traced to the same source, the desire to
make men of them before their time.
There are bright colours and dull; children like the bright colours
best, and they suit them better too. I see no reason why such
natural suitability should not be taken into consideration; but
as soon as they prefer a material because it is rich, their hearts
are already given over to luxury, to every caprice of fashion,
and this taste is certainly not their own. It is impossible to
say how much education is influenced by this choice of clothes,
and the motives for this choice. Not only do short-sighted mothers
offer ornaments as rewards to their children, but there are foolish
tutors who threaten to make their pupils wear the plainest and
coarsest clothes as a punishment. "If you do not do your
lessons better, if you do not take more care of your clothes,
you shall be dressed like that little peasant boy." This
is like saying to them, "Understand that clothes make the
man." Is it to be wondered at that our young people profit
by such wise teaching, that they care for nothing but dress, and
that they only judge of merit by its outside.
If I had to bring such a spoilt child to his senses, I would take
care that his smartest clothes were the most uncomfortable, that
he was always cramped, constrained, and embarrassed in every way;
freedom and mirth should flee before his splendour. If he wanted
to take part in the games of children more simply dressed, they
should cease their play and run away. Before long I should make
him so tired and sick of his magnificence, such a slave to his
gold-laced coat, that it would become the plague of his life,
and he would be less afraid to behold the darkest dungeon than
to see the preparations for his adornment. Before the child is
enslaved by our prejudices his first wish is always to be free
and comfortable. The plainest and most comfortable clothes, those
which leave him most liberty, are what he always likes best.
There are habits of body suited for an active life and others
for a sedentary life. The latter leaves the humours an equable
and uniform course, and the body should be protected from changes
in temperature; the former is constantly passing from action to
rest, from heat to cold, and the body should be inured to these
changes. Hence people, engaged in sedentary pursuits indoors,
should always be warmly dressed, to keep their bodies as nearly
as possible at the same temperature at all times and seasons.
Those, however, who come and go in sun, wind, and rain, who take
much exercise, and spend most of their time out of doors, should
always be lightly clad, so as to get used to the changes in the
air and to every degree of temperature without suffering inconvenience.
I would advise both never to change their clothes with the changing
seasons, and that would be the invariable habit of my pupil Emile.
By this I do not mean that he should wear his winter clothes in
summer like many people of sedentary habits, but that he should
wear his summer clothes in winter like hard-working folk. Sir
Isaac Newton always did this, and he lived to be eighty.
Emile should wear little or nothing on his head all the year round.
The ancient Egyptians always went bareheaded; the Persians used
to wear heavy tiaras and still wear large turbans, which according
to Chardin are required by their climate. I have remarked elsewhere
on the difference observed by Herodotus on a battle-field between
the skulls of the Persians and those of the Egyptians. Since it
is desirable that the bones of the skull should grow harder and
more substantial, less fragile and porous, not only to protect
the brain against injuries but against colds, fever, and every
influence of the air, you should therefore accustom your children
to go bare-headed winter and summer, day and night. If you make
them wear a night-cap to keep their hair clean and tidy, let it
be thin and transparent like the nets with which the Basques cover
their hair. I am aware that most mothers will be more impressed
by Chardin's observations than my arguments, and will think that
all climates are the climate of Persia, but I did not choose a
European pupil to turn him into an Asiatic.
Children are generally too much wrapped up, particularly in infancy.
They should be accustomed to cold rather than heat; great cold
never does them any harm, if they are exposed to it soon enough;
but their skin is still too soft and tender and leaves too free
a course for perspiration, so that they are inevitably exhausted
by excessive heat. It has been observed that infant mortality
is greatest in August. Moreover, it seems certain from a comparison
of northern and southern races that we become stronger by bearing
extreme cold rather than excessive heat. But as the child's body
grows bigger and his muscles get stronger, train him gradually
to bear the rays of the sun. Little by little you will harden
him till he can face the burning heat of the tropics without danger.
Locke, in the midst of the manly and sensible advice he gives
us, falls into inconsistencies one would hardly expect in such
a careful thinker. The same man who would have children take an
ice-cold bath summer and winter, will not let them drink cold
water when they are hot, or lie on damp grass. But he would never
have their shoes water-tight; and why should they let in more
water when the child is hot than when he is cold, and may we not
draw the same inference with regard to the feet and body that
he draws with regard to the hands and feet and the body and face?
If he would have a man all face, why blame me if I would have
him all feet?
To prevent children drinking when they are hot, he says they should
be trained to eat a piece of bread first. It is a strange thing
to make a child eat because he is thirsty; I would as soon give
him a drink when he is hungry. You will never convince me that
our first instincts are so ill-regulated that we cannot satisfy
them without endangering our lives. Were that so, the man would
have perished over and over again before he had learned how to
keep himself alive.
Whenever Emile is thirsty let him have a drink, and let him drink
fresh water just as it is, not even taking the chill off it in
the depths of winter and when he is bathed in perspiration. The
only precaution I advise is to take care what sort of water you
give him. If the water comes from a river, give it him just as
it is; if it is spring-water let it stand a little exposed to
the air before he drinks it. In warm weather rivers are warm;
it is not so with springs, whose water has not been in contact
with the air. You must wait till the temperature of the water
is the same as that of the air. In winter, on the other hand,
spring water is safer than river water. It is, however, unusual
and unnatural to perspire greatly in winter, especially in the
open air, for the cold air constantly strikes the skin and drives
the perspiration inwards, and prevents the pores opening enough
to give it passage. Now I do not intend Emile to take his exercise
by the fireside in winter, but in the open air and among the ice.
If he only gets warm with making and throwing snowballs, let him
drink when he is thirsty, and go on with his game after drinking,
and you need not be afraid of any ill effects. And if any other
exercise makes him perspire let him drink cold water even in winter
provided he is thirsty. Only take care to take him to get the
water some little distance away. In such cold as I am supposing,
he would have cooled down sufficiently when he got there to be
able to drink without danger. Above all, take care to conceal
these precautions from him. I would rather he were ill now and
then, than always thinking about his health.
Since children take such violent exercise they need a great deal
of sleep. The one makes up for the other, and this shows that
both are necessary. Night is the time set apart by nature for
rest. It is an established fact that sleep is quieter and calmer
when the sun is below the horizon, and that our senses are less
calm when the air is warmed by the rays of the sun. So it is certainly
the healthiest plan to rise with the sun and go to bed with the
sun. Hence in our country man and all the other animals with him
want more sleep in winter than in summer. But town life is so
complex, so unnatural, so subject to chances and changes, that
it is not wise to accustom a man to such uniformity that he cannot
do without it. No doubt he must submit to rules; but the chief
rule is this--be able to break the rule if necessary. So do not
be so foolish as to soften your pupil by letting him always sleep
his sleep out. Leave him at first to the law of nature without
any hindrance, but never forget that under our conditions he must
rise above this law; he must be able to go to bed late and rise
early, be awakened suddenly, or sit up all night without ill effects.
Begin early and proceed gently, a step at a time, and the constitution
adapts itself to the very conditions which would destroy it if
they were imposed for the first time on the grown man.
In the next place he must be accustomed to sleep in an uncomfortable
bed, which is the best way to find no bed uncomfortable. Speaking
generally, a hard life, when once we have become used to it, increases
our pleasant experiences; an easy life prepares the way for innumerable
unpleasant experiences. Those who are too tenderly nurtured can
only sleep on down; those who are used to sleep on bare boards
can find them anywhere. There is no such thing as a hard bed for
the man who falls asleep at once.
The body is, so to speak, melted and dissolved in a soft bed where
one sinks into feathers and eider-down. The reins when too warmly
covered become inflamed. Stone and other diseases are often due
to this, and it invariably produces a delicate constitution, which
is the seed-ground of every ailment.
The best bed is that in which we get the best sleep. Emile and
I will prepare such a bed for ourselves during the daytime. We
do not need Persian slaves to make our beds; when we are digging
the soil we are turning our mattresses. I know that a healthy
child may be made to sleep or wake almost at will. When the child
is put to bed and his nurse grows weary of his chatter, she says
to him, "Go to sleep." That is much like saying, "Get
well," when he is ill. The right way is to let him get tired
of himself. Talk so much that he is compelled to hold his tongue,
and he will soon be asleep. Here is at least one use for sermons,
and you may as well preach to him as rock his cradle; but if you
use this narcotic at night, do not use it by day.
I shall sometimes rouse Emile, not so much to prevent his sleeping
too much, as to accustom him to anything--even to waking with
a start. Moreover, I should be unfit for my business if I could
not make him wake himself, and get up, so to speak, at my will,
without being called.
If he wakes too soon, I shall let him look forward to a tedious
morning, so that he will count as gain any time he can give to
sleep. If he sleeps too late I shall show him some favourite toy
when he wakes. If I want him to wake at a given hour I shall say,
"To-morrow at six I am going fishing," or "I shall
take a walk to such and such a place. Would you like to come too?"
He assents, and begs me to wake him. I promise, or do not promise,
as the case requires. If he wakes too late, he finds me gone.
There is something amiss if he does not soon learn to wake himself.
