if children were small and weak on purpose to

teach them these valuable lessons without danger. The child has

such a little way to fall he will not break his leg; if he knocks

himself with a stick he will not break his arm; if he seizes a sharp

knife he will not grasp it tight enough to make a deep wound. So

far as I know, no child, left to himself, has ever been known to

kill or maim itself, or even to do itself any serious harm, unless

it has been foolishly left on a high place, or alone near the fire,

or within reach of dangerous weapons. What is there to be said for

all the paraphernalia with which the child is surrounded to shield

him on every side so that he grows up at the mercy of pain, with

neither courage nor experience, so that he thinks he is killed by

a pin-prick and faints at the sight of blood?

With our foolish and pedantic methods we are always preventing children

from learning what they could learn much better by themselves, while

we neglect what we alone can teach them. Can anything be sillier

than the pains taken to teach them to walk, as if there were any

one who was unable to walk when he grows up through his nurse's

neglect? How many we see walking badly all their life because they

were ill taught?

Emile shall have no head-pads, no go-carts, no leading-strings;

or at least as soon as he can put one foot before another he shall

only be supported along pavements, and he shall be taken quickly

across them. [Footnote: There is nothing so absurd and hesitating

as the gait of those who have been kept too long in leading-strings

when they were little. This is one of the observations which are

considered trivial because they are true.] Instead of keeping him

mewed up in a stuffy room, take him out into a meadow every day;

let him run about, let him struggle and fall again and again, the

oftener the better; he will learn all the sooner to pick himself

up. The delights of liberty will make up for many bruises. My

pupil will hurt himself oftener than yours, but he will always be

merry; your pupils may receive fewer injuries, but they are always

thwarted, constrained, and sad. I doubt whether they are any better

off.

As their strength increases, children have also less need for tears.

They can do more for themselves, they need the help of others less

frequently. With strength comes the sense to use it. It is with

this second phase that the real personal life has its beginning; it

is then that the child becomes conscious of himself. During every

moment of his life memory calls up the feeling of self; he becomes

really one person, always the same, and therefore capable of joy

or sorrow. Hence we must begin to consider him as a moral being.

Although we know approximately the limits of human life and our

chances of attaining those limits, nothing is more uncertain than

the length of the life of any one of us. Very few reach old age.

The chief risks occur at the beginning of life; the shorter our

past life, the less we must hope to live. Of all the children who

are born scarcely one half reach adolescence, and it is very likely

your pupil will not live to be a man.

What is to be thought, therefore, of that cruel education which

sacrifices the present to an uncertain future, that burdens a child

with all sorts of restrictions and begins by making him miserable,

in order to prepare him for some far-off happiness which he may

never enjoy? Even if I considered that education wise in its aims,

how could I view without indignation those poor wretches subjected

to an intolerable slavery and condemned like galley-slaves to endless

toil, with no certainty that they will gain anything by it? The

age of harmless mirth is spent in tears, punishments, threats,

and slavery. You torment the poor thing for his good; you fail

to see that you are calling Death to snatch him from these gloomy

surroundings. Who can say how many children fall victims to the

excessive care of their fathers and mothers? They are happy to

escape from this cruelty; this is all that they gain from the ills

they are forced to endure: they die without regretting, having

known nothing of life but its sorrows.

Men, be kind to your fellow-men; this is your first duty, kind to

every age and station, kind to all that is not foreign to humanity.

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness? Love childhood,

indulge its sports, its pleasures, its delightful instincts. Who

has not sometimes regretted that age when laughter was ever on the

lips, and when the heart was ever at peace? Why rob these innocents

of the joys which pass so quickly, of that precious gift which they

cannot abuse? Why fill with bitterness the fleeting days of early

childhood, days which will no more return for them than for you?

Fathers, can you tell when death will call your children to him?

Do not lay up sorrow for yourselves by robbing them of the short

span which nature has allotted to them. As soon as they are aware

of the joy of life, let them rejoice in it, go that whenever God

calls them they may not die without having tasted the joy of life.

How people will cry out against me! I hear from afar the shouts of

that false wisdom which is ever dragging us onwards, counting the

present as nothing, and pursuing without a pause a future which

flies as we pursue, that false wisdom which removes us from our

place and never brings us to any other.

Now is the time, you say, to correct his evil tendencies; we must

increase suffering in childhood, when it is less keenly felt, to

lessen it in manhood. But how do you know that you can carry out

all these fine schemes; how do you know that all this fine teaching

with which you overwhelm the feeble mind of the child will not do

him more harm than good in the future? How do you know that you

can spare him anything by the vexations you heap upon him now? Why

inflict on him more ills than befit his present condition unless

you are quite sure that these present ills will save him future

ill? And what proof can you give me that those evil tendencies

you profess to cure are not the result of your foolish precautions

rather than of nature? What a poor sort of foresight, to make a

child wretched in the present with the more or less doubtful hope

of making him happy at some future day. If such blundering thinkers

fail to distinguish between liberty and licence, between a merry

child and a spoilt darling, let them learn to discriminate.

Let us not forget what befits our present state in the pursuit

of vain fancies. Mankind has its place in the sequence of things;

childhood has its place in the sequence of human life; the man must

be treated as a man and the child as a child. Give each his place,

and keep him there. Control human passions according to man's

nature; that is all we can do for his welfare. The rest depends on

external forces, which are beyond our control.

Absolute good and evil are unknown to us. In this life they are

blended together; we never enjoy any perfectly pure feeling, nor

do we remain for more than a moment in the same state. The feelings

of our minds, like the changes in our bodies, are in a continual

flux. Good and ill are common to all, but in varying proportions.

The happiest is he who suffers least; the most miserable is he who

enjoys least. Ever more sorrow than joy--this is the lot of all of

us. Man's happiness in this world is but a negative state; it must

be reckoned by the fewness of his ills.

Every feeling of hardship is inseparable from the desire to escape

from it; every idea of pleasure from the desire to enjoy it. All desire

implies a want, and all wants are painful; hence our wretchedness

consists in the disproportion between our desires and our powers.

A conscious being whose powers were equal to his desires would be

perfectly happy.

What then is human wisdom? Where is the path of true happiness?

The mere limitation of our desires is not enough, for if they were

less than our powers, part of our faculties would be idle, and we

should not enjoy our whole being; neither is the mere extension of

our powers enough, for if our desires were also increased we should

only be the more miserable. True happiness consists in decreasing

the difference between our desires and our powers, in establishing

a perfect equilibrium between the power and the will. Then only,

when all its forces are employed, will the soul be at rest and man

will find himself in his true position.

In this condition, nature, who does everything for the best, has

placed him from the first. To begin with, she gives him only such

desires as are necessary for self-preservation and such powers as

are sufficient for their satisfaction. All the rest she has stored

in his mind as a sort of reserve, to be drawn upon at need. It

is only in this primitive condition that we find the equilibrium

between desire and power, and then alone man is not unhappy. As

soon as his potential powers of mind begin to function, imagination,

more powerful than all the rest, awakes, and precedes all the rest.

It is imagination which enlarges the bounds of possibility for us,

whether for good or ill, and therefore stimulates and feeds desires

by the hope of satisfying them. But the object which seemed within

our grasp flies quicker than we can follow; when we think we have

grasped it, it transforms itself and is again far ahead of us.

We no longer perceive the country we have traversed, and we think

nothing of it; that which lies before us becomes vaster and stretches

still before us. Thus we exhaust our strength, yet never reach our

goal, and the nearer we are to pleasure, the further we are from

happiness.

On the other hand, the more nearly a man's condition approximates

to this state of nature the less difference is there between his

desires and his powers, and happiness is therefore less remote.

Lacking everything, he is never less miserable; for misery consists,

not in the lack of things, but in the needs which they inspire.

The world of reality has its bounds, the world of imagination is

boundless; as we cannot enlarge the one, let us restrict the other;

for all the sufferings which really make us miserable arise from

the difference between the real and the imaginary. Health, strength,

and a good conscience excepted, all the good things of life are a

matter of opinion; except bodily suffering and remorse, all our woes

are imaginary. You will tell me this is a commonplace; I admit it,

but its practical application is no commonplace, and it is with

practice only that we are now concerned.

