as haughty or even more haughty in their entreaties than in their
commands, as though they were more certain to be obeyed. You see
at once that "If you please" means "It pleases me," and "I beg"
means "I command." What a fine sort of politeness which only succeeds
in changing the meaning of words so that every word is a command!
For my own part, I would rather Emile were rude than haughty, that
he should say "Do this" as a request, rather than "Please" as a
command. What concerns me is his meaning, not his words.

There is such a thing as excessive severity as well as excessive
indulgence, and both alike should be avoided. If you let children
suffer you risk their health and life; you make them miserable now;
if you take too much pains to spare them every kind of uneasiness
you are laying up much misery for them in the future; you are making
them delicate and over-sensitive; you are taking them out of their
place among men, a place to which they must sooner or later return,
in spite of all your pains. You will say I am falling into the
same mistake as those bad fathers whom I blamed for sacrificing the
present happiness of their children to a future which may never be
theirs.

Not so; for the liberty I give my pupil makes up for the slight
hardships to which he is exposed. I see little fellows playing in
the snow, stiff and blue with cold, scarcely able to stir a finger.
They could go and warm themselves if they chose, but they do not
choose; if you forced them to come in they would feel the harshness
of constraint a hundredfold more than the sharpness of the cold. Then
what becomes of your grievance? Shall I make your child miserable
by exposing him to hardships which he is perfectly ready to endure? I
secure his present good by leaving him his freedom, and his future