I do not like verbal explanations.  Young people pay little heed to them, nor do they remember them.  Things!  Things!  I cannot repeat it too often.  We lay too much stress upon words; we teachers babble, and our scholars follow our example.

Suppose we are studying the course of the sun and the way to find our bearings, when all at once Emile interrupts me with the question, “What is the use of that?” what a fine lecture I might give, how many things I might take occasion to teach him in reply to his question, especially if there is any one there.  I might speak of the advantages of travel, the value of commerce, the special products of different lands and the peculiar customs of different nations, the use of the calendar, the way to reckon the seasons for agriculture, the art of navigation, how to steer our course at sea, how to find our way without knowing exactly where we are.  Politics, natural history, astronomy, even morals and international law are involved in my explanation, so as to give my pupil some idea of all these sciences and a great wish to learn them.  When I have finished I shall have shown myself a regular pedant, I shall have made a great display of learning, and not one single idea has he understood.  He is longing to ask me again, “What is the use of taking one’s bearings?” but he dare not for fear of vexing me.  He finds it pays best to pretend to listen to what he is forced to hear.  This is the practical result of our fine systems of education.

But Emile is educated in a simpler fashion.  We take so much pains to teach him a difficult idea that he will have heard nothing of all this.  At the first word he does not understand, he will run away, he will prance about the room, and leave me to speechify by myself.  Let us seek a more commonplace explanation; my scientific learning is of no use to him.

We were observing the position of the forest to the north of Montmorency when he interrupted me with the usual question, “What is the use of that?” “You are right,” I said.  “Let us take time to think it over, and if we find it is no use we will drop it, for we only want useful games.”  We find something else to do and geography is put aside for the day.

Next morning I suggest a walk before breakfast; there is nothing he would like better; children are always ready to run about, and he is a good walker.  We climb up to the forest, we wander through its clearings and lose ourselves; we have no idea where we are, and when we want to retrace our steps we cannot find the way.  Time passes, we are hot and hungry; hurrying vainly this way and that we find nothing but woods, quarries, plains, not a landmark to guide us.  Very hot, very tired, very hungry, we only get further astray.  At last we sit down to rest and to consider our position.  I assume that Emile has been educated like an ordinary child.  He does not think, he begins to cry; he has no idea we are close to Montmorency, which is hidden from our view by a mere thicket; but this thicket is a forest to him, a man of his size is buried among bushes.  After a few minutes’ silence I begin anxiously——­