children have been accustomed either to obey or to command, and I have said a hundred times that neither of these two things is necessary.
Your pupil will therefore have only such caprices as you give him, and it is just you should be punished for your own faults. But do you ask how these are to be remedied? It can still be done by means of better management and much patience.
Physical Training.
Man's first natural movements are for the purpose of comparing himself with whatever surrounds him and finding in each thing those sensible qualities likely to affect himself. His first study is, therefore, a kind of experimental physics relating to his own preservation. From this, before he has fully understood his place here on earth, he is turned aside to speculative studies. While yet his delicate and pliable organs can adapt themselves to the objects upon which they are to act, while his senses, still pure, are free from illusion, it is time to exercise both in their peculiar functions, and to learn the perceptible relations between ourselves and outward things. Since whatever enters the human understanding enters by the senses, man's primitive reason is a reason of the senses, serving as foundation for the reason of the intellect. Our first teachers in philosophy are our own feet, hands, and eyes. To substitute books for these is teaching us not to reason, but to use the reason of another; to believe a great deal, and to know nothing at all.
In practising an art we must begin by procuring apparatus for it; and to use this apparatus to advantage, we must have it solid enough to bear use. In learning to think, we must therefore employ our members, our senses, our organs, all which are the apparatus of our understanding. And to use them to the best advantage, the body which furnishes them must be sound and robust. Our reason is therefore so far from being independent of the body, that a good constitution renders mental operations easy and accurate. In indicating how the long leisure of childhood ought to be employed, I am entering into particulars which maybe thought ridiculous. "Pretty lessons," you will tell me, "which you yourself criticize for teaching only what there is no need of learning! Why waste time in instructions which always come of their own accord, and cost neither care nor trouble? What child of twelve does not know all you are going to teach yours, and all that his masters have taught him besides?"
Gentlemen, you are mistaken. I am teaching my pupil a very tedious and difficult art, which yours certainly have not acquired,--that of being ignorant. For the knowledge of one who gives himself credit for knowing only what he really does know reduces itself to a very small compass. You are teaching science: very good; I am dealing with the instrument by which science is acquired. All who have reflected upon the mode of life among the ancients attribute to gymnastic exercises that vigor of body and mind which so notably distinguishes them from us moderns. Montaigne's support of this opinion shows that he had fully adopted it; he returns to it again and again, in a thousand ways.
Speaking of the education of a child, he says, "We must make his mind robust by hardening his muscles; inure him to pain by accustoming him to labor; break him by severe exercise to the keen pangs of dislocation, of colic, of other ailments." The wise Locke,[18] the excellent Rollin,[19] the learned Fleury,[20] the pedantic de Crouzas,[21] so different in everything else, agree exactly on this point of abundant physical exercise for children. It is the wisest lesson they ever taught, but the one that is and always will be most neglected.
Clothing.
As to clothing, the limbs of a growing body should be entirely free.
Nothing should cramp their movements or their growth; nothing should fit too closely or bind the body; there should be no ligatures whatever. The present French dress cramps and disables even a man, and is especially injurious to children. It arrests the circulation of the humors; they stagnate from an inaction made worse by a sedentary life.
This corruption of the humors brings on the scurvy, a disease becoming every day more common among us, but unknown to the ancients, protected from it by their dress and their mode of life. The hussar dress does not remedy this inconvenience, but increases it, since, to save the child a few ligatures, it compresses the entire body. It would be better to keep children in frocks as long as possible, and then put them into loosely fitting clothes, without trying to shape their figures and thereby spoil them. Their defects of body and of mind nearly all spring from the same cause: we are trying to make men of them before their time.
Of bright and dull colors, the former best please a child's taste; such colors are also most becoming to them; and I see no reason why we should not in such matters consult these natural coincidences. But the moment a material is preferred because it is richer, the child's mind is corrupted by luxury, and by all sorts of whims. Preferences like this do not spring up of their own accord. It is impossible to say how much choice of dress and the motives of this choice influence education. Not only do thoughtless mothers promise children fine clothes by way of reward, but foolish tutors threaten them with coarser and simpler dress as punishment. "If you do not study your lessons, if you do not take better care of your clothes, you shall be dressed like that little rustic." This is saying to him, "Rest assured that a man is nothing but what his clothes make him; your own worth depends on what you wear." Is it surprising that sage lessons like this so influence young men that they care for nothing but ornament, and judge of merit by outward appearance only?