What do you mean when you say, "Man is weak"? The term weak implies

a relation, a relation of the creature to whom it is applied. An

insect or a worm whose strength exceeds its needs is strong; an

elephant, a lion, a conqueror, a hero, a god himself, whose needs

exceed his strength is weak. The rebellious angel who fought against

his own nature was weaker than the happy mortal who is living at

peace according to nature. When man is content to be himself he

is strong indeed; when he strives to be more than man he is weak

indeed. But do not imagine that you can increase your strength

by increasing your powers. Not so; if your pride increases more

rapidly your strength is diminished. Let us measure the extent of

our sphere and remain in its centre like the spider in its web;

we shall have strength sufficient for our needs, we shall have no

cause to lament our weakness, for we shall never be aware of it.

The other animals possess only such powers as are required for

self-preservation; man alone has more. Is it not very strange that

this superfluity should make him miserable? In every land a man's

labour yields more than a bare living. If he were wise enough to

disregard this surplus he would always have enough, for he would

never have too much. "Great needs," said Favorin, "spring from

great wealth; and often the best way of getting what we want is

to get rid of what we have." By striving to increase our happiness

we change it into wretchedness. If a man were content to live, he

would live happy; and he would therefore be good, for what would

he have to gain by vice?

If we were immortal we should all be miserable; no doubt it is hard

to die, but it is sweet to think that we shall not live for ever,

and that a better life will put an end to the sorrows of this

world. If we had the offer of immortality here below, who would

accept the sorrowful gift? [Footnote: You understand I am speaking

of those who think, and not of the crowd.] What resources, what

hopes, what consolation would be left against the cruelties of

fate and man's injustice? The ignorant man never looks before; he

knows little of the value of life and does not fear to lose it;

the wise man sees things of greater worth and prefers them to it.

Half knowledge and sham wisdom set us thinking about death and

what lies beyond it; and they thus create the worst of our ills.

The wise man bears life's ills all the better because he knows

he must die. Life would be too dearly bought did we not know that

sooner or later death will end it.

Our moral ills are the result of prejudice, crime alone excepted,

and that depends on ourselves; our bodily ills either put an end

to themselves or to us. Time or death will cure them, but the less

we know how to bear it, the greater is our pain, and we suffer more

in our efforts to cure our diseases than if we endured them. Live

according to nature; be patient, get rid of the doctors; you will

not escape death, but you will only die once, while the doctors

make you die daily through your diseased imagination; their lying

art, instead of prolonging your days, robs you of all delight in

them. I am always asking what real good this art has done to mankind.

True, the doctors cure some who would have died, but they kill

millions who would have lived. If you are wise you will decline to

take part in this lottery when the odds are so great against you.

Suffer, die, or get better; but whatever you do, live while you

are alive.

Human institutions are one mass of folly and contradiction. As our

life loses its value we set a higher price upon it. The old regret

life more than the young; they do not want to lose all they have

spent in preparing for its enjoyment. At sixty it is cruel to

die when one has not begun to live. Man is credited with a strong

desire for self-preservation, and this desire exists; but we fail

to perceive that this desire, as felt by us, is largely the work

of man. In a natural state man is only eager to preserve his life

while he has the means for its preservation; when self-preservation

is no longer possible, he resigns himself to his fate and dies without

vain torments. Nature teaches us the first law of resignation.

Savages, like wild beasts, make very little struggle against

death, and meet it almost without a murmur. When this natural law

is overthrown reason establishes another, but few discern it, and

man's resignation is never so complete as nature's.

Prudence! Prudence which is ever bidding us look forward into the

future, a future which in many cases we shall never reach; here is

the real source of all our troubles! How mad it is for so short-lived

a creature as man to look forward into a future to which he rarely

attains, while he neglects the present which is his? This madness

is all the more fatal since it increases with years, and the old,

always timid, prudent, and miserly, prefer to do without necessaries

to-day that they may have luxuries at a hundred. Thus we grasp

everything, we cling to everything; we are anxious about time,

place, people, things, all that is and will be; we ourselves are

but the least part of ourselves. We spread ourselves, so to speak,

over the whole world, and all this vast expanse becomes sensitive.

No wonder our woes increase when we may be wounded on every side.

How many princes make themselves miserable for the loss of lands

they never saw, and how many merchants lament in Paris over some

misfortune in the Indies!

Is it nature that carries men so far from their real selves? Is it

her will that each should learn his fate from others and even be

the last to learn it; so that a man dies happy or miserable before

he knows what he is about. There is a healthy, cheerful, strong,

and vigorous man; it does me good to see him; his eyes tell of

content and well-being; he is the picture of happiness. A letter

comes by post; the happy man glances at it, it is addressed to him,

he opens it and reads it. In a moment he is changed, he turns pale

and falls into a swoon. When he comes to himself he weeps, laments,

and groans, he tears his hair, and his shrieks re-echo through the

air. You would say he was in convulsions. Fool, what harm has this

bit of paper done you? What limb has it torn away? What crime has

it made you commit? What change has it wrought in you to reduce

you to this state of misery?

Had the letter miscarried, had some kindly hand thrown it into the

fire, it strikes me that the fate of this mortal, at once happy and

unhappy, would have offered us a strange problem. His misfortunes,

you say, were real enough. Granted; but he did not feel them. What

of that? His happiness was imaginary. I admit it; health, wealth,

a contented spirit, are mere dreams. We no longer live in our own

place, we live outside it. What does it profit us to live in such

fear of death, when all that makes life worth living is our own?

Oh, man! live your own life and you will no longer be wretched.

Keep to your appointed place in the order of nature and nothing can

tear you from it. Do not kick against the stern law of necessity,

nor waste in vain resistance the strength bestowed on you by heaven,

not to prolong or extend your existence, but to preserve it so far

and so long as heaven pleases. Your freedom and your power extend

as far and no further than your natural strength; anything more is

but slavery, deceit, and trickery. Power itself is servile when it

depends upon public opinion; for you are dependent on the prejudices

of others when you rule them by means of those prejudices. To lead

them as you will, they must be led as they will. They have only

to change their way of thinking and you are forced to change your

course of action. Those who approach you need only contrive to

sway the opinions of those you rule, or of the favourite by whom

you are ruled, or those of your own family or theirs. Had you the

genius of Themistocles, [Footnote: "You see that little boy," said

Themistocles to his friends, "the fate of Greece is in his hands,

for he rules his mother and his mother rules me, I rule the Athenians

and the Athenians rule the Greeks." What petty creatures we should

often find controlling great empires if we traced the course of power

from the prince to those who secretly put that power in motion.]

viziers, courtiers, priests, soldiers, servants, babblers, the

very children themselves, would lead you like a child in the midst

of your legions. Whatever you do, your actual authority can never

extend beyond your own powers. As soon as you are obliged to

see with another's eyes you must will what he wills. You say with

pride, "My people are my subjects." Granted, but what are you? The

subject of your ministers. And your ministers, what are they? The

subjects of their clerks, their mistresses, the servants of their

servants. Grasp all, usurp all, and then pour out your silver with

both hands; set up your batteries, raise the gallows and the wheel;

make laws, issue proclamations, multiply your spies, your soldiers,

your hangmen, your prisons, and your chains. Poor little men, what

good does it do you? You will be no better served, you will be

none the less robbed and deceived, you will be no nearer absolute

power. You will say continually, "It is our will," and you will

continually do the will of others.

There is only one man who gets his own way--he who can get it

single-handed; therefore freedom, not power, is the greatest good.

That man is truly free who desires what he is able to perform, and

does what he desires. This is my fundamental maxim. Apply it to

childhood, and all the rules of education spring from it.

Society has enfeebled man, not merely by robbing him of the right

to his own strength, but still more by making his strength insufficient

for his needs. This is why his desires increase in proportion to

his weakness; and this is why the child is weaker than the man. If

a man is strong and a child is weak it is not because the strength

of the one is absolutely greater than the strength of the other,

but because the one can naturally provide for himself and the other

cannot. Thus the man will have more desires and the child more

caprices, a word which means, I take it, desires which are not true

needs, desires which can only be satisfied with the help of others.

I have already given the reason for this state of weakness. Parental

affection is nature's provision against it; but parental affection

may be carried to excess, it may be wanting, or it may be ill applied.

Parents who live under our ordinary social conditions bring their

child into these conditions too soon. By increasing his needs they

do not relieve his weakness; they rather increase it. They further

increase it by demanding of him what nature does not demand, by

subjecting to their will what little strength he has to further

his own wishes, by making slaves of themselves or of him instead

of recognising that mutual dependence which should result from his

weakness or their affection.

