eeds to
bloom in the air which surrounds them; do not stifle them under a
quantity of frames and network. I am not one of those who want to reject
general and abstract ideas; they are necessary; but I by no means think
them in their place in our method of instruction. I would have them come
to children as they come to men, by degrees.

[Footnote 26: See Locke, _Of Education_, Sec.Sec. 81, 184, etc.]

'Another article of our education, which strikes me as bad and
ridiculous, is our severity towards these poor children. They do
something silly; we take them up as if it were extremely important.
There is a multitude of these follies, of which they will cure
themselves by age alone. But people do not count on that; they insist
that the son should be well bred, and they overwhelm him with little
rules of civility, often frivolous, which can only harass him, as he
does not know the reason for them. I think it would be enough to hinder
him from being troublesome to the persons that he sees.[27] The rest
will come, little by little. Inspire him with the desire of pleasing; he
will soon know more of the art than all the masters could teach him.
People wish again that a child should be grave; they think it wise for
it not to run, and fear every moment that it will fall. What happens?
You weary and enfeeble it. We have especially forgotten that it is a
part of education to form the body.'[28]

[Footnote 27: 'La seule lecon de morale qui convienne a l'enfance, et la
plus importante a tout age, est de ne jamais faire de mal a personne,'
etc. _Emile_, bk. ii. 'Never trouble yourself about these faults in
them, which you know age will cure. And therefore want of well-fashioned
civility in the carriage ... should be the parents' least care while
they are young. If his tender mind be filled with a veneration for his
parents and teachers, which consists in love and esteem and a fear to
offend them; and with respect and good-will to all people; that respect
will of itself teach these ways of expressing it, which he observes most
acceptable,' etc.--Locke, _Of Education_, Sec.Sec. 63, 67, etc.]

[Footnote 28: 'Vous donnez la science, a la bonne heure; moi je m'occupe
de l'instrument propre a l'acquerir,' etc.--_Emile._]

The reader who remembers Locke's Thoughts concerning Education
(published in 1690), and the particularly homely prescriptions upon the
subjects of the infant body with which that treatise opens, will
recognise the sour