It is a small mind that fears lest greediness should take root
in the child who is fit for something better. The child thinks of
nothing but his food, the youth pays no heed to it at all; every
kind of food is good, and we have other things to attend to. Yet
I would not have you use the low motive unwisely. I would not have
you trust to dainties rather than to the honour which is the reward
of a good deed. But childhood is, or ought to be, a time of play
and merry sports, and I do not see why the rewards of purely bodily
exercises should not be material and sensible rewards. If a little
lad in Majorca sees a basket on the tree-top and brings it down
with his sling, is it not fair that he should get something by this,
and a good breakfast should repair the strength spent in getting
it. If a young Spartan, facing the risk of a hundred stripes, slips
skilfully into the kitchen, and steals a live fox cub, carries it
off in his garment, and is scratched, bitten till the blood comes,
and for shame lest he should be caught the child allows his bowels
to be torn out without a movement or a cry, is it not fair that he
should keep his spoils, that he should eat his prey after it has
eaten him? A good meal should never be a reward; but why should it
not be sometimes the result of efforts made to get it. Emile does
not consider the cake I put on the stone as a reward for good running;
he knows that the only way to get the cake is to get there first.
This does not contradict my previous rules about simple food; for
to tempt a child's appetite you need not stimulate it, you need
only satisfy it; and the commonest things will do this if you do
not attempt to refine children's taste. Their perpetual hunger,
the result of their need for growth, will be the best sauce. Fruit,
milk, a piece of cake just a little better than ordinary bread, and
above all the art of dispensing these things prudently, by these
means you may lead a host of children to the world's end, without
on the one hand giving them a taste for strong flavours, nor on
the other hand letting them get tired of their food.