known, whereas the All savages are cruel,

barity of the English is well Gaures are the gentlest of men. and this is not due to their character, but to their food." This is one of those delicious inconsistencies of which Rousseau is full. The truth is that, for him, savage and Jean Jacques meant the same thing, and of that thing he has a very good opinion. He says, elsewhere, that savages, "known for their keen sensibility, are still more so for their subtlety of mind.” But the gentle savage, Jean Jacques, did not like meat, and so that must be a perversion of savagery. His assertion, moreover, that the savage, "having no prescribed task, obeying no law but his own will, is forced to reason at every action of his life,” only shows that he knew nothing of real savage life.

In pursuance of the second maxim, children are to receive no instruction that would carry them beyond the range of their own actual sense-experience, or even to reason to the conditions of that experience. Every kind of instruction drawing upon the past or present experience of the race-History, Geography, Grammar, Languages, Literature (even La Fontaine's Fables), Science-is to be excluded. is to be excluded. There is to be no learning by heart, no declamation, no examination, no verbal expression of knowledge. "Emile will not chatter, he will act." All efforts at cleverness and bright remarks, all talkativeness, must be frowned down. Books are to be tabooed. "By removing all the duties of children," says Rousseau, "I remove the instruments of their greatest misery, namely, books. Reading is curse of childhood,' and almost the only

1 This is not true; but Rousseau read bad books.

occupation that people can invent for it. At twelve years of age, Émile will hardly know what a book is. But, I shall be told, he must at least know how to read, when reading is useful to him." . . . "If we must demand nothing of children through obedience, it follows that they can learn nothing of which they do not feel the actual present advantage, in the form either of pleasure or of use: otherwise, what motive should prompt them to learn it? The art of talking and listening to absent friends . . . is an art that can be rendered sensible to human beings at any age. By what miracle has this useful and pleasant art become a torment to children? Because we force them to apply themselves to it against their wills, and put it to uses of which they understand nothing. A child is never very eager to perfect the instrument with which he is tortured. But make this instrument minister to his pleasures, and he will soon apply himself to it in spite of you." . . . "The present interest is the great motive, and the only one that leads safely and far. Émile sometimes receives from his father, mother, relatives, friends,1 notes of invitation for a dinner, a walk, a boating-party, a public festival. These notes are short, clear, neat, and well written. Some one must be found to read them. This some one is not found at the right moment, or pays the child out for some disobliging conduct of the day before. Thus the opportunity, the moment, passes. The note is at last read to him; but it is too late! Oh! if he had only been able to read himself!

1 N.B. Émile is supposed to be an orphan, and to live apart from society.

. .

Others are received: they are so short; the subject of them is so interesting; he would like to decipher them; sometimes he finds help and sometimes a refusal. He exerts himself and finally deciphers half of a note: it is an invitation to go to-morrow to eat cream - he does not know where or with whom. How he struggles to read the rest!" "Shall I speak now of writing? No; I am ashamed to amuse myself with such nonsense in a treatise on education." This is a typical specimen of Rousseau's natural method, which, assuming that the child has only animal motives, makes no effort to correct or replace them. What notion of man and society would be suggested to a child, if the people about him, in order to be even with him, should poor little animal! refuse to read a note for him? It is safe to say that it would be both hateful and false, in fact, Rousseau's own diseased notion (see p. 74). For Rousseau hated the human in humanity: he hated science,1 true love, and energy of will, being incapable of all

1 He says: "I teach my pupil a very long and very painful artthe art of being ignorant; for the science of any one who does not flatter himself that he knows more than he really does know, reduces itself to very small bulk." The martyrdom of study is described in these affecting terms: "The clock strikes. What a change! In an instant, his eye loses its lustre; his gayety vanishes. Good-bye to joy! good-bye to gleesome games! A severe, illtempered man takes him by the hand, and gravely says to him: 'Let us go, sir,' and leads him away. In the room which they enter, I catch a glimpse of books. Books! what sad furniture for his age! The poor child submits to being dragged along, turns a regretful eye upon everything about him, holds his peace, and goes off, his eyes swollen with tears which he dare not shed, and his heart big with sighs which he dare not give vent to." It is needless to comment on such stuff!

three. Hence he deprecated all culture of intellect, affection, and will, of all that makes man, life, and the world human.

Of the third maxim it is sufficient to say that, according to Rousseau, children are to be so managed that what is, in reality, the result of the most careful forethought, shall seem natural and necessary; in other words, that they shall, from first to last, be victims of a pious fraud. By means of this, the child is to be dehumanized, to be made a victim and a dupe. How small must his intelligence and his observation be, to make such dupery possible!

CHAPTER VII

ROUSSEAU'S EDUCATIONAL THEORIES

BOYHOOD

(Emile, Bk. III.)

I slept and dreamt that life was Beauty :
I woke and found that life was Duty.

When a boy has learnt his letters and is beginning to understand what is written, as before he understood only what was spoken, they put into his hands the works of great poets, which he reads at school; in these are contained . . . the encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required to learn by heart, in order that he may desire to become like them.

PLATO, Protagoras.

ROUSSEAU's solitary pupil reaches the age of twelve years without having learnt to do anything but play. In playing, he has exercised his muscles, nerves, and senses. He has no knowledge of man; he does not reason; his sole motive is sensuous pleasure. But he is supple, alert, healthy, and docile, like a well-trained young dog. Moreover, he is exuberantly happy, because his strength is far in advance of his needs, and because the absorbing passion of manhood has not yet awakened in him. Thus the years from twelve to fifteen form a period of altogether exceptional free energy, which must be seized upon and directed surreptitiously, of course to the best ends, as Rous