Institutions."

We shall not dwell on these extravagances of language

which transforms a coffin and a child's long-clothes into insti-

ROUSSEAU AND THE EMILE. 291

tutions. The protests of Rousseau have contributed towards

a reformation of usages ; but, even on this point, with his

great principle that everything must be referred to nature,

because whatever nature does she does well, the author of

Entile is on the point of going astray. No more for the

body than for the mind is nature suilicient in herself ; she

must have help and watchful assistance. Strong supports

are needed to prevent too active movements and dangerous

strains of the body ; just as, later on, there will be needed a

vigorous moral authority to moderate and curb the passions

of the soul.

313. The Mother to nurse her own Children. — But

there is another point where it has become trite to praise

Rousseau, and where his teaching should be accepted without

reserve. This is when he strongly protests against the use

of hired nurses, and when he eloquently summons mothers

to the duties of nursing their own children. Where there is

no mother, there is no child, says Rousseau, and he adds,

where there is no mother, there is no family ! " Would you

recall each one to his first duties ? Begin with the mothers.

You will be astonished at the changes you will produce ! "

It would be to fall into platitudes to set forth, after Rous-

seau, and after so many others, the reasons which recom-

mend nursing by the mother. We merely observe that

Rousseau insists on this, especially on moral grounds. It is

not merely the health of the child ; it is the virtue and the

morality of the family ; it is the dignity of the home, that he

wishes to defend and preserve. And, in fact, how many

other duties are provided for and made easier by the per-

formance of a primal duty.

314. Hardening of the Body. — So far, the lessons of

nature have instructed Rousseau. He is still right when he

292 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

wishes ВЈmile to grow hard}', to become inured to privations,

to become accustomed at an early hour to pain, and to

learn how to suffer ; but from being a stoic, Rousseau soon

becomes a cynic Contempt for pain gives place to a con-

tempt for proprieties, fimile shall be a barefoot, like Dioge-

nes. Locke gives his pupil thin shoes ; Rousseau, surpassing

him, completely abolishes shoes. He would also like to

suppress all the inventions of civilization. Thus Emile,

accustomed to walk in the dark, will do without candles.

"I would rather have Emile with eyes at the ends of his

fmgers than in the shop of a candle-maker." All this tempts

us to laugh ; but here are graver errors. Rousseau objects

to vaccination, and proscribes medicine, fimile is fore-

handed. He is in duty bound to be well. A physician will

be summoned only when he is in danger of death. Again,

Rousseau forbids the washing of the new-born child in wine,

because wine is a fermented liquor, and nature produces

nothing that is fermented. And so there must be no play-

things made by the hand of man. A twig of a tree or a

poppy-head will suffice. Rousseau, as we see, by reason of

his wish to make of his pupil a man of nature, brings him

into singular likeness with the wild man, and assimilates

him almost to the brute.

315. Negative Education. — It is evident that the first

period of life is that in which the use of negative education

is both the least dangerous and the most acceptable. Ordi-

narily, Smile's preceptor will be but the inactive witness,

the passive spectator of the work done by nature. Had

Rousseau gone to the full length of his system, he ought to

have abolished the preceptor himself, in order to allow the

clnld to make his way all alone. But if the preceptor is

tolerated, it is not to act directly on Emile, it is not to per-

ROUSSEAU AND THE EMILE. 293

form the duties of a professor, in teaching him what it is

important for a child to know ; but it is simply to put him in

the way of the discoveries which he ought to make for himself

in the wide domain of nature, and to arrange and to combine,

artificially and laboriously, those complicated scenes which

are intended to replace the lessons of ordinary education.

Such, for example, is the scene of the juggler, where Emile

is to acquire at the same time notions on physics and on

ethics. Such, again, is the conversation with the gardener,

Robert, who reveals to him the idea of property. The pre-

ceptor is no longer a teacher, but a mechanic. The true

educator is nature, but nature prepared and skillfully ad-

justed to serve the ends that we propose to attain. Rousseau

admits only the teaching of things : —

'•Do not give your pupil any kind of verbal lesson; he

should receive none save from experience." "The most

important, the most useful rule in all education, is not to

gain time, but to lose it."

The preceptor will interfere at most only by a few timid

and guarded words, to aid the child in interpreting the les-

sons of nature. "State questions within his comprehension,

and leave him to resolve them for himself. Let him not

know anything because you have told it to him, but because

he has comprehended it for himself."

" For the body as for the mind, the child must be left to

himself."

" Let him run, and frolic, and fall a hundred times a day.

So much the better ; for he will learn from this the sooner to

help himself up. The welfare of liberty atones for many

bruises."

In his horror for what he calls " the teaching and pedantic

mania," Rousseau goes so far as to proscribe an education

in habits : —

294 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

"The only habit that a child should be allowed to form

is to contract no habit."

316. The Child's Right to Happiness. — Rousseau did

not tire of demanding that we should respect the infancy that

is in the child, and take into account his tastes and his apti-

tudes. With what eloquence he claims for him the right of

being happy !

"Love childhood. Encourage its sports, its pleasures, and

its instinct for happiness. Who of you has not sometimes

regretted that period when a laugh was always on the lips,

and the soul always in peace? Why will you deny those

little innocents the enjoyment of that brief period which is so

soon to escape them, and of that precious good which they

cannot abuse ? Why will you fill with bitterness and sorrow

those first years so quickly passing which will no more re-

turn to them than they can return to you? Fathers, do you

know the moment when death awaits your children? Do

not lay up for yourselves regrets by depriving them of the

few moments that nature gives them. As soon as they can

feel the pleasure of existence, try to have them enjoy it, and

act in such a way that at whatever hour God summons them

they may not die without having tasted the sweetness of

living."