themselves have not dreamed of. This inattention of ours to the true
meaning words have for children seems to me the cause of their first
mistakes, and these errors, even after children are cured of them,
influence their turn of mind for the remainder of their life.

The first developments of childhood occur almost all at once. The
child learns to speak, to eat, to walk, nearly at the same time. This
is, properly, the first epoch of his life. Before then he is nothing
more than he was before he was born; he has not a sentiment, not an
idea; he scarcely has sensations; he does not feel even his own
existence.

[1] It is useless to enlarge upon the absurdity of this theory, and
upon the flagrant contradiction into which Rousseau allows himself to
fall. If he is right, man ought to be left without education, and the
earth without cultivation. This would not be even the savage state.
But want of space forbids us to pause at each like statement of our
author, who at once busies himself in nullifying it.

[2] The voice of Rousseau was heard. The nursing of children by their
own mothers, which had gone into disuse as vulgar and troublesome,
became a fashion. Great ladies prided themselves upon returning to the
usage of nature, and infants were brought in with the dessert to give
an exhibition of maternal tenderness. This affectation died out, but
in most families the good and wholesome custom of motherhood was
retained. This page of Rousseau's contributed its share to the happy
result.

[3] This remark is not a just one. How often have we seen unhappy
creatures disgusted with life because of some dreadful and incurable
malady? It is true that suicide, being an act of madness, is more
frequently caused by those troubles which imagination delights itself
in magnifying up to the point of insanity.

[4] This is an allusion to one of the most unfortunate episodes in the
life of Rousseau,--his abandoning of the children whom Therese
Levasseur bore him, and whom he sent to a foundling hospital because he
felt within him neither courage to labor for their support, nor
capacity to educate them. Sad practical defect in this teacher of
theories of education!

[5] For the particular example of education which he supposes, Rousseau
creates a tutor whom he consecrates absolutely, exclusively, to the
work. He desires one so perfect that he calls him a prodigy. Let us
not blame him for this. The ideal of those who