espects; that of men is the only one of which we are really masters,
and that solely because we think we are. For who can hope to direct
entirely the speech and conduct of all who surround a child?

As soon, therefore, as education becomes an art, its success is almost
impossible, since the agreement of circumstances necessary to this
success is independent of personal effort. All that the utmost care
can do is to approach more or less nearly our object; but, for
attaining it, special good fortune is needed.

What is this object? That of nature itself, as has just been proved.
Since the agreement of the three educations is necessary to their
perfection, it is toward the one for which we ourselves can do nothing
that we must direct both the others. But perhaps this word "nature"
has too vague a meaning; we must here try to define it.

In the natural order of things, all men being equal, the vocation
common to all is the state of manhood; and whoever is well trained for
that, cannot fulfil badly any vocation which depends upon it. Whether
my pupil be destined for the army, the church, or the bar, matters
little to me. Before he can think of adopting the vocation of his
parents, nature calls upon him to be a man. How to live is the
business I wish to teach him. On leaving my hands he will not, I
admit, be a magistrate, a soldier, or a priest; first of all he will be
a man. All that a man ought to be he can be, at need, as well as any
one else can. Fortune will in vain alter his position, for he will
always occupy his own.

Our real study is that of the state of man. He among us who best knows
how to bear the good and evil fortunes of this life is, in my opinion,
the best educated; whence it follows that true education consists less
in precept than in practice. We begin to instruct ourselves when we
begin to live; our education commences with the commencement of our
life; our first teacher is our nurse. For this reason the word
"education" had among the ancients another meaning which we no longer
attach to it; it signified nutriment.

We must then take a broader view of things, and consider in our pupil
man in the abstract, man exposed to all the accidents of human life.
If man were born attached to the soil of a country, if the same season
continued throughout the year, if every one held his fortune by such a
tenure that he could never change it, the established customs of to-day
would be in certain respe