Chapter 16 Emile (Volume Three) Section 1

Although the whole process of life before growing into a teenager is in a period of weakness, it is also during this childhood that his physical strength grows beyond his needs. Therefore, this growing person, from the absolute Although it is very weak in a sense, but in a relative sense, it has become stronger.His needs are not fully developed, and his present physical strength is more than sufficient to meet all his needs.As an adult, he was weak, but as a child, he was very strong. Why do people appear weak?That's due to the imbalance between his physical strength and his desires.It is our desires that make us so feeble, for their gratification takes far more physical strength than nature has endowed us with.Therefore, reducing our desires is equivalent to increasing our physical strength: a person who has more physical strength than desires has surplus physical strength, so of course he is very strong.Now we have reached the third stage of childhood, and it is this stage that I am now going to describe.Since there is no proper word to express it, I still call it "childhood". At this age, it is close to a teenager, but it has not yet reached the period of spring.

At the age of twelve or twelve, the child's physical strength grows much faster than his needs.He has not yet felt any very strong and great need; his organs are still in a state of immaturity, as if to be forced out of it by his will.He doesn't care about the damage of the air and the seasons, and doesn't pay attention to them at all; his body temperature replaces his clothes; There is always good food; if he is sleepy, he falls asleep as soon as he is lying on the ground; he finds everywhere what he needs; unaffected; his desires do not exceed the reach of his hands; he not only satisfies his desires himself, but has surplus of physical strength beyond the needs of his desires; in his life there is only this That's when he was in that situation.

I expected some people to object.Instead of saying that children need more than I do, they deny that children have the kind of physical strength I speak of; they don't consider that I'm talking about my students, not holding Toys made of cardboard. Action figures that swim from room to room.Some people may say that only in the prime of life can there be vigorous energy; only when the vitality of life is refined in the body and spread throughout the body can the muscles grow strong and elastic, thereby producing real strength.This is an imaginary statement; as for me, I will go by experience.I saw some tall children in the countryside, just like their fathers, they could hoe and plow fields, carry wine barrels and drive carts. If you didn’t know that they were children from their voices, you might Treat them like adults.In the towns, for instance, there are young workmen, smiths, cutlers, and blacksmiths, who are nearly as strong as their masters, and, if given proper training, are as proficient as they are.If there is a difference (and I agree that there is), I repeat that it is much smaller than the difference between the intense desires of a grown-up and the limited desires of a child.What's more, the problem here is not only physical strength, but especially the mental ability to make up for or use physical strength.

At this stage, the individual's physical strength exceeds the needs of his desires, so although this stage is not the period when his absolute physical strength is at its maximum, but as I have said, it is his relative physical strength. period.This was the most precious time in life, and it happened only once in a lifetime; it was a very short time, especially when he thought how important it was to him to make good use of it. How, then, will he use all his talents and physical strengths, which seem excessive at present and will not be excessive in later years?He will use them, as far as necessary, for his own good; he may be said to invest the surplus of his present life in the future: the strong boy prepares food for the feeble man; will keep his things in chests where they may be stolen, or in warehouses that do not belong to him; in order to truly possess what he has acquired, put them in his hands and in his mind , placed in his own body.So now is the time for work, education, and study; and please note that this is not by my choice, but by nature's direction.

Man's intelligence is limited; not only cannot a man know everything, he cannot even know the little things that other people know.Since the opposite of every false proposition is a truth, the number of truths is as inexhaustible as the number of falsehoods.Therefore, we have to choose the content of teaching and the appropriate learning time.Of the knowledge available to us, some is false, some is useless, and some will fuel the pride of those who possess it.The knowledge that is really beneficial to our happiness is very little, but only such knowledge is worth seeking for a wise man, and therefore for a child, because it is our purpose to make him so wise. people.In short, the problem is not what kind of knowledge he has learned, but that the knowledge he has learned should be useful.

