The poor man has no need of education.  The education of his own station in life is forced upon him, he can have no other; the education received by the rich man from his own station is least fitted for himself and for society.  Moreover, a natural education should fit a man for any position.  Now it is more unreasonable to train a poor man for wealth than a rich man for poverty, for in proportion to their numbers more rich men are ruined and fewer poor men become rich.  Let us choose our scholar among the rich; we shall at least have made another man; the poor may come to manhood without our help.

For the same reason I should not be sorry if Emile came of a good family.  He will be another victim snatched from prejudice.

Emile is an orphan.  No matter whether he has father or mother, having undertaken their duties I am invested with their rights.  He must honour his parents, but he must obey me.  That is my first and only condition.

I must add that there is just one other point arising out of this; we must never be separated except by mutual consent.  This clause is essential, and I would have tutor and scholar so inseparable that they should regard their fate as one.  If once they perceive the time of their separation drawing near, the time which must make them strangers to one another, they become strangers then and there; each makes his own little world, and both of them being busy in thought with the time when they will no longer be together, they remain together against their will.  The disciple regards his master as the badge and scourge of childhood, the master regards his scholar as a heavy burden which he longs to be rid of.  Both are looking forward to the time when they will part, and as there is never any real affection between them, there will be scant vigilance on the one hand, and on the other scant obedience.

But when they consider they must always live together, they must needs love one another, and in this way they really learn to love one another.  The pupil is not ashamed to follow as a child the friend who will be with him in manhood; the tutor takes an interest in the efforts whose fruits he will enjoy, and the virtues he is cultivating in his pupil form a store laid up for his old age.

This agreement made beforehand assumes a normal birth, a strong, well-made, healthy child.  A father has no choice, and should have no preference within the limits of the family God has given him; all his children are his alike, the same care and affection is due to all.  Crippled or well-made, weak or strong, each of them is a trust for which he is responsible to the Giver, and nature is a party to the marriage contract along with husband and wife.

But if you undertake a duty not imposed upon you by nature, you must secure beforehand the means for its fulfilment, unless you would undertake duties you cannot fulfil.  If you take the care of a sickly, unhealthy child, you are a sick nurse, not a tutor.  To preserve a useless life you are wasting the time which should be spent in increasing its value, you risk the sight of a despairing mother reproaching you for the death of her child, who ought to have died long ago.