re is no education. To watch, to guide, to keep a firm
hand--such is the function of the educator. He should appear to the
child not like a barrier of whims, which, if need be, one may clear,
provided the leap be proportioned to the height of the obstacle; but
like a transparent wall through which may be seen unchanging realities,
laws, limits, and truths against which no action is possible. Thus
arises respect, which is the faculty of conceiving something greater
than ourselves--respect, which broadens us and frees us by making us
more modest. This is the law of education for simplicity. It may be
summed up in these words: to make _free_ and _reverential_ men, who
shall be _individual_ and _fraternal_.

* * * * *

Let us draw from this principle some practical applications.

From the very fact that the child is the future, he must be linked to
the past by piety. We owe it to him to clothe tradition in the forms
most practical and most fit to create a deep impression: whence the
exceptional place that should be given in education to the ancients, to
the cult of remembrance of the past, and by extension, to the history of
the domestic rooftree. Above all do we fulfil a duty toward our children
when we give the place of honor to the grandparents. Nothing speaks to a
child with so much force, or so well develops his modesty, as to see his
father and mother, on all occasions, preserve toward an old grandfather,
often infirm, an attitude of respect. It is a perpetual object lesson
that is irresistible. That it may have its full force, it is necessary
for a tacit understanding to obtain among all the grown-up members of
the family. To the child's eyes they must all be in league, held to
mutual respect and understanding, under penalty of compromising their
educational authority. And in their number must be counted the servants.
Servants are big people, and the same sentiment of respect is injured in
the child's disregard of them as in his disregard of his father or
grandfather. The moment he addresses an impolite or arrogant word to a
person older than himself, he strays from the path that a child ought
never to quit; and if only occasionally the parents neglect to point
this out, they will soon perceive by his conduct toward themselves, that
the enemy has found entrance to his heart.

We mistake if we think that a child is naturally alien to respect,
basing this opinion on the very numerous examples