I shall sometimes rouse Emile, not so much to prevent his sleeping
too much, as to accustom him to anything--even to waking with a
start. Moreover, I should be unfit for my business if I could not
make him wake himself, and get up, so to speak, at my will, without
being called.
If he wakes too soon, I shall let him look forward to a tedious
morning, so that he will count as gain any time he can give to
sleep. If he sleeps too late I shall show him some favourite toy
when he wakes. If I want him to wake at a given hour I shall say,
"To-morrow at six I am going fishing," or "I shall take a walk to
such and such a place. Would you like to come too?" He assents,
and begs me to wake him. I promise, or do not promise, as the case
requires. If he wakes too late, he finds me gone. There is something
amiss if he does not soon learn to wake himself.
Moreover, should it happen, though it rarely does, that a sluggish
child desires to stagnate in idleness, you must not give way to
this tendency, which might stupefy him entirely, but you must apply
some stimulus to wake him. You must understand that is no question
of applying force, but of arousing some appetite which leads to
action, and such an appetite, carefully selected on the lines laid
down by nature, kills two birds with one stone.
If one has any sort of skill, I can think of nothing for which a
taste, a very passion, cannot be aroused in children, and that without
vanity, emulation, or jealousy. Their keenness, their spirit of
imitation, is enough of itself; above all, there is their natural
liveliness, of which no teacher so far has contrived to take
advantage. In every game, when they are quite sure it is only play,
they endure without complaint, or even with laughter, hardships
which they would not submit to otherwise without floods of tears.
The sports of the young savage involve long fasting, blows, burns,
and fatigue of every kind, a proof that even pain has a charm of
its own, which may remove its bitterness. It is not every master,
however, who knows how to season this dish, nor can every scholar
eat it without making faces. However, I must take care or I shall
be wandering off again after exceptions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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