§ 26. Two subjects there were in which Émile was to receive instruction, viz.: music and drawing. Rousseau’s advice about drawing is well worth considering. He says: “Children who are great imitators all try to draw. I should wish my child to cultivate this art, not exactly for the art itself, but to make his eye correct and his hand supple: Les enfants, grands imitateurs, essayent tous de dessiner: je voudrais que le mien cultivât cet art, non précisément pour l’art même, mais pour se rendre l’œil juste et la main flexible.” (_Ém._ ij., 149). But Émile is to be kept clear of the ordinary drawing-master who would put him to imitate imitations; and there is a striking contrast between Rousseau’s suggestions and those of the authorities at South Kensington. Technical skill he cares for less than the training of the eye; so Émile is always to draw _from the object_, and, says Rousseau, “my intention is not so much that he should get to _imitate_ the objects, as get to _know_ them: mon intention n’est pas tant qu’il sache imiter les objets que les connaître.” (_Ém._ ij., 150). § 27. Before we pass the age of twelve years, at which point, as someone says, Rousseau substitutes another Émile for the one he has hitherto spoken of, let us look at his proposals for moral training. Rousseau is right, beyond question, in desiring that children should be treated as children. But what are children? What can they understand? What is the world in which they live? Is it the material world only, or is the moral world also open to them? (Girardin’s _R._, vol. ij., 136). On the subject of morals Rousseau seems to have admirable instincts,[143] but no principles, and moral as he is “on instinct,” there is always some confusion in what he Says. At one time he asserts that “there is only one knowledge to give children, and that is a knowledge of duty: Il n’y a qu’une science à enseigner aux enfants: c’est celle des devoirs de l’homme.” (_Ém._ j., 26). Elsewhere he says: “To know right from wrong, to be conscious of the reason of duty is not the business of a child: Connaître le bien et le mal, sentir la raison des devoirs de l’homme, n’est pas l’affaire d’un enfant.” (_Ém._ ij., 75).[144] In another place he mounts his hobby that “the most sublime virtues are negative” (_Ém._ ij., 95), and that about the best man who ever lived (till he found Friday?) was Robinson Crusoe. The outcome of all Rousseau’s teaching on this subject seems that we should in every way develop the child’s animal or physical life, retard his intellectual life, and ignore his life as a spiritual and moral being.