Of this little knowledge, that which requires a very mature understanding, that which involves human relations which a child cannot understand, and which, though true in itself, would cause a If inexperienced people have wrong ideas about other issues, they must be discarded and cannot be used to educate children. In this way you limit what you want to teach to a very small area related to current affairs; however, this area is still a very wide field when measured by the child's thinking.The abyss of human reason, which bold hand dares to lift your veil?I see how many snares our pompous disciplines have wrought about this unfortunate child!O you who lead him along this perilous path, you who lift for him the holy veil of nature that is hidden from his eyes, do not hurry!You have to keep his head clear and yours first, so that he or you, or both, don't get dizzy.Beware the strange charms of falsehood, Beware the enchanting smoke of pride.Remember, always remember, that a man's ignorance is no harm, but errors alone are most harmful; and remember that it is not ignorance, but Think you know it.

His progress in geometry may serve as a proof or a measure of his mental development; but, as soon as he can discern what is useful and what is not, good arrangements and methods are needed to guide him. He pondered.For example, when you want him to find a proportional mean between two lines, at the beginning you should try to make him feel that he needs to find a square that is equal to a certain rectangle; First tell him about the interesting doubling of cubes, and so on.You see, this is how we gradually acquire a moral sense of good and bad.We have hitherto been ignorant of any other law than that of need; we shall now speak of how to apply it, and soon how to use it properly and correctly.

The same instinct can stimulate different faculties in man.When the vitality of the body is extremely developed, the vitality of the mind must also be educated.At first, the children were only restless, and then they became curious; as long as this kind of curiosity is well guided, it can become the motivation for children of the age we are talking about to seek knowledge.We are always to distinguish which tendencies arise from nature and which tendencies arise from prejudice.There is a kind of enthusiasm for knowledge that arises entirely from the desire to be respected as a scholar, and another kind of curiosity arises from a natural curiosity in all things that are or will be closely related to him.On the one hand, he is born with a desire to seek happiness, but on the other hand, he cannot fully satisfy this desire, so he has to constantly seek new ways to satisfy his desire.This is the first principle of curiosity, which arises naturally in the human heart, but which develops necessarily in proportion to our desires and knowledge.Suppose a scientist takes his instruments and books to live in seclusion on a deserted island, and decides to spend the rest of his life there alone. and calculus, maybe he didn't read a single book in his life; on the other hand, no matter how big the desert island was, he couldn't help his desire to visit the whole island, all the way to the most remote places. I have to take a look at the corner too.Therefore, among the things learned in childhood, it is necessary to discard those things that do not suit our natural interests, and to limit the scope of learning to knowledge that our instinct prompts us to seek.

For man, such an island is the earth, and the most conspicuous thing is the sun.When we first look at other places, the first thing our eyes see is this island and that sun.Almost all savages have contemplated the imaginary regions of the earth and the divinity of the sun. One might say: "How quickly it changes!" We were only speaking of things in direct contact with and around us, and now we are suddenly going to travel around the earth and jump to the sky!This change is the result of our physical strength and the development of our minds.When we were infirm and weak our attention was fixed on how to preserve our life, and when we reached the prime of life our desire to extend our life not only took us beyond the limits stated above, And also makes us look as far as we can; but, since we have not yet touched the world of knowledge, our thoughts cannot go beyond the limits of our eyes, and our understanding can only go as far as it dabbles. develop within the scope.

We want to turn our feelings into ideas, but don't jump from the object of feeling to the object of thought at once.We must reach the latter object through the former object.In the first activity of thought one is entirely guided by feeling.Take the world as the only book, and take the facts as the only lesson.Reading books does not mean that a child is using his mind, he only knows how to read; he is not being educated, but learning sentences. Exposing your pupil to observe the phenomena of nature will soon make him very curious; but his curiosity must not be gratified in such haste in order to cultivate it.You ask questions he can understand and let him answer them himself.To do: what he knows, is not due to your telling but due to his own understanding.Don't teach him this and that, but let him discover it for himself.Once you have replaced reason with authority in him, he will no longer use his reason, but will be swayed by the opinions of others.

