disciple, he will lose his right to expect deference from him, and to give him instruction.  Still less should the pupil suppose that his master is purposely letting him fall into snares or preparing pitfalls for his inexperience.  How can we avoid these two difficulties?  Choose the best and most natural means; be frank and straightforward like himself; warn him of the dangers to which he is exposed, point them out plainly and sensibly, without exaggeration, without temper, without pedantic display, and above all without giving your opinions in the form of orders, until they have become such, and until this imperious tone is absolutely necessary.  Should he still be obstinate as he often will be, leave him free to follow his own choice, follow him, copy his example, and that cheerfully and frankly; if possible fling yourself into things, amuse yourself as much as he does.  If the consequences become too serious, you are at hand to prevent them; and yet when this young man has beheld your foresight and your kindliness, will he not be at once struck by the one and touched by the other?  All his faults are but so many hands with which he himself provides you to restrain him at need.  Now under these circumstances the great art of the master consists in controlling events and directing his exhortations so that he may know beforehand when the youth will give in, and when he will refuse to do so, so that all around him he may encompass him with the lessons of experience, and yet never let him run too great a risk.

Warn him of his faults before he commits them; do not blame him when once they are committed; you would only stir his self-love to mutiny.  We learn nothing from a lesson we detest.  I know nothing more foolish than the phrase, “I told you so.”  The best way to make him remember what you told him is to seem to have forgotten it.  Go further than this, and when you find him ashamed of having refused to believe you, gently smooth away the shame with kindly words.  He will indeed hold you dear when he sees how you forget yourself on his account, and how you console him instead of reproaching him.  But if you increase his annoyance by your reproaches he will hate you, and will make it a rule never to heed you, as if to show you that he does not agree with you as to the value of your opinion.

The turn you give to your consolation may itself be a lesson to him, and all the more because he does not suspect it.  When you tell him, for example, that many other people have made the same mistakes, this is not what he was expecting; you are administering correction under the guise of pity; for when one thinks oneself better than other people it is a very mortifying excuse to console oneself by their example; it means that we must realise that the most we can say is that they are no better than we.