Eloisa · Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Letter CXXXVII. To Lord B----.
All this would seem very well, said I, if I did not see one inconvenience, very prejudicial to the advantages you promise yourself from this method; and this is, that children, thus left to themselves, will get many bad habits, which can be prevented only by teaching them good ones. You may see such children readily contract all the bad practices they perceive in others, because such examples are easily followed, and never imitate the good ones, which would cost them more trouble. Accustomed to have every thing, and to do as they please on every occasion, they become mutinous, obstinate and intractable.---- But, interrupted Mr. Wolmar, it appears to me that you have remarked the contrary in ours, and that this remark has given rise to this conversation. I must confess, answered I, this is the very thing which surprizes me. What can she have done to make them so tractable? What method hath she taken to bring it about? What has she substituted instead of the yoke of discipline? A yoke much more inflexible, returned he immediately, that of necessity: but, in giving you an account of her conduct, you will be better able to comprehend her views. He then engaged Eloisa to explain her method of education; which, after a short pause, she did in the following manner.
“Happy, my dear friend, are those who are well-born! I lay not so great a stress as Mr. Wolmar does on my own endeavours. I doubt much, notwithstanding his maxims, that a good man can ever be made out of a child of a bad disposition and character. Convinced, nevertheless, of the excellence of his method, I endeavoured to regulate my conduct, in the government of my family, in every respect agreeable to him. My first hope is, that I shall never have a child of a vicious disposition; my second, that I shall be able to educate those God has given me, under the direction of their father, in such a manner, that they may one day have the happiness of possessing his virtues. To this end I have endeavoured to adopt his rules by giving them a principle less philosophical, and more agreeable to maternal affection; namely to make my children happy. This was the first prayer of my heart after I was a mother, and all the business of my life is to effect it.
From the first time I held my eldest son in my arms, I have reflected that the state of infancy is almost a fourth part of the longest life; that men seldom pass through the other three fourths; and that it is a piece of cruel prudence to make that first part uneasy, in order to secure the happiness of the rest, which may never come. I reflected, that during the weakness of infancy, nature had oppressed children in so many different ways, that it would be barbarous to add to that oppression the empire of our caprices, by depriving them of a liberty so very much confined, and which they were so little capable of abusing. I resolved, therefore, to lay mine under as little constraint as possible; to leave them to the free exertion of all their little powers; and to suppress in them none of the emotions of nature.
By these means I have already gained two great advantages; the one, that of preventing their opening minds from knowing any thing of falsehood, vanity, anger, envy, and in a word of all those vices which are the consequences of subjection, and which one is obliged to have recourse to, when we would have children do what nature does not teach: the other is, that they are more at liberty to grow and gather strength, by the continual exercise which instinct directs them to. Accustomed, like the children of peasants, to expose themselves to the heat and cold, they grow as hardy; are equally capable of bearing the inclemencies of the weather; and become more robust as living more at their ease. This is the way to provide against the age of maturity, and the accidents of humanity. I have already told you, that I dislike that destructive pusillanimity, which, by dint of solicitude and care, enervates a child, torments it by constant restraint, confines it by a thousand vain precautions, and, in short, exposes it during its whole life to those inevitable dangers it is thus protected from but for a moment; and thus, in order to avoid catching a few colds while children, men lay up for themselves consumptions, pleurisies, and a world of other diseases.
What makes children, left thus to themselves, acquire the ill habits you speak of, is that, not contented with their own liberty, they endeavour to command others; which is owing to the absurd indulgence of too many fond mothers, who are to be pleased only by indulging all the fantastical desires of their children. I flatter myself, my friend, that you have seen in mine nothing like the desire of command and authority, even over the lowest domestic; and that you have seen me countenance as little the false complaisance and ceremony used to them. It is in this point, that I think I have taken a new and more certain method to make my children at once free, easy, obliging and tractable and that on a principle the most simple in the world, which is, by convincing them they are but children. To consider the state of infancy in itself, is there a being in the universe more helpless or miserable; that lies more at the mercy of every thing about it; that has more need of pity and protection, than an infant? Does it not seem, that, on this account, the first noise which nature directs it to make is that of crying and complaint? Does it not seem, that nature gives it an affecting and tender appearance, in order to engage every one who approaches it, to assist its weakness, and relieve its wants? What, therefore, can be more offensive, or contrary to order, than to see a child pert and imperious, commanding every one about him, and assuming impudently the tone of a master over those who, should they abandon him, would leave him to perish? Or can any thing be more absurd than to see parents approve such behaviour, and encourage their children to tyrannise over their nurses, till they are big enough to tyrannise over the parents themselves?