Moreover, should it happen, though it rarely does, that a sluggish
child desires to stagnate in idleness, you must not give way to
this tendency, which might stupefy him entirely, but you must
apply some stimulus to wake him. You must understand that is no
question of applying force, but of arousing some appetite which
leads to action, and such an appetite, carefully selected on the
lines laid down by nature, kills two birds with one stone.
If one has any sort of skill, I can think of nothing for which
a taste, a very passion, cannot be aroused in children, and that
without vanity, emulation, or jealousy. Their keenness, their
spirit of imitation, is enough of itself; above all, there is
their natural liveliness, of which no teacher so far has contrived
to take advantage. In every game, when they are quite sure it
is only play, they endure without complaint, or even with laughter,
hardships which they would not submit to otherwise without floods
of tears. The sports of the young savage involve long fasting,
blows, burns, and fatigue of every kind, a proof that even pain
has a charm of its own, which may remove its bitterness. It is
not every master, however, who knows how to season this dish,
nor can every scholar eat it without making faces. However, I
must take care or I shall be wandering off again after exceptions.
It is not to be endured that man should become the slave of pain,
disease, accident, the perils of life, or even death itself; the
more familiar he becomes with these ideas the sooner he will be
cured of that over-sensitiveness which adds to the pain by impatience
in bearing it; the sooner he becomes used to the sufferings which
may overtake him, the sooner he shall, as Montaigne has put it,
rob those pains of the sting of unfamiliarity, and so make his
soul strong and invulnerable; his body will be the coat of mail
which stops all the darts which might otherwise find a vital part.
Even the approach of death, which is not death itself, will scarcely
be felt as such; he will not die, he will be, so to speak, alive
or dead and nothing more. Montaigne might say of him as he did
of a certain king of Morocco, "No man ever prolonged his
life so far into death." A child serves his apprenticeship
in courage and endurance as well as in other virtues; but you
cannot teach children these virtues by name alone; they must learn
them unconsciously through experience.
But speaking of death, what steps shall I take with regard to
my pupil and the smallpox? Shall he be inoculated in infancy,
or shall I wait till he takes it in the natural course of things?
The former plan is more in accordance with our practice, for it
preserves his life at a time when it is of greater value, at the
cost of some danger when his life is of less worth; if indeed
we can use the word danger with regard to inoculation when properly
performed.
But the other plan is more in accordance with our general principles--to
leave nature to take the precautions she delights in, precautions
she abandons whenever man interferes. The natural man is always
ready; let nature inoculate him herself, she will choose the fitting
occasion better than we.
Do not think I am finding fault with inoculation, for my reasons
for exempting my pupil from it do not in the least apply to yours.
Your training does not prepare them to escape catching smallpox
as soon as they are exposed to infection. If you let them take
it anyhow, they will probably die. I perceive that in different
lands the resistance to inoculation is in proportion to the need
for it; and the reason is plain. So I scarcely condescend to discuss
this question with regard to Emile. He will be inoculated or not
according to time, place, and circumstances; it is almost a matter
of indifference, as far as he is concerned. If it gives him smallpox,
there will be the advantage of knowing what to expect, knowing
what the disease is; that is a good thing, but if he catches it
naturally it will have kept him out of the doctor's hands, which
is better.
An exclusive education, which merely tends to keep those who have
received it apart from the mass of mankind, always selects such
teaching as is costly rather than cheap, even when the latter
is of more use. Thus all carefully educated young men learn to
ride, because it is costly, but scarcely any of them learn to
swim, as it costs nothing, and an artisan can swim as well as
any one. Yet without passing through the riding school, the traveller
learns to mount his horse, to stick on it, and to ride well enough
for practical purposes; but in the water if you cannot swim you
will drown, and we cannot swim unless we are taught. Again, you
are not forced to ride on pain of death, while no one is sure
of escaping such a common danger as drowning. Emile shall be as
much at home in the water as on land. Why should he not be able
to live in every element? If he could learn to fly, he should
be an eagle; I would make him a salamander, if he could bear the
heat.
People are afraid lest the child should be drowned while he is
learning to swim; if he dies while he is learning, or if he dies
because he has not learnt, it will be your own fault. Foolhardiness
is the result of vanity; we are not rash when no one is looking.
Emile will not be foolhardy, though all the world were watching
him. As the exercise does not depend on its danger, he will learn
to swim the Hellespont by swimming, without any danger, a stream
in his father's park; but he must get used to danger too, so as
not to be flustered by it. This is an essential part of the apprenticeship
I spoke of just now. Moreover, I shall take care to proportion
the danger to his strength, and I shall always share it myself,
so that I need scarcely fear any imprudence if I take as much
care for his life as for my own.
A child is smaller than a man; he has not the man's strength or
reason, but he sees and hears as well or nearly as well; his sense
of taste is very good, though he is less fastidious, and he distinguishes
scents as clearly though less sensuously. The senses are the first
of our faculties to mature; they are those most frequently overlooked
or neglected.
To train the senses it is not enough merely to use them; we must
learn to judge by their means, to learn to feel, so to speak;
for we cannot touch, see, or hear, except as we have been taught.
There is a mere natural and mechanical use of the senses which
strengthens the body without improving the judgment. It is all
very well to swim, run, jump, whip a top, throw stones; but have
we nothing but arms and legs? Have we not eyes and ears as well;
and are not these organs necessary for the use of the rest? Do
not merely exercise the strength, exercise all the senses by which
it is guided; make the best use of every one of them, and check
the results of one by the other. Measure, count, weigh, compare.
Do not use force till you have estimated the resistance; let the
estimation of the effect always precede the application of the
means. Get the child interested in avoiding insufficient or superfluous
efforts. If in this way you train him to calculate the effects
of all his movements, and to correct his mistakes by experience,
is it not clear that the more he does the wiser he will become?
Take the case of moving a heavy mass; if he takes too long a lever,
he will waste his strength; if it is too short, he will not have
strength enough; experience will teach him to use the very stick
he needs. This knowledge is not beyond his years. Take, for example,
a load to be carried; if he wants to carry as much as he can,
and not to take up more than he can carry, must he not calculate
the weight by the appearance? Does he know how to compare masses
of like substance and different size, or to choose between masses
of the same size and different substances? He must set to work
to compare their specific weights. I have seen a young man, very
highly educated, who could not be convinced, till he had tried
it, that a bucket full of blocks of oak weighed less than the
same bucket full of water.
All our senses are not equally under our control. One of them,
touch, is always busy during our waking hours; it is spread over
the whole surface of the body, like a sentinel ever on the watch
to warn us of anything which may do us harm. Whether we will or
not, we learn to use it first of all by experience, by constant
practice, and therefore we have less need for special training
for it. Yet we know that the blind have a surer and more delicate
sense of touch than we, for not being guided by the one sense,
they are forced to get from the touch what we get from sight.
Why, then, are not we trained to walk as they do in the dark,
to recognise what we touch, to distinguish things about us; in
a word, to do at night and in the dark what they do in the daytime
without sight? We are better off than they while the sun shines;
in the dark it is their turn to be our guide. We are blind half
our time, with this difference: the really blind always know what
to do, while we are afraid to stir in the dark. We have lights,
you say. What always artificial aids. Who can insure that they
will always be at hand when required. I had rather Emil's eyes
were in his finger tips, than in the chandler's shop.
If you are shut up in a building at night, clap your hands, you
will know from the sound whether the space is large or small,
if you are in the middle or in one corner. Half a foot from a
wall the air, which is refracted and does not circulate freely,
produces a different effect on your face. Stand still in one place
and turn this way and that; a slight draught will tell you if
there is a door open. If you are on a boat you will perceive from
the way the air strikes your face not merely the direction in
which you are going, but whether the current is bearing you slow
or fast. These observations and many others like them can only
be properly made at night; however much attention we give to them
by daylight, we are always helped or hindered by sight, so that
the results escape us. Yet here we use neither hand nor stick.
How much may be learnt by touch, without ever touching anything!
I would have plenty of games in the dark! This suggestion is more
valuable than it seems at first sight. Men are naturally afraid
of the dark; so are some animals. [Footnote: This terror is very
noticeable during great eclipses of the sun.] Only a few men are
freed from this burden by knowledge, determination, and courage.
I have seen thinkers, unbelievers, philosophers, exceedingly brave
by daylight, tremble like women at the rustling of a leaf in the
dark. This terror is put down to nurses' tales; this is a mistake;
it has a natural cause. What is this cause? What makes the deaf
suspicious and the lower classes superstitious? Ignorance of the
things about us, and of what is taking place around us. [Footnote:
Another cause has been well explained by a philosopher, often
quoted in this work, a philosopher to whose wide views I am very
greatly indebted.]
When under special conditions we cannot form a fair idea of distance,
when we can only judge things by the size of the angle or rather
of the image formed in our eyes, we cannot avoid being deceived
as to the size of these objects. Every one knows by experience
how when we are travelling at night we take a bush near at hand
for a great tree at a distance, and vice versa. In the same way,
if the objects were of a shape unknown to us, so that we could
not tell their size in that way, we should be equally mistaken
with regard to it. If a fly flew quickly past a few inches from
our eyes, we should think it was a distant bird; a horse standing
still at a distance from us in the midst of open country, in a
position somewhat like that of a sheep, would be taken for a large
sheep, so long as we did not perceive that it was a horse; but
as soon as we recognise what it is, it seems as large as a horse,
and we at once correct our former judgment.
