ey are as arrogant when they
request as when they command, and even more so, for in the former case
they are more sure of being obeyed. From the first it is readily seen
that, coming from them, "If you please" means "It pleases me"; and that
"I beg" signifies "I order you." Singular politeness this, by which
they only change the meaning of words, and so never speak but with
authority! For myself, I dread far less Emile's being rude than his
being arrogant. I would rather have him say "Do this" as if requesting
than "I beg you" as if commanding. I attach far less importance to the
term he uses than to the meaning he associates with it.

Over-strictness and over-indulgence are equally to be avoided. If you
let children suffer, you endanger their health and their life; you make
them actually wretched. If you carefully spare them every kind of
annoyance, you are storing up for them much unhappiness; you are making
them delicate and sensitive to pain; you are removing them from the
common lot of man, into which, in spite of all your care, they will one
day return. To save them some natural discomforts, you contrive for
them others which nature has not inflicted.

You will charge me with falling into the mistake of those fathers I
have reproached for sacrificing their children's happiness to
considerations of a far-away future that may never be. Not so; for the
freedom I give my pupil will amply supply him with the slight
discomforts to which I leave him exposed. I see the little rogues
playing in the snow, blue with cold, and scarcely able to move their
fingers. They have only to go and warm themselves, but they do nothing
of the kind. If they are compelled to do so, they feel the constraint
a hundred times more than they do the cold. Why then do you complain?
Shall I make your child unhappy if I expose him only to those
inconveniences he is perfectly willing to endure? By leaving him at
liberty, I do him service now; by arming him against the ills he must
encounter, I do him service for the time to come. If he could choose
between being my pupil or yours, do you think he would hesitate a
moment?

Can we conceive of any creature's being truly happy outside of what
belongs to its own peculiar nature? And if we would have a man exempt
from all human misfortunes, would it not estrange him from humanity?
Undoubtedly it would; for we are so constituted that to appreciate
great good fortune we must be acquainted