Note 155 — XVI. PESTALOZZI. 1746-1827.
Reading edition
One of these I have already given (supra p. 292). I will give another, not as by any means one of the best, but as a fit companion to Rousseau’s “two dogs.”
“26. The two colts.
“Two colts as like as two eggs, fell into different hands. One was bought by a peasant whose only thought was to harness it to his plough as soon as possible: this one turned out a bad horse. The other fell to the lot of a man who by looking after it well and training it carefully, made a noble steed of it, strong and mettlesome. Fathers and mothers, if your children’s faculties are not carefully trained and directed right, they will become not only useless, but hurtful; and the greater the faculties the greater the danger.”
Compare Rousseau: “Just look at those two dogs; they are of the same litter, they have been brought up and treated precisely alike, they have never been separated; and yet one of them is sharp, lively, affectionate, and very intelligent: the other is dull, lumpish, surly, and nobody could ever teach him anything. Simply a difference of temperament has produced in them a difference of character, just as a simple difference of our interior organisation produces in us a difference of mind.” N. Héloise. 5me P. Lettre iii.