Childhood the sleep of reason.

sure not to give it them to-day if you can safely put it off till to-morrow." "*

"Do not, then, alarm yourself much about this apparent idieness. What would you say of the man, who, in order to make the most of life, should determine never to go to sleep? You would say, The man is mad: he is not enjoying the time; he is depriving himself of it: to avoid sleep he is hurrying towards death. Consider, then, that it is the same here, and that childhood is the sleep of reason."†

§ 11. We have now reached the climax (or shall we say the nadir ?) in negation. Rousseau has given the coup de grâce to the ideal of the Renascence. Comenius was the first to take a comprehensive view of the educator's task and to connect it with man's nature and destiny; but he could not get clear from an over-estimate of the importance of knowledge. According to his ideal, man should know all things; so in practice he thought too much of imparting knowledge. Then came Locke and treated the imparting

"Exercez son corps, ses organes, ses sens, ses forces, mais tenez son âme oisive aussi longtemps qu'il se pourra. Redoutez tous les sentments antérieurs au jugement qui les apprécie. Retenez, arrêtez les impressions étrangères : et, pour empêcher le mal de naître, ne vous pressez point de faire le bien; car il n'est jamais tel que quand la raison l'éclaire. Regardez tous les délais comme des avantages: c'est gagner beaucoup que d'avancer vers le terme sans rien perdre ; laissez mûrir l'enfance dans les enfants. Enfin quelque leçon. leur devient-elle néces. saire, gardez-vous de la donner aujourd'hui, si vous pouvez différet jusqu'à demain sans danger." Em. ij., 80.

+ “Effrayez-vous donc peu de cette oisiveté prétendue. Que diriezvous d'un homme qui, pour mettre toute la vie à profit, ne voudrait jamais dormir? Vous diriez: Cet homme est insensé; il ne jouit pas du temps, il se l'ôte; pour fuir le sommeil il court à la mort. Songez donc que c'est ici la même chose, et que l'enfance est le sommeil de la raison." Em. ij., 99.

Start from study of the child.

of knowledge as of trifling importance when compared with the formation of character; but he too in practice hardly went so far as this principle might have led him. He was much under the influence of social distinctions, and could not help thinking of what it was necessary for a gentleman to know. So that Rousseau was the very first to shake himself entirely free from the notion which the Renascence had handed down that man was mainly a learning animal. Rousseau has the courage to deny this in the most emphatic manner possible, and to say: "For the first 12 years the educator must teach the child nothing."

§ 12. In this reaction against the Renascence Rousseau puts the truth in the form of such a violent paradox that we start back in terror. But it was perhaps necessary thus to sweep away the ordinary schoolroom rubbish before the true nature of the educator's task could be fairly considered. The rubbish having been cleared away what was to take its place? No longer having his mind engrossed by the knowledge he wished to communicate, the educator had now an eye for something else not less worthy of his attention, viz., the child itself. Rousseau was the first to base education entirely on a study of the child to be educated; and by doing this he became, as I believe, one of the greatest of educational Reformers.

He

§ 13. It was, however, purely as a thinker, or rather as a voice giving expression to the general discontent that Rousseau becaine such a tremendous force in Europe. has indeed often been called the father of the first French Revolution which he did not live to see. But, as Macaulay has well said, a good deal besides eloquent writing is needed to cause such a convulsion; and we can no more attribute the French Revolution to the writings of Rousseau than we

R.'s paradoxes un-English.

can attribute the shock of an explosion of gunpowder to the lucifer match without which it might never have happened. (z. Macaulay's Barrère). Rousseau did in the world of ideas what the French Revolutionists afterwards did in the world of politics; he made a clean sweep and endeavoured to start afresh.