In order to teach this boy geography, you have brought him many globes, planetariums, and maps.How perfect!Why use these things that represent real objects?You should first let him see the original, so that he can at least understand what you are telling him! One beautiful evening we went for a walk in a solitary place where the open horizon afforded us a panorama of the setting sun; and we observed the scene where it was setting, to remember the place.The next day we went there again just before sunrise for some fresh air.Before the sun came out, we saw its fire from afar.The fire was getting bigger and bigger, and the whole east seemed to be on fire; after the fire broke out, we waited for a long time and still didn't see the sun, every moment we thought it was going to come out, until finally we saw it it.A bright point of light appeared before the eyes like lightning, and immediately filled the whole space; the curtain of darkness fell.People saw the places where they lived again, and found that they had become very beautiful.At night, the green grass acquires new vitality, and the dawn shines on it, and the rising sun coats it with golden color, and covers it with a shiny net woven with dewdrops, reflecting its brilliance and color in people's hearts. in the eyes.The birds sang together to welcome the Father of all life; there was not a single bird at this hour that did not sing, and their twitters were feeble, but at this time of the day they sang most loudly. Soft, revealing the tiredness of waking up from sleep.The combination of all these scenes brings us a refreshing feeling that refreshes the soul.During this half hour, no one was fascinated by it; facing such a magnificent and wonderful scenery, no one could remain indifferent. The teacher's heart is full of enthusiasm, and he wants to convey this feeling to the child. He thinks that by making the child pay attention to those places that touch his own emotions, the child can be moved in the same way.This is totally stupid idea!The life of natural scenery exists in the human heart, and to understand it, one needs to feel it.The child sees scenes, but he cannot see the relations that connect them, he cannot comprehend their beautiful harmony.To be able to feel the combined impression of all these sensations requires an experience which he has not had hitherto, emotions which he has not yet felt.If he had never run across the dry fields, if his feet had not been burned by the hot gravel, if he had never been exposed to the sultry heat reflected off the sunlit rocks, how could he have known the beauty of that beautiful morning? What about fresh air?How could the fragrance of flowers, the beauty of leaves, the moistness of dew, the softness of walking on the grass, all these please his senses?How can the song of a bird intoxicate him if he has not experienced the beauty of love and pleasure?How could he watch with joy the birth of that most beautiful day if his imagination could not picture to him the joy of that day?Finally, how can he appreciate the beauty of natural scenes if he does not know whose hand has so adorned nature? Never speak to a child that he does not understand.Don't describe, don't argue, don't chew on words, don't recite poems.It's not yet emotional and funny.Speak still so plainly and calmly; it is indeed too early to adopt another language. If he is brought up in the spirit of our maxim, accustoming him to making all the implements he needs, and turning to others only when he is sure of his own inadequacy, he will see each new thing with Observed carefully and silently.He is thoughtful rather than suspicious.Therefore, you can let him see something at the right time; after that, when you see that his curiosity has been fully aroused, ask him a few simple questions to guide him to answer what is strange in his heart. . Take the example mentioned above, after you watched the sun rise with him, after you asked him to pay attention to the mountains and nearby scenery in that direction, and let him talk casually After watching the sunrise, you are silent for a moment, as if in deep thought, and then say to him: "I remember the sun set there last night, but it rose from here this morning. How is it possible?" How about something?" Don't go on talking; if he asks you a question, you don't answer it, and talk about other things.Let him answer it by himself, and make sure he has to think about it. In order for a child to acquire the habit of paying attention to everything, in order for him to impress a certain obvious truth on his mind, he must be allowed to dwell on that truth for a few days and make it clear to him.If he still can't figure out the reason for the above-mentioned sunrise thing in this way, we also have a way to make this truth easier for him to understand, and this way is to ask him the question upside down.If he does not know how the sun goes from setting to rising, he at least knows how it goes from rising to setting; and this he can see with his eyes alone.So you can use the latter question to illustrate the former: Unless your student is absolutely stupid, the inference is so obvious that he has to