Whenever one finds oneself in unknown places at night where we
cannot judge of distance, and where we cannot recognise objects
by their shape on account of the darkness, we are in constant
danger of forming mistaken judgments as to the objects which present
themselves to our notice. Hence that terror, that kind of inward
fear experienced by most people on dark nights. This is foundation
for the supposed appearances of spectres, or gigantic and terrible
forms which so many people profess to have seen. They are generally
told that they imagined these things, yet they may really have
seen them, and it is quite possible they really saw what they
say they did see; for it will always be the case that when we
can only estimate the size of an object by the angle it forms
in the eye, that object will swell and grow as we approach it;
and if the spectator thought it several feet high when it was
thirty or forty feet away, it will seem very large indeed when
it is a few feet off; this must indeed astonish and alarm the
spectator until he touches it and perceives what it is, for as
soon as he perceives what it is, the object which seemed so gigantic
will suddenly shrink and assume its real size, but if we run away
or are afraid to approach, we shall certainly form no other idea
of the thing than the image formed in the eye, and we shall have
really seen a gigantic figure of alarming size and shape. There
is, therefore, a natural ground for the tendency to see ghosts,
and these appearances are not merely the creation of the imagination,
as the men of science would have us think.--Buffon, Nat. Hist.
In the text I have tried to show that they are always partly the
creation of the imagination, and with regard to the cause explained
in this quotation, it is clear that the habit of walking by night
should teach us to distinguish those appearances which similarity
of form and diversity of distance lend to the objects seen in
the dark. For if the air is light enough for us to see the outlines
there must be more air between us and them when they are further
off, so that we ought to see them less distinctly when further
off, which should be enough, when we are used to it, to prevent
the error described by M. Buffon. [Whichever explanation you prefer,
my mode of procedure is still efficacious, and experience entirely
confirms it.] Accustomed to perceive things from a distance and
to calculate their effects, how can I help supposing, when I cannot
see, that there are hosts of creatures and all sorts of movements
all about me which may do me harm, and against which I cannot
protect myself? In vain do I know I am safe where I am; I am never
so sure of it as when I can actually see it, so that I have always
a cause for fear which did not exist in broad daylight. I know,
indeed, that a foreign body can scarcely act upon me without some
slight sound, and how intently I listen! At the least sound which
I cannot explain, the desire of self-preservation makes me picture
everything that would put me on my guard, and therefore everything
most calculated to alarm me.
I am just as uneasy if I hear no sound, for I might be taken unawares
without a sound. I must picture things as they were before, as
they ought to be; I must see what I do not see. Thus driven to
exercise my imagination, it soon becomes my master, and what I
did to reassure myself only alarms me more. I hear a noise, it
is a robber; I hear nothing, it is a ghost. The watchfulness inspired
by the instinct of self-preservation only makes me more afraid.
Everything that ought to reassure me exists only for my reason,
and the voice of instinct is louder than that of reason. What
is the good of thinking there is nothing to be afraid of, since
in that case there is nothing we can do?
The cause indicates the cure. In everything habit overpowers imagination;
it is only aroused by what is new. It is no longer imagination,
but memory which is concerned with what we see every day, and
that is the reason of the maxim, "Ab assuetis non fit passio,"
for it is only at the flame of imagination that the passions are
kindled. Therefore do not argue with any one whom you want to
cure of the fear of darkness; take him often into dark places
and be assured this practice will be of more avail than all the
arguments of philosophy. The tiler on the roof does not know what
it is to be dizzy, and those who are used to the dark will not
be afraid.
There is another advantage to be gained from our games in the
dark. But if these games are to be a success I cannot speak too
strongly of the need for gaiety. Nothing is so gloomy as the dark:
do not shut your child up in a dungeon, let him laugh when he
goes, into a dark place, let him laugh when he comes out, so that
the thought of the game he is leaving and the games he will play
next may protect him from the fantastic imagination which might
lay hold on him.
There comes a stage in life beyond which we progress backwards.
I feel I have reached this stage. I am, so to speak, returning
to a past career. The approach of age makes us recall the happy
days of our childhood. As I grow old I become a child again, and
I recall more readily what I did at ten than at thirty. Reader,
forgive me if I sometimes draw my examples from my own experience.
If this book is to be well written, I must enjoy writing it.
I was living in the country with a pastor called M. Lambercier.
My companion was a cousin richer than myself, who was regarded
as the heir to some property, while I, far from my father, was
but a poor orphan. My big cousin Bernard was unusually timid,
especially at night. I laughed at his fears, till M. Lambercier
was tired of my boasting, and determined to put my courage to
the proof. One autumn evening, when it was very dark, he gave
me the church key, and told me to go and fetch a Bible he had
left in the pulpit. To put me on my mettle he said something which
made it impossible for me to refuse.
I set out without a light; if I had had one, it would perhaps
have been even worse. I had to pass through the graveyard; I crossed
it bravely, for as long as I was in the open air I was never afraid
of the dark.
As I opened the door I heard a sort of echo in the roof; it sounded
like voices and it began to shake my Roman courage. Having opened
the door I tried to enter, but when I had gone a few steps I stopped.
At the sight of the profound darkness in which the vast building
lay I was seized with terror and my hair stood on end. I turned,
I went out through the door, and took to my heels. In the yard
I found a little dog, called Sultan, whose caresses reassured
me. Ashamed of my fears, I retraced my steps, trying to take Sultan
with me, but he refused to follow. Hurriedly I opened the door
and entered the church. I was hardly inside when terror again
got hold of me and so firmly that I lost my head, and though the
pulpit was on the right, as I very well knew, I sought it on the
left, and entangling myself among the benches I was completely
lost. Unable to find either pulpit or door, I fell into an indescribable
state of mind. At last I found the door and managed to get out
of the church and run away as I had done before, quite determined
never to enter the church again except in broad daylight.
I returned to the house; on the doorstep I heard M. Lambercier
laughing, laughing, as I supposed, at me. Ashamed to face his
laughter, I was hesitating to open the door, when I heard Miss
Lambercier, who was anxious about me, tell the maid to get the
lantern, and M. Lambercier got ready to come and look for me,
escorted by my gallant cousin, who would have got all the credit
for the expedition. All at once my fears departed, and left me
merely surprised at my terror. I ran, I fairly flew, to the church;
without losing my way, without groping about, I reached the pulpit,
took the Bible, and ran down the steps. In three strides I was
out of the church, leaving the door open. Breathless, I entered
the room and threw the Bible on the table, frightened indeed,
but throbbing with pride that I had done it without the proposed
assistance.
You will ask if I am giving this anecdote as an example, and as
an illustration, of the mirth which I say should accompany these
games. Not so, but I give it as a proof that there is nothing
so well calculated to reassure any one who is afraid in the dark
as to hear sounds of laughter and talking in an adjoining room.
Instead of playing alone with your pupil in the evening, I would
have you get together a number of merry children; do not send
them alone to begin with, but several together, and do not venture
to send any one quite alone, until you are quite certain beforehand
that he will not be too frightened.
I can picture nothing more amusing and more profitable than such
games, considering how little skill is required to organise them.
In a large room I should arrange a sort of labyrinth of tables,
armchairs, chairs, and screens. In the inextricable windings of
this labyrinth I should place some eight or ten sham boxes, and
one real box almost exactly like them, but well filled with sweets.
I should describe clearly and briefly the place where the right
box would be found. I should give instructions sufficient to enable
people more attentive and less excitable than children to find
it. [Footnote: To practise them in attention, only tell them things
which it is clearly to their present interest that they should
understand thoroughly; above all be brief, never say a word more
than necessary. But neither let your speech be obscure nor of
doubtful meaning.] Then having made the little competitors draw
lots, I should send first one and then another till the right
box was found. I should increase the difficulty of the task in
proportion to their skill.
Picture to yourself a youthful Hercules returning, box in hand,
quite proud of his expedition. The box is placed on the table
and opened with great ceremony. I can hear the bursts of laughter
and the shouts of the merry party when, instead of the looked-for
sweets, he finds, neatly arranged on moss or cotton-wool, a beetle,
a snail, a bit of coal, a few acorns, a turnip, or some such thing.
Another time in a newly whitewashed room, a toy or some small
article of furniture would be hung on the wall and the children
would have to fetch it without touching the wall. When the child
who fetches it comes back, if he has failed ever so little to
fulfil the conditions, a dab of white on the brim of his cap,
the tip of his shoe, the flap of his coat or his sleeve, will
betray his lack of skill.
This is enough, or more than enough, to show the spirit of these
games. Do not read my book if you expect me to tell you everything.