As to my part, I have spared no pains to prevent my son’s acquiring the dangerous idea of command and servitude, and have never given him room to think himself attended more out of duty than pity. This point is, perhaps, the most difficult and important in education; nor can I well explain it, without entering into all those precautions which I have been obliged to take, to suppress in him that instinctive knowledge, which is so ready to distinguish the mercenary service of domestics from the tenderness of maternal solicitude. One of my principal methods has been, as I have just observed, to convince him of the impossibility of his subsisting at his age, without our assistance. After which I had no great difficulty to shew him, that, in receiving assistance from others, we lay ourselves under obligations to them, and are in a state of dependence; and that the servants have a real superiority over him, because he cannot do without them, while he, on the contrary, can do them no service: so that instead of being vain of their attendance, he looks upon it with a sort of humiliation, as a mark of his weakness, and ardently wishes for the time, when he shall be big and strong enough to have the honour of serving himself.”
These notions, I said, would be difficult to establish in families, where the father and mother themselves are waited on like children; but in this, where every person has some employment allotted him, even from the master and mistress to the lowest domestic; where the intercourse between them apparently consists only of reciprocal services, I do not think it impossible: but I am at a loss to conceive how children, accustomed to have their real wants so readily satisfied, can be prevented from expecting the same gratification of their imaginary wants or humours; or how it is that they do not sometimes suffer from the humour of a servant, who may treat their real wants as imaginary ones. “Oh, my friend, replied Mrs. Wolmar, an ignorant woman may frighten herself at any thing, or nothing. But the real wants of children, as well as grown persons, are very few; we ought rather to regard the duration of our ease than the gratifications of a single moment. Do you think, that a child, who lies under no restraint, can suffer so much from the humour of a governess, under the eye of its mother, as to hurt it? You imagine inconveniencies, which arise from vices already contracted, without reflecting that my care has been to prevent such vices from being contracted at all. Women naturally love children; and no misunderstanding would arise between them, except from the desire of one to subject the other to their caprices. Now that cannot happen here, neither on the part of the child, of whom nothing is required, nor on that of the governess, whom the child has no notion of commanding. I have in this acted directly contrary to other mothers, who in appearance would have their children obey the domestics, and in reality require the servants to obey the children: here neither of them command nor obey; but the child never meets with more complaisance, from any person, than he shews for them. Hence, perceiving that he has no authority over the people about him, he becomes tractable and obliging; in seeking to gain the esteem of others, he contracts an affection for them in turn: this is the infallible effect of self-love; and from this reciprocal affection, arising from the notion of equality, naturally result those virtues, which are constantly preached to children, without any effect.
I have thought, that the most essential part in the education of children, and which is seldom regarded in the best families, is to make them sensible of their inability, weakness and dependence, and, as my husband called it, the heavy yoke of that necessity which nature has imposed on our species; and that, not only in order to shew them how much is done to alleviate the burthen of that yoke, but especially to instruct them betimes in what rank providence has placed them, that they may not presume too far above themselves, or be ignorant of the reciprocal duties of humanity. Young people, who from their cradle have been brought up in ease and effeminacy, who have been caressed by every one, indulged in all their caprices, and have been used to obtain easily every thing they desired; enter upon the world with many impertinent prejudices, of which they are generally cured by frequent mortifications, affronts and chagrin. Now I would willingly spare my children this second kind of education, by giving them, at first, a just notion of things. I had indeed once-resolved to indulge my eldest son in every thing he wanted, from a persuasion that the first impulses of nature must be good and salutary: but I was not long in discovering, that children, conceiving from such treatment that they have a right to be obeyed, depart from a state of nature almost as soon as born; contracting our vices from our example, and theirs by our indiscretion.
