The Essential Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

inclines them to the vices of their instructors. This is not all; servants, by this means, ingratiate themselves with a child, gain his confidence, make him regard his tutor as a gloomy and tiresome person; and one of the favourite subjects of their secret colloquies is to slander him. When the pupil has got so far, the master may abandon his task; he can do no good.

      But why does the child choose special confidants? Because of the tyranny of those who control him. Why should he hide himself from them if he were not driven to it? Why should he complain if he had nothing to complain of? Naturally those who control him are his first confidants; you can see from his eagerness to tell them what he thinks that he feels he has only half thought till he has told his thoughts to them. You may be sure that when the child knows you will neither preach nor scold, he will always tell you everything, and that no one will dare to tell him anything he must conceal from you, for they will know very well that he will tell you everything.

      What makes me most confident in my method is this: when I follow it out as closely as possible, I find no situation in the life of my scholar which does not leave me some pleasing memory of him. Even when he is carried away by his ardent temperament or when he revolts against the hand that guides him, when he struggles and is on the point of escaping from me, I still find his first simplicity in his agitation and his anger; his heart as pure as his body, he has no more knowledge of pretence than of vice; reproach and scorn have not made a coward of him; base fears have never taught him the art of concealment. He has all the indiscretion of innocence; he is absolutely out-spoken; he does not even know the use of deceit. Every impulse of his heart is betrayed either by word or look, and I often know what he is feeling before he is aware of it himself.

      So long as his heart is thus freely opened to me, so long as he delights to tell me what he feels, I have nothing to fear; the danger is not yet at hand; but if he becomes more timid, more reserved, if I perceive in his conversation the first signs of confusion and shame, his instincts are beginning to develop, he is beginning to connect the idea of evil with these instincts, there is not a moment to lose, and if I do not hasten to instruct him, he will learn in spite of me.

      Some of my readers, even of those who agree with me, will think that it is only a question of a conversation with the young man at any time. Oh, this is not the way to control the human heart. What we say has no meaning unless the opportunity has been carefully chosen. Before we sow we must till the ground; the seed of virtue is hard to grow; and a long period of preparation is required before it will take root. One reason why sermons have so little effect is that they are offered to everybody alike, without discrimination or choice. How can any one imagine that the same sermon could be suitable for so many hearers, with their different dispositions, so unlike in mind, temper, age, sex, station, and opinion. Perhaps there are not two among those to whom what is addressed to all is really suitable; and all our affections are so transitory that perhaps there are not even two occasions in the life of any man when the same speech would have the same effect on him. Judge for yourself whether the time when the eager senses disturb the understanding and tyrannise over the will, is the time to listen to the solemn lessons of wisdom. Therefore never reason with young men, even when they have reached the age of reason, unless you have first prepared the way. Most lectures miss their mark more through the master's fault than the disciple's. The pedant and the teacher say much the same; but the former says it at random, and the latter only when he is sure of its effect.

      As a somnambulist, wandering in his sleep, walks along the edge of a precipice, over which he would fall if he were awake, so my Emile, in the sleep of ignorance, escapes the perils which he does not see; were I to wake him with a start, he might fall. Let us first try to withdraw him from the edge of the precipice, and then we will awake him to show him it from a distance.

      Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger. I divert his senses by other objects of sense; I trace another course for his spirits by which I distract them from the course they would have taken; it is by bodily exercise and hard work that I check the activity of the imagination, which was leading him astray. When the arms are hard at work, the imagination is quiet; when the body is very weary, the passions are not easily inflamed. The quickest and easiest precaution is to remove him from immediate danger. At once I take him away from towns, away from things which might lead him into temptation. But that is not enough; in what desert, in what wilds, shall he escape from the thoughts which pursue him? It is not enough to remove dangerous objects; if I fail to remove the memory of them, if I fail to find a way to detach him from everything, if I fail to distract him from himself, I might as well have left him where he was.

      Emile has learned a trade, but we do not have recourse to it; he is fond of farming and understands it, but farming is not enough; the occupations he is acquainted with degenerate into routine; when he is engaged in them he is not really occupied; he is thinking of other things; head and hand are at work on different subjects. He must have some fresh occupation which has the interest of novelty—an occupation which keeps him busy, diligent, and hard at work, an occupation which he may become passionately fond of, one to which he will devote himself entirely. Now the only one which seems to possess all these characteristics is the chase. If hunting is ever an innocent pleasure, if it is ever worthy of a man, now is the time to betake ourselves to it. Emile is well-fitted to succeed in it. He is strong, skilful, patient, unwearied. He is sure to take a fancy to this sport; he will bring to it all the ardour of youth; in it he will lose, at least for a time, the dangerous inclinations which spring from softness. The chase hardens the heart a well as the body; we get used to the sight of blood and cruelty. Diana is represented as the enemy of love; and the allegory is true to life; the languors of love are born of soft repose, and tender feelings are stifled by violent exercise. In the woods and fields, the lover and the sportsman are so diversely affected that they receive very different impressions. The fresh shade, the arbours, the pleasant resting-places of the one, to the other are but feeding grounds, or places where the quarry will hide or turn to bay. Where the lover hears the flute and the nightingale, the hunter hears the horn and the hounds; one pictures to himself the nymphs and dryads, the other sees the horses, the huntsman, and the pack. Take a country walk with one or other of these men; their different conversation will soon show you that they behold the earth with other eyes, and that the direction of their thoughts is as different as their favourite pursuit.

      I understand how these tastes may be combined, and that at last men find time for both. But the passions of youth cannot be divided in this way. Give the youth a single occupation which he loves, and the rest will soon be forgotten. Varied desires come with varied knowledge, and the first pleasures we know are the only ones we desire for long enough. I would not have the whole of Emile's youth spent in killing creatures, and I do not even profess to justify this cruel passion; it is enough for me that it serves to delay a more dangerous passion, so that he may listen to me calmly when I speak of it, and give me time to describe it without stimulating it.

      There are moments in human life which can never be forgotten. Such is the time when Emile receives the instruction of which I have spoken; its influence should endure all his life through. Let us try to engrave it on his memory so that it may never fade away. It is one of the faults of our age to rely too much on cold reason, as if men were all mind. By neglecting the language of expression we have lost the most forcible mode of speech. The spoken word is always weak, and we speak to the heart rather through the eyes than the ears. In our attempt to appeal to reason only, we have reduced our precepts to words, we have not embodied them in deed. Mere reason is not active; occasionally she restrains, more rarely she stimulates, but she never does any great thing. Small minds have a mania for reasoning. Strong souls speak a very different language, and it is by this language that men are persuaded and driven to action.

      I observe that in modern times men only get a hold over others by force or self-interest, while the ancients did more by persuasion, by the affections of the heart; because they did not neglect the language; of symbolic expression. All agreements were drawn up solemnly, so that they might be more inviolable; before the reign of force, the gods were the judges of mankind; in their presence, individuals made their treaties and alliances, and pledged themselves to perform their promises; the face of the earth was the book in which the archives were preserved. The leaves of this book were rocks, trees, piles of