Far from being a hindrance to education, this enthusiasm of adolescence is its crown and coping-stone; this it is that gives you a hold on the youth’s heart when he is no longer weaker than you.  His first affections are the reins by which you control his movements; he was free, and now I behold him in your power.  So long as he loved nothing, he was independent of everything but himself and his own necessities; as soon as he loves, he is dependent on his affections.  Thus the first ties which unite him to his species are already formed.  When you direct his increasing sensibility in this direction, do not expect that it will at once include all men, and that the word “mankind” will have any meaning for him.  Not so; this sensibility will at first confine itself to those like himself, and these will not be strangers to him, but those he knows, those whom habit has made dear to him or necessary to him, those who are evidently thinking and feeling as he does, those whom he perceives to be exposed to the pains he has endured, those who enjoy the pleasures he has enjoyed; in a word, those who are so like himself that he is the more disposed to self-love.  It is only after long training, after much consideration as to his own feelings and the feelings he observes in others, that he will be able to generalise his individual notions under the abstract idea of humanity, and add to his individual affections those which may identify him with the race.

When he becomes capable of affection, he becomes aware of the affection of others, [Footnote:  Affection may be unrequited; not so friendship.  Friendship is a bargain, a contract like any other; though a bargain more sacred than the rest.  The word “friend” has no other correlation.  Any man who is not the friend of his friend is undoubtedly a rascal; for one can only obtain friendship by giving it, or pretending to give it.] and he is on the lookout for the signs of that affection.  Do you not see how you will acquire a fresh hold on him?  What bands have you bound about his heart while he was yet unaware of them!  What will he feel, when he beholds himself and sees what you have done for him; when he can compare himself with other youths, and other tutors with you!  I say, “When he sees it,” but beware lest you tell him of it; if you tell him he will not perceive it.  If you claim his obedience in return for the care bestowed upon him, he will think you have over-reached him; he will see that while you profess to have cared for him without reward, you meant to saddle him with a debt and to bind him to a bargain which he never made.  In vain you will add that what you demand is for his own good; you demand it, and you demand it in virtue of what you have done without his consent.  When a man down on his luck accepts the shilling which the sergeant professes to give him, and finds he has enlisted without knowing what he was about, you protest against the injustice; is it not still more unjust to demand from your pupil the price of care which he has not even accepted!