NIC. Yes, to be sure. That would much improve the shape of your leg. M. JOUR. Of course. MME. JOUR. And all this is very necessary for the management of your house? M. JOUR. Certainly. You both speak like donkeys, and I am ashamed of your ignorance. (To Mme. Jourdain.) Let me see, for instance, if you know what you are speaking this very moment. MME. JOUR. Yes, I know that what I speak is rightly spoken; and that you should think of leading a different life. M. JOUR. I do not mean that. I ask you what the words are that you are now speaking. MME. JOUR. They are sensible words, I tell you, and that is more than your conduct is. M. JOUR. I am not speaking of that. I ask you what it is that I am now saying to you. That which I am now speaking to you, what is it? MME. JOUR. Rubbish. M. JOUR. No, no! I don't mean that. What we both speak; the language we are speaking this very moment. MME. JOUR. Well? M. JOUR. How is it called? MME. JOUR. It is called whatever you like to call it. M. JOUR. It is PROSE, you ignorant woman! MME. JOUR. Prose? M. JOUR. Whatever is prose is not verse, and whatever is not verse is prose. There! you see what it is to study. (To Nicole.) And you, do you even know what you must do to say u? NIC. Eh? What? M. JOUR. Yes. What do you do when you say u? NIC. What I do? M. JOUR. Say u a little, to try. NIC. Well, u. M. JOUR. What is it you do? NIC. I say u. M. JOUR. Yes; but when you say u, what is it you do? M. JOUR. Oh, what a strange thing it is to have to do with dunces! You pout your lips outwards, and bring your upper jaw near your lower jaw like this, u; I make a face; u. Do you see? NIC. Yes, that's beautiful. MME. JOUR. It's admirable. M. JOUR. What would you say then if you had seen o, and da, da, and fa, fa? MME. JOUR. What is all this absurd stuff? NIC. And what are we the better for all this? M. JOUR. I have no patience with such ignorant women. JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU 1712-1778 JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU, a paradox of moralists, a strange compound of the best and the worst in human nature, was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1712. He was the son of a barber and dancing master, and was bereaved of his mother soon after his birth. Running away, at the age of sixteen, from the master to whom he was apprenticed, he wandered about for a time, and then found a home with an eccentric widow, Madame de Warens, at Auncey, in whose household he remained for a number of years. Rousseau was a teacher of music, successively at Lyons and in Paris. In the latter city he joined his fortunes with those of Louise le Vasseur, a coarse and ignorant seamstress. He soon became famous at Paris as a critic and essayist. He sent his children at birth to the hospital for foundlings. Years later, repenting of their conduct, he and Louise sought in vain to find them. In 1754, Rousseau returned to Geneva, and became again a Protestant (for he had embraced Catholicism while in France), but soon returned to the vicinity of Paris, where a home had been presented to him by a friend. Here he wrote three famous books-"The New Heloise," "The Social Contract," and "Émile." The last-named work was condemned by the authorities, both in Catholic France and in Protestant Geneva, and an order was issued for the author's arrest. He fled to Germany, but was there in imminent danger. He repaired to England, where he was well received. Here he wrote his first "Confessions" (which alienated most of his remaining friends); and he then became a wanderer. He died suddenly, near Paris, in 1778, and is believed by many to have committed suicide. Characterization In education, as in politics, no school of thinkers has succeeded or can succeed in engrossing all truth to itself. No party, no individual even, can take up a central position between the conservatives and radicals, and, judging everything on its own merits, try to preserve that only which is worth preserving, and to destroy just that which is worth destroying. Nor do we find that judicial minds often exercise the greatest influence in these matters. The only force which can overcome the vis inertia1 of use and wont is enthusiasm, and this, springing from the discovery of new truths and hatred of old abuses, can hardly exist with due respect for truth that has become commonplace, and usage which is easily confounded with corruptions that disfigure it. So advances are made somewhat after this manner: the reformer, urged on by his enthusiasm, attacks use and wont with more spirit than discretion; those who are wedded to things as they are, try to draw attention from the weak points of their system to the mistakes or extravagances of the reformer. In the end, both sides are benefited by the encounter; and when their successors carry on the contest, they differ as much from those whose causes they espouse as from each other. In this way we have already made great progress. Compare, for instance, our present teaching of grammar with the ancient method, and our short and broken school-time with the old plan of keeping boys in for five consecutive hours twice a day. Our conservatives and reformers are not so much at variance as their predecessors. To convince ourselves of this we have only to consider the state of parties in the second half of the last century. On the one side, we find the schoolmasters who turned out the courtiers of Louis XV.; on the other, the most extravagant, the most eloquent, the most reckless of innovators-J. J. Rousseau. Rousseau has told us that he resolved on having fixed principles by the time he was forty years old. Among the principles of which he accordingly laid in a stock, were these: 1st, Man, as he might be, is perfectly good; 2d, Man, as he is, is utterly bad. To maintain these opinions, Rousseau undertook to show not only the rotten state of the existing society, which he did with notable success, but also the proper method of rearing children so as to make them all that they ought to be--an attempt at construction which was far more difficult and hazardous than his philippics. This was the origin of the "Émile," perhaps the most influential book ever written on the subject of education. R. H. QUICK. R. H. Quick's Adaptation and Summary of " Émile The school to which Rousseau belonged may be said, indeed, to have been founded by Montaigne, and to have met with a champion, though not a very enthusiastic champion, in Locke. But it was reserved for Rousseau to give this theory of educa 1 inertia tion its complete development, and to expound it in the clearest and most eloquent language. In the form in which Rousseau left it the theory greatly influenced Basedow and Pestalozzi, and still influences many educational reformers who differ from Rousseau as much as our schoolmasters differ from those of Louis XV. Of course, as man was corrupted by ordinary education, the ideal education must differ from it in every respect. "Take the road directly opposite to that which is in use, and you will almost always do right." This was the fundamental maxim. So thorough a radical was Rousseau, that he scorned the idea of half measures. "I had rather follow the established practice entirely," says he, "than adopt a good one by halves." In the society of that time everything was artificial; Rousseau therefore demanded a return to nature. Parents should do their duty in rearing their own offspring. "Where there is no mother, there can be no child." The father should find time to bring up the child whom the mother has suckled. No duty can be more important than this. But although Rousseau seems conscious that family life is the natural state, he makes his model child an orphan, and hands him over to a governor, to be brought up in the country without companions. This governor is to devote himself, for some years, entirely to imparting to his pupil these difficult arts-the art of being ignorant and of losing time. Till he is twelve years old Émile is to have no direct instruction whatever. "At that age he shall not know what a book is," says Rousseau; though elsewhere we are told that he will learn to read of his own accord by the time he is ten, if no attempt is made to teach him. He is to be under no restraint, and is to do nothing but what he sees to be useful. Freedom from restraint is, however, to be apparent, not real. As in ordinary education the child employs all his faculties in duping the master, so in education "according to nature," the master is to devote himself to duping the child. "Let him always be his own master in appearance, and do you take care |