It is not to be endured that man should become the slave of pain, disease, accident, the perils of life, or even death itself; the more familiar he becomes with these ideas the sooner he will be cured of that over-sensitiveness which adds to the pain by impatience in bearing it; the sooner he becomes used to the sufferings which may overtake him, the sooner he shall, as Montaigne has put it, rob those pains of the sting of unfamiliarity, and so make his soul strong and invulnerable; his body will be the coat of mail which stops all the darts which might otherwise find a vital part.  Even the approach of death, which is not death itself, will scarcely be felt as such; he will not die, he will be, so to speak, alive or dead and nothing more.  Montaigne might say of him as he did of a certain king of Morocco, “No man ever prolonged his life so far into death.”  A child serves his apprenticeship in courage and endurance as well as in other virtues; but you cannot teach children these virtues by name alone; they must learn them unconsciously through experience.

But speaking of death, what steps shall I take with regard to my pupil and the smallpox?  Shall he be inoculated in infancy, or shall I wait till he takes it in the natural course of things?  The former plan is more in accordance with our practice, for it preserves his life at a time when it is of greater value, at the cost of some danger when his life is of less worth; if indeed we can use the word danger with regard to inoculation when properly performed.

But the other plan is more in accordance with our general principles—­to leave nature to take the precautions she delights in, precautions she abandons whenever man interferes.  The natural man is always ready; let nature inoculate him herself, she will choose the fitting occasion better than we.

Do not think I am finding fault with inoculation, for my reasons for exempting my pupil from it do not in the least apply to yours.  Your training does not prepare them to escape catching smallpox as soon as they are exposed to infection.  If you let them take it anyhow, they will probably die.  I perceive that in different lands the resistance to inoculation is in proportion to the need for it; and the reason is plain.  So I scarcely condescend to discuss this question with regard to Emile.  He will be inoculated or not according to time, place, and circumstances; it is almost a matter of indifference, as far as he is concerned.  If it gives him smallpox, there will be the advantage of knowing what to expect, knowing what the disease is; that is a good thing, but if he catches it naturally it will have kept him out of the doctor’s hands, which is better.