ontaneous judgments arise, precocious and
haphazard presentiments, expressions of opinion on all things human and
divine. It is in this environment that he begins to think for himself,
in contact with others like himself and his equals, in contact with
their ideas, much more intelligible and acceptable to him than those of
mature men, and therefore much more persuasive, contagious and exciting;
these form for him the ambient, penetrating atmosphere in which his
thought arises, grows and shapes itself; he here adopts his way of
looking at the great society of adults of which he is soon to become
a member, his first notions of justice and injustice, and hence an
anticipated attitude of respect or of rebellion, in short, a
prejudice which, according as the spirit of the group is reasonable
or unreasonable, is either sound or unsound, social or
antisocial.--Finally, the discipline of the school has its effect.
Whatever its rules and regulations may be, whether liberal or despotic,
lax or strict, monastic, military or worldly, whether a boarding or a
day school, mixed or exclusive, in town or in country, with predominance
of gymnastic training or intellectual efforts, with the mind given to
the study of things or to the study of words, the pupil enters into
a ready-made setting. According to the diversities of this setting
or framework he practices different exercises; he contracts different
habits; he is developed or stunted physically or morally, in one sense
or in a contrary sense. Hence, just as the system is good or bad, he
becomes more or less capable or incapable of bodily or mental effort,
of reflection, of invention, of taking the initiative, of starting an
enterprise, of subordinating himself to a given purpose, of willing,
persistent association, that is to say, in sum, of playing an active and
useful part on the stage of the world he is about to enter upon. Observe
that this apprenticeship in common, sitting on benches according to
certain regulations and under a master, lasts six, ten, fifteen years
and often twenty; that girls are not exempt from it; that not one boy
out of a hundred is educated to the end at home by a private teacher;
that, in secondary and even in superior instruction, the school wheel
turns uniformly and without stopping ten hours a day if the scholar
boards outside, and twenty-four hours a day if he boards within; that
at this age the human clay is soft, that it has not yet received its
shap