What great advantages would be possessed by a man so educated,
when compared with others. His feet are accustomed to tread firmly
in the dark, and his hands to touch lightly; they will guide him
safely in the thickest darkness. His imagination is busy with
the evening games of his childhood, and will find it difficult
to turn towards objects of alarm. If he thinks he hears laughter,
it will be the laughter of his former playfellows, not of frenzied
spirits; if he thinks there is a host of people, it will not be
the witches' sabbath, but the party in his tutor's study. Night
only recalls these cheerful memories, and it will never alarm
him; it will inspire delight rather than fear. He will be ready
for a military expedition at any hour, with or without his troop.
He will enter the camp of Saul, he will find his way, he will
reach the king's tent without waking any one, and he will return
unobserved. Are the steeds of Rhesus to be stolen, you may trust
him. You will scarcely find a Ulysses among men educated in any
other fashion.
I have known people who tried to train the children not to fear
the dark by startling them. This is a very bad plan; its effects
are just the opposite of those desired, and it only makes children
more timid. Neither reason nor habit can secure us from the fear
of a present danger whose degree and kind are unknown, nor from
the fear of surprises which we have often experienced. Yet how
will you make sure that you can preserve your pupil from such
accidents? I consider this the best advice to give him beforehand.
I should say to Emile, "This is a matter of self-defence,
for the aggressor does not let you know whether he means to hurt
or frighten you, and as the advantage is on his side you cannot
even take refuge in flight. Therefore seize boldly anything, whether
man or beast, which takes you unawares in the dark. Grasp it,
squeeze it with all your might; if it struggles, strike, and do
not spare your blows; and whatever he may say or do, do not let
him go till you know just who he is. The event will probably prove
that you had little to be afraid of, but this way of treating
practical jokers would naturally prevent their trying it again."
Although touch is the sense oftenest used, its discrimination
remains, as I have already pointed out, coarser and more imperfect
than that of any other sense, because we always use sight along
with it; the eye perceives the thing first, and the mind almost
always judges without the hand. On the other hand, discrimination
by touch is the surest just because of its limitations; for extending
only as far as our hands can reach, it corrects the hasty judgments
of the other senses, which pounce upon objects scarcely perceived,
while what we learn by touch is learnt thoroughly. Moreover, touch,
when required, unites the force of our muscles to the action of
the nerves; we associate by simultaneous sensations our ideas
of temperature, size, and shape, to those of weight and density.
Thus touch is the sense which best teaches us the action of foreign
bodies upon ourselves, the sense which most directly supplies
us with the knowledge required for self-preservation.
As the trained touch takes the place of sight, why should it not,
to some extent, take the place of hearing, since sounds set up,
in sonorous bodies, vibrations perceptible by touch? By placing
the hand on the body of a 'cello one can distinguish without the
use of eye or ear, merely by the way in which the wood vibrates
and trembles, whether the sound given out is sharp or flat, whether
it is drawn from the treble string or the bass. If our touch were
trained to note these differences, no doubt we might in time become
so sensitive as to hear a whole tune by means of our fingers.
But if we admit this, it is clear that one could easily speak
to the deaf by means of music; for tone and measure are no less
capable of regular combination than voice and articulation, so
that they might be used as the elements of speech.
There are exercises by which the sense of touch is blunted and
deadened, and others which sharpen it and make it delicate and
discriminating. The former, which employ much movement and force
for the continued impression of hard bodies, make the skin hard
and thick, and deprive it of its natural sensitiveness. The latter
are those which give variety to this feeling, by slight and repeated
contact, so that the mind is attentive to constantly recurring
impressions, and readily learns to discern their variations. This
difference is clear in the use of musical instruments. The harsh
and painful touch of the 'cello, bass-viol, and even of the violin,
hardens the finger-tips, although it gives flexibility to the
fingers. The soft and smooth touch of the harpsichord makes the
fingers both flexible and sensitive. In this respect the harpsichord
is to be preferred.
The skin protects the rest of the body, so it is very important
to harden it to the effects of the air that it may be able to
bear its changes. With regard to this I may say I would not have
the hand roughened by too servile application to the same kind
of work, nor should the skin of the hand become hardened so as
to lose its delicate sense of touch which keeps the body informed
of what is going on, and by the kind of contact sometimes makes
us shudder in different ways even in the dark.
Why should my pupil be always compelled to wear the skin of an
ox under his foot? What harm would come of it if his own skin
could serve him at need as a sole. It is clear that a delicate
skin could never be of any use in this way, and may often do harm.
The Genevese, aroused at midnight by their enemies in the depth
of winter, seized their guns rather than their shoes. Who can
tell whether the town would have escaped capture if its citizens
had not been able to go barefoot?
Let a man be always fore-armed against the unforeseen. Let Emile
run about barefoot all the year round, upstairs, downstairs, and
in the garden. Far from scolding him, I shall follow his example;
only I shall be careful to remove any broken glass. I shall soon
proceed to speak of work and manual occupations. Meanwhile, let
him learn to perform every exercise which encourages agility of
body; let him learn to hold himself easily and steadily in any
position, let him practise jumping and leaping, climbing trees
and walls. Let him always find his balance, and let his every
movement and gesture be regulated by the laws of weight, long
before he learns to explain them by the science of statics. By
the way his foot is planted on the ground, and his body supported
on his leg, he ought to know if he is holding himself well or
ill. An easy carriage is always graceful, and the steadiest positions
are the most elegant. If I were a dancing master I would refuse
to play the monkey tricks of Marcel, which are only fit for the
stage where they are performed; but instead of keeping my pupil
busy with fancy steps, I would take him to the foot of a cliff.
There I would show him how to hold himself, how to carry his body
and head, how to place first a foot then a hand, to follow lightly
the steep, toilsome, and rugged paths, to leap from point to point,
either up or down. He should emulate the mountain-goat, not the
ballet dancer.
As touch confines its operations to the man's immediate surroundings,
so sight extends its range beyond them; it is this which makes
it misleading; man sees half his horizon at a glance. In the midst
of this host of simultaneous impressions and the thoughts excited
by them, how can he fail now and then to make mistakes? Thus sight
is the least reliable of our senses, just because it has the widest
range; it functions long before our other senses, and its work
is too hasty and on too large a scale to be corrected by the rest.
Moreover, the very illusions of perspective are necessary if we
are to arrive at a knowledge of space and compare one part of
space with another. Without false appearances we should never
see anything at a distance; without the gradations of size and
tone we could not judge of distance, or rather distance would
have no existence for us. If two trees, one of which was a hundred
paces from us and the other ten, looked equally large and distinct,
we should think they were side by side. If we perceived the real
dimensions of things, we should know nothing of space; everything
would seem close to our eyes.
The angle formed between any objects and our eye is the only means
by which our sight estimates their size and distance, and as this
angle is the simple effect of complex causes, the judgment we
form does not distinguish between the several causes; we are compelled
to be inaccurate. For how can I tell, by sight alone, whether
the angle at which an object appears to me smaller than another,
indicates that it is really smaller or that it is further off.
Here we must just reverse our former plan. Instead of simplifying
the sensation, always reinforce it and verify it by means of another
sense. Subject the eye to the hand, and, so to speak, restrain
the precipitation of the former sense by the slower and more reasoned
pace of the latter. For want of this sort of practice our sight
measurements are very imperfect. We cannot correctly, and at a
glance, estimate height, length, breadth, and distance; and the
fact that engineers, surveyors, architects, masons, and painters
are generally quicker to see and better able to estimate distances
correctly, proves that the fault is not in our eyes, but in our
use of them. Their occupations give them the training we lack,
and they check the equivocal results of the angle of vision by
its accompanying experiences, which determine the relations of
the two causes of this angle for their eyes.
Children will always do anything that keeps them moving freely.
There are countless ways of rousing their interest in measuring,
perceiving, and estimating distance. There is a very tall cherry
tree; how shall we gather the cherries? Will the ladder in the
barn be big enough? There is a wide stream; how shall we get to
the other side? Would one of the wooden planks in the yard reach
from bank to bank? From our windows we want to fish in the moat;
how many yards of line are required? I want to make a swing between
two trees; will two fathoms of cord be enough? They tell me our
room in the new house will be twenty-five feet square; do you
think it will be big enough for us? Will it be larger than this?
We are very hungry; here are two villages, which can we get to
first for our dinner?
An idle, lazy child was to be taught to run. He had no liking
for this or any other exercise, though he was intended for the
army. Somehow or other he had got it into his head that a man
of his rank need know nothing and do nothing--that his birth would
serve as a substitute for arms and legs, as well as for every
kind of virtue. The skill of Chiron himself would have failed
to make a fleet-footed Achilles of this young gentleman. The difficulty
was increased by my determination to give him no kind of orders.
I had renounced all right to direct him by preaching, promises,
threats, emulation, or the desire to show off. How should I make
him want to run without saying anything? I might run myself, but
he might not follow my example, and this plan had other drawbacks.
Moreover, I must find some means of teaching him through this
exercise, so as to train mind and body to work together. This
is how I, or rather how the teacher who supplied me with this
illustration, set about it.
When I took him a walk of an afternoon I sometimes put in my pocket
a couple of cakes, of a kind he was very fond of; we each ate
one while we were out, and we came back well pleased with our
outing. One day he noticed I had three cakes; he could have easily
eaten six, so he ate his cake quickly and asked for the other.
