used their wings. Living and feeling creatures are always learning.
If plants could walk they would 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