common to those who announce loudly that education should only
develop the real individual nature of the child.

They are still not convinced that egoism on the part of the
child is justified. Just as little are they convinced of the
possibility that evil can be changed into good.

Education must be based on the certainty that faults cannot be
atoned for, or blotted out, but must always have their
consequences. At the same time, there is the other certainty
that through progressive evolution, by slow adaptation to the
conditions of environment they may be transformed. Only when
this stage is reached will education begin to be a science and
art. We will then give up all belief in the miraculous effects
of sudden interference; we shall act in the psychological
sphere in accordance with the principle of the
indestructibility of matter. We shall never believe that a
characteristic of the soul can be destroyed. There are but two
possibilities. Either it can be brought into subjection or it
can be raised up to a higher plane.

Madame de Stael's words show much insight when she says that
only the people who can play with children are able to educate
them. For success in training children the first condition is
to become as a child oneself, but this means no assumed
childishness, no condescending baby-talk that the child
immediately sees through and deeply abhors. What it does mean
is to be as entirely and simply taken up with the child as the
child himself is absorbed by his life. It means to treat the
child as really one's equal, that is, to show him the same