of them; it is to learn rightly to judge by them; to learn, if I may so express myself, to perceive; for we know how to touch, to see, to hear, only Some exercises are purely

as we have learned.

natural and mechanical, and serve to make the body strong and robust, without taking the least hold on the judgment: such are those of swimming, running, leaping, whipping a top, throwing stones, &c. All these are very well: but have we only arms and legs? Have we not also eyes and ears; and are not these organs necessary to the expert use of the former ? Exercise therefore not only the strength but also all the senses that direct it; make the best possible use of each, and let the impressions of one confirm those of another. Measure, reckon, weigh, compare.'

et flexibles peuvent s'ajuster aux corps sur lesquels ils doivent agir, tandis que ses sens encore purs sont exempts d'illusion, c'est le temps d'excercer les uns et les autres aux fonctions qui leur sont propres ; c'est le temps d'apprendre à connaître les rapports sensibles que les choses ont avec nous. Comme tout ce qui entre dans l'entendement humain y vient par les sens, la première raison de l'homme est une raison sensitive; c'est elle qui sert de base à la raison intellectuelle: nos premiers maîtres de philosophie sont nos pieds, nos mains, nos yeux. Substituer des livres à tout cela, ce n'est pas nous apprendre à raisonner, c'est nous apprendre à nous servir de la raison d'autrui; c'est nous apprendre à beaucoup croire, et à ne jamais rien savoir.

Pour excercer un art, il faut commencer par s'en procurer les instruments; et, pour pouvoir employer utilement ces instruments, il faut les faire assez solides pour résister à leur usage. Pour apprendre à penser, il faut donc excercer nos membres, nos sens, nos organes, qui sont les instruments de notre intelligence; et pour tirer tout le parti possible de ces instruments, il faut que le corps, qui les fournit, soit robuste et sain. Ainsi, loin que la véritable raison de l'homme se forme indépendamment du corps, c'est la bonne constitution du corps qui rend les opérations de l'esprit faciles et sûres.

* Exercer les sens n'est pas seulement en faire usage, c'est apprendre à bien juger par eux, c'est apprendre, pour ainsi dire, à sentir; car nous

MANNER OF SPEAKING.

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According to the present system, 'The lessons which school-boys learn of each other in playing about their bounds, are an hundred times more useful to them than all those which the master teaches in the school.'*

He also suggests will both train the dread of darkness.

experiments in the dark, which senses and get over the child's Ab assuetis non fit passio.'

Émile, living in the country and being much in the open air, will acquire a distinct and emphatic way of speaking. He will also avoid a fruitful source of bad pronunciation among the children of the rich, viz. saying lessons by heart. These lessons the children gabble when they are learning them, and afterwards, in their efforts to remember the words, they drawl, and give all kinds of false emphasis. Declamation is to be shunned as acting. If Émile does not understand anything, he will be too wise to pretend to understand it.

Rousseau seems perhaps inconsistent, in not excluding music and drawing from his curriculum of ignorance: but as a musician, he naturally relaxed ne savons ni toucher, ni voir, ni entendre, que comme nous avons appris.

Il y a un exercice purement naturel et mécanique, qui sert à rendre le corps robuste sans donner aucune prise au jugement: nager, courir, sauter, fouetter un sabot, lancer des pierres; tout cela est fort bien mais n'avons-nous que des bras et des jambes? n'avons-nous pas aussi des yeux, des oreilles? et ces organes sont-ils superflus à l'usage des premiers? N'exercez donc pas seulement les forces, exercez tous les sens qui les dirigent; tirez de chacun d'eux tout le parti possible, puis vérifiez l'impression de l'un par l'autre. Mesurez, comptez, pesez, comparez.

* Les leçons que les écoliers prennent entre eux dans la cour du collége leur sont cent fois plus utiles que tout ce qu'on leur dira jamais dans la classe.

I

towards the former; * and drawing he would have his pupil cultivate, not for the sake of the art itself, but only to give him a good eye and supple hand. He should, in all cases, draw from the objects themselves, my intention being, not so much that he should know how to imitate the objects, as to become fully acquainted with them.'