Generally, children are too warmly clothed, especially in their earlier years. They should be inured to cold rather than heat; severe cold never incommodes them when they encounter it early. But the tissue of their skin, as yet yielding and tender, allows too free passage to perspiration, and exposure to great heat invariably weakens them. It has been observed that more children die in August than in any other month. Besides, if we compare northern and southern races, we find that excessive cold, rather than excessive heat, makes man robust. In proportion as the child grows and his fibres are strengthened, accustom him gradually to withstand heat; and by degrees you will without risk train him to endure the glowing temperature of the torrid zone.
Sleep.
Children need a great deal of sleep because they take a great deal of exercise. The one acts as corrective to the other, so that both are necessary. As nature teaches us, night is the time for rest. Constant observation shows that sleep is softer and more profound while the sun is below the horizon. The heated air does not so perfectly tranquillize our tired senses. For this reason the most salutary habit is to rise and to go to rest with the sun. In our climate man, and animals generally, require more sleep in winter than in summer. But our mode of life is not so simple, natural, and uniform that we can make this regular habit a necessity. We must without doubt submit to regulations; but it is most important that we should be able to break them without risk when occasion requires. Do not then imprudently soften your pupil by letting him lie peacefully asleep without ever being disturbed. At first let him yield without restraint to the law of nature, but do not forget that in our day we must be superior to this law; we must be able to go late to rest and rise early, to be awakened suddenly, to be up all night, without discomfort. By beginning early, and by always proceeding slowly, we form the constitution by the very practices which would ruin it if it were already established.
It is important that your pupil should from the first be accustomed to a hard bed, so that he may find none uncomfortable.
Generally, a life of hardship, when we are used to it, gives us a far greater number of agreeable sensations than does a life of ease, which creates an infinite number of unpleasant ones. One too delicately reared can find sleep only upon a bed of down; one accustomed to bare boards can find it anywhere. No bed is hard to him who falls asleep as soon as his head touches the pillow. The best bed is the one which brings the best sleep. Throughout the day no slaves from Persia, but Émile and I, will prepare our beds. When we are tilling the ground we shall be making them soft for our slumber.
Exercise of the Senses.
A child has not a man's stature, strength, or reason; but he sees and hears almost or quite as well. His sense of taste is as keen, though he does not enjoy it as a pleasure.
Our senses are the first powers perfected in us. They are the first that should be cultivated and the only ones forgotten, or at least, the most neglected.
To exercise the senses is not merely to use them, but to learn how to judge correctly by means of them; we may say, to learn how to feel.
For we cannot feel, or hear, or see, otherwise than as we have been taught.
There is a kind of exercise, purely natural and mechanical, that renders the body robust without injuring the mind. Of this description are swimming, running, leaping, spinning tops, and throwing stones.
All these are well enough; but have we nothing but arms and legs? Have we not eyes and ears as well? and are they of no use while the others are employed? Use, then, not only your bodily strength, but all the senses which direct it. Make as much of each as possible, and verify the impressions of one by those of another. Measure, count, weigh, and compare. Use no strength till after you have calculated the resistance it will meet. Be careful to estimate the effect before you use the means. Interest the child in never making any useless or inadequate trials of strength. If you accustom him to forecast the effect of every movement, and to correct his errors by experience, is it not certain that the more he does the better his judgment will be?
If the lever he uses in moving a heavy weight be too long, he will expend too much motion; if too short, he will not have power enough.
Experience will teach him to choose one exactly suitable. Such practical knowledge, then, is not beyond his years. If he wishes to carry a burden exactly as heavy as his strength will bear, without the test of first lifting it, must he not estimate its weight by the eye?
If he understands comparing masses of the same material but of different size, let him choose between masses of the same size but of different material. This will oblige him to compare them as to specific gravity. I have seen a well-educated young man who, until he had tried the experiment, would not believe that a pail full of large chips weighs less than it does when full of water.
The Sense of Touch.
We have not equal control of all our senses. One of them, the sense of touch, is in continual action so long as we are awake. Diffused over the entire surface of the body, it serves as a perpetual sentinel to warn us of what is likely to harm us. By the constant use of this sense, voluntary or otherwise, we gain our earliest experience. It therefore stands less in need of special cultivation. We observe however, that the blind have a more delicate and accurate touch than we, because, not having sight to guide them, they depend upon touch for the judgments we form with the aid of sight. Why then do we not train ourselves to walk, like them, in the dark, to recognize by the touch all bodies we can reach, to judge of objects around us, in short, to do by night and in the dark all they do in daytime without eyesight? So long as the sun shines, we have the advantage of them; but they can guide us in darkness. We are blind during half our life-time, with this difference, that the really blind can always guide themselves, whereas we dare not take a step in the dead of night. You may remind me that we have artificial light. What! must we always use machines?