§ 14. I have already said that as regards education I think his labours in destruction were of very great value. But what shall we say of his efforts at construction? There would not be the least difficulty in showing that most of his proposals are impracticable. It is no more "natural" to treat as a typical case a child brought up in solitude than it would be to write a treatise on the rearing of a bee cut off from the hive.* Rousseau requires impossibilities, e.g., he postulates that the child is never to be brought into contact with anyone who might set a bad example. Modern science has shown us that the young are liable to take diseases from impurities in the air they breathe: but as yet no one has proposed that all children should be kept at an elevation of 5,000 feet above the level of the sea. Yet the advice would be about as practicable as the advice of Rousseau. A method which always starts with paradox and not infrequently ends with platitude might seem to have little in its favour; and Rousseau has had far less influence since (in the words of Herman Merivale) "he was dethroned with the fall of his extravagant child, the [First] Republic." No doubt the great exponent of English

* "Il n'y a pas de philosophie plus superficielle que celle qui, prenant l'homme comme un être égoïste et viager, prétend l'expliquer et lui tracer ses devoirs en dehors de la société dont il est une partie. Autant vaut considérer l'abeille abstraction faite de la ruche, et dire qu'à elle seule l'abeille construit son alvéole." Renan, La Réforme, 312.

Man the corruptor. The three educations.

opinion was right in calling Rousseau "the most un-English stranger who ever landed on our shores (Times, 29 Aug., 1873); and the torch of his eloquence will never cause a conflagration, still less an explosion, here. His disregard for 66 appearances "--or rather his evident purpose of making an impression by defying "appearances" and saying just the opposite of what is expected, is simply distressing to us. But there is no denying Rousseau's genius. His was one of the original voices that go on sounding and awakening echoes in all lands. Willingly or unwillingly, at first hand or from imperfect echoes, everyone who studies education must study Rousseau.

§ 15. As specimens of Rousseau's teaching I will give a few characteristic passages from the Émile.

"Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Creator: everything degenerates in the hands of man."* These are the first words of the " Émile," and the key-note of Rousseau's philosophy.

§ 16. "We are born weak, we have need of strength; we are born destitute of everything, we have need of assistance; we are born stupid, we have need of understanding. All that we have not at our birth, and which we require when grown up, is bestowed on us by education. This education we receive from nature, from men, or from things. The internal development of our organs and faculties is the education of nature: the use we are taught to make of that development is the education given us by men; and in the acquisitions made by our own experience on the objects that surround us, consists our education

* "Tout est bien, sortant des mains de l'Auteur des choses; tout dégénère entre les mains de l'homme."

The aim, living thoroughly.

from things."* "Since the concurrence of these three kinds of education is necessary to their perfection, it is by that one which is entirely independent of us, we must regulate the two others."t

§ 17. Now "to live is not merely to breathe; it is to act, it is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, and of all those parts of ourselves which give us the feeling of our existence. The man who has lived most, is not he who has counted the greatest number of years, but he who has most thoroughly felt life.”‡

§ 18. The aim of education, then, must be complete living.

But ordinary education, instead of seeking to develop the life of the child, sacrifices childhood to the acquirement of knowledge, or rather the semblance of knowledge, which it is thought will prove useful to the youth or the man.

"Nous naissons faibles, nous avons besoin de forces; nous naisscns dépourvus de tout, nous avons besoin d'assistance; nous naissons stupides, nous avons besoin de jugement. Tout ce que nous n'avons pas à notre naissance, et dont nous avons besoin étant grands, nous est donné par l'éducation. Cette éducation nous vient ou de la nature, ou des hommes, ou des choses. Le développement interne de nos facultés et de nos organes est l'éducation de la nature; l'usage qu'on nous apprend à faire de ce développement est l'éducation des hommes; et l'acquis de notre propre expérience sur les objets qui nous affectent est l'éducation des choses." Em. j., 6.

+ “Puisque le concours des trois éducations est nécessaire à leur perfection, c'est sur celle à laquelle nous ne pouvous rien qu'il faut diriger les deux autres."

Em. j., 7.

"Vivre ce n'est pas respirer, c'est agir; c'est faire usage de nos organes, de nos sens, de nos facultés, de toutes les parties de nous-mêmes qui nous donnent le sentiment de notre existence. L'homme qui a le plus vécu n'est pas celui qui a compté le plus d'années, mais celui qui a le plus senti la vie.” Em. j., 13.