come up with an answer.This gave him his first lesson in cosmology. Because we always pass slowly from one sensible idea to another, because we have long been familiar with the same idea before passing on to another, and finally, because we never adopt the method of forcing students to learn. method, therefore, from this first lesson, it will take a long time to deal with the motion of the sun and the shape of the earth; One observation can lead him to other observations. Therefore, although it takes more time to explain the calculation of solar and lunar eclipses from the rotation of the earth than to explain the truth of day and night, the time spent It takes less effort. Since the sun revolves around the earth, its path is a circle, and a complete circle should have a center, we already know this.This center cannot be seen, because it is in the center of the earth; however, we can draw two corresponding opposite points on the ground, draw a fork connecting three points, and extend the two ends, and we can find the earth and the axis on which the sun orbits each day.A round top spins on its tip, as the sky spins on its axis, and the two ends of the top are equal to two stages: so the child is delighted, because he can find one of the poles; Little Bear's tail showed him the pole finger.It is very amusing to observe the sky in this way at night; gradually we become acquainted with the stars, and thus begin to have a keen interest in knowing the planets and observing the constellations. We see the sun rise in midsummer, we see it again at Christmas or on a clear winter day, and as you all know we are not lazy, we take the cold as a pleasure .I deliberately chose the place where we observed the celestial phenomena for the first time to conduct the second observation. As long as the preparations for the observation are done skillfully, he or I will inevitably exclaim in amazement: "Ah, ah, this is interesting! Not from that place! Our original sign was here, but it is now rising from there", etc. "It can be seen that one is the east of summer, and the other is the east of winter...".Young teacher, you have now found the way to teach.These examples are enough to show that you can explain the celestial bodies very clearly by using the method of using the earth to explain the earth and using the sun to explain the sun. In general, you can replace a thing by a sign only when it is impossible for you to show him that thing, because the sign will attract the child's attention and make him forget the thing represented. In my opinion, the structure of the armillary sphere is very bad, and the sizes of the various parts are very inconsistent.Its jumble of circles and figures drawn on it make it look like a wizard's spellbook, so it will scare children.The earth is too small, and the circles are too large and too many; some of the circles, such as the sub-circles, are useless at all; each circle is larger than the earth; and because the cardboard is too thick, it appears stiff, giving the impression that they are real. When you tell a child that these circles are imaginary, he does not know what he sees, and what they are for. We never put ourselves in children's shoes, we don't understand their thoughts, we take ours for theirs; and since we always educate them according to our own understanding, when we put When the truth was told to them, many absurdities and fallacies were poured into their minds. It is debated whether to choose an analytical method or a comprehensive method for research studies.It's not just a choice between the two.Sometimes, we can conduct analysis or synthesis in the same research topic. When the child thinks that the analysis method should be adopted, you can use the synthesis method to guide him.These two methods are used at the same time, which can play a role in mutual verification.When starting from two opposite places at the same time and meeting together through different routes, he must be very surprised, and such a sense of surprise is very pleasant.For example, when I teach geography, I start with the poles. After talking about the rotation of the earth, I go on to measure the various parts of the earth from where we live.When the child studies the heavenly bodies and sets his mind in the sky, bring him back to study the divisions of the earth, and first tell him where he lives. The first two places in his geography class are the city where he lives and his father's country house, then the villages and towns between these two places and the nearby rivers, and finally the appearance of the sun and the orientation of the sun. method.Here is the meeting point.Tell him to make a map of all this by himself, very simple, with only two places at first, and gradually add those places to the map as he knows or estimates the distance or position of other places.You can see now what a great weapon we first gave him by teaching him to use his eyes as a compass. In spite of this, of course, you have to give him some guidance, but very little guidance, so little that he does not see it.If he makes a mistake, let him make a mistake and don't need to correct it; you just wait