Who can insure their being always at hand when we need them? For my part, I prefer that Émile, instead of keeping his eyes in a chandler's shop, should have them at the ends of his fingers.
As much as possible, let him be accustomed to play about at night.
This advice is more important than it would seem. For men, and sometimes for animals, night has naturally its terrors. Rarely do wisdom, or wit, or courage, free us from paying tribute to these terrors. I have seen reasoners, free-thinkers, philosophers, soldiers, who were utterly fearless in broad daylight, tremble like women at the rustle of leaves by night. Such terrors are supposed to be the result of nursery tales. The real cause is the same thing which makes the deaf distrustful, and the lower classes superstitious; and that is, ignorance of objects and events around us.
The cause of the evil, once found, suggests the remedy. In everything, habit benumbs the imagination; new objects alone quicken it again.
Every-day objects keep active not the imagination, but the memory; whence the saying "Ab assuetis non fit passio."[22] For only the imagination can set on fire our passions. If, therefore, you wish to cure any one of the fear of darkness, do not reason with him. Take him into the dark often, and you may be sure that will do him more good than philosophical arguments. When at work on the roofs of houses, slaters do not feel their heads swim; and those accustomed to darkness do not fear it at all.
There will be one advantage of our plays in the dark. But if you mean them to be successful, you must make them as gay as possible. Darkness is of all things the most gloomy; so do not shut your child up in a dungeon. When he goes into the dark make him laugh; when he leaves it make him laugh again; and all the time he is there, let the thought of what he is enjoying, and what he will find there when he returns, protect him from the shadowy terrors which might otherwise inhabit it.
I have heard some propose to teach children not to be afraid at night, by surprising them. This is a bad plan, and its effect is contrary to the one sought: it only makes them more timid than before. Neither reason nor habit can accustom us to a present danger, the nature and extent of which we do not know, nor can they lessen our dread of unexpected things however often we meet with them. But how can we guard our pupil against such accidents? I think the following is the best plan. I will tell my Émile, "If any one attacks you at night, you are justified in defending yourself; for your assailant gives you no notice whether he means to hurt you or only to frighten you. As he has taken you at a disadvantage, seize him boldly, no matter what he may seem to be. Hold him fast, and if he offers any resistance, hit him hard and often. Whatever he may say or do, never let go until you know exactly who he is. The explanation will probably show you that there is nothing to be afraid of; and if you treat a practical joker in this way, he will not be likely to try the same thing again."
Although, of all our senses, touch is the one most constantly used, still, as I have said, its conclusions are the most rude and imperfect.
This is because it is always used at the same time with sight; and because the eye attains its object sooner than the hand; the mind nearly always decides without appealing to touch. On the other hand, the decisions of touch, just because they are so limited in their range, are the most accurate. For as they extend no farther than our arm's length, they correct the errors of other senses, which deal with distant objects, and scarcely grasp these objects at all, whereas all that the touch perceives it perceives thoroughly. Besides, if to nerve-force we add muscular action, we form a simultaneous impression, and judge of weight and solidity as well as of temperature, size, and shape. Thus touch, which of all our senses best informs us concerning impressions made upon us by external things, is the one oftenest used, and gives us most directly the knowledge necessary to our preservation.
The Sense of Sight.
The sense of touch confines its operations to a very narrow sphere around us, but those of sight extend far beyond; this sense is therefore liable to be mistaken. With a single glance a man takes in half his own horizon, and in these myriad impressions, and judgments resulting from them, how is it credible that there should be no mistakes? Sight, therefore, is the most defective of all our senses, precisely because it is most far-reaching, and because its operations, by far preceding all others, are too immediate and too vast to receive correction from them. Besides, the very illusions of perspective are needed to make us understand extension, and to help us in comparing its parts. If there were no false appearances, we could see nothing at a distance; if there were no gradations in size, we could form no estimate of distance, or rather there would be no distance at all. If of two trees the one a hundred paces away seemed as large and distinct as the other, ten paces distant, we should place them side by side. If we saw all objects in their true dimensions, we should see no space whatever; everything would appear to be directly beneath our eye.