"No," said I, "I could eat it myself, or we might
divide it, but I would rather see those two little boys run a
race for it." I called them to us, showed them the cake,
and suggested that they should race for it. They were delighted.
The cake was placed on a large stone which was to be the goal;
the course was marked out, we sat down, and at a given signal
off flew the children! The victor seized the cake and ate it without
pity in the sight of the spectators and of his defeated rival.
The sport was better than the cake; but the lesson did not take
effect all at once, and produced no result. I was not discouraged,
nor did I hurry; teaching is a trade at which one must be able
to lose time and save it. Our walks were continued, sometimes
we took three cakes, sometimes four, and from time to time there
were one or two cakes for the racers. If the prize was not great,
neither was the ambition of the competitors. The winner was praised
and petted, and everything was done with much ceremony. To give
room to run and to add interest to the race I marked out a longer
course and admitted several fresh competitors. Scarcely had they
entered the lists than all the passers-by stopped to watch. They
were encouraged by shouting, cheering, and clapping. I sometimes
saw my little man trembling with excitement, jumping up and shouting
when one was about to reach or overtake another--to him these
were the Olympian games.
However, the competitors did not always play fair, they got in
each other's way, or knocked one another down, or put stones on
the track. That led us to separate them and make them start from
different places at equal distances from the goal. You will soon
see the reason for this, for I must describe this important affair
at length.
Tired of seeing his favourite cakes devoured before his eyes,
the young lord began to suspect that there was some use in being
a quick runner, and seeing that he had two legs of his own, he
began to practise running on the quiet. I took care to see nothing,
but I knew my stratagem had taken effect. When he thought he was
good enough (and I thought so too), he pretended to tease me to
give him the other cake. I refused; he persisted, and at last
he said angrily, "Well, put it on the stone and mark out
the course, and we shall see." "Very good," said
I, laughing, "You will get a good appetite, but you will
not get the cake." Stung by my mockery, he took heart, won
the prize, all the more easily because I had marked out a very
short course and taken care that the best runner was out of the
way. It will be evident that, after the first step, I had no difficulty
in keeping him in training. Soon he took such a fancy for this
form of exercise that without any favour he was almost certain
to beat the little peasant boys at running, however long the course.
The advantage thus obtained led unexpectedly to another. So long
as he seldom won the prize, he ate it himself like his rivals,
but as he got used to victory he grew generous, and often shared
it with the defeated. That taught me a lesson in morals and I
saw what was the real root of generosity.
While I continued to mark out a different starting place for each
competitor, he did not notice that I had made the distances unequal,
so that one of them, having farther to run to reach the goal,
was clearly at a disadvantage. But though I left the choice to
my pupil he did not know how to take advantage of it. Without
thinking of the distance, he always chose the smoothest path,
so that I could easily predict his choice, and could almost make
him win or lose the cake at my pleasure. I had more than one end
in view in this stratagem; but as my plan was to get him to notice
the difference himself, I tried to make him aware of it. Though
he was generally lazy and easy going, he was so eager in his sports
and trusted me so completely that I had great difficulty in making
him see that I was cheating him. When at last I managed to make
him see it in spite of his excitement, he was angry with me. "What
have you to complain of?" said I. "In a gift which I
propose to give of my own free will am not I master of the conditions?
Who makes you run? Did I promise to make the courses equal? Is
not the choice yours? Do not you see that I am favouring you,
and that the inequality you complain of is all to your advantage,
if you knew how to use it?" That was plain to him; and to
choose he must observe more carefully. At first he wanted to count
the paces, but a child measures paces slowly and inaccurately;
moreover, I decided to have several races on one day; and the
game having become a sort of passion with the child, he was sorry
to waste in measuring the portion of time intended for running.
Such delays are not in accordance with a child's impatience; he
tried therefore to see better and to reckon the distance more
accurately at sight. It was now quite easy to extend and develop
this power. At length, after some months' practice, and the correction
of his errors, I so trained his power of judging at sight that
I had only to place an imaginary cake on any distant object and
his glance was nearly as accurate as the surveyor's chain.
Of all the senses, sight is that which we can least distinguish
from the judgments of the mind; as it takes a long time to learn
to see. It takes a long time to compare sight and touch, and to
train the former sense to give a true report of shape and distance.
Without touch, without progressive motion, the sharpest eyes in
the world could give us no idea of space. To the oyster the whole
world must seem a point, and it would seem nothing more to it
even if it had a human mind. It is only by walking, feeling, counting,
measuring the dimensions of things, that we learn to judge them
rightly; but, on the other hand, if we were always measuring,
our senses would trust to the instrument and would never gain
confidence. Nor must the child pass abruptly from measurement
to judgment; he must continue to compare the parts when he could
not compare the whole; he must substitute his estimated aliquot
parts for exact aliquot parts, and instead of always applying
the measure by hand he must get used to applying it by eye alone.
I would, however, have his first estimates tested by measurement,
so that he may correct his errors, and if there is a false impression
left upon the senses he may correct it by a better judgment. The
same natural standards of measurement are in use almost everywhere,
the man's foot, the extent of his outstretched arms, his height.
When the child wants to measure the height of a room, his tutor
may serve as a measuring rod; if he is estimating the height of
a steeple let him measure it by the house; if he wants to know
how many leagues of road there are, let him count the hours spent
in walking along it. Above all, do not do this for him; let him
do it himself.
One cannot learn to estimate the extent and size of bodies without
at the same time learning to know and even to copy their shape;
for at bottom this copying depends entirely on the laws of perspective,
and one cannot estimate distance without some feeling for these
laws. All children in the course of their endless imitation try
to draw; and I would have Emile cultivate this art; not so much
for art's sake, as to give him exactness of eye and flexibility
of hand. Generally speaking, it matters little whether he is acquainted
with this or that occupation, provided he gains clearness of sense--perception
and the good bodily habits which belong to the exercise in question.
So I shall take good care not to provide him with a drawing master,
who would only set him to copy copies and draw from drawings.
Nature should be his only teacher, and things his only models.
He should have the real thing before his eyes, not its copy on
paper. Let him draw a house from a house, a tree from a tree,
a man from a man; so that he may train himself to observe objects
and their appearance accurately and not to take false and conventional
copies for truth. I would even train him to draw only from objects
actually before him and not from memory, so that, by repeated
observation, their exact form may be impressed on his imagination,
for fear lest he should substitute absurd and fantastic forms
for the real truth of things, and lose his sense of proportion
and his taste for the beauties of nature.
Of course I know that in this way he will make any number of daubs
before he produces anything recognisable, that it will be long
before he attains to the graceful outline and light touch of the
draughtsman; perhaps he will never have an eye for picturesque
effect or a good taste in drawing. On the other hand, he will
certainly get a truer eye, a surer hand, a knowledge of the real
relations of form and size between animals, plants, and natural
objects, together with a quicker sense of the effects of perspective.
That is just what I wanted, and my purpose is rather that he should
know things than copy them. I would rather he showed me a plant
of acanthus even if he drew a capital with less accuracy.
Moreover, in this occupation as in others, I do not intend my
pupil to play by himself; I mean to make it pleasanter for him
by always sharing it with him. He shall have no other rival; but
mine will be a continual rivalry, and there will be no risk attaching
to it; it will give interest to his pursuits without awaking jealousy
between us. I shall follow his example and take up a pencil; at
first I shall use it as unskilfully as he. I should be an Apelles
if I did not set myself daubing. To begin with, I shall draw a
man such as lads draw on walls, a line for each arm, another for
each leg, with the fingers longer than the arm. Long after, one
or other of us will notice this lack of proportion; we shall observe
that the leg is thick, that this thickness varies, that the length
of the arm is proportionate to the body. In this improvement I
shall either go side by side with my pupil, or so little in advance
that he will always overtake me easily and sometimes get ahead
of me. We shall get brushes and paints, we shall try to copy the
colours of things and their whole appearance, not merely their
shape. We shall colour prints, we shall paint, we shall daub;
but in all our daubing we shall be searching out the secrets of
nature, and whatever we do shall be done under the eye of that
master.
We badly needed ornaments for our room, and now we have them ready
to our hand. I will have our drawings framed and covered with
good glass, so that no one will touch them, and thus seeing them
where we put them, each of us has a motive for taking care of
his own. I arrange them in order round the room, each drawing
repeated some twenty or thirty times, thus showing the author's
progress in each specimen, from the time when the house is merely
a rude square, till its front view, its side view, its proportions,
its light and shade are all exactly portrayed. These graduations
will certainly furnish us with pictures, a source of interest
to ourselves and of curiosity to others, which will spur us on
to further emulation. The first and roughest drawings I put in
very smart gilt frames to show them off; but as the copy becomes
more accurate and the drawing really good, I only give it a very
plain dark frame; it needs no other ornament than itself, and
it would be a pity if the frame distracted the attention which
the picture itself deserves. Thus we each aspire to a plain frame,
and when we desire to pour scorn on each other's drawings, we
condemn them to a gilded frame. Some day perhaps "the gilt
frame" will become a proverb among us, and we shall be surprised
to find how many people show what they are really made of by demanding
a gilt frame.
