he will know that
little aright; a sunrise will be his first lesson in cosmography;
he may watch the workman in his workshop; he may practise the
carpenter's trade; he may read _Robinson Crusoe_, and learn the lesson
of self-help. Let him ask at every moment, "What is the good of this?"
Unpuzzled by questions of morals, metaphysics, history, he will have
grown up laborious, temperate, patient, firm, courageous.

At fifteen the passions are awake; let them be gently and wisely guided.
Let pity, gratitude, benevolence be formed within the boy's heart,
so that the self-regarding passions may fall into a subordinate place.
To read Plutarch is to commune with noble spirits; to read Thucydides
is almost to come into immediate contact with facts. The fables of
La Fontaine will serve as a criticism of the errors of the passions.

And now Emile, at eighteen, may learn the sublime mysteries of that
faith which is professed by Rousseau's Savoyard vicar. A Will moves
the universe and animates nature; that Will, acting through general
laws, is guided by supreme intelligence; if the order of Providence
be disturbed, it is only through the abuse of man's free-will; the
soul is immaterial and survives the body; conscience is the voice
of God within the soul; "dare to confess God before the philosophers,
dare to preach humanity before the intolerant;" God demands no other
worship than that of the heart. With such a preparation as this, Emile
may at length proceed to aesthetic culture, and find his chief delight
in those writers whose genius has the closest kinship to nature.
Finally, in Sophie, formed to be the amiable companion and helpmate
of man, Emile should find a resting-place for his heart. Alas, if
she should ever betray his confidence!

The _Confessions_, with its sequels in the _Dialogues, ou Rousseau
juge de Jean-Jacques_, and the _Reveries du Promeneur Solitaire_,
constitute an autobiographical romance. The sombre colours of the
last six Books throw out the livelier lights and shades of the
preceding Books. While often falsifying facts and dates, Rousseau
writes with all the sincerity of one who was capable of boundless
self-deception. He will reserve no record of shame and vice and
humiliation, confident that in the end he must appear the most
virtuous of men. As the utterance of a soul touched and thrilled by
all the influences of nature and of human life, the _Confessions_
affects the reader like a musical symphony in