The first developments of childhood occur almost all at once. The child learns to speak, to eat, to walk, nearly at the same time. This is, properly, the first epoch of his life. Before then he is nothing more than he was before he was born; he has not a sentiment, not an idea; he scarcely has sensations; he does not feel even his own existence. [1] It is useless to enlarge upon the absurdity of this theory, and upon the flagrant contradiction into which Rousseau allows himself to fall. If he is right, man ought to be left without education, and the earth without cultivation. This would not be even the savage state. But want of space forbids us to pause at each like statement of our author, who at once busies himself in nullifying it. [2] The voice of Rousseau was heard. The nursing of children by their own mothers, which had gone into disuse as vulgar and troublesome, became a fashion. Great ladies prided themselves upon returning to the usage of nature, and infants were brought in with the dessert to give an exhibition of maternal tenderness. This affectation died out, but in most families the good and wholesome custom of motherhood was retained. This page of Rousseau's contributed its share to the happy result. [3] This remark is not a just one. How often have we seen unhappy creatures disgusted with life because of some dreadful and incurable malady? It is true that suicide, being an act of madness, is more frequently caused by those troubles which imagination delights itself in magnifying up to the point of insanity. [4] This is an allusion to one of the most unfortunate episodes in the life of Rousseau,--his abandoning of the children whom Thérèse Levasseur bore him, and whom he sent to a foundling hospital because he felt within him neither courage to labor for their support, nor capacity to educate them. Sad practical defect in this teacher of theories of education! [5] For the particular example of education which he supposes, Rousseau creates a tutor whom he consecrates absolutely, exclusively, to the work. He desires one so perfect that he calls him a prodigy. Let us not blame him for this. The ideal of those who assume the noble and difficult office of a teacher of childhood cannot be placed too high. As to the pupil, Rousseau imagines a child of average ability, in easy circumstances, and of robust health. He makes him an only son and an orphan, so that no family vicissitudes may disturb the logic of his plan. All this may be summed up by saying that he considers the child in himself with regard to his individual development, and without regard to his relations to ordinary life. This at the same time renders his task easy, and deprives him of an important element of education.