I have said already that geometry is beyond the child's reach;
but that is our own fault. We fail to perceive that their method
is not ours, that what is for us the art of reasoning, should
be for them the art of seeing. Instead of teaching them our way,
we should do better to adopt theirs, for our way of learning geometry
is quite as much a matter of imagination as of reasoning. When
a proposition is enunciated you must imagine the proof; that is,
you must discover on what proposition already learnt it depends,
and of all the possible deductions from that proposition you must
choose just the one required.
In this way the closest reasoner, if he is not inventive, may
find himself at a loss. What is the result? Instead of making
us discover proofs, they are dictated to us; instead of teaching
us to reason, our memory only is employed.
Draw accurate figures, combine them together, put them one upon
another, examine their relations, and you will discover the whole
of elementary geometry in passing from one observation to another,
without a word of definitions, problems, or any other form of
demonstration but super-position. I do not profess to teach Emile
geometry; he will teach me; I shall seek for relations, he will
find them, for I shall seek in such a fashion as to make him find.
For instance, instead of using a pair of compasses to draw a circle,
I shall draw it with a pencil at the end of bit of string attached
to a pivot. After that, when I want to compare the radii one with
another, Emile will laugh at me and show me that the same thread
at full stretch cannot have given distances of unequal length.
If I wish to measure an angle of 60 degrees I describe from the
apex of the angle, not an arc, but a complete circle, for with
children nothing must be taken for granted. I find that the part
of the circle contained between the two lines of the angle is
the sixth part of a circle. Then I describe another and larger
circle from the same centre, and I find the second arc is again
the sixth part of its circle. I describe a third concentric circle
with a similar result, and I continue with more and more circles
till Emile, shocked at my stupidity, shows me that every arc,
large or small, contained by the same angle will always be the
sixth part of its circle. Now we are ready to use the protractor.
To prove that two adjacent angles are equal to two right angles
people describe a circle. On the contrary I would have Emile observe
the fact in a circle, and then I should say, "If we took
away the circle and left the straight lines, would the angles
have changed their size, etc.?"
Exactness in the construction of figures is neglected; it is taken
for granted and stress is laid on the proof. With us, on the other
hand, there will be no question of proof. Our chief business will
be to draw very straight, accurate, and even lines, a perfect
square, a really round circle. To verify the exactness of a figure
we will test it by each of its sensible properties, and that will
give us a chance to discover fresh properties day by day. We will
fold the two semi-circles along the diameter, the two halves of
the square by the diagonal; he will compare our two figures to
see who has got the edges to fit moat exactly, i.e., who has done
it best; we should argue whether this equal division would always
be possible in parallelograms, trapezes, etc. We shall sometimes
try to forecast the result of an experiment, to find reasons,
etc.
Geometry means to my scholar the successful use of the rule and
compass; he must not confuse it with drawing, in which these instruments
are not used. The rule and compass will be locked up, so that
he will not get into the way of messing about with them, but we
may sometimes take our figures with us when we go for a walk,
and talk over what we have done, or what we mean to do.
I shall never forget seeing a young man at Turin, who had learnt
as a child the relations of contours and surfaces by having to
choose every day isoperimetric cakes among cakes of every geometrical
figure. The greedy little fellow had exhausted the art of Archimedes
to find which were the biggest.
When the child flies a kite he is training eye and hand to accuracy;
when he whips a top, he is increasing his strength by using it,
but without learning anything. I have sometimes asked why children
are not given the same games of skill as men; tennis, mall, billiards,
archery, football, and musical instruments. I was told that some
of these are beyond their strength, that the child's senses are
not sufficiently developed for others. These do not strike me
as valid reasons; a child is not as tall as a man, but he wears
the same sort of coat; I do not want him to play with our cues
at a billiard-table three feet high; I do not want him knocking
about among our games, nor carrying one of our racquets in his
little hand; but let him play in a room whose windows have been
protected; at first let him only use soft balls, let his first
racquets be of wood, then of parchment, and lastly of gut, according
to his progress. You prefer the kite because it is less tiring
and there is no danger. You are doubly wrong. Kite-flying is a
sport for women, but every woman will run away from a swift ball.
Their white skins were not meant to be hardened by blows and their
faces were not made for bruises. But we men are made for strength;
do you think we can attain it without hardship, and what defence
shall we be able to make if we are attacked? People always play
carelessly in games where there is no danger. A falling kite hurts
nobody, but nothing makes the arm so supple as protecting the
head, nothing makes the sight so accurate as having to guard the
eye. To dash from one end of the room to another, to judge the
rebound of a ball before it touches the ground, to return it with
strength and accuracy, such games are not so much sports fit for
a man, as sports fit to make a man of him.
The child's limbs, you say, are too tender. They are not so strong
as those of a man, but they are more supple. His arm is weak,
still it is an arm, and it should be used with due consideration
as we use other tools. Children have no skill in the use of their
hands. That is just why I want them to acquire skill; a man with
as little practice would be just as clumsy. We can only learn
the use of our limbs by using them. It is only by long experience
that we learn to make the best of ourselves, and this experience
is the real object of study to which we cannot apply ourselves
too early.
What is done can be done. Now there is nothing commoner than to
find nimble and skilful children whose limbs are as active as
those of a man. They may be seen at any fair, swinging, walking
on their hands, jumping, dancing on the tight rope. For many years
past, troops of children have attracted spectators to the ballets
at the Italian Comedy House. Who is there in Germany and Italy
who has not heard of the famous pantomime company of Nicolini?
Has it ever occurred to any one that the movements of these children
were less finished, their postures less graceful, their ears less
true, their dancing more clumsy than those of grown-up dancers?
If at first the fingers are thick, short, and awkward, the dimpled
hands unable to grasp anything, does this prevent many children
from learning to read and write at an age when others cannot even
hold a pen or pencil? All Paris still recalls the little English
girl of ten who did wonders on the harpsichord. I once saw a little
fellow of eight, the son of a magistrate, who was set like a statuette
on the table among the dishes, to play on a fiddle almost as big
as himself, and even artists were surprised at his execution.
To my mind, these and many more examples prove that the supposed
incapacity of children for our games is imaginary, and that if
they are unsuccessful in some of them, it is for want of practice.
You will tell me that with regard to the body I am falling into
the same mistake of precocious development which I found fault
with for the mind. The cases are very different: in the one, progress
is apparent only; in the other it is real. I have shown that children
have not the mental development they appear to have, while they
really do what they seem to do. Besides, we must never forget
that all this should be play, the easy and voluntary control of
the movements which nature demands of them, the art of varying
their games to make them pleasanter, without the least bit of
constraint to transform them into work; for what games do they
play in which I cannot find material for instruction for them?
And even if I could not do so, so long as they are amusing themselves
harmlessly and passing the time pleasantly, their progress in
learning is not yet of such great importance. But if one must
be teaching them this or that at every opportunity, it cannot
be done without constraint, vexation, or tedium.
What I have said about the use of the two senses whose use is
most constant and most important, may serve as an example of how
to train the rest. Sight and touch are applied to bodies at rest
and bodies in motion, but as hearing is only affected by vibrations
of the air, only a body in motion can make a noise or sound; if
everything were at rest we should never hear. At night, when we
ourselves only move as we choose, we have nothing to fear but
moving bodies; hence we need a quick ear, and power to judge from
the sensations experienced whether the body which causes them
is large or small, far off or near, whether its movements are
gentle or violent. When once the air is set in motion, it is subject
to repercussions which produce echoes, these renew the sensations
and make us hear a loud or penetrating sound in another quarter.
If you put your ear to the ground you may hear the sound of men's
voices or horses' feet in a plain or valley much further off than
when you stand upright.
As we have made a comparison between sight and touch, it will
be as well to do the same for hearing, and to find out which of
the two impressions starting simultaneously from a given body
first reaches the sense-organ. When you see the flash of a cannon,
you have still time to take cover; but when you hear the sound
it is too late, the ball is close to you. One can reckon the distance
of a thunderstorm by the interval between the lightning and the
thunder. Let the child learn all these facts, let him learn those
that are within his reach by experiment, and discover the rest
by induction; but I would far rather he knew nothing at all about
them, than that you should tell him.
In the voice we have an organ answering to hearing; we have no
such organ answering to sight, and we do not repeat colours as
we repeat sounds. This supplies an additional means of cultivating
the ear by practising the active and passive organs one with the
other.
Man has three kinds of voice, the speaking or articulate voice,
the singing or melodious voice, and the pathetic or expressive
voice, which serves as the language of the passions, and gives
life to song and speech. The child has these three voices, just
as the man has them, but he does not know how to use them in combination.
Like us, he laughs, cries, laments, shrieks, and groans, but he
does not know how to combine these inflexions with speech or song.
These three voices find their best expression in perfect music.
Children are incapable of such music, and their singing lacks
feeling. In the same way their spoken language lacks expression;
they shout, but they do not speak with emphasis, and there is
as little power in their voice as there is emphasis in their speech.
