FIRST MAXIM.—Far from being too strong, children are not strong enough for all the claims of nature. Give… — Jean Jacques Rousseau
FIRST MAXIM.—Far from being too strong, children are not strong enough for all the claims of nature. Give them full use of such strength as they have; they will not abuse it.
SECOND MAXIM.—Help them and supply the experience and strength they lack whenever the need is of the body.
THIRD MAXIM.—In the help you give them confine yourself to what is really needful, without granting anything to caprice or unreason; for they will not be tormented by caprice if you do not call it into existence, seeing it is no part of nature.
FOURTH MAXIM—Study carefully their speech and gestures, so that at an age when they are incapable of deceit you may discriminate between those desires which come from nature and those which spring from perversity.
Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0
More from this book
Where is the man who owes nothing to the land in which he lives? Whatever that land may be, he owes to it the most precious thing possessed by man, the morality of his actions and the love of virtue.
Gluttony is the vice of feeble minds. The gourmand has his brains in his palate, he can do nothing but eat; he is so stupid and incapable that the table is the only place for him, and dishes are the only things he knows anything about. Let us leave him to this business without regret; it is better for him and for us.
Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.