For judging of the size and distance of objects, sight has only one measure, and that is the angle they form with our eye. As this is the simple effect of a compound cause, the judgment we form from it leaves each particular case undecided or is necessarily imperfect. For how can I by the sight alone tell whether the angle which makes one object appear smaller than another is caused by the really lesser magnitude of the object or by its greater distance from me?
An opposite method must therefore be pursued. Instead of relying on one sensation only, we must repeat it, verify it by others, subordinate sight to touch, repressing the impetuosity of the first by the steady, even pace of the second. For lack of this caution we measure very inaccurately by the eye, in determining height, length, depth, and distance. That this is not due to organic defect, but to careless use, is proved by the fact that engineers, surveyors, architects, masons, and painters generally have a far more accurate eye than we, and estimate measures of extension more correctly. Their business gives them experience that we neglect to acquire, and thus they correct the ambiguity of the angle by means of appearances associated with it, which enable them to determine more exactly the relation of the two things producing the angle.
Children are easily led into anything that allows unconstrained movement of the body. There are a thousand ways of interesting them in measuring, discovering, and estimating distances. "Yonder is a very tall cherry-tree; how can we manage to get some cherries? Will the ladder in the barn do? There is a very wide brook; how can we cross it? Would one of the planks in the yard be long enough? We want to throw a line from our windows and catch some fish in the moat around the house; how many fathoms long ought the line to be? I want to put up a swing between those two trees; would four yards of rope be enough for it? They say that in the other house our room will be twenty-five feet square; do you think that will suit us? Will it be larger than this? We are very hungry; which of those two villages yonder can we reach soonest, and have our dinner?"
As the sense of sight is the one least easily separated from the judgments of the mind, we need a great deal of time for learning how to see. We must for a long time compare sight with touch, if we would accustom our eye to report forms and distances accurately.
Without touch and without progressive movement, the keenest eye-sight in the world could give us no idea of extent. To an oyster the entire universe must be only a single point. Only by walking, feeling, counting, and measuring, do we learn to estimate distances.
If we always measure them, however, our eye, depending on this, will never gain accuracy. Yet the child ought not to pass too soon from measuring to estimating. It will be better for him, after comparing by parts what he cannot compare as wholes, finally to substitute for measured aliquot parts others, obtained by the eye alone. He should train himself in this manner of measuring instead of always measuring with the hand. I prefer that the very first operations of this kind should be verified by actual measurements, so that he may correct the mistakes arising from false appearances by a better judgment. There are natural measures, nearly the same everywhere, such as a man's pace, the length of his arm, or his height. When the child is calculating the height of the story of a house, his tutor may serve as a unit of measure. In estimating the altitude of a steeple, he may compare it with that of the neighboring houses. If he wants to know how many leagues there are in a given journey, let him reckon the number of hours spent in making it on foot. And by all means do none of this work for him; let him do it himself.
We cannot learn to judge correctly of the extent and size of bodies without also learning to recognize their forms, and even to imitate them. For such imitation is absolutely dependent on the laws of perspective, and we cannot estimate extent from appearances without some appreciation of these laws.
Drawing.
All children, being natural imitators, try to draw. I would have my pupil cultivate this art, not exactly for the sake of the art itself, but to render the eye true and the hand flexible. In general, it matters little whether he understands this or that exercise, provided he acquires the mental insight, and the manual skill furnished by the exercise. I should take care, therefore, not to give him a drawing-master, who would give him only copies to imitate, and would make him draw from drawings only. He shall have no teacher but nature, no models but real things. He shall have before his eyes the originals, and not the paper which represents them. He shall draw a house from a real house, a tree from a tree, a human figure from the man himself. In this way he will accustom himself to observe bodies and their appearances, and not mistake for accurate mutations those that are false and conventional. I should even object to his drawing anything from memory, until by frequent observations the exact forms of the objects had clearly imprinted themselves on his imagination, lest, substituting odd and fantastic shapes for the real things, he might lose the knowledge of proportion and a taste for the beauties of nature. I know very well that he will go on daubing for a long time without making anything worth noticing, and will be long in mastering elegance of outline, and in acquiring the deft stroke of a skilled draughtsman. He may never learn to discern picturesque effects, or draw with superior skill. On the other hand, he will have a more correct eye, a truer hand, a knowledge of the real relations of size and shape in animals, plants, and natural bodies, and practical experience of the illusions of perspective. This is precisely what I intend; not so much that he shall imitate objects as that he shall know them. I would rather have him show me an acanthus than a finished drawing of the foliation of a capital.