Our pupil's speech will be plainer and simpler still, for his
passions are still asleep, and will not blend their tones with
his. Do not, therefore, set him to recite tragedy or comedy, nor
try to teach declamation so-called. He will have too much sense
to give voice to things he cannot understand, or expression to
feelings he has never known.
Teach him to speak plainly and distinctly, to articulate clearly,
to pronounce correctly and without affectation, to perceive and
imitate the right accent in prose and verse, and always to speak
loud enough to be heard, but without speaking too loud--a common
fault with school-children. Let there be no waste in anything.
The same method applies to singing; make his voice smooth and
true, flexible and full, his ear alive to time and tune, but nothing
more. Descriptive and theatrical music is not suitable at his
age----I would rather he sang no words; if he must have words,
I would try to compose songs on purpose for him, songs interesting
to a child, and as simple as his own thoughts.
You may perhaps suppose that as I am in no hurry to teach Emile
to read and write, I shall not want to teach him to read music.
Let us spare his brain the strain of excessive attention, and
let us be in no hurry to turn his mind towards conventional signs.
I grant you there seems to be a difficulty here, for if at first
sight the knowledge of notes seems no more necessary for singing
than the knowledge of letters for speaking, there is really this
difference between them: When we speak, we are expressing our
own thoughts; when we sing we are expressing the thoughts of others.
Now in order to express them we must read them.
But at first we can listen to them instead of reading them, and
a song is better learnt by ear than by eye. Moreover, to learn
music thoroughly we must make songs as well as sing them, and
the two processes must be studied together, or we shall never
have any real knowledge of music. First give your young musician
practice in very regular, well-cadenced phrases; then let him
connect these phrases with the very simplest modulations; then
show him their relation one to another by correct accent, which
can be done by a fit choice of cadences and rests. On no account
give him anything unusual, or anything that requires pathos or
expression. A simple, tuneful air, always based on the common
chords of the key, with its bass so clearly indicated that it
is easily felt and accompanied, for to train his voice and ear
he should always sing with the harpsichord.
We articulate the notes we sing the better to distinguish them;
hence the custom of sol-faing with certain syllables. To tell
the keys one from another they must have names and fixed intervals;
hence the names of the intervals, and also the letters of the
alphabet attached to the keys of the clavier and the notes of
the scale. C and A indicate fixed sounds, invariable and always
rendered by the same keys; Ut and La are different. Ut is always
the dominant of a major scale, or the leading-note of a minor
scale. La is always the dominant of a minor scale or the sixth
of a major scale. Thus the letters indicate fixed terms in our
system of music, and the syllables indicate terms homologous to
the similar relations in different keys. The letters show the
keys on the piano, and the syllables the degrees in the scale.
French musicians have made a strange muddle of this. They have
confused the meaning of the syllables with that of the letters,
and while they have unnecessarily given us two sets of symbols
for the keys of the piano, they have left none for the chords
of the scales; so that Ut and C are always the same for them;
this is not and ought not to be; if so, what is the use of C?
Their method of sol-faing is, therefore, extremely and needlessly
difficult, neither does it give any clear idea to the mind; since,
by this method, Ut and Me, for example, may mean either a major
third, a minor third, an augmented third, or a diminished third.
What a strange thing that the country which produces the finest
books about music should be the very country where it is hardest
to learn music!
Let us adopt a simpler and clearer plan with our pupil; let him
have only two scales whose relations remain unchanged, and indicated
by the same symbols. Whether he sings or plays, let him learn
to fix his scale on one of the twelve tones which may serve as
a base, and whether he modulates in D, C, or G, let the close
be always Ut or La, according to the scale. In this way he will
understand what you mean, and the essential relations for correct
singing and playing will always be present in his mind; his execution
will be better and his progress quicker. There is nothing funnier
than what the French call "natural sol-faing;" it consists
in removing the real meaning of things and putting in their place
other meanings which only distract us. There is nothing more natural
than sol-faing by transposition, when the scale is transposed.
But I have said enough, and more than enough, about music; teach
it as you please, so long as it is nothing but play.
We are now thoroughly acquainted with the condition of foreign
bodies in relation to our own, their weight, form, colour, density,
size, distance, temperature, stability, or motion. We have learnt
which of them to approach or avoid, how to set about overcoming
their resistance or to resist them so as to prevent ourselves
from injury; but this is not enough. Our own body is constantly
wasting and as constantly requires to be renewed. Although we
have the power of changing other substances into our own, our
choice is not a matter of indifference. Everything is not food
for man, and what may be food for him is not all equally suitable;
it depends on his racial constitution, the country he lives in,
his individual temperament, and the way of living which his condition
demands.
If we had to wait till experience taught us to know and choose
fit food for ourselves, we should die of hunger or poison; but
a kindly providence which has made pleasure the means of self-preservation
to sentient beings teaches us through our palate what is suitable
for our stomach. In a state of nature there is no better doctor
than a man's own appetite, and no doubt in a state of nature man
could find the most palateable food the most wholesome.
Nor is this all. Our Maker provides, not only for those needs
he has created, but for those we create for ourselves; and it
is to keep the balance between our wants and our needs that he
has caused our tastes to change and vary with our way of living.
The further we are from a state of nature, the more we lose our
natural tastes; or rather, habit becomes a second nature, and
so completely replaces our real nature, that we have lost all
knowledge of it.
From this it follows that the most natural tastes should be the
simplest, for those are more easily changed; but when they are
sharpened and stimulated by our fancies they assume a form which
is incapable of modification. The man who so far has not adapted
himself to one country can learn the ways of any country whatsoever;
but the man who has adopted the habits of one particular country
can never shake them off.
This seems to be true of all our senses, especially of taste.
Our first food is milk; we only become accustomed by degrees to
strong flavours; at first we dislike them. Fruit, vegetables,
herbs, and then fried meat without salt or seasoning, formed the
feasts of primitive man. When the savage tastes wine for the first
time, he makes a grimace and spits it out; and even among ourselves
a man who has not tasted fermented liquors before twenty cannot
get used to them; we should all be sober if we did not have wine
when we were children. Indeed, the simpler our tastes are, the
more general they are; made dishes are those most frequently disliked.
Did you ever meet with any one who disliked bread or water? Here
is the finger of nature, this then is our rule. Preserve the child's
primitive tastes as long as possible; let his food be plain and
simple, let strong flavours be unknown to his palate, and do not
let his diet be too uniform.
I am not asking, for the present, whether this way of living is
healthier or no; that is not what I have in view. It is enough
for me to know that my choice is more in accordance with nature,
and that it can be more readily adapted to other conditions. In
my opinion, those who say children should be accustomed to the
food they will have when they are grown up are mistaken. Why should
their food be the same when their way of living is so different?
A man worn out by labour, anxiety, and pain needs tasty foods
to give fresh vigour to his brain; a child fresh from his games,
a child whose body is growing, needs plentiful food which will
supply more chyle. Moreover the grown man has already a settled
profession, occupation, and home, but who can tell what Fate holds
in store for the child? Let us not give him so fixed a bent in
any direction that he cannot change it if required without hardship.
Do not bring him up so that he would die of hunger in a foreign
land if he does not take a French cook about with him; do not
let him say at some future time that France is the only country
where the food is fit to eat. By the way, that is a strange way
of praising one's country. On the other hand, I myself should
say that the French are the only people who do not know what good
food is, since they require such a special art to make their dishes
eatable.
Of all our different senses, we are usually most affected by taste.
Thus it concerns us more nearly to judge aright of what will actually
become part of ourselves, than of that which will merely form
part of our environment. Many things are matters of indifference
to touch, hearing, and sight; but taste is affected by almost
everything. Moreover the activity of this sense is wholly physical
and material; of all the senses, it alone makes no appeal to the
imagination, or at least, imagination plays a smaller part in
its sensations; while imitation and imagination often bring morality
into the impressions of the other senses. Thus, speaking generally,
soft and pleasure-loving minds, passionate and truly sensitive
dispositions, which are easily stirred by the other senses, are
usually indifferent to this. From this very fact, which apparently
places taste below our other senses and makes our inclination
towards it the more despicable, I draw just the opposite conclusion--that
the best way to lead children is by the mouth. Greediness is a
better motive than vanity; for the former is a natural appetite
directly dependent on the senses, while the latter is the outcome
of convention, it is the slave of human caprice and liable to
every kind of abuse. Believe me the child will cease to care about
his food only too soon, and when his heart is too busy, his palate
will be idle. When he is grown up greediness will be expelled
by a host of stronger passions, while vanity will only be stimulated
by them; for this latter passion feeds upon the rest till at length
they are all swallowed up in it. I have sometimes studied those
men who pay great attention to good eating, men whose first waking
thought is--What shall we have to eat to-day? men who describe
their dinner with as much detail as Polybius describes a combat.
I have found these so-called men were only children of forty,
without strength or vigour--fruges consumere nati. Gluttony is
the vice of feeble minds. The gourmand has his brains in his palate,
he can do nothing but eat; he is so stupid and incapable that
the table is the only place for him, and dishes are the only things
he knows anything about. Let us leave him to this business without
regret; it is better for him and for us.