The wise man can keep his own place; but the child who does not

know what his place is, is unable to keep it. There are a thousand

ways out of it, and it is the business of those who have charge

of the child to keep him in his place, and this is no easy task.

He should be neither beast nor man, but a child. He must feel his

weakness, but not suffer through it; he must be dependent, but

he must not obey; he must ask, not command. He is only subject to

others because of his needs, and because they see better than he

what he really needs, what may help or hinder his existence. No

one, not even his father, has the right to bid the child do what

is of no use to him.

When our natural tendencies have not been interfered with by human

prejudice and human institutions, the happiness alike of children

and of men consists in the enjoyment of their liberty. But the

child's liberty is restricted by his lack of strength. He who does

as he likes is happy provided he is self-sufficing; it is so with

the man who is living in a state of nature. He who does what he

likes is not happy if his desires exceed his strength; it is so

with a child in like conditions. Even in a state of nature children

only enjoy an imperfect liberty, like that enjoyed by men in social

life. Each of us, unable to dispense with the help of others,

becomes so far weak and wretched. We were meant to be men, laws and

customs thrust us back into infancy. The rich and great, the very

kings themselves are but children; they see that we are ready to

relieve their misery; this makes them childishly vain, and they are

quite proud of the care bestowed on them, a care which they would

never get if they were grown men.

These are weighty considerations, and they provide a solution

for all the conflicting problems of our social system. There are

two kinds of dependence: dependence on things, which is the work

of nature; and dependence on men, which is the work of society.

Dependence on things, being non-moral, does no injury to liberty and

begets no vices; dependence on men, being out of order, [Footnote:

In my PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL LAW it is proved that no private will

can be ordered in the social system.] gives rise to every kind of

vice, and through this master and slave become mutually depraved.

If there is any cure for this social evil, it is to be found in

the substitution of law for the individual; in arming the general

will with a real strength beyond the power of any individual will.

If the laws of nations, like the laws of nature, could never be

broken by any human power, dependence on men would become dependence

on things; all the advantages of a state of nature would be combined

with all the advantages of social life in the commonwealth. The

liberty which preserves a man from vice would be united with the

morality which raises him to virtue.

Keep the child dependent on things only. By this course of education

you will have followed the order of nature. Let his unreasonable

wishes meet with physical obstacles only, or the punishment which

results from his own actions, lessons which will be recalled when

the same circumstances occur again. It is enough to prevent him

from wrong doing without forbidding him to do wrong. Experience or

lack of power should take the place of law. Give him, not what he

wants, but what he needs. Let there be no question of obedience for

him or tyranny for you. Supply the strength he lacks just so far

as is required for freedom, not for power, so that he may receive

your services with a sort of shame, and look forward to the time when

he may dispense with them and may achieve the honour of self-help.

Nature provides for the child's growth in her own fashion, and this

should never be thwarted. Do not make him sit still when he wants

to run about, nor run when he wants to be quiet. If we did not

spoil our children's wills by our blunders their desires would be

free from caprice. Let them run, jump, and shout to their heart's

content. All their own activities are instincts of the body for

its growth in strength; but you should regard with suspicion those

wishes which they cannot carry out for themselves, those which

others must carry out for them. Then you must distinguish carefully

between natural and artificial needs, between the needs of budding

caprice and the needs which spring from the overflowing life just

described.

I have already told you what you ought to do when a child cries for

this thing or that. I will only add that as soon as he has words

to ask for what he wants and accompanies his demands with tears,

either to get his own way quicker or to over-ride a refusal, he

should never have his way. If his words were prompted by a real

need you should recognise it and satisfy it at once; but to yield

to his tears is to encourage him to cry, to teach him to doubt

your kindness, and to think that you are influenced more by his

importunity than your own good-will. If he does not think you kind

he will soon think you unkind; if he thinks you weak he will soon

become obstinate; what you mean to give must be given at once. Be

chary of refusing, but, having refused, do not change your mind.

Above all, beware of teaching the child empty phrases of politeness,

which serve as spells to subdue those around him to his will, and

to get him what he wants at once. The artificial education of the

rich never fails to make them politely imperious, by teaching them

the words to use so that no one will dare to resist them. Their

children have neither the tone nor the manner of suppliants; they are

as haughty or even more haughty in their entreaties than in their

commands, as though they were more certain to be obeyed. You see

at once that "If you please" means "It pleases me," and "I beg"

means "I command." What a fine sort of politeness which only succeeds

in changing the meaning of words so that every word is a command!

For my own part, I would rather Emile were rude than haughty, that

he should say "Do this" as a request, rather than "Please" as a

command. What concerns me is his meaning, not his words.

There is such a thing as excessive severity as well as excessive

indulgence, and both alike should be avoided. If you let children

suffer you risk their health and life; you make them miserable now;

if you take too much pains to spare them every kind of uneasiness

you are laying up much misery for them in the future; you are making

them delicate and over-sensitive; you are taking them out of their

place among men, a place to which they must sooner or later return,

in spite of all your pains. You will say I am falling into the

same mistake as those bad fathers whom I blamed for sacrificing the

present happiness of their children to a future which may never be

theirs.

Not so; for the liberty I give my pupil makes up for the slight

hardships to which he is exposed. I see little fellows playing in

the snow, stiff and blue with cold, scarcely able to stir a finger.

They could go and warm themselves if they chose, but they do not

choose; if you forced them to come in they would feel the harshness

of constraint a hundredfold more than the sharpness of the cold. Then

what becomes of your grievance? Shall I make your child miserable

by exposing him to hardships which he is perfectly ready to endure? I

secure his present good by leaving him his freedom, and his future

good by arming him against the evils he will have to bear. If he

had his choice, would he hesitate for a moment between you and me?

Do you think any man can find true happiness elsewhere than in his

natural state; and when you try to spare him all suffering, are you

not taking him out of his natural state? Indeed I maintain that to

enjoy great happiness he must experience slight ills; such is his

nature. Too much bodily prosperity corrupts the morals. A man who

knew nothing of suffering would be incapable of tenderness towards

his fellow-creatures and ignorant of the joys of pity; he would be

hard-hearted, unsocial, a very monster among men.

Do you know the surest way to make your child miserable? Let him

have everything he wants; for as his wants increase in proportion

to the ease with which they are satisfied, you will be compelled,

sooner or later, to refuse his demands, and this unlooked-for

refusal will hurt him more than the lack of what he wants. He will

want your stick first, then your watch, the bird that flies, or

the star that shines above him. He will want all he sets eyes on,

and unless you were God himself, how could you satisfy him?

Man naturally considers all that he can get as his own. In this

sense Hobbes' theory is true to a certain extent: Multiply both our

wishes and the means of satisfying them, and each will be master of

all. Thus the child, who has only to ask and have, thinks himself

the master of the universe; he considers all men as his slaves;

and when you are at last compelled to refuse, he takes your refusal

as an act of rebellion, for he thinks he has only to command. All

the reasons you give him, while he is still too young to reason,

are so many pretences in his eyes; they seem to him only unkindness;

the sense of injustice embitters his disposition; he hates every

one. Though he has never felt grateful for kindness, he resents

all opposition.

How should I suppose that such a child can ever be happy? He is

the slave of anger, a prey to the fiercest passions. Happy! He is

a tyrant, at once the basest of slaves and the most wretched of

creatures. I have known children brought up like this who expected

you to knock the house down, to give them the weather-cock on the

steeple, to stop a regiment on the march so that they might listen

to the band; when they could not get their way they screamed and

cried and would pay no attention to any one. In vain everybody strove

to please them; as their desires were stimulated by the ease with

which they got their own way, they set their hearts on impossibilities,

and found themselves face to face with opposition and difficulty,

pain and grief. Scolding, sulking, or in a rage, they wept and cried

all day. Were they really so greatly favoured? Weakness, combined

with love of power, produces nothing but folly and suffering. One

spoilt child beats the table; another whips the sea. They may beat

and whip long enough before they find contentment.

If their childhood is made wretched by these notions of power and

tyranny, what of their manhood, when their relations with their

fellow-men begin to grow and multiply? They are used to find everything

give way to them; what a painful surprise to enter society and meet

with opposition on every side, to be crushed beneath the weight

of a universe which they expected to move at will. Their insolent

manners, their childish vanity, only draw down upon them mortification,

scorn, and mockery; they swallow insults like water; sharp experience

soon teaches them that they have realised neither their position

nor their strength. As they cannot do everything, they think they

can do nothing. They are daunted by unexpected obstacles, degraded

by the scorn of men; they become base, cowardly, and deceitful, and

fall as far below their true level as they formerly soared above

it.

