Emile, or On Education

The internal development of our faculties and our organs is the education of nature; the use that we are taught to make of this development is the education of men; and the acquisition of our own experience regarding the objects that affect us is the education of things.

Each of us is therefore formed by three kinds of masters. The pupil in whom their diverse lessons conflict is poorly raised and will never be in agreement with himself: the one in whom they all fall upon the same points and tend toward the same ends travels alone toward his goal and lives consistently; he alone is well raised.

Now, of these three different educations, that of nature does not depend on us at all; that of things depends on us only in certain respects; that of men is the only one of which we are truly the masters, and even then we are only so by supposition, for who can hope to direct entirely the discourses and actions of all those who surround a child?

As soon as education is an art, it is almost impossible for it to succeed, since the cooperation necessary for its success depends on no one. Everything