FUNCTIONS OF THE GOVERNOR.

107

amusements. There are not things enough in common between childhood and manhood, to form a solid attachment at so great a distance. Children sometimes caress old men, but they never love them."

The governor's functions are threefold: 1st, that of keeping off hurtful influences-no light task in Rous. seau's eyes, as he regarded almost every influence from the child's fellow-creatures as hurtful; 2d, that of developing the bodily powers, especially the senses; 3d, that of communicating the one science for children-moral behavior. In all these, even in the last, he must be governor rather than preceptor, for it is less his province to instruct than to conduct. He must not lay down precepts, but teach his pupil to discover them. "I preach a difficult art," says Rousseau, "the art of guiding without precepts, and of doing every thing by doing nothing."†

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*Je remarquerai seulement, contre l'opinion commune, que le gouverneur d'un enfant doit être jeune, et même aussi ieune que peut l'être un homme sage. je voudrais qu'il fût lui-même enfant, s'il était possible; qu'il pût devenir le compagnon de son élève, et s'attirer sa confiance en partageant ses amusements. Il n'y a pas assez de choses communes entre l'enfance et l'âge mûr, pour qu'il se forme jamais un attachement bien solide à cette distance. Les enfants flattent quelquefois les vieillards, mais ils ne les aiment jamais.

Here, and in some other instances, I have selected, as character istic of their author, opinions which I believe to be totally er roneous. The distance between the child and the man is no doubt very great (so great, indeed, that the distance between the young man and the old bears no appreciable ratio to it): but this does not preclude the most intense affection of the young toward grown persons of any age, as our individual experience has probably convinced us. Perhaps the old have more in common with children than those have who are in the full vigor of manhood.

† Je vous prêche un art difficile; c'est de gouverner sans préceptes, et de tout faire en ne faisant rien.

The most distinctive characteristic of childhood is vitality. "In the heart of the old man the failing energies concentrate themselves: in that of the child, they overflow and spread outward; he is conscious of life enough to animate all that surrounds him. Whether he makes or mars, it is all one to him: he is satisfied with having changed the state of things; and every change is an action."* This vitality is to be allowed free scope. Swaddling-clothes are to be removed from infants; the restraints of school and booklearning from children. Their love of action is to be freely indulged.†

The nearest approach to teaching which Rousseau permitted, was that which became afterward, in the hands of Pestalozzi, the system of object-lessons. "As soon as a child begins to distinguish objects, a proper choice should be made in those which are

* L'activité défaillante se concentre dans le cœur du vieillard; dans celui de l'enfant elle est surabondante et s'étend au dehors; il se sent, pour ainsi dire, assez de vie pour animer tout ce qui l'environne. Qu'il fasse ou qu'il défasse, il n'importe; il suffit qu'il change l'état des choses, et tout changement est une action. Que s'il semble avoir plus de penchant à détruire, ce n'est point par méchanceté c'est que l'action qui forme est toujours lente, et que celle qui détruit, étant plus rapide, convient mieux à sa vivacité.

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† Lord Stanley, than whom no man can be more practical," follows Rousseau in this particular. "People are beginning to find out, what, if they would use their own observation more, and not follow one another like sheep, they would have found out long ago, that it is doing positive harm to a young child, mental and bodily harm, to keep it learning, or pretending to learn, the greater part of the day. Nature says to a child, 'Run about,' the schoolmaster says, 'Sit still;' and as the schoolmaster can punish on the spot, and Nature only long afterward, he is obeyed, and health and brain suffer."-Speech reported in “ Evening Mail,” December 9, 1864.

OBJECT-LESSONS.

presented to him."* "He must learn to feel heat and
cold, the hardness, softness, and weight of bodies; to
judge of their magnitude, figure, and other sensible
qualities, by looking, touching, hearing, and particu-
larly by comparing the sight with the touch, and
judging, by means of the eye, of the sensation
acquired by the fingers." These exercises should
be continued through childhood.
"A child has

neither the strength nor the judgment of a man; but
he is capable of feeling and hearing as well, or at least
nearly so. His palate also is as sensible, though less
delicate and he distinguishes odors as well, though
not with the same nicety. Of all our faculties, the
senses are perfected the first: these, therefore, are the
first we should cultivate; they are, nevertheless, the
only ones that are usually forgotten, or the most
neglected."+ "Observe a cat, the first time she comes
into a room; she looks and smells about; she is not
easy a moment: she distrusts everything till every-
thing is examined and known. In the same manner

* Dès que l'enfant commence à distinguer les objets, il importe de

mettre du choix dans ceux qu'on lui montre.