Let us come back to the primitive law. Nature has made children

helpless and in need of affection; did she make them to be obeyed

and feared? Has she given them an imposing manner, a stern eye, a

loud and threatening voice with which to make themselves feared?

I understand how the roaring of the lion strikes terror into the

other beasts, so that they tremble when they behold his terrible

mane, but of all unseemly, hateful, and ridiculous sights, was there

ever anything like a body of statesmen in their robes of office

with their chief at their head bowing down before a swaddled babe,

addressing him in pompous phrases, while he cries and slavers in

reply?

If we consider childhood itself, is there anything so weak and

wretched as a child, anything so utterly at the mercy of those about

it, so dependent on their pity, their care, and their affection?

Does it not seem as if his gentle face and touching appearance

were intended to interest every one on behalf of his weakness and

to make them eager to help him? And what is there more offensive,

more unsuitable, than the sight of a sulky or imperious child,

who commands those about him, and impudently assumes the tones of

a master towards those without whom he would perish?

On the other hand, do you not see how children are fettered by the

weakness of infancy? Do you not see how cruel it is to increase

this servitude by obedience to our caprices, by depriving them of

such liberty as they have? a liberty which they can scarcely abuse,

a liberty the loss of which will do so little good to them or us.

If there is nothing more ridiculous than a haughty child, there

is nothing that claims our pity like a timid child. With the age

of reason the child becomes the slave of the community; then why

forestall this by slavery in the home? Let this brief hour of life

be free from a yoke which nature has not laid upon it; leave the

child the use of his natural liberty, which, for a time at least,

secures him from the vices of the slave. Bring me those harsh

masters, and those fathers who are the slaves of their children,

bring them both with their frivolous objections, and before they

boast of their own methods let them for once learn the method of

nature.

I return to practical matters. I have already said your child

must not get what he asks, but what he needs; [Footnote: We must

recognise that pain is often necessary, pleasure is sometimes needed.

So there is only one of the child's desires which should never be

complied with, the desire for power. Hence, whenever they ask for

anything we must pay special attention to their motive in asking.

As far as possible give them everything they ask for, provided it

can really give them pleasure; refuse everything they demand from

mere caprice or love of power.] he must never act from obedience,

but from necessity.

The very words OBEY and COMMAND will be excluded from his vocabulary,

still more those of DUTY and OBLIGATION; but the words strength,

necessity, weakness, and constraint must have a large place in

it. Before the age of reason it is impossible to form any idea of

moral beings or social relations; so avoid, as far as may be, the

use of words which express these ideas, lest the child at an early

age should attach wrong ideas to them, ideas which you cannot or

will not destroy when he is older. The first mistaken idea he gets

into his head is the germ of error and vice; it is the first step

that needs watching. Act in such a way that while he only notices

external objects his ideas are confined to sensations; let him only

see the physical world around him. If not, you may be sure that

either he will pay no heed to you at all, or he will form fantastic

ideas of the moral world of which you prate, ideas which you will

never efface as long as he lives.

"Reason with children" was Locke's chief maxim; it is in the height

of fashion at present, and I hardly think it is justified by its

results; those children who have been constantly reasoned with

strike me as exceedingly silly. Of all man's faculties, reason,

which is, so to speak, compounded of all the rest, is the last

and choicest growth, and it is this you would use for the child's

early training. To make a man reasonable is the coping stone of a

good education, and yet you profess to train a child through his

reason! You begin at the wrong end, you make the end the means.

If children understood reason they would not need education, but

by talking to them from their earliest age in a language they do

not understand you accustom them to be satisfied with words, to

question all that is said to them, to think themselves as wise as

their teachers; you train them to be argumentative and rebellious;

and whatever you think you gain from motives of reason, you really

gain from greediness, fear, or vanity with which you are obliged

to reinforce your reasoning.

Most of the moral lessons which are and can be given to children

may be reduced to this formula; Master. You must not do that.

Child. Why not?

Master. Because it is wrong.

Child. Wrong! What is wrong?

Master. What is forbidden you.

Child. Why is it wrong to do what is forbidden?

Master. You will be punished for disobedience.

Child. I will do it when no one is looking.

Master. We shall watch you.

Child. I will hide.

Master. We shall ask you what you were doing.

Child. I shall tell a lie.

Master. You must not tell lies.

Child. Why must not I tell lies?

Master. Because it is wrong, etc.

That is the inevitable circle. Go beyond it, and the child will

not understand you. What sort of use is there in such teaching?

I should greatly like to know what you would substitute for this

dialogue. It would have puzzled Locke himself. It is no part of a

child's business to know right and wrong, to perceive the reason

for a man's duties.

Nature would have them children before they are men. If we try

to invert this order we shall produce a forced fruit immature and

flavourless, fruit which will be rotten before it is ripe; we shall

have young doctors and old children. Childhood has its own ways

of seeing, thinking, and feeling; nothing is more foolish than to

try and substitute our ways; and I should no more expect judgment

in a ten-year-old child than I should expect him to be five feet

high. Indeed, what use would reason be to him at that age? It is

the curb of strength, and the child does not need the curb.

When you try to persuade your scholars of the duty of obedience, you

add to this so-called persuasion compulsion and threats, or still

worse, flattery and bribes. Attracted by selfishness or constrained

by force, they pretend to be convinced by reason. They see as soon

as you do that obedience is to their advantage and disobedience to

their disadvantage. But as you only demand disagreeable things of

them, and as it is always disagreeable to do another's will, they

hide themselves so that they may do as they please, persuaded that

they are doing no wrong so long as they are not found out, but

ready, if found out, to own themselves in the wrong for fear of

worse evils. The reason for duty is beyond their age, and there

is not a man in the world who could make them really aware of it;

but the fear of punishment, the hope of forgiveness, importunity,

the difficulty of answering, wrings from them as many confessions

as you want; and you think you have convinced them when you have

only wearied or frightened them.

What does it all come to? In the first place, by imposing on them

a duty which they fail to recognise, you make them disinclined to

submit to your tyranny, and you turn away their love; you teach

them deceit, falsehood, and lying as a way to gain rewards or escape

punishment; then by accustoming them to conceal a secret motive

under the cloak of an apparent one, you yourself put into their

hands the means of deceiving you, of depriving you of a knowledge

of their real character, of answering you and others with empty

words whenever they have the chance. Laws, you say, though binding

on conscience, exercise the same constraint over grown-up men. That

is so, but what are these men but children spoilt by education?

This is just what you should avoid. Use force with children and

reasoning with men; this is the natural order; the wise man needs

no laws.

Treat your scholar according to his age. Put him in his place from

the first, and keep him in it, so that he no longer tries to leave

it. Then before he knows what goodness is, he will be practising

its chief lesson. Give him no orders at all, absolutely none. Do

not even let him think that you claim any authority over him. Let

him only know that he is weak and you are strong, that his condition

and yours puts him at your mercy; let this be perceived, learned,

and felt. Let him early find upon his proud neck, the heavy yoke

which nature has imposed upon us, the heavy yoke of necessity, under

which every finite being must bow. Let him find this necessity in

things, not in the caprices [Footnote: You may be sure the child

will regard as caprice any will which opposes his own or any will

which he does not understand. Now the child does not understand

anything which interferes with his own fancies.] of man; let

the curb be force, not authority. If there is something he should

not do, do not forbid him, but prevent him without explanation or

reasoning; what you give him, give it at his first word without

prayers or entreaties, above all without conditions. Give willingly,

refuse unwillingly, but let your refusal be irrevocable; let

no entreaties move you; let your "No," once uttered, be a wall of

brass, against which the child may exhaust his strength some five

or six times, but in the end he will try no more to overthrow it.

Thus you will make him patient, equable, calm, and resigned, even

when he does not get all he wants; for it is in man's nature to bear

patiently with the nature of things, but not with the ill-will of

another. A child never rebels against, "There is none left," unless

he thinks the reply is false. Moreover, there is no middle course;

you must either make no demands on him at all, or else you must

fashion him to perfect obedience. The worst education of all is

to leave him hesitating between his own will and yours, constantly

disputing whether you or he is master; I would rather a hundred

times that he were master.

It is very strange that ever since people began to think about

education they should have hit upon no other way of guiding children

than emulation, jealousy, envy, vanity, greediness, base cowardice,

all the most dangerous passions, passions ever ready to ferment,

ever prepared to corrupt the soul even before the body is full-grown.