I saw, that if I indulged him in all his humours, they would only increase by such indulgence; that it was necessary to stop at some point, and that contradiction would be but the more mortifying, as he should be less accustomed to it: but that it might be less painful to him, I began to use him to it by degrees; and in order to prevent his tears and lamentations, I made every denial irrecoverable. It is true, I contradict him as little as possible, and never without due consideration. Whatever is given or permitted him, is done unconditionally and at the first instance; and in this we are indulgent enough: but he never gets any thing by importunity, neither his tears nor intreaties being of any effect. Of this he is now so well convinced, that he makes no use of them; he goes his way on the first word, and frets himself no more at seeing a box of sweetmeats taken away from him, than at seeing a bird fly away, which he would be glad to catch; there appearing to him the same impossibility of having the one as the other; and so far from beating the chairs and tables, that he dares not lift his hand against those who oppose him. In every thing that displeases him, he feels the weight of necessity, the effect of his own weakness, but never----excuse me a moment, says she, seeing I was going to reply; I foresee your objection and am coming to it immediately.
The great cause of the ill humour of children is the care which is taken either to quiet or to aggravate them. They will sometimes cry for an hour, for no other reason in the world than because they perceive we would not have them. So long as we take notice of their crying, so long have they a reason for continuing to cry; but they will soon give over of themselves, when they see no notice is taken of them: for, old or young, nobody loves to throw away his trouble. This is exactly the case with my eldest boy, who was once the most peeviest little bawler, stunning the whole house with his cries; whereas now you can hardly hear there is a child in the house. He cries, indeed, when he is in pain; but then it is the voice of nature, which should never be restrained; and he is again hushed as soon as ever the pain is over. For this reason I pay great attention to his tears, as I am certain he never sheds them for nothing: and hence I have gained the advantage of being certain when he is in pain and when not; when he is well and when sick; an advantage which is lost with those who cry out of mere humour, and only in order to be appeased. I must confess, however, that this management is not to be expected from nurses and governesses: for, as nothing is more tiresome than to hear a child cry, and as these good women think of nothing but the time present, they do not foresee, that by quieting it to day, it will cry the more tomorrow. But what is still worse, this indulgence produces an obstinacy which is of more consequence as the child grows up. The very cause that makes it a squawler at three years of age, will make it stubborn and refractory at twelve, quarrelsome at twenty, imperious and insolent at thirty, and insupportable all its life.
I come now to your objection, added she, smiling. In every indulgence granted to children, they can easily see our desire to please them, and therefore they should be taught to suppose we have reason for refusing or complying with their requests. This is another advantage gained by making use of authority, rather than persuasion, on every necessary occasion. For, as it is impossible they can always be blind to our motives, it is natural for them to imagine that we have some reason for contradicting them, of which they are ignorant. On the contrary, when we have once submitted to their judgment, they will pretend to judge of every thing; and thus become cunning, deceitful, fruitful in shifts and chicanery, endeavouring to silence those who are weak enough to argue with them: for, when one is obliged to give them an account of things above their comprehension, they attribute the most prudent conduct to caprice, because they are incapable of understanding it. In a word, the only way to render children docile and capable of reasoning, is not to reason with them at all; but to convince them, that it is above their childish capacities; for they will always suppose the argument in their favour, unless you can give them good cause to think otherwise. They know very well that we are unwilling to displease them, when they are certain of our affection; and children are seldom mistaken in this particular: therefore, if I deny any thing to my children, I never reason with them; I never tell them why I do so or so; but I endeavour, as much as possible, that they should find it out; and that even after the affair is over. By these means they are accustomed to think that I never deny them any thing without a sufficient reason, though they cannot always see it.
On the same principle it is, that I never suffer my children to join in the conversation of grown persons, or foolishly imagine themselves upon an equality with them, because they are permitted to prattle. I would have them give a short and modest answer, when they are spoke to, but never to speak of their own head, or ask impertinent questions of persons so much older than themselves, to whom they ought to shew more respect.” These, interrupted I, are very rigid rules, for so indulgent a mother as Eloisa. Pythagoras himself was not more severe with his disciples. You are not only afraid to treat them like men, but seem to be fearful lest they should too soon cease to be children. By what means can they acquire knowledge more certain and agreeably, than by asking questions of those who know better than themselves? What would the Parisian ladies think of your maxims, whose children are never thought to prattle too much or too long: they judge of their future understanding, by the nonsense and impertinence they utter when young? That may not be amiss, Mr. Wolmar will tell me, in a country where the merit of the people lies in chattering, and a man has no business to think, if he can but talk. But I cannot understand how Eloisa, who is so desirous of making the lives of her children happy, can reconcile that happiness with so much restraint; nor amidst so much confinement, what becomes of the liberty with which she pretends to indulge them.
