OUTLINES FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 59 



special position. No mother, no child. Follow Nature. All the mis- 

 chief of children comes from weakness ; make the child strong, and it 

 will be good. Educators render children miserable in that they take 

 the presence of childhood for nothing, and keep in their eye only the 

 future of the child which it may never reach. See in the child only 

 the child. Before the child reaches understanding, it must be thrown 

 entirely upon the physical world. Therefore, you should not begin 

 to reason too early with children. The first education should be 

 purely negative : it consists not in teaching distinctions between vir- 

 tue and vice, but in keeping the heart from faults, the understanding 

 from errors. The only moral instruction for children is to do nobody 

 any evil. Instruction should begin with things. At twelve years of 

 age sense-impressions should be built up to conceptions. No other 

 book should be used than the world, no other instruction than facts. 

 The secret of education is so to arrange it that bodily and spiritual 

 exercises are reciprocally helpful. At the fifteenth year of his life 

 £mile appears in this wise cultivated. Obliged to learn by himself, 

 he uses his own, not another man's understanding, and he puts forth 

 nothing on authority. £mile has, to be sure, little but no half knowl- 

 edge. He knows there is much he does not know. He has only 

 knowledge of Nature — nothing historical ; about metaphysics and 

 morality he knows nothing. What death is, he knows not ; but ac- 

 customed, without resistance, to surrender himself to the law of neces- 

 sity, he will die, when he must, without a sigh. His body is sound, 

 his limbs are sure, his understanding right and without prejudice, his 

 heart free and without passions. Thus is Emile at fifteen years of age. 

 " But man is not created to remain a child. He steps out of this 

 condition at Nature's appointed time. His physiognomy changes and 

 gains expression. The voice changes. The eyes, those mirrors of 

 the soul, that hitherto have said nothing, receive language and mean- 

 ing ; an increasing fire animates them, their glances are living. He 

 feels without knowing what he feels. He is restless without cause. 

 Be upon thy guard. Not one moment from the rudder, or all is lost ! 

 Now is the man really born to life, and nothing human is foreign to 

 him. Hitherto our anxiety has been but a child's play ; now it be- 

 gins to be a great weight. This time, when generally education is 

 ended, is the very time when ours shall truly commence. Now Emile 

 is to become acquainted with his own kind. This is the period for 

 history. To know men, you must see them act. In intercourse with 

 the world you only hear men speak — they show their words, but con- 

 ceal their deeds. In history they are unveiled, and we are able to 

 judge. But Emile shall judge them himself — only thus can he gather 

 knowledge of mankind. If the author's opinion continually lead him, 

 he sees through another's glass, and when this fails he sees nothing at 

 all. He shall see with his own eyes, feel with his own heart ; no au- 

 thority shall control him save the authority of his reason. But now 



