consideration, the same kind confidence one shows to an adult.
It means not to influence the child to be what we ourselves
desire him to become but to be influenced by the impression of
what the child himself is; not to treat the child with
deception, or by the exercise of force, but with the
seriousness and sincerity proper to his own character.
Somewhere Rousseau says that all education has failed in that
nature does not fashion parents as educators nor children for
the sake of education. What would happen if we finally
succeeded in following the directions of nature, and recognised
that the great secret of education lies hidden in the maxim,
"do not educate"?

Not leaving the child in peace is the greatest evil of
present-day methods of training children. Education is
determined to create a beautiful world externally and
internally in which the child can grow. To let him move about
freely in this world until he comes into contact with the
permanent boundaries of another's right will be the end of the
education of the future. Only then will adults really obtain a
deep insight into the souls of children, now an almost
inaccessible kingdom. For it is a natural instinct of
self-preservation which causes the child to bar the educator
from his innermost nature. There is the person who asks rude
questions; for example, what is the child thinking about? a
question which almost invariably is answered with a black or a
white lie. The child must protect himself from an educator who
would master his thoughts and inclinations, or rudely handle
them, who without consideration betrays or makes ridiculous his
most sacred feelings, who exposes faults or praises