6

The instruction given to ordinary school-boys, was of course an abomination in the eyes of Rousseau. 'All the studies imposed on these poor unfortunates tend to such objects as are entirely foreign to their minds. Judge, then, of the attention they are likely to bestow on them.' "The pedagogues, who make a great parade of the instructions they give their scholars, are paid to talk in a different strain: one may see plainly, however, by their conduct, that they are exactly of my opinion: for, after all, what is it they teach them? Words, still words, and nothing but words. Among the various sciences they pretend to teach, they take particular care not to fall upon those which are really useful; because there would be the sciences of things, and in them they would never succeed; but they fix on such as appear to be understood when their terms are once gotten by rote, viz. geography, chronology, heraldry, the languages, &c., all studies so foreign to the purposes of man, and particularly to those of a child, that it is a wonder if ever he may have occasion for them as long as he

The followers of the Tonic Sol-Fa System have in Rousseau a strong ally in attacking the method which makes Do the tonic of the natural key only.

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lives.' * 'In any study whatever, unless we possess the ideas of the things represented, the signs representing them are of no use or consequence. A child is, nevertheless, always confined to these signs, without our being capable of making him comprehend any of the things which they represent.' What is the world to a child? It is a globe of pasteboard.‡ 'As no science consists in the knowledge of words, so there is no study proper for children. As they have no certain ideas, so they have no real memory; for I do not call that so which is retentive only of mere sensations. What signifies imprinting on their minds a catalogue of signs which to them represent nothing? Is it to be feared that, in acquiring the

* Or, toutes les études forcées de ces pauvres infortunés tendent à ces objets entièrement étrangers à leurs esprits. Qu'on juge de l'attention qu'ils y peuvent donner.

Les pédagogues qui nous étalent en grand appareil les instructions qu'ils donnent à leurs disciples sont payés pour tenir un autre langage: cependant on voit, par leur propre conduite, qu'ils pensent exactement comme moi. Car que leur apprennent-ils enfin? Des mots, encore des mots, et toujours des mots. Parmi les diverses sciences qu'ils se vantent de leur enseigner, ils se gardent bien de choisir celles qui leur seraient véritablement utiles, parce que ce seraient des sciences de choses, et qu'ils n'y réussiraient pas; mais celles qu'on paraît savoir quand on en sait les termes, le blason, la géographie, la chronologie, les langues, etc. ; toutes études si loin de l'homme, et surtout de l'enfant, que c'est une merveille si rien de tout cela lui peut être utile une seule fois en sa vie.

+ En quelque étude que ce puisse être, sans l'idée des choses représentées, les signes représentants ne sont rien. On borne pourtant toujours l'enfant à ces signes, sans jamais pouvoir lui faire comprendre aucune des choses qu'ils représentent.

Rousseau, like his pupil Basedow, would avoid the use even of representations, where possible. It ought to be laid down as a general rule, never to substitute the shadow unless where it is impossible to exhibit the substance; for the representation engrossing the attention of the child, generally makes him forget the object represented.'

knowledge of things, they will not acquire also that of signs? Why, then, shall we put them to the unnecessary trouble of learning them twice? And yet what dangerous prejudices do we not begin to instil, by making them take for knowledge, words which to them are without meaning! In the very first unintelligible sentence with which a child sits down satisfied, in the very first thing he takes upon trust, or learns from others without being himself convinced of its utility, he loses part of his understanding; and he may figure long in the eyes of fools before he will be able to repair so considerable a loss. No; if nature has given to the child's brain that pliability which renders it fit to receive all impressions, it is not with a view that we should imprint thereon the names of kings, dates, terms of heraldry, of astronomy, of geography, and all those words, meaningless at his age, and useless at any age, with which we weary his sad and sterile childhood; but that all the ideas which he can conceive, and which are useful to him, all those which relate to his happiness, and will one day make his duty plain to him, may trace themselves there in characters never to be effaced, and may assist him in conducting himself through life in a manner appropriate to his nature and his faculties.' That kind of memory which is possessed by children, may be fully employed without setting them to study books. Everything they see, or hear, appears striking, and they commit it to memory. A child keeps in his mind a register of the actions and conversation of those who are about him; every scene he is engaged in is a book from