† Il veut tout toucher, tout manier: ne vous opposez point à cette
inquiétude; elle lui suggère un apprentissage très-nécessaire. C'est
ainsi qu'il apprend à sentir la chaleur, le froid, la dureté, la mollesse,
la pesanteur, la légèreté des corps; à juger de leur grandeur, de leur
figure et de toutes leurs qualités sensibles, en regardant, palpant,
écoutant, surtout en comparant la vue au toucher, en estimant à
l'œil la sensation qu'ils feraient sous ses doigts.

Un enfant est moins grand qu'un homme; il n'a ni sa force ni sa
raison: mais il voit et entend aussi bien que lui, ou à tres-peu près;
il a le goût aussi sensible, quoiqu'il l'ait moins délicat, et distingue
aussi bien les odeurs, quoiqu'il n'y mette pas la même sensualité.
Les premières facultés qui se forment et se perfectionnent en nous
sont les sens.
Ce sont donc les premières qu'il faudrait cultiver; ca
sont les seules qu'on oublie ou celles qu'on néglige le plus.

does a child examine into everything, when he begins to walk about, and enters, if I may so say, the apartment of the world. All the difference is, that the sight, which is common to both the child and the cat, is in the first assisted by the feeling of the hands, and in the latter by the exquisite scent which nature has bestowed on it. It is the right or wrong cultivation of this inquisitive disposition that makes children either stupid or expert, sprightly or dull, sensible or foolish. The primary impulses of man, urging him to compare his forces with those of the objects about him, and to discover the sensible qualities of such objects as far as they relate to him, his first study is a sort of experimental philosophy relative to self-preservation, from which it is the custom to divert him by speculative studies before he has found his place on this earth. During the time that his supple and delicate organs can adjust themselves to the bodies on which they should act; while his senses are as yet exempt from illusions; this is the time to exercise both the one and the other in their proper functions; this is the time to learn the sensuous relations which things have with us. As everything that enters the human understanding is introduced by the senses, the first reason in man is a sensitive reason; and this serves as the basis of his intellectual reason. Our first instructors in philosophy are our feet, hands, and eyes. Substituting books for all this is not teaching us to reason, but teaching us to use the reasoning of others; it is teaching us to believe a great deal, and never to know anything." "To exercise any art, we must begin by procuring the necessary implements; and to employ those imple

EDUCATION OF THE SENSES.

III

ments to any good purpose, they should be made sufficiently solid for their intended use. To learn to think, therefore, we should exercise our limbs, and our organs, which are the instruments of our intelligence; and in order to make the best use of those instruments, it is necessary that the body furnishing them should be robust and hearty. Thus, so far is a sound understanding from being independent of the body, that it is owing to a good constitution that the operations of the mind are effected with facility and certainty. "To exercise the senses is not merely to

* Voyez un chat entrer pour la premiére fois dans une chambre: il visite, il regarde, il flaire, il ne reste pas un moment en repos, il ne se fie à rien qu'après avoir tout examiné, tout connu. Ainsi fait un

enfant commençant à marcher, et entrant pour ainsi dire dans l'espace du monde. Toute la différence est qu'à la vue, commune à l'enfant et au chat, le premier joint, pour observer, les mains que lui donna la nature, et l'autre l'odorat subtil dont elle l'a doué. Cette disposition, bien ou mal cultivée, est ce qui rend les enfants adroits ou lourds, pesants ou dispos, étourdis ou prudents.

Les premiers mouvements naturels de l'homme étant donc de se mesurer avec tout ce qui l'environne, et d'éprouver dans chaque objet qu'il aperçoit toutes les qualités sensibles qui peuvent se rapporter à lui, sa première étude est une sorte de physique expérimentale relative à sa propre conservation, et dont on le détourne par des études spéculatives avant qu'il ait reconnu sa place ici-bas. Tandis que ses organes délicats et flexibles peuvent s'ajuster aux corps sur lesquels ils doivent agir, tandis que ses sens encore purs sont exempts d'illusion, c'est le temps d'excercer les uns et les autres aux fonctions qui leur sont propres; c'est le temps d'apprendre à connaître les rapports sensibles que les choses ont avec nous. Comme tout ce qui entre dans l'entendement humain y vient par les sens, la première raison de l'homme est une raison sensitive; c'est elle qui sert de base à la raison intellectuelle: nos premiers maîtres de philosophie sont nos pieds, nos mains, nos yeux. Substituer des livres à tout cela, ce n'est pas nous apprendre à raisonner, c'est nous apprendre à nous servir de la raison d'autrui; c'est nous apprendre à beaucoup croire, et à ne jamais rien savoir.

Pour excercer un art, il faut commencer par s'en procurer les in