assume the noble and
difficult office of a teacher of childhood cannot be placed too high.
As to the pupil, Rousseau imagines a child of average ability, in easy
circumstances, and of robust health. He makes him an only son and an
orphan, so that no family vicissitudes may disturb the logic of his
plan.

All this may be summed up by saying that he considers the child in
himself with regard to his individual development, and without regard
to his relations to ordinary life. This at the same time renders his
task easy, and deprives him of an important element of education.

[6] No doubt this sarcasm is applicable to those teachers who talk so
as to say nothing. A teacher ought, on the contrary, to speak only so
as to be understood by the child. He ought to adapt himself to the
child's capacity; to employ no useless or conventional expressions; his
language ought to arouse curiosity and to impart light.

BOOK SECOND.

The second book takes the child at about the fifth year, and conducts
him to about the twelfth year. He is no longer the little child; he is
the young boy. His education becomes more important. It consists not
in studies, in reading or writing, or in duties, but in well-chosen
plays, in ingenious recreations, in well-directed experiments.

There should be no exaggerated precautions, and, on the other hand, no
harshness, no punishments. We must love the child, and encourage his
playing. To make him realize his weakness and the narrow limits within
which it can work, to keep the child dependent only on circumstances,
will suffice, without ever making him feel the yoke of the master.

The best education is accomplished in the country. Teaching by means
of things. Criticism of the ordinary method. Education of the senses
by continually exercising them.

Avoid taking too many Precautions.

This is the second period of life, and the one at which, properly
speaking, infancy ends; for the words _infans_ and _puer_ are not
synonymous.[1] The first is included in the second, and means _one who
cannot speak_: thus in Valerius Maximus we find the expression _puerum
infantem_. But I shall continue to employ the word according to the
usage of the French language, until I am describing the age for which
there are other names.

When children begin to speak, they cry less often. This step in
advance is natural; one language is substituted for another. As soon
as they can utter their comp