That man is truly free who desires what he is able to perform, and
does what he desires. This is my fundamental maxim. Apply it to
childhood, and all the rules of education spring from it.

Society has enfeebled man, not merely by robbing him of the right
to his own strength, but still more by making his strength insufficient
for his needs. This is why his desires increase in proportion to
his weakness; and this is why the child is weaker than the man. If
a man is strong and a child is weak it is not because the strength
of the one is absolutely greater than the strength of the other,
but because the one can naturally provide for himself and the other
cannot. Thus the man will have more desires and the child more
caprices, a word which means, I take it, desires which are not true
needs, desires which can only be satisfied with the help of others.

I have already given the reason for this state of weakness. Parental
affection is nature's provision against it; but parental affection
may be carried to excess, it may be wanting, or it may be ill applied.
Parents who live under our ordinary social conditions bring their
child into these conditions too soon. By increasing his needs they
do not relieve his weakness; they rather increase it. They further
increase it by demanding of him what nature does not demand, by
subjecting to their will what little strength he has to further
his own wishes, by making slaves of themselves or of him instead
of recognising that mutual dependence which should result from his
weakness or their affection.

The wise man can keep his own place; but the child who does not
know what his place is, is unable to keep it. There are a thousand
ways out of it, and it is the business of those who have charge