path so faintly traced by reason that the best eyes can scarcely
follow it.

Therefore the education of the earliest years should be merely
negative. It consists, not in teaching virtue or truth, but in
preserving the heart from vice and from the spirit of error. If only
you could let well alone, and get others to follow your example;
if you could bring your scholar to the age of twelve strong and
healthy, but unable to tell his right hand from his left, the eyes
of his understanding would be open to reason as soon as you began
to teach him. Free from prejudices and free from habits, there
would be nothing in him to counteract the effects of your labours.
In your hands he would soon become the wisest of men; by doing
nothing to begin with, you would end with a prodigy of education.

Reverse the usual practice and you will almost always do right.
Fathers and teachers who want to make the child, not a child
but a man of learning, think it never too soon to scold, correct,
reprove, threaten, bribe, teach, and reason. Do better than they;
be reasonable, and do not reason with your pupil, more especially
do not try to make him approve what he dislikes; for if reason is
always connected with disagreeable matters, you make it distasteful
to him, you discredit it at an early age in a mind not yet ready
to understand it. Exercise his body, his limbs, his senses, his
strength, but keep his mind idle as long as you can. Distrust all
opinions which appear before the judgment to discriminate between
them. Restrain and ward off strange impressions; and to prevent
the birth of evil do not hasten to do well, for goodness is only
possible when enlightened by reason. Regard all delays as so much
time gained; you have achieved much, you approach the boundary