r ideas. When we
imagine, we only see; when we conceive of things, we compare them. Our
sensations are entirely passive, whereas all our perceptions or ideas
spring from an active principle which judges.

I say then that children, incapable of judging, really have no memory.
They retain sounds, shapes, sensations; but rarely ideas, and still
more rarely the relations of ideas to one another. If this statement
is apparently refuted by the objection that they learn some elements of
geometry, it is not really true; that very fact confirms my statement.
It shows that, far from knowing how to reason themselves, they cannot
even keep in mind the reasonings of others. For if you investigate the
method of these little geometricians, you discover at once that they
have retained only the exact impression of the diagram and the words of
the demonstration. Upon the least new objection they are puzzled.
Their knowledge is only of the sensation; nothing has become the
property of their understanding. Even their memory is rarely more
perfect than their other faculties: for when grown they have nearly
always to learn again as realities things whose names they learned in
childhood.

However, I am far from thinking that children have no power of
reasoning whatever.[10] I observe, on the contrary, that in things
they understand, things relating to their present and manifest
interests, they reason extremely well. We are, however, liable to be
misled as to their knowledge, attributing to them what they do not
have, and making them reason about what they do not understand. Again,
we make the mistake of calling their attention to considerations by
which they are in no wise affected, such as their future interests, the
happiness of their coming manhood, the opinion people will have of them
when they are grown up. Such speeches, addressed to minds entirely
without foresight, are absolutely unmeaning. Now all the studies
forced upon these poor unfortunates deal with things like this, utterly
foreign to their minds. You may judge what attention such subjects are
likely to receive.

On the Study of Words.

Pedagogues, who make such an imposing display of what they teach, are
paid to talk in another strain than mine, but their conduct shows that
they think as I do. For after all, what do they teach their pupils?
Words, words, words. Among all their boasted subjects, none are
selected because they are useful; such would be the s