is the
time for labor and study; not indeed for studies of all kinds, but for
those whose necessity the student himself feels. The principle that
ought to guide him now is that of utility. All the master's talent
consists in leading him to discover what is really useful to him.
Language and history offer him little that is interesting. He applies
himself to studying natural phenomena, because they arouse his
curiosity and afford him means of overcoming his difficulties. He
makes his own instruments, and invents what apparatus he needs.

He does not depend upon another to direct him, but follows where his
own good sense points the way. Robinson Crusoe on his island is his
ideal, and this book furnishes the reading best suited to his age. He
should have some manual occupation, as much on account of the uncertain
future as for the sake of satisfying his own constant activity.

Side by side with the body the mind is developed by a taste for
reflection, and is finally prepared for studies of a higher order.
With this period childhood ends and youth begins.

The Age of Study.

Although up to the beginning of youth life is, on the whole, a period
of weakness, there is a time during this earlier age when our strength
increases beyond what our wants require, and the growing animal, still
absolutely weak, becomes relatively strong. His wants being as yet
partly undeveloped, his present strength is more than sufficient to
provide for those of the present. As a man, he would be very weak; as
child, he is very strong.

Whence arises this weakness of ours but from the inequality between our
desires and the strength we have for fulfilling them? Our passions
weaken us, because the gratification of them requires more than our
natural strength.

If we have fewer desires, we are so much the stronger. Whoever can do
more than his wishes demand has strength to spare; he is strong indeed.
Of this, the third stage of childhood, I have now to speak. I still
call it childhood for want of a better term to express the idea; for
this age, not yet that of puberty, approaches youth.

At the age of twelve or thirteen the child's physical strength develops
much faster than his wants. He braves without inconvenience the
inclemency of climate and seasons, scarcely feeling it at all. Natural
heat serves him instead of clothing, appetite instead of sauce. When
he is drowsy, he lies down on the ground and falls asleep. Thus he
f