Yet I would not allow my pupil to have the enjoyment of this or any other exercise all to himself. By sharing it with him I will make him enjoy it still more. He shall have no competitor but myself; but I will be that competitor continually, and without risk of jealousy between us. It will only interest him more deeply in his studies.
Like him I will take up the pencil, and at first I will be as awkward as he. If I were an Apelles, even, I will make myself a mere dauber.
I will begin by sketching a man just as a boy would sketch one on a wall, with a dash for each arm, and with fingers larger than the arms.
By and by one or the other of us will discover this disproportion. We shall observe that a leg has thickness, and that this thickness is not the same everywhere; that the length of the arm is determined by its proportion to the body; and so on. As we go on I will do no more than keep even step with him, or will excel him by so little that he can always easily overtake and even surpass me. We will get colors and brushes; we will try to imitate not only the outline but the coloring and all the other details of objects. We will color; we will paint; we will daub; but in all our daubing we shall be continually peering into nature, and all we do shall be done under the eye of that great teacher.
If we had difficulty in finding decorations for our room, we have now all we could desire. I will have our drawings framed, so that we can give them no finishing touches; and this will make us both careful to do no negligent work. I will arrange them in order around our room, each drawing repeated twenty or thirty times, and each repetition showing the author's progress, from the representation of a house by an almost shapeless attempt at a square, to the accurate copy of its front elevation, profile, proportions, and shading. The drawings thus graded must be interesting to ourselves, curious to others, and likely to stimulate further effort. I will inclose the first and rudest of these in showy gilded frames, to set them off well; but as the imitation improves, and when the drawing is really good, I will add only a very simple black frame. The picture needs no ornament but itself, and it would be a pity that the bordering should receive half the attention.
Both of us will aspire to the honor of a plain frame, and if either wishes to condemn the other's drawing, he will say it ought to have a gilt frame. Perhaps some day these gilded frames will pass into a proverb with us, and we shall be interested to observe how many men do justice to themselves by framing themselves in the very same way.
Geometry.
I have said that geometry is not intelligible to children; but it is our own fault. We do not observe that their method is different from ours, and that what is to us the art of reasoning should be to them only the art of seeing. Instead of giving them our method, we should do better to take theirs. For in our way of learning geometry, imagination really does as much as reason. When a proposition is stated, we have to imagine the demonstration; that is, we have to find upon what proposition already known the new one depends, and from all the consequences of this known principle select just the one required.
According to this method the most exact reasoner, if not naturally inventive, must be at fault. And the result is that the teacher, instead of making us discover demonstrations, dictates them to us; instead of teaching us to reason, he reasons for us, and exercises only our memory.
Make the diagrams accurate; combine them, place them one upon another, examine their relations, and you will discover the whole of elementary geometry by proceeding from one observation to another, without using either definitions or problems, or any form of demonstration than simple superposition. For my part, I do not even pretend to teach Émile geometry; he shall teach it to me. I will look for relations, and he shall discover them. I will look for them in a way that will lead him to discover them. In drawing a circle, for instance, I will not use a compass, but a point at the end of a cord which turns on a pivot. Afterward, when I want to compare the radii of a semi-circle, Émile will laugh at me and tell me that the same cord, held with the same tension, cannot describe unequal distances.
When I want to measure an angle of sixty degrees, I will describe from the apex of the angle not an arc only, but an entire circle; for with children nothing must be taken for granted. I find that the portion intercepted by the two sides of the angle is one-sixth of the whole circumference. Afterward, from the same centre, I describe another and a larger circle, and find that this second arc is one-sixth of the new circumference. Describing a third concentric circle, I test it in the same way, and continue the process with other concentric circles, until Émile, vexed at my stupidity, informs me that every arc, great or small, intercepted by the sides of this angle, will be one-sixth of the circumference to which it belongs. You see we are almost ready to use the instruments intelligently.
In order to prove the angles of a triangle equal to two right angles, a circle is usually drawn. I, on the contrary, will call Émile's attention to this in the circle, and then ask him, "Now, if the circle were taken away, and the straight lines were left, would the size of the angles be changed?"