“What, says she, with impatience, do we restrain their liberty, by preventing them from trespassing on ours? And cannot they be happy, truly, without a whole company’s sitting silent to admire their puerilities? To prevent the growth of their vanity is a surer means to effect their happiness: for the vanity of mankind is the source of their greatest misfortunes, and there is no person so great or so admired, whose vanity has not given him much more pain than pleasure. [80] What can a child think of himself, when he sees a circle of sensible people listening to, admiring, and waiting impatiently for, his wit, and breaking out in raptures at every impertinent expression? Such false applause is enough to turn the heart of a grown person; judge then what effect it must have upon that of a child. It is with the prattle of children, as with the predictions in the Almanac. It would be strange, if amidst such a number of idle words, chance did not now and then jumble some of them into sense. Imagine the effect which such flattering exclamations must have on a simple mother, already too much flattered by her own heart. Think not, however that I am proof against this error, because I expose it. No, I see the fault, and yet am guilty of it. But, if I sometimes admire the repartees of my son, I do it at least in secret. He will not learn to become a vain prater, by hearing me applaud him; nor will flatterers have the pleasure, in making me repeat them, of laughing at any weakness.
I remember one day, having company, I went out to give some necessary orders, and on my return found four or five great blockheads busy at play with my boy; they came immediately to tell me, with great rapture, the many pretty things he had been saying to them, and with which they seemed quite charmed. Gentlemen, said I, coldly, I doubt not but you know how to make puppets say very fine things; but I hope my children will one day be men, when they will be able to act and talk of themselves; I shall then be always glad to hear what they have said and done well. Seeing this manner of paying their court did not take, they since play with my children, but not as with Punchinello; and to say the truth, they are evidently better, since they have been less admired. As to their asking questions, I do not prohibit it indiscriminately. I am the first to tell them to ask, softly, of their father or me, what they desire to know. But I do not permit them to break in upon a serious conversation, to trouble every body with the first piece of impertinence that comes into their heads. The art of asking questions is not quite so easy as may be imagined. It is rather that of a master, than of a scholar. The wise know and enquire, says the Indian proverb, but the ignorant know not even what to enquire after. For want of such previous instruction, children, when at liberty to ask questions as they please, never ask any but such as are frivolous and answer no purpose, or such difficult ones whose solution is beyond their comprehension. Thus, generally speaking, they learn more by the questions which are asked of them, than from those which they ask of others.
But were this method, of permitting them to ask questions, as useful as it is pretended to be, is not the first and most important science to them, that of being modest and discreet? and is there any other that should be preferred to this? Of what use then is an unlimited freedom of speech to children, before the age at which it is proper for them to speak? Or the right of impertinently obliging persons to answer their childish questions? These little chattering querists ask questions, not so much for the sake of instruction, as to engage one’s notice. This indulgence, therefore, is not so much the way to instruct them, as to render them conceited and vain; an inconvenience much greater, in my opinion, than the advantage they gain by it: for ignorance will by degrees diminish, but vanity will always increase.
The worst that can happen from too long a reserve, will be, that my son, when he comes to years of discretion, will be less fluent in speech, and may want that volubility of tongue, and multiplicity of words, which he might otherwise have acquired: but when we consider how much the custom of passing away life in idle prattle, impoverishes the understanding, this happy sterility of words appears rather an advantage than otherwise. Shall the organ of truth, the most worthy organ of man, the only one whose use distinguishes him from the brutes, shall this be prostituted to no better purposes than those, which are answered as well by the inarticulate sounds of other animals? He degrades himself even below them, when he speaks and says nothing; a man should preserve his dignity, as such, even in his lightest amusements. If it be thought polite to stun the company with idle prate, I think it a much greater instance of true politeness to let others speak before us; to pay a greater deference to what is said, than to what we say ourselves; and to let them see we respect them too much, to think they can be entertained by our nonsense. The good opinion of the world, that which makes us courted and caressed by others, is not obtained so much by displaying our own talents, as by giving others an opportunity of displaying theirs, and by placing our own modesty as a foil to their vanity. You need not be afraid that a man of sense, who is silent only from reserve and discretion, should ever be taken for a fool. It is impossible in any country whatever, that a man should be characterised by what he has not said, or that he should be despised for being silent.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.