§ 9. Freedom from restraint is, however, to be apparent, not real. As in ordinary education the child employs all its faculties in duping the master, so in education “according to Nature” the master is to devote himself to duping the child. “Let him always be his own master in appearance, and do you take care to be so in reality. There is no subjection so complete as that which preserves the appearance of liberty; it is by this means even the will is led captive.” § 10. “The most critical interval of human nature is that between the hour of our birth and twelve years of age. This is the time wherein vice and error take root without our being possessed of any instrument to destroy them.” (_Ém._ ij., 79.) Throughout this season, the governor is to be at work training the pupil in the art of being ignorant and losing time. “The first education should be purely negative. It consists by no means in teaching virtue or truth, but in securing the heart from vice and the intellect from error. If you could do nothing and let nothing be done, if you could bring on your pupil healthy and strong to the age of 12 without his being able to tell his right hand from his left, from your very first lessons the eyes of his understanding would open to reason. Being without prejudices and without habits he would have nothing in him to thwart the effect of your care; and by beginning with doing nothing you would have made an educational prodigy.”[121] “Exercise his body, his organs, his senses, his powers; but keep his mind passive as long as possible. Mistrust all his sentiments formed before the judgment which determines their value. Restrain, avoid all foreign impressions, and to prevent the birth of evil be in no hurry to cause good; for good is good only in the light of reason. Look on all delays as so many advantages: it is a great gain to advance towards the goal without loss: let childhood ripen in children. In short, whatever lesson they may need, be sure not to give it them to-day if you can safely put it off till to-morrow.”[122] “Do not, then, alarm yourself much about this apparent idleness. What would you say of the man, who, in order to make the most of life, should determine never to go to sleep? You would say, The man is mad: he is not enjoying the time; he is depriving himself of it: to avoid sleep he is hurrying towards death. Consider, then, that it is the same here, and that childhood is the sleep of reason.”[123]