With every piece of precocious instruction which you try to force

into their minds you plant a vice in the depths of their hearts;

foolish teachers think they are doing wonders when they are making

their scholars wicked in order to teach them what goodness is, and

then they tell us seriously, "Such is man." Yes, such is man, as

you have made him. Every means has been tried except one, the very

one which might succeed--well-regulated liberty. Do not undertake

to bring up a child if you cannot guide him merely by the laws of

what can or cannot be. The limits of the possible and the impossible

are alike unknown to him, so they can be extended or contracted

around him at your will. Without a murmur he is restrained, urged

on, held back, by the hands of necessity alone; he is made adaptable

and teachable by the mere force of things, without any chance for

vice to spring up in him; for passions do not arise so long as they

have accomplished nothing.

Give your scholar no verbal lessons; he should be taught by

experience alone; never punish him, for he does not know what it

is to do wrong; never make him say, "Forgive me," for he does not

know how to do you wrong. Wholly unmoral in his actions, he can

do nothing morally wrong, and he deserves neither punishment nor

reproof.

Already I see the frightened reader comparing this child with those

of our time; he is mistaken. The perpetual restraint imposed upon

your scholars stimulates their activity; the more subdued they are

in your presence, the more boisterous they are as soon as they are

out of your sight. They must make amends to themselves in some way

or other for the harsh constraint to which you subject them. Two

schoolboys from the town will do more damage in the country than

all the children of the village. Shut up a young gentleman and

a young peasant in a room; the former will have upset and smashed

everything before the latter has stirred from his place. Why is

that, unless that the one hastens to misuse a moment's licence,

while the other, always sure of freedom, does not use it rashly.

And yet the village children, often flattered or constrained, are

still very far from the state in which I would have them kept.

Let us lay it down as an incontrovertible rule that the first

impulses of nature are always right; there is no original sin in

the human heart, the how and why of the entrance of every vice can

be traced. The only natural passion is self-love or selfishness

taken in a wider sense. This selfishness is good in itself and in

relation to ourselves; and as the child has no necessary relations

to other people he is naturally indifferent to them; his self-love

only becomes good or bad by the use made of it and the relations

established by its means. Until the time is ripe for the appearance

of reason, that guide of selfishness, the main thing is that the

child shall do nothing because you are watching him or listening

to him; in a word, nothing because of other people, but only what

nature asks of him; then he will never do wrong.

I do not mean to say that he will never do any mischief, never hurt

himself, never break a costly ornament if you leave it within his

reach. He might do much damage without doing wrong, since wrong-doing

depends on the harmful intention which will never be his. If once

he meant to do harm, his whole education would be ruined; he would

be almost hopelessly bad.

Greed considers some things wrong which are not wrong in the eyes

of reason. When you leave free scope to a child's heedlessness, you

must put anything he could spoil out of his way, and leave nothing

fragile or costly within his reach. Let the room be furnished with

plain and solid furniture; no mirrors, china, or useless ornaments.

My pupil Emile, who is brought up in the country, shall have a

room just like a peasant's. Why take such pains to adorn it when he

will be so little in it? I am mistaken, however; he will ornament

it for himself, and we shall soon see how.

But if, in spite of your precautions, the child contrives to do

some damage, if he breaks some useful article, do not punish him

for your carelessness, do not even scold him; let him hear no word

of reproval, do not even let him see that he has vexed you; behave

just as if the thing had come to pieces of itself; you may consider

you have done great things if you have managed to hold your tongue.

May I venture at this point to state the greatest, the most

important, the most useful rule of education? It is: Do not save

time, but lose it. I hope that every-day readers will excuse my

paradoxes; you cannot avoid paradox if you think for yourself, and

whatever you may say I would rather fall into paradox than into

prejudice. The most dangerous period in human life lies between

birth and the age of twelve. It is the time when errors and vices

spring up, while as yet there is no means to destroy them; when

the means of destruction are ready, the roots have gone too deep to

be pulled up. If the infant sprang at one bound from its mother's

breast to the age of reason, the present type of education would be

quite suitable, but its natural growth calls for quite a different

training. The mind should be left undisturbed till its faculties

have developed; for while it is blind it cannot see the torch you

offer it, nor can it follow through the vast expanse of ideas a

path so faintly traced by reason that the best eyes can scarcely

follow it.

Therefore the education of the earliest years should be merely

negative. It consists, not in teaching virtue or truth, but in

preserving the heart from vice and from the spirit of error. If only

you could let well alone, and get others to follow your example;

if you could bring your scholar to the age of twelve strong and

healthy, but unable to tell his right hand from his left, the eyes

of his understanding would be open to reason as soon as you began

to teach him. Free from prejudices and free from habits, there

would be nothing in him to counteract the effects of your labours.

In your hands he would soon become the wisest of men; by doing

nothing to begin with, you would end with a prodigy of education.

Reverse the usual practice and you will almost always do right.

Fathers and teachers who want to make the child, not a child

but a man of learning, think it never too soon to scold, correct,

reprove, threaten, bribe, teach, and reason. Do better than they;

be reasonable, and do not reason with your pupil, more especially

do not try to make him approve what he dislikes; for if reason is

always connected with disagreeable matters, you make it distasteful

to him, you discredit it at an early age in a mind not yet ready

to understand it. Exercise his body, his limbs, his senses, his

strength, but keep his mind idle as long as you can. Distrust all

opinions which appear before the judgment to discriminate between

them. Restrain and ward off strange impressions; and to prevent

the birth of evil do not hasten to do well, for goodness is only

possible when enlightened by reason. Regard all delays as so much

time gained; you have achieved much, you approach the boundary

without loss. Leave childhood to ripen in your children. In a word,

beware of giving anything they need to-day if it can be deferred

without danger to to-morrow.

There is another point to be considered which confirms the suitability

of this method: it is the child's individual bent, which must be

thoroughly known before we can choose the fittest moral training.

Every mind has its own form, in accordance with which it must be

controlled; and the success of the pains taken depends largely on

the fact that he is controlled in this way and no other. Oh, wise

man, take time to observe nature; watch your scholar well before

you say a word to him; first leave the germ of his character free

to show itself, do not constrain him in anything, the better to see

him as he really is. Do you think this time of liberty is wasted?

On the contrary, your scholar will be the better employed, for

this is the way you yourself will learn not to lose a single moment

when time is of more value. If, however, you begin to act before

you know what to do, you act at random; you may make mistakes, and

must retrace your steps; your haste to reach your goal will only

take you further from it. Do not imitate the miser who loses much

lest he should lose a little. Sacrifice a little time in early

childhood, and it will be repaid you with usury when your scholar

is older. The wise physician does not hastily give prescriptions

at first sight, but he studies the constitution of the sick man

before he prescribes anything; the treatment is begun later, but

the patient is cured, while the hasty doctor kills him.

But where shall we find a place for our child so as to bring him

up as a senseless being, an automaton? Shall we keep him in the

moon, or on a desert island? Shall we remove him from human society?

Will he not always have around him the sight and the pattern of

the passions of other people? Will he never see children of his

own age? Will he not see his parents, his neighbours, his nurse,

his governess, his man-servant, his tutor himself, who after all

will not be an angel? Here we have a real and serious objection.

But did I tell you that an education according to nature would be

an easy task? Oh, men! is it my fault that you have made all good

things difficult? I admit that I am aware of these difficulties;

perhaps they are insuperable; but nevertheless it is certain that

we do to some extent avoid them by trying to do so. I am showing

what we should try to attain, I do not say we can attain it, but

I do say that whoever comes nearest to it is nearest to success.

Remember you must be a man yourself before you try to train a man;

you yourself must set the pattern he shall copy. While the child

is still unconscious there is time to prepare his surroundings, so

that nothing shall strike his eye but what is fit for his sight.

Gain the respect of every one, begin to win their hearts, so that

they may try to please you. You will not be master of the child

if you cannot control every one about him; and this authority will

never suffice unless it rests upon respect for your goodness. There

is no question of squandering one's means and giving money right

and left; I never knew money win love. You must neither be harsh

nor niggardly, nor must you merely pity misery when you can relieve

it; but in vain will you open your purse if you do not open your

heart along with it, the hearts of others will always be closed to

you. You must give your own time, attention, affection, your very

self; for whatever you do, people always perceive that your money

is not you. There are proofs of kindly interest which produce more

results and are really more useful than any gift; how many of the

sick and wretched have more need of comfort than of charity; how

many of the oppressed need protection rather than money? Reconcile

those who are at strife, prevent lawsuits; incline children to duty,

fathers to kindness; promote happy marriages; prevent annoyances;

freely use the credit of your pupil's parents on behalf of the

weak who cannot obtain justice, the weak who are oppressed by the

strong. Be just, human, kindly. Do not give alms alone, give charity;

works of mercy do more than money for the relief of suffering; love

others and they will love you; serve them and they will serve you;

be their brother and they will be your children.