It is a small mind that fears lest greediness should take root
in the child who is fit for something better. The child thinks
of nothing but his food, the youth pays no heed to it at all;
every kind of food is good, and we have other things to attend
to. Yet I would not have you use the low motive unwisely. I would
not have you trust to dainties rather than to the honour which
is the reward of a good deed. But childhood is, or ought to be,
a time of play and merry sports, and I do not see why the rewards
of purely bodily exercises should not be material and sensible
rewards. If a little lad in Majorca sees a basket on the tree-top
and brings it down with his sling, is it not fair that he should
get something by this, and a good breakfast should repair the
strength spent in getting it. If a young Spartan, facing the risk
of a hundred stripes, slips skilfully into the kitchen, and steals
a live fox cub, carries it off in his garment, and is scratched,
bitten till the blood comes, and for shame lest he should be caught
the child allows his bowels to be torn out without a movement
or a cry, is it not fair that he should keep his spoils, that
he should eat his prey after it has eaten him? A good meal should
never be a reward; but why should it not be sometimes the result
of efforts made to get it. Emile does not consider the cake I
put on the stone as a reward for good running; he knows that the
only way to get the cake is to get there first.
This does not contradict my previous rules about simple food;
for to tempt a child's appetite you need not stimulate it, you
need only satisfy it; and the commonest things will do this if
you do not attempt to refine children's taste. Their perpetual
hunger, the result of their need for growth, will be the best
sauce. Fruit, milk, a piece of cake just a little better than
ordinary bread, and above all the art of dispensing these things
prudently, by these means you may lead a host of children to the
world's end, without on the one hand giving them a taste for strong
flavours, nor on the other hand letting them get tired of their
food.
The indifference of children towards meat is one proof that the
taste for meat is unnatural; their preference is for vegetable
foods, such as milk, pastry, fruit, etc. Beware of changing this
natural taste and making children flesh-eaters, if not for their
health's sake, for the sake of their character; for how can one
explain away the fact that great meat-eaters are usually fiercer
and more cruel than other men; this has been recognised at all
times and in all places. The English are noted for their cruelty
[Footnote: I am aware that the English make a boast of their humanity
and of the kindly disposition of their race, which they call "good-natured
people;" but in vain do they proclaim this fact; no one else
says it of them.] while the Gaures are the gentlest of men. [Footnote:
The Banians, who abstain from flesh even more completely than
the Gaures, are almost as gentle as the Gaures themselves, but
as their morality is less pure and their form of worship less
reasonable they are not such good men.] All savages are cruel,
and it is not their customs that tend in this direction; their
cruelty is the result of their food. They go to war as to the
chase, and treat men as they would treat bears. Indeed in England
butchers are not allowed to give evidence in a court of law, no
more can surgeons. [Footnote: One of the English translators of
my book has pointed out my mistake, and both of them have corrected
it. Butchers and surgeons are allowed to give evidence in the
law courts, but butchers may not serve on juries in criminal cases,
though surgeons are allowed to do so.] Great criminals prepare
themselves for murder by drinking blood. Homer makes his flesh-eating
Cyclops a terrible man, while his Lotus-eaters are so delightful
that those who went to trade with them forgot even their own country
to dwell among them.
"You ask me," said Plutarch, "why Pythagoras abstained
from eating the flesh of beasts, but I ask you, what courage must
have been needed by the first man who raised to his lips the flesh
of the slain, who broke with his teeth the bones of a dying beast,
who had dead bodies, corpses, placed before him and swallowed
down limbs which a few moments ago were bleating, bellowing, walking,
and seeing? How could his hand plunge the knife into the heart
of a sentient creature, how could his eyes look on murder, how
could he behold a poor helpless animal bled to death, scorched,
and dismembered? how can he bear the sight of this quivering flesh?
does not the very smell of it turn his stomach? is he not repelled,
disgusted, horror-struck, when he has to handle the blood from
these wounds, and to cleanse his fingers from the dark and viscous
bloodstains?
"The scorched skins wriggled upon the ground, The shrinking
flesh bellowed upon the spit. Man cannot eat them without a shudder;
He seems to hear their cries within his breast.
"Thus must he have felt the first time he did despite to
nature and made this horrible meal; the first time he hungered
for the living creature, and desired to feed upon the beast which
was still grazing; when he bade them slay, dismember, and cut
up the sheep which licked his hands. It is those who began these
cruel feasts, not those who abandon them, who should cause surprise,
and there were excuses for those primitive men, excuses which
we have not, and the absence of such excuses multiplies our barbarity
a hundredfold.
"'Mortals, beloved of the gods,' says this primitive man,
'compare our times with yours; see how happy you are, and how
wretched were we. The earth, newly formed, the air heavy with
moisture, were not yet subjected to the rule of the seasons. Three-fourths
of the surface of the globe was flooded by the ever-shifting channels
of rivers uncertain of their course, and covered with pools, lakes,
and bottomless morasses. The remaining quarter was covered with
woods and barren forests. The earth yielded no good fruit, we
had no instruments of tillage, we did not even know the use of
them, and the time of harvest never came for those who had sown
nothing. Thus hunger was always in our midst. In winter, mosses
and the bark of trees were our common food. A few green roots
of dogs-bit or heather were a feast, and when men found beech-mast,
nuts, or acorns, they danced for joy round the beech or oak, to
the sound of some rude song, while they called the earth their
mother and their nurse. This was their only festival, their only
sport; all the rest of man's life was spent in sorrow, pain, and
hunger.
"'At length, when the bare and naked earth no longer offered
us any food, we were compelled in self-defence to outrage nature,
and to feed upon our companions in distress, rather than perish
with them. But you, oh, cruel men! who forces you to shed blood?
Behold the wealth of good things about you, the fruits yielded
by the earth, the wealth of field and vineyard; the animals give
their milk for your drink and their fleece for your clothing.
What more do you ask? What madness compels you to commit such
murders, when you have already more than you can eat or drink?
Why do you slander our mother earth, and accuse her of denying
you food? Why do you sin against Ceres, the inventor of the sacred
laws, and against the gracious Bacchus, the comforter of man,
as if their lavish gifts were not enough to preserve mankind?
Have you the heart to mingle their sweet fruits with the bones
upon your table, to eat with the milk the blood of the beasts
which gave it? The lions and panthers, wild beasts as you call
them, are driven to follow their natural instinct, and they kill
other beasts that they may live. But, a hundredfold fiercer than
they, you fight against your instincts without cause, and abandon
yourselves to the most cruel pleasures. The animals you eat are
not those who devour others; you do not eat the carnivorous beasts,
you take them as your pattern. You only hunger for the sweet and
gentle creatures which harm no one, which follow you, serve you,
and are devoured by you as the reward of their service.
"'O unnatural murderer! if you persist in the assertion that
nature has made you to devour your fellow-creatures, beings of
flesh and blood, living and feeling like yourself, stifle if you
can that horror with which nature makes you regard these horrible
feasts; slay the animals yourself, slay them, I say, with your
own hands, without knife or mallet; tear them with your nails
like the lion and the bear, take this ox and rend him in pieces,
plunge your claws into his hide; eat this lamb while it is yet
alive, devour its warm flesh, drink its soul with its blood. You
shudder! you dare not feel the living throbbing flesh between
your teeth? Ruthless man; you begin by slaying the animal and
then you devour it, as if to slay it twice. It is not enough.
You turn against the dead flesh, it revolts you, it must be transformed
by fire, boiled and roasted, seasoned and disguised with drugs;
you must have butchers, cooks, turnspits, men who will rid the
murder of its horrors, who will dress the dead bodies so that
the taste deceived by these disguises will not reject what is
strange to it, and will feast on corpses, the very sight of which
would sicken you.'"
Although this quotation is irrelevant, I cannot resist the temptation
to transcribe it, and I think few of my readers will resent it.
In conclusion, whatever food you give your children, provided
you accustom them to nothing but plain and simple dishes, let
them eat and run and play as much as they want; you may be sure
they will never eat too much and will never have indigestion;
but if you keep them hungry half their time, when they do contrive
to evade your vigilance, they will take advantage of it as far
as they can; they will eat till they are sick, they will gorge
themselves till they can eat no more. Our appetite is only excessive
because we try to impose on it rules other than those of nature,
opposing, controlling, prescribing, adding, or substracting; the
scales are always in our hands, but the scales are the measure
of our caprices not of our stomachs. I return to my usual illustration;
among peasants the cupboard and the apple-loft are always left
open, and indigestion is unknown alike to children and grown-up
people.
If, however, it happened that a child were too great an eater,
though, under my system, I think it is impossible, he is so easily
distracted by his favourite games that one might easily starve
him without his knowing it. How is it that teachers have failed
to use such a safe and easy weapon. Herodotus records that the
Lydians, [Footnote: The ancient historians are full of opinions
which may be useful, even if the facts which they present are
false. But we do not know how to make any real use of history.
Criticism and erudition are our only care; as if it mattered more
that a statement were true or false than that we should be able
to get a useful lesson from it. A wise man should consider history
a tissue of fables whose morals are well adapted to the human
heart.] under the pressure of great scarcity, decided to invent
sports and other amusements with ........Continua
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