It is not customary to pay much attention to the accuracy of figures in geometry; the accuracy is taken for granted, and the demonstration alone is regarded. Émile and I will pay no heed to the demonstration, but aim to draw exactly straight and even lines; to make a square perfect and a circle round. To test the exactness of the figure we will examine it in all its visible properties, and this will give us daily opportunity of finding out others. We will fold the two halves of a circle on the line of the diameter, and the halves of a square on its diagonal, and then examine our two figures to see which has its bounding lines most nearly coincident, and is therefore best constructed. We will debate as to whether this equality of parts exists in all parallelograms, trapeziums, and like figures. Sometimes we will endeavor to guess at the result of the experiment before we make it, and sometimes to find out the reasons why it should result as it does.
Geometry for my pupil is only the art of using the rule and compass well. It should not be confounded with drawing, which uses neither of these instruments. The rule and compass are to be kept under lock and key, and he shall be allowed to use them only occasionally, and for a short time, lest he fall into the habit of daubing. But sometimes, when we go for a walk, we will take our diagrams with us, and talk about what we have done or would like to do.
Hearing.
What has been said as to the two senses most continually employed and most important may illustrate the way in which I should exercise the other senses. Sight and touch deal alike with bodies at rest and bodies in motion. But as only the vibration of the air can arouse the sense of hearing, noise or sound can be made only by a body in motion.
If everything were at rest, we could not hear at all. At night, when we move only as we choose, we have nothing to fear except from other bodies in motion. We therefore need quick ears to judge from our sensations whether the body causing them is large or small, distant or near, and whether its motion is violent or slight. The air, when in agitation, is subject to reverberations which reflect it back, produce echoes, and repeat the sensation, making the sonorous body heard elsewhere than where it really is. In a plain or valley, if you put your ear to the ground, you can hear the voices of men and the sound of horses' hoofs much farther than when standing upright. As we have compared sight with touch, let us also compare it with hearing, and consider which of the two impressions, leaving the same body at the same time, soonest reaches its organ. When we see the flash of a cannon there is still time to avoid the shot; but as soon as we hear the sound there is not time; the ball has struck. We can estimate the distance of thunder by the interval between the flash and the thunderbolt. Make the child understand such experiments; try those that are within his own power, and discover others by inference. But it would be better he should know nothing about these things than that you should tell him all he is to know about them.
We have an organ that corresponds to that of hearing, that is, the voice. Sight has nothing like this, for though we can produce sounds, we cannot give off colors. We have therefore fuller means of cultivating hearing, by exercising its active and passive organs upon one another.
The Voice.
Man has three kinds of voice: the speaking or articulate voice, the singing or melodious voice, and the pathetic or accented voice, which gives language to passion and animates song and speech. A child has these three kinds of voice as well as a man, but he does not know how to blend them in the same way. Like his elders he can laugh, cry, complain, exclaim, and groan. But he does not know how to blend these inflections with the two other voices. Perfect music best accomplishes this blending; but children are incapable of such music, and there is never much feeling in their singing. In speaking, their voice has little energy, and little or no accent.
Our pupil will have even a simpler and more uniform mode of speaking, because his passions, not yet aroused, will not mingle their language with his. Do not, therefore, give him dramatic parts to recite, nor teach him to declaim. He will have too much sense to emphasize words he cannot understand, and to express feelings he has never known.
Teach him to speak evenly, clearly, articulately, to pronounce correctly and without affectation, to understand and use the accent demanded by grammar and prosody. Train him to avoid a common fault acquired in colleges, of speaking louder than is necessary; have him speak loud enough to be understood; let there be no exaggeration in anything.
Aim, also, to render his voice in singing, even, flexible, and sonorous. Let his ear be sensitive to time and harmony, but to nothing more. Do not expect of him, at his age, imitative and theatrical music. It would be better if he did not even sing words. If he wished to sing them, I should try to invent songs especially for him, such as would interest him, as simple as his own ideas.
The Sense of Taste.
Of our different sensations, those of taste generally affect us most.
We are more interested in judging correctly of substances that are to form part of our own bodies than of those which merely surround us. We are indifferent to a thousand things, as objects of touch, of hearing, or of sight; but there is almost nothing to which our sense of taste is indifferent. Besides, the action of this sense is entirely physical and material. Imagination and imitation often give a tinge of moral character to the impressions of all the other senses; but to this it appeals least of all, if at all. Generally, also, persons of passionate and really sensitive temperament, easily moved by the other senses, are rather indifferent in regard to this. This very fact, which seems in some measure to degrade the sense of taste, and to make excess in its indulgence more contemptible, leads me, however, to