This is one reason why I want to bring up Emile in the country,

far from those miserable lacqueys, the most degraded of men except

their masters; far from the vile morals of the town, whose gilded

surface makes them seductive and contagious to children; while

the vices of peasants, unadorned and in their naked grossness, are

more fitted to repel than to seduce, when there is no motive for

imitating them.

In the village a tutor will have much more control over the things he

wishes to show the child; his reputation, his words, his example,

will have a weight they would never have in the town; he is of

use to every one, so every one is eager to oblige him, to win his

esteem, to appeal before the disciple what the master would have him

be; if vice is not corrected, public scandal is at least avoided,

which is all that our present purpose requires.

Cease to blame others for your own faults; children are corrupted

less by what they see than by your own teaching. With your endless

preaching, moralising, and pedantry, for one idea you give your

scholars, believing it to be good, you give them twenty more which

are good for nothing; you are full of what is going on in your own

minds, and you fail to see the effect you produce on theirs. In

the continual flow of words with which you overwhelm them, do you

think there is none which they get hold of in a wrong sense? Do

you suppose they do not make their own comments on your long-winded

explanations, that they do not find material for the construction

of a system they can understand--one which they will use against

you when they get the chance?

Listen to a little fellow who has just been under instruction; let

him chatter freely, ask questions, and talk at his ease, and you

will be surprised to find the strange forms your arguments have

assumed in his mind; he confuses everything, and turns everything

topsy-turvy; you are vexed and grieved by his unforeseen objections;

he reduces you to be silent yourself or to silence him: and what

can he think of silence in one who is so fond of talking? If ever

he gains this advantage and is aware of it, farewell education;

from that moment all is lost; he is no longer trying to learn, he

is trying to refute you.

Zealous teachers, be simple, sensible, and reticent; be in no hurry

to act unless to prevent the actions of others. Again and again I

say, reject, if it may be, a good lesson for fear of giving a bad

one. Beware of playing the tempter in this world, which nature

intended as an earthly paradise for men, and do not attempt to

give the innocent child the knowledge of good and evil; since you

cannot prevent the child learning by what he sees outside himself,

restrict your own efforts to impressing those examples on his mind

in the form best suited for him.

The explosive passions produce a great effect upon the child

when he sees them; their outward expression is very marked; he is

struck by this and his attention is arrested. Anger especially is

so noisy in its rage that it is impossible not to perceive it if

you are within reach. You need not ask yourself whether this is an

opportunity for a pedagogue to frame a fine disquisition. What! no

fine disquisition, nothing, not a word! Let the child come to you;

impressed by what he has seen, he will not fail to ask you questions.

The answer is easy; it is drawn from the very things which have

appealed to his senses. He sees a flushed face, flashing eyes, a

threatening gesture, he hears cries; everything shows that the body

is ill at ease. Tell him plainly, without affectation or mystery,

"This poor man is ill, he is in a fever." You may take the opportunity

of giving him in a few words some idea of disease and its effects;

for that too belongs to nature, and is one of the bonds of necessity

which he must recognise. By means of this idea, which is not false

in itself, may he not early acquire a certain aversion to giving

way to excessive passions, which he regards as diseases; and do

you not think that such a notion, given at the right moment, will

produce a more wholesome effect than the most tedious sermon? But

consider the after effects of this idea; you have authority, if

ever you find it necessary, to treat the rebellious child as a sick

child; to keep him in his room, in bed if need be, to diet him, to

make him afraid of his growing vices, to make him hate and dread

them without ever regarding as a punishment the strict measures

you will perhaps have to use for his recovery. If it happens that

you yourself in a moment's heat depart from the calm and self-control

which you should aim at, do not try to conceal your fault, but tell

him frankly, with a gentle reproach, "My dear, you have hurt me."

Moreover, it is a matter of great importance that no notice should

be taken in his presence of the quaint sayings which result from

the simplicity of the ideas in which he is brought up, nor should

they be quoted in a way he can understand. A foolish laugh may

destroy six months' work and do irreparable damage for life. I

cannot repeat too often that to control the child one must often

control oneself.

I picture my little Emile at the height of a dispute between two

neighbours going up to the fiercest of them and saying in a tone

of pity, "You are ill, I am very sorry for you." This speech will

no doubt have its effect on the spectators and perhaps on the

disputants. Without laughter, scolding, or praise I should take him

away, willing or no, before he could see this result, or at least

before he could think about it; and I should make haste to turn his

thoughts to other things, so that he would soon forget all about

it.

I do not propose to enter into every detail, but only to explain

general rules and to give illustrations in cases of difficulty. I

think it is impossible to train a child up to the age of twelve in

the midst of society, without giving him some idea of the relations

between one man and another, and of the morality of human actions.

It is enough to delay the development of these ideas as long

as possible, and when they can no longer be avoided to limit them

to present needs, so that he may neither think himself master of

everything nor do harm to others without knowing or caring. There

are calm and gentle characters which can be led a long way in

their first innocence without any danger; but there are also stormy

dispositions whose passions develop early; you must hasten to make

men of them lest you should have to keep them in chains.

Our first duties are to ourselves; our first feelings are centred

on self; all our instincts are at first directed to our own

preservation and our own welfare. Thus the first notion of justice

springs not from what we owe to others, but from what is due

to us. Here is another error in popular methods of education. If

you talk to children of their duties, and not of their rights, you

are beginning at the wrong end, and telling them what they cannot

understand, what cannot be of any interest to them.

If I had to train a child such as I have just described, I should

say to myself, "A child never attacks people, [Footnote: A child

should never be allowed to play with grown-up people as if they

were his inferiors, nor even as if they were only his equals. If

he ventured to strike any one in earnest, were it only the footman,

were it the hangman himself, let the sufferer return his blows with

interest, so that he will not want to do it again. I have seen

silly women inciting children to rebellion, encouraging them to

hit people, allowing themselves to be beaten, and laughing at the

harmless blows, never thinking that those blows were in intention

the blows of a murderer, and that the child who desires to beat

people now will desire to kill them when he is grown up.] only

things; and he soon learns by experience to respect those older and

stronger than himself. Things, however, do not defend themselves.

Therefore the first idea he needs is not that of liberty but of

property, and that he may get this idea he must have something of

his own." It is useless to enumerate his clothes, furniture, and

playthings; although he uses these he knows not how or why he has

come by them. To tell him they were given him is little better, for

giving implies having; so here is property before his own, and it

is the principle of property that you want to teach him; moreover,

giving is a convention, and the child as yet has no idea of

conventions. I hope my reader will note, in this and many other

cases, how people think they have taught children thoroughly, when

they have only thrust on them words which have no intelligible

meaning to them. [Footnote: This is why most children want to take

back what they have given, and cry if they cannot get it. They do

not do this when once they know what a gift is; only they are more

careful about giving things away.]

We must therefore go back to the origin of property, for that is

where the first idea of it must begin. The child, living in the

country, will have got some idea of field work; eyes and leisure

suffice for that, and he will have both. In every age, and

especially in childhood, we want to create, to copy, to produce,

to give all the signs of power and activity. He will hardly have

seen the gardener at work twice, sowing, planting, and growing

vegetables, before he will want to garden himself.

According to the principles I have already laid down, I shall not

thwart him; on the contrary, I shall approve of his plan, share

his hobby, and work with him, not for his pleasure but my own; at

least, so he thinks; I shall be his under-gardener, and dig the

ground for him till his arms are strong enough to do it; he will

take possession of it by planting a bean, and this is surely a

more sacred possession, and one more worthy of respect, than that

of Nunes Balboa, who took possession of South America in the name

of the King of Spain, by planting his banner on the coast of the

Southern Sea.

We water the beans every day, we watch them coming up with the

greatest delight. Day by day I increase this delight by saying,

"Those belong to you." To explain what that word "belong" means,

I show him how he has given his time, his labour, and his trouble,

his very self to it; that in this ground there is a part of himself

which he can claim against all the world, as he could withdraw his

arm from the hand of another man who wanted to keep it against his

will.

