erhaps undeceive him, but what
will you teach him? Nothing he might not have learned for himself.
You ought not thus to teach him one detached truth, instead of showing
him how he may always discover for himself any truth. If you really
mean to teach him, do not at once undeceive him. Let Emile and myself
serve you for example.

In the first place, any child educated in the ordinary way would, to
the second of the two questions above mentioned, answer, "Of course the
stick is broken." I doubt whether Emile would give this answer.
Seeing no need of being learned or of appearing learned, he never
judges hastily, but only from evidence. Knowing how easily appearances
deceive us, as in the case of perspective, he is far from finding the
evidence in the present case sufficient. Besides, knowing from
experience that my most trivial question always has an object which he
does not at once discover, he is not in the habit of giving heedless
answers. On the contrary, he is on his guard and attentive; he looks
into the matter very carefully before replying. He never gives me an
answer with which he is not himself satisfied, and he is not easily
satisfied. Moreover, he and I do not pride ourselves on knowing facts
exactly, but only on making few mistakes. We should be much more
disconcerted if we found ourselves satisfied with an insufficient
reason than if we had discovered none at all. The confession, "I do
not know," suits us both so well, and we repeat it so often, that it
costs neither of us anything. But whether for this once he is
careless, or avoids the difficulty by a convenient "I do not know," my
answer is the same: "Let us see; let us find out."

The stick, half-way in the water, is fixed in a vertical position. To
find out whether it is broken, as it appears to be, how much we must do
before we take it out of the water, or even touch it! First, we go
entirely round it, and observe that the fracture goes around with us.
It is our eye alone, then, that changes it; and a glance cannot move
things from place to place.

Secondly, we look directly down the stick, from the end outside of the
water; then the stick is no longer bent, because the end next our eye
exactly hides the other end from us. Has our eye straightened the
stick?

Thirdly, we stir the surface of the water, and see the stick bend
itself into several curves, move in a zig-zag direction, and follow the
undulations of the water. Has the mot