most salutary habit
is to rise and to go to rest with the sun. In our climate man, and
animals generally, require more sleep in winter than in summer. But
our mode of life is not so simple, natural, and uniform that we can
make this regular habit a necessity. We must without doubt submit to
regulations; but it is most important that we should be able to break
them without risk when occasion requires. Do not then imprudently
soften your pupil by letting him lie peacefully asleep without ever
being disturbed. At first let him yield without restraint to the law
of nature, but do not forget that in our day we must be superior to
this law; we must be able to go late to rest and rise early, to be
awakened suddenly, to be up all night, without discomfort. By
beginning early, and by always proceeding slowly, we form the
constitution by the very practices which would ruin it if it were
already established.

It is important that your pupil should from the first be accustomed to
a hard bed, so that he may find none uncomfortable.

Generally, a life of hardship, when we are used to it, gives us a far
greater number of agreeable sensations than does a life of ease, which
creates an infinite number of unpleasant ones. One too delicately
reared can find sleep only upon a bed of down; one accustomed to bare
boards can find it anywhere. No bed is hard to him who falls asleep as
soon as his head touches the pillow. The best bed is the one which
brings the best sleep. Throughout the day no slaves from Persia, but
Emile and I, will prepare our beds. When we are tilling the ground we
shall be making them soft for our slumber.

Exercise of the Senses.

A child has not a man's stature, strength, or reason; but he sees and
hears almost or quite as well. His sense of taste is as keen, though
he does not enjoy it as a pleasure.

Our senses are the first powers perfected in us. They are the first
that should be cultivated and the only ones forgotten, or at least, the
most neglected.

To exercise the senses is not merely to use them, but to learn how to
judge correctly by means of them; we may say, to learn how to feel.
For we cannot feel, or hear, or see, otherwise than as we have been
taught.

There is a kind of exercise, purely natural and mechanical, that
renders the body robust without injuring the mind. Of this description
are swimming, running, leaping, spinning tops, and throwing stones.
All these are well enough;