need senses and knowledge, else their species would die out.  The child’s first mental experiences are purely affective, he is only aware of pleasure and pain; it takes him a long time to acquire the definite sensations which show him things outside himself, but before these things present and withdraw themselves, so to speak, from his sight, taking size and shape for him, the recurrence of emotional experiences is beginning to subject the child to the rule of habit.  You see his eyes constantly follow the light, and if the light comes from the side the eyes turn towards it, so that one must be careful to turn his head towards the light lest he should squint.  He must also be accustomed from the first to the dark, or he will cry if he misses the light.  Food and sleep, too, exactly measured, become necessary at regular intervals, and soon desire is no longer the effect of need, but of habit, or rather habit adds a fresh need to those of nature.  You must be on your guard against this.

The only habit the child should be allowed to contract is that of having no habits; let him be carried on either arm, let him be accustomed to offer either hand, to use one or other indifferently; let him not want to eat, sleep, or do anything at fixed hours, nor be unable to be left alone by day or night.  Prepare the way for his control of his liberty and the use of his strength by leaving his body its natural habit, by making him capable of lasting self-control, of doing all that he wills when his will is formed.

As soon as the child begins to take notice, what is shown him must be carefully chosen.  The natural man is interested in all new things.  He feels so feeble that he fears the unknown:  the habit of seeing fresh things without ill effects destroys this fear.  Children brought up in clean houses where there are no spiders are afraid of spiders, and this fear often lasts through life.  I never saw peasants, man, woman, or child, afraid of spiders.

Since the mere choice of things shown him may make the child timid or brave, why should not his education begin before he can speak or understand?  I would have him accustomed to see fresh things, ugly, repulsive, and strange beasts, but little by little, and far off till he is used to them, and till having seen others handle them he handles them himself.  If in childhood he sees toads, snakes, and crayfish, he will not be afraid of any animal when he is grown up.  Those who are continually seeing terrible things think nothing of them.

All children are afraid of masks.  I begin by showing Emile a mask with a pleasant face, then some one puts this mask before his face; I begin to laugh, they all laugh too, and the child with them.  By degrees I accustom him to less pleasing masks, and at last hideous ones.  If I have arranged my stages skilfully, far from being afraid of the last mask, he will laugh at it as he did at the first.  After that I am not afraid of people frightening him with masks.