One fine day he hurries up with his watering-can in his hand. What

a scene of woe! Alas! all the beans are pulled up, the soil is dug

over, you can scarcely find the place. Oh! what has become of my

labour, my work, the beloved fruits of my care and effort? Who has

stolen my property! Who has taken my beans? The young heart revolts;

the first feeling of injustice brings its sorrow and bitterness;

tears come in torrents, the unhappy child fills the air with cries

and groans, I share his sorrow and anger; we look around us, we

make inquiries. At last we discover that the gardener did it. We

send for him.

But we are greatly mistaken. The gardener, hearing our complaint,

begins to complain louder than we:

What, gentlemen, was it you who spoilt my work! I had sown some

Maltese melons; the seed was given me as something quite out of

the common, and I meant to give you a treat when they were ripe;

but you have planted your miserable beans and destroyed my melons,

which were coming up so nicely, and I can never get any more. You

have behaved very badly to me and you have deprived yourselves of

the pleasure of eating most delicious melons.

JEAN JACQUES. My poor Robert, you must forgive us. You had given

your labour and your pains to it. I see we were wrong to spoil

your work, but we will send to Malta for some more seed for you,

and we will never dig the ground again without finding out if some

one else has been beforehand with us.

ROBERT. Well, gentlemen, you need not trouble yourselves, for

there is no more waste ground. I dig what my father tilled; every

one does the same, and all the land you see has been occupied time

out of mind.

EMILE. Mr. Robert, do people often lose the seed of Maltese melons?

ROBERT. No indeed, sir; we do not often find such silly little

gentlemen as you. No one meddles with his neighbour's garden; every

one respects other people's work so that his own may be safe.

EMILE. But I have not got a garden.

ROBERT. I don't care; if you spoil mine I won't let you walk in

it, for you see I do not mean to lose my labour.

JEAN JACQUES. Could not we suggest an arrangement with this kind

Robert? Let him give my young friend and myself a corner of his

garden to cultivate, on condition that he has half the crop.

ROBERT. You may have it free. But remember I shall dig up your

beans if you touch my melons.

In this attempt to show how a child may be taught certain primitive

ideas we see how the notion of property goes back naturally to the

right of the first occupier to the results of his work. That is

plain and simple, and quite within the child's grasp. From that

to the rights of property and exchange there is but a step, after

which you must stop short.

You also see that an explanation which I can give in writing in a

couple of pages may take a year in practice, for in the course of

moral ideas we cannot advance too slowly, nor plant each step too

firmly. Young teacher, pray consider this example, and remember

that your lessons should always be in deeds rather than words, for

children soon forget what they say or what is said to them, but

not what they have done nor what has been done to them.

Such teaching should be given, as I have said, sooner or later, as

the scholar's disposition, gentle or turbulent, requires it. The

way of using it is unmistakable; but to omit no matter of importance

in a difficult business let us take another example.

Your ill-tempered child destroys everything he touches. Do not vex

yourself; put anything he can spoil out of his reach. He breaks

the things he is using; do not be in a hurry to give him more; let

him feel the want of them. He breaks the windows of his room; let

the wind blow upon him night and day, and do not be afraid of his

catching cold; it is better to catch cold than to be reckless.

Never complain of the inconvenience he causes you, but let him feel

it first. At last you will have the windows mended without saying

anything. He breaks them again; then change your plan; tell him

dryly and without anger, "The windows are mine, I took pains to have

them put in, and I mean to keep them safe." Then you will shut him

up in a dark place without a window. At this unexpected proceeding

he cries and howls; no one heeds. Soon he gets tired and changes

his tone; he laments and sighs; a servant appears, the rebel begs

to be let out. Without seeking any excuse for refusing, the servant

merely says, "I, too, have windows to keep," and goes away. At last,

when the child has been there several hours, long enough to get

very tired of it, long enough to make an impression on his memory,

some one suggests to him that he should offer to make terms with

you, so that you may set him free and he will never break windows

again. That is just what he wants. He will send and ask you to

come and see him; you will come, he will suggest his plan, and you

will agree to it at once, saying, "That is a very good idea; it

will suit us both; why didn't you think of it sooner?" Then without

asking for any affirmation or confirmation of his promise, you will

embrace him joyfully and take him back at once to his own room,

considering this agreement as sacred as if he had confirmed it

by a formal oath. What idea do you think he will form from these

proceedings, as to the fulfilment of a promise and its usefulness?

If I am not greatly mistaken, there is not a child upon earth,

unless he is utterly spoilt already, who could resist this treatment,

or one who would ever dream of breaking windows again on purpose.

Follow out the whole train of thought. The naughty little fellow

hardly thought when he was making a hole for his beans that he was

hewing out a cell in which his own knowledge would soon imprison

him. [Footnote: Moreover if the duty of keeping his word were not

established in the child's mind by its own utility, the child's growing

consciousness would soon impress it on him as a law of conscience,

as an innate principle, only requiring suitable experiences for

its development. This first outline is not sketched by man, it is

engraved on the heart by the author of all justice. Take away the

primitive law of contract and the obligation imposed by contract

and there is nothing left of human society but vanity and empty

show. He who only keeps his word because it is to his own profit

is hardly more pledged than if he had given no promise at all. This

principle is of the utmost importance, and deserves to be thoroughly

studied, for man is now beginning to be at war with himself.]

We are now in the world of morals, the door to vice is open. Deceit

and falsehood are born along with conventions and duties. As soon

as we can do what we ought not to do, we try to hide what we ought

not to have done. As soon as self-interest makes us give a promise,

a greater interest may make us break it; it is merely a question

of doing it with impunity; we naturally take refuge in concealment

and falsehood. As we have not been able to prevent vice, we must

punish it. The sorrows of life begin with its mistakes.

I have already said enough to show that children should never receive

punishment merely as such; it should always come as the natural

consequence of their fault. Thus you will not exclaim against

their falsehood, you will not exactly punish them for lying, but

you will arrange that all the ill effects of lying, such as not

being believed when we speak the truth, or being accused of what we

have not done in spite of our protests, shall fall on their heads

when they have told a lie. But let us explain what lying means to

the child.

There are two kinds of lies; one concerns an accomplished fact,

the other concerns a future duty. The first occurs when we falsely

deny or assert that we did or did not do something, or, to put it

in general terms, when we knowingly say what is contrary to facts.

The other occurs when we promise what we do not mean to perform,

or, in general terms, when we profess an intention which we do

not really mean to carry out. These two kinds of lie are sometimes

found in combination, [Footnote: Thus the guilty person, accused

of some evil deed, defends himself by asserting that he is a good

man. His statement is false in itself and false in its application to

the matter in hand.] but their differences are my present business.

He who feels the need of help from others, he who is constantly

experiencing their kindness, has nothing to gain by deceiving them;

it is plainly to his advantage that they should see things as they

are, lest they should mistake his interests. It is therefore plain

that lying with regard to actual facts is not natural to children,

but lying is made necessary by the law of obedience; since obedience

is disagreeable, children disobey as far as they can in secret,

and the present good of avoiding punishment or reproof outweighs

the remoter good of speaking the truth. Under a free and natural

education why should your child lie? What has he to conceal from

you? You do not thwart him, you do not punish him, you demand nothing

from him. Why should he not tell everything to you as simply as to

his little playmate? He cannot see anything more risky in the one

course than in the other.

The lie concerning duty is even less natural, since promises to do

or refrain from doing are conventional agreements which are outside

the state of nature and detract from our liberty. Moreover, all

promises made by children are in themselves void; when they pledge

themselves they do not know what they are doing, for their narrow

vision cannot look beyond the present. A child can hardly lie when

he makes a promise; for he is only thinking how he can get out of

the present difficulty, any means which has not an immediate result

is the same to him; when he promises for the future he promises

nothing, and his imagination is as yet incapable of projecting him

into the future while he lives in the present. If he could escape

a whipping or get a packet of sweets by promising to throw himself

out of the window to-morrow, he would promise on the spot. This

is why the law disregards all promises made by minors, and when

fathers and teachers are stricter and demand that promises shall

be kept, it is only when the promise refers to something the child

ought to do even if he had made no promise.

