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Children should be kept from all kinds of instruction that may make
errors possible until their sixteenth year, that is to say, from
philosophy, religion, and general views of every description; because it
is the errors that are acquired in early days that remain, as a rule,
ineradicable, and because the faculty of judgment is the last to arrive
at maturity. They should only be interested in such things that make
errors impossible, such as mathematics, in things which are not very
dangerous, such as languages, natural science, history, and so forth; in
general, the branches of knowledge which are to be taken up at any age
must be within reach of the intellect at that age and perfectly
comprehensible to it. Childhood and youth are the time for collecting
data and getting to know specially and thoroughly individual and
particular things. On the other hand, all judgment of a general nature
must at that time be suspended, and final explanations left alone. One
should leave the faculty of judgment alone, as it only comes with
maturity and experience, and also take care that one does not anticipate
it by inculcating prejudice, when it will be crippled for ever.

On the contrary, the memory is to be specially exercised, as it has its
greatest strength and tenacity in youth; however, what has to be
retained must be chosen with the most careful and scrupulous
consideration. For as it is what we have learnt well in our youth that
lasts, we should take the greatest possible advantage of this precious
gift. If we picture to ourselves how deeply engraven on our memory the
people are whom we knew during the first twelve years of our life, and
how indelibly imprinted are also the events of that time, and most of
the things that we then experienced, heard, or learnt, the idea of
basing education on this susceptibility and tenacity of the youthful