live; our education begins with ourselves, our first teacher is
our nurse. The ancients used the word "Education" in a different
sense, it meant "Nurture." "Educit obstetrix," says Varro. "Educat
nutrix, instituit paedagogus, docet magister." Thus, education,
discipline, and instruction are three things as different in
their purpose as the dame, the usher, and the teacher. But these
distinctions are undesirable and the child should only follow one
guide.

We must therefore look at the general rather than the particular,
and consider our scholar as man in the abstract, man exposed to all
the changes and chances of mortal life. If men were born attached
to the soil of our country, if one season lasted all the year round,
if every man's fortune were so firmly grasped that he could never
lose it, then the established method of education would have
certain advantages; the child brought up to his own calling would
never leave it, he could never have to face the difficulties of
any other condition. But when we consider the fleeting nature of
human affairs, the restless and uneasy spirit of our times, when
every generation overturns the work of its predecessor, can we
conceive a more senseless plan than to educate a child as if he
would never leave his room, as if he would always have his servants
about him? If the wretched creature takes a single step up or down
he is lost. This is not teaching him to bear pain; it is training
him to feel it.

People think only of preserving their child's life; this is not
enough, he must be taught to preserve his own life when he is a
man, to bear the buffets of fortune, to brave wealth and poverty,
to live at need among the snows of Iceland or on the scorching rocks