The child cannot lie when he makes a promise, for he does not know

what he is doing when he makes his promise. The case is different

when he breaks his promise, which is a sort of retrospective falsehood;

for he clearly remembers making the promise, but he fails to see

the importance of keeping it. Unable to look into the future, he

cannot foresee the results of things, and when he breaks his promises

he does nothing contrary to his stage of reasoning.

Children's lies are therefore entirely the work of their teachers,

and to teach them to speak the truth is nothing less than to teach

them the art of lying. In your zeal to rule, control, and teach

them, you never find sufficient means at your disposal. You wish

to gain fresh influence over their minds by baseless maxims, by

unreasonable precepts; and you would rather they knew their lessons

and told lies, than leave them ignorant and truthful.

We, who only give our scholars lessons in practice, who prefer to

have them good rather than clever, never demand the truth lest they

should conceal it, and never claim any promise lest they should be

tempted to break it. If some mischief has been done in my absence

and I do not know who did it, I shall take care not to accuse

Emile, nor to say, "Did you do it?" [Footnote: Nothing could be more

indiscreet than such a question, especially if the child is guilty.

Then if he thinks you know what he has done, he will think you are

setting a trap for him, and this idea can only set him against you.

If he thinks you do not know, he will say to himself, "Why should

I make my fault known?" And here we have the first temptation to

falsehood as the direct result of your foolish question.] For in so

doing what should I do but teach him to deny it? If his difficult

temperament compels me to make some agreement with him, I will take

good care that the suggestion always comes from him, never from

me; that when he undertakes anything he has always a present and

effective interest in fulfilling his promise, and if he ever fails

this lie will bring down on him all the unpleasant consequences

which he sees arising from the natural order of things, and not

from his tutor's vengeance. But far from having recourse to such

cruel measures, I feel almost certain that Emile will not know for

many years what it is to lie, and that when he does find out, he

will be astonished and unable to understand what can be the use of

it. It is quite clear that the less I make his welfare dependent on

the will or the opinions of others, the less is it to his interest

to lie.

When we are in no hurry to teach there is no hurry to demand, and

we can take our time, so as to demand nothing except under fitting

conditions. Then the child is training himself, in so far as he

is not being spoilt. But when a fool of a tutor, who does not know

how to set about his business, is always making his pupil promise

first this and then that, without discrimination, choice, or

proportion, the child is puzzled and overburdened with all these

promises, and neglects, forgets or even scorns them, and considering

them as so many empty phrases he makes a game of making and breaking

promises. Would you have him keep his promise faithfully, be

moderate in your claims upon him.

The detailed treatment I have just given to lying may be applied

in many respects to all the other duties imposed upon children,

whereby these duties are made not only hateful but impracticable.

For the sake of a show of preaching virtue you make them love every

vice; you instil these vices by forbidding them. Would you have

them pious, you take them to church till they are sick of it; you

teach them to gabble prayers until they long for the happy time

when they will not have to pray to God. To teach them charity you

make them give alms as if you scorned to give yourself. It is not

the child, but the master, who should give; however much he loves

his pupil he should vie with him for this honour; he should make

him think that he is too young to deserve it. Alms-giving is the

deed of a man who can measure the worth of his gift and the needs

of his fellow-men. The child, who knows nothing of these, can have

no merit in giving; he gives without charity, without kindness; he

is almost ashamed to give, for, to judge by your practice and his

own, he thinks it is only children who give, and that there is no

need for charity when we are grown up.

Observe that the only things children are set to give are things

of which they do not know the value, bits of metal carried in their

pockets for which they have no further use. A child would rather

give a hundred coins than one cake. But get this prodigal giver

to distribute what is dear to him, his toys, his sweets, his own

lunch, and we shall soon see if you have made him really generous.

People try yet another way; they soon restore what he gave to the

child, so that he gets used to giving everything which he knows

will come back to him. I have scarcely seen generosity in children

except of these two types, giving what is of no use to them, or

what they expect to get back again. "Arrange things," says Locke,

"so that experience may convince them that the most generous giver

gets the biggest share." That is to make the child superficially

generous but really greedy. He adds that "children will thus form

the habit of liberality." Yes, a usurer's liberality, which expects

cent. per cent. But when it is a question of real giving, good-bye

to the habit; when they do not get things back, they will not give.

It is the habit of the mind, not of the hands, that needs watching.

All the other virtues taught to children are like this, and to

preach these baseless virtues you waste their youth in sorrow. What

a sensible sort of education!

Teachers, have done with these shams; be good and kind; let your

example sink into your scholars' memories till they are old enough

to take it to heart. Rather than hasten to demand deeds of charity

from my pupil I prefer to perform such deeds in his presence, even

depriving him of the means of imitating me, as an honour beyond

his years; for it is of the utmost importance that he should not

regard a man's duties as merely those of a child. If when he sees

me help the poor he asks me about it, and it is time to reply to

his questions, [Footnote: It must be understood that I do not answer

his questions when he wants; that would be to subject myself to his

will and to place myself in the most dangerous state of dependence

that ever a tutor was in.] I shall say, "My dear boy, the rich only

exist, through the good-will of the poor, so they have promised

to feed those who have not enough to live on, either in goods

or labour." "Then you promised to do this?" "Certainly; I am only

master of the wealth that passes through my hands on the condition

attached to its ownership."

After this talk (and we have seen how a child may be brought to

understand it) another than Emile would be tempted to imitate me

and behave like a rich man; in such a case I should at least take

care that it was done without ostentation; I would rather he robbed

me of my privilege and hid himself to give. It is a fraud suitable

to his age, and the only one I could forgive in him.

I know that all these imitative virtues are only the virtues of a

monkey, and that a good action is only morally good when it is done

as such and not because of others. But at an age when the heart

does not yet feel anything, you must make children copy the deeds

you wish to grow into habits, until they can do them with understanding

and for the love of what is good. Man imitates, as do the beasts.

The love of imitating is well regulated by nature; in society it

becomes a vice. The monkey imitates man, whom he fears, and not

the other beasts, which he scorns; he thinks what is done by his

betters must be good. Among ourselves, our harlequins imitate all

that is good to degrade it and bring it into ridicule; knowing

their owners' baseness they try to equal what is better than they

are, or they strive to imitate what they admire, and their bad

taste appears in their choice of models, they would rather deceive

others or win applause for their own talents than become wiser

or better. Imitation has its roots in our desire to escape from

ourselves. If I succeed in my undertaking, Emile will certainly

have no such wish. So we must dispense with any seeming good that

might arise from it.

Examine your rules of education; you will find them all topsy-turvy,

especially in all that concerns virtue and morals. The only moral

lesson which is suited for a child--the most important lesson for

every time of life--is this: "Never hurt anybody." The very rule of

well-doing, if not subordinated to this rule, is dangerous, false,

and contradictory. Who is there who does no good? Every one does

some good, the wicked as well as the righteous; he makes one happy

at the cost of the misery of a hundred, and hence spring all our

misfortunes. The noblest virtues are negative, they are also the

most difficult, for they make little show, and do not even make

room for that pleasure so dear to the heart of man, the thought

that some one is pleased with us. If there be a man who does no

harm to his neighbours, what good must he have accomplished! What

a bold heart, what a strong character it needs! It is not in talking

about this maxim, but in trying to practise it, that we discover

both its greatness and its difficulty. [Footnote: The precept

"Never hurt anybody," implies the greatest possible independence

of human society; for in the social state one man's good is another

man's evil. This relation is part of the nature of things; it is

inevitable. You may apply this test to man in society and to the

hermit to discover which is best. A distinguished author says, "None

but the wicked can live alone." I say, "None but the good can live

alone." This proposition, if less sententious, is truer and more

logical than the other. If the wicked were alone, what evil would

he do? It is among his fellows that he lays his snares for others.

If they wish to apply this argument to the man of property, my

answer is to be found in the passage to which this note is appended.]

This will give you some slight idea of the precautions I would

have you take in giving children instruction which cannot always

be refused without risk to themselves or others, or the far greater

risk of the formation of bad habits, which would be difficult to

correct later on; but be sure this necessity will not often arise

with children who are properly brought up, for they cannot possibly

become rebellious, spiteful, untruthful, or greedy, unless the

seeds of these vices are sown in their hearts. What I have just

said applies therefore rather to the exception than the rule. But

the oftener children have the opportunity of quitting their proper

condition, and contracting the vices of men, the oftener will

these exceptions arise. Those who are brought up in the world must

receive more precocious instruction than those who are brought up

in retirement. So this solitary education would be preferable, even

if it did nothing more than leave childhood time to ripen.