Note 2 — Chapter VI · THE PUPIL TEACHER: AVIGNON (1841–43)

And the oxygen? There was no more question, I need hardly say, of that. The feast of learning was over. Never mind: the disastrous lesson was a mighty event for me. I had been inside the chemist’s laboratory; I had had a glimpse of those wonderful jars and tubes. In teaching what matters most is not the thing taught, whether well or badly grasped: it is the stimulus given to the pupil’s latent aptitudes; it is the fulminate awaking the slumbering explosives. One day, I shall obtain on my own account that oxygen which ill-luck has denied me; one day, without a master, I shall yet learn chemistry. I do not recommend that method to anybody. Happy the man who is guided by a master’s word and example! He has a smooth and easy road before him, lying straight ahead. The other follows a rugged path, in which his feet often stumble; he goes groping into the unknown and loses his way. To recover the right road, if