quietly for him to discover and correct it by himself, or, at most, you can only draw a few times at the right time to guide him to realize it by himself to blame him.If he hadn't made mistakes all the time, he wouldn't have learned so well.Besides, it is not so much a question of getting him to draw the topography of the place exactly, but of teaching him how to do it; it matters little whether he has maps in his head, as long as he can understand what they represent. Anything, and a definite idea of ​​the art of drawing will suffice.Already there is a difference between the knowledge of your pupils and the ignorance of mine!Your student can read a map and he can draw a map.Can draw a map, and his room will have a new decoration. You must always remember that the spirit of my education is not to teach the child many things, but to get completely correct and clear ideas in his mind.It doesn't matter if he knows nothing, so long as he is not deceived; I have filled his mind with truth only to make sure that he does not fill his mind with error.The development of reason and judgment is slow, but prejudices abound, and it is prejudices that need to be guarded against.But if you look at learning for what it is, you will fall into an ocean full of hidden reefs and boundless and unfathomable, from which you will never be able to swim.When I see a person who loves knowledge, indulges in the beauty of knowledge, learns one knowledge and then rushes to learn another without stopping for a moment, I think that the person I see is like being on the beach The child who picked up shells picked up some shells at first, but when he saw other shells, he wanted to pick them up again. In the end, he threw some away and picked up some again. When he picked up a lot of shells and didn't know which one to choose, I had no choice but to throw it all away and go back empty-handed. In childhood, time is very long, so we have to give up some time as much as possible, so as not to use them wrongly.Now, on the contrary, we don't have enough time for useful things.What you need to know is that desire is coming, and when it knocks, your student's mind is not paying attention to anything else but to it.The peaceful years of wisdom are so short, pass so quickly, and have so many other necessary uses, that it is a kind of mischief to try to make a child a learned man during them. delusion.The question, therefore, is not to teach him all kinds of learning, but to cultivate in him a scholarly interest, and, when this interest is sufficiently developed, to teach him the methods of intellectual study.There is no doubt that this is a fundamental principle of all good education. During this period, it is also just to make him gradually develop the habit of paying attention to the same thing for a long time; however, this kind of attention is not due to our reluctance, but because he has that interest or desire; we should pay special attention to it. Be careful not to overburden him and tire him.Take care, therefore, to stop everything when, at any rate, he is on the verge of sleepiness; for the important thing is not how much he should learn, but that he should not be made to do anything against his will. If he asks you some questions of his own accord, answer as you see fit to arouse his curiosity rather than how to satisfy his curiosity; especially when you find that he is not asking for knowledge but talking nonsense When he asks you a lot of nonsensical questions, you should stop answering immediately, because at this time, what he thinks in his mind is not what you are discussing, but how to trouble you with many questions.It is not what he says that needs attention, but what motivates him to say it.This advice of mine was not obligatory to you until now, but as soon as the child can begin to use his reason, he sees its importance and cannot but be called upon. In general truth there is a chain by which all the sciences are related to common principles and develop one after the other; this chain is the method of the philosopher.However, we are not using this method here.There is another quite different method, by which each particular thing is related to another particular thing, and indicates what the thing that follows it is like.This order can constantly stimulate people's curiosity and make people pay attention to everything. Therefore, not only most adults have to observe things in this order, but children especially have to observe things in this order.When we set the direction and draw the map, we need to draw the meridian.Between two equal projections in the morning and evening there are two points of intersection that would make a good meridian for a thirteen-year-old astronomer.But these meridians were going to disappear, and it took some time to draw them, and they had to be drawn in the same place; such painstaking and troublesome work would eventually tire him.We have already expected this and are prepared. Now, I'm going to talk about one more thing in detail here.Readers, I have heard your grumbles, and I am not afraid to hear your grumbles, and I must not omit the most useful parts of this book because of