What is done can be done.  Now there is nothing commoner than to find nimble and skilful children whose limbs are as active as those of a man.  They may be seen at any fair, swinging, walking on their hands, jumping, dancing on the tight rope.  For many years past, troops of children have attracted spectators to the ballets at the Italian Comedy House.  Who is there in Germany and Italy who has not heard of the famous pantomime company of Nicolini?  Has it ever occurred to any one that the movements of these children were less finished, their postures less graceful, their ears less true, their dancing more clumsy than those of grown-up dancers?  If at first the fingers are thick, short, and awkward, the dimpled hands unable to grasp anything, does this prevent many children from learning to read and write at an age when others cannot even hold a pen or pencil?  All Paris still recalls the little English girl of ten who did wonders on the harpsichord.  I once saw a little fellow of eight, the son of a magistrate, who was set like a statuette on the table among the dishes, to play on a fiddle almost as big as himself, and even artists were surprised at his execution.

To my mind, these and many more examples prove that the supposed incapacity of children for our games is imaginary, and that if they are unsuccessful in some of them, it is for want of practice.

You will tell me that with regard to the body I am falling into the same mistake of precocious development which I found fault with for the mind.  The cases are very different:  in the one, progress is apparent only; in the other it is real.  I have shown that children have not the mental development they appear to have, while they really do what they seem to do.  Besides, we must never forget that all this should be play, the easy and voluntary control of the movements which nature demands of them, the art of varying their games to make them pleasanter, without the least bit of constraint to transform them into work; for what games do they play in which I cannot find material for instruction for them?  And even if I could not do so, so long as they are amusing themselves harmlessly and passing the time pleasantly, their progress in learning is not yet of such great importance.  But if one must be teaching them this or that at every opportunity, it cannot be done without constraint, vexation, or tedium.

What I have said about the use of the two senses whose use is most constant and most important, may serve as an example of how to train the rest.  Sight and touch are applied to bodies at rest and bodies in motion, but as hearing is only affected by vibrations of the air, only a body in motion can make a noise or sound; if everything were at rest we should never hear.  At night, when we ourselves only move as we choose, we have nothing to fear but moving bodies; hence we need a quick ear, and power to judge from the sensations experienced whether the body which causes