WHY WOMAN AND THE CHILD HATE SCIENCE. 329 
The fact which most irrevocably condemns civilized science is 
the aversion of women and children to it ; for women and children 
are the most curious creatures in the world, and the most eager to 
inform themselves. Civilized science will never clear itself of the re- 
pulsion with which it has always inspired those charming creatures, 
so terrible with their indiscreet ‘‘Whys?^’ Why this invincible 
aversion of women and children for the sciences such as they are 
professed to-day ? 
Because woman and the child are straightforward and logical 
intelligences, who, seeing that God never employs any other lever 
than charm to conduct His creatures to good, can never recognize 
the character of a religious and useful discipline in one which over- 
comes its tediousness only by compulsion. 
God has made the very old for the very young — the very old, 
who have seen much, and who like to ramble on and repeat, for 
the very young who know nothing and who need to have every 
thing repeated to them. The old man is no more fatigued with 
the continual questions of the child than the child with the repeti- 
tions of the old man ; and God, by instituting this cordial under- 
standing between opposite ages, which we call the contact of ex- 
tremes, has given the true rule to be followed in matters of prima- 
ry instruction. Unfortunately the philosophers have come and 
proved to the governments that God understood no more about 
this matter of teaching than other things, and they have changed 
all that ; they have put the heart on the right side, as Sganarelle 
says, which is the cause why woman and the child, docile to the 
voice of God, have deserted their schools. 
I know a simple and easy method of reforming the human un- 
derstanding, and to make the apprenticeship of science as attrac- 
tive as it is now repulsive. It consists in suppressing all that is 
annoying in the programme of the present studies, and in taking 
passional analogy as the pivot of a universal system of instruction. 
Passion, once introduced in the study of the sciences, the cure of 
the human understanding will take place spontaneously, and will 
march with giant steps, for every one will rush to the study, man, 
woman, or child, with an enthusiasm impossible to describe ; and I 
dare not answer for it that it may not soon be necessary to punish 