your impatience.Listen to me at length, as you please; for my part, I am determined to go on in spite of your complaints. My students and I have long discovered that objects such as amber, glass, and wax, when rubbed together, pick up hay while others do not.Once, we occasionally discovered that there was a kind of object whose properties were even stranger than them: it could attract iron filings and iron sheets separated by a considerable distance without friction.We have spent many hours looking at the properties of such objects, but can't see why!Finally, we found that this property was transmitted to the iron itself, making it magnetized in a certain direction.One day, as we were going to the market, we saw a juggler trying to tease a wax duck swimming in a basin of water with a piece of bread.We were very surprised, but we didn't express our surprise. We didn't say that the man was a wizard, because we didn't know what a wizard was.Though we continue to be amazed at phenomena for which we do not know their causes, we are in no hurry to inquire what they are; we are safe in our ignorance until the opportunity arises. Just made them clear. When we got home, we wanted to make one because we talked about the duck at the market.We take a completely magnetized needle, wrap it with white wax, and try to make it look like a duck, and then let the needle go through the duck, and the point of the needle is the duck's beak.You can imagine how happy we were when we put the duck on the water and we used a key ring to get close to its beak.We found that our ducks followed the keys exactly like the ducks at the market that followed the bread.We also noticed which direction the ducks were facing when we made them stand still on the water so we could do that next time.Now, we put all our hearts on this matter and don't want to do other things anymore. That evening, we went to the market again, and put a special bread in our pocket; after the juggler had performed, my little doctor couldn't hold his breath, and he didn't like the juggler. Said that this trick is not difficult, said he can perform it himself.He did what he said: he immediately took out the bread with the iron piece hidden in his pocket, and when he walked towards the table, his heart was pounding, and his hands were trembling as he took the bread. Swim over and follow the trail he's leading; and then the boy is jumping and yelling for joy.As soon as he heard the applause and applause from the audience, he was so happy that he was dizzy and carried away.The juggler, though embarrassed, went up and hugged him, congratulated him, and invited him to come and perform the next day, saying that he would attract a larger audience to his skill.When our proud little scientist was about to speak, I immediately silenced him and brought him home full of honors. There the child counted the minutes with absurd anxiety until the next day.He invites all he meets, he wants the whole of humanity to be a witness to his glory; he doesn't want to wait until the appointed hour to perform, he wants to bring it forward, because people come like a flood, The hall was already full of people.His childish heart almost jumped out with joy as he entered the hall.Some magic tricks were performed in the front, and the juggler showed some amazing performances that he did not usually show.The kid didn't even look at the programs; he was anxious, he was sweating, he was short of breath; he was fumbling with his loaf of bread in his pocket, with one hand shaking with anxiety.At last the time for his performance came, and the magician reported his show to the audience with great grandeur.He walked over shyly, and he took out the bread...  Things in the world are so changeable!That duck was very obedient yesterday, but today it has become so unruly; instead of stretching out its beak, it turned its tail and ran away; how it was afraid to swim with the bread yesterday, just like today frantically dodges the bread and the hand that brings it to its mouth.Numerous experiments failed, and the audience booed endlessly: at this time, the child complained that everyone was lying to him, saying that the original duck had been replaced by others, and finally the juggler was chosen to use the current duck as the same to perform. 那个玩戏法的人一句话也没有回答，拿着一块面包就向鸭子送去；那只鸭子立刻过来，游到那只拿面包的手的跟前。孩子又把他那块面包拿去逗鸭子，但是，不仅没有比先前做得成功，他看见鸭子反而同他开起玩笑来了，它绕着盆子直打转，弄得他只好狼狈不堪地走开，不敢再听观众的嘘叫了。 这时候，那个玩戏法的人把我们这个孩子带来的面包拿在手中，而且同用他自己的面包一样地表演得非常成功；他当众把面包里的磁铁取出来，又引起大家对我们一阵嘲笑；他用这块空心面包也照样能带领鸭子游水。他还把另外一个面包当众交给一个第三者掰开以后，用来表演这个戏法；他用他的手套表演，用他的手指头表演，都同样地成功；最后，他走到大厅的中央，用他们那个行业的人惯有的声调向观众大声宣布说，他的鸭子不仅听他的手势的指挥，而且还能听他的声音的指挥；他向它说话，它马上就服从；他叫它向右，它就向右；他叫它回来，它就回来；他叫它转弯，它就转弯；总之，命令一下，它立刻就照命令行动。观众一再鼓掌欢呼的声音，对我们来说就是一再地羞辱。我们悄悄地溜走了，我们关在屋子里，没有照我们原来的计划到处去讲述我们的成功。 第二天，听见有人在敲我们的门；我把门打开一看，原来是那个玩戏法的。他用谦和的语气诉说他对我们的行为的不满。他对我们做了些什么事情，竟使我们去拆穿他的戏法和剥夺他谋生的手段呢？在玩鸭子游水这个戏法上，干嘛要为了争一点荣誉就牺牲一个诚实的人的衣食呢？“老实说，先生们，要是我有其他的谋生的本领，我也不会以我有这点本事为荣的。你们要知道，玩这种小戏法玩了一生的人，对这个戏法当然是比你们只花了一会儿研究工夫的人知道得更清楚的。我之所以有起初没有表演我的拿手好戏，是因为一个人不应该那样傻头傻脑地把他所知道的全部东西一下都亮出来。我要把我的看家本领留下来应付急需，除了这个戏法以外，我还有其他的戏法可以用来防止那些幼稚的卤莽的人来拆我的台。先生们，我现在是好心好意来把这个曾经使你们如此狼狈的戏法的秘密教给你们，但请你们不要随便乱玩这个戏法，以免对我有所损害，并且请你们在以后的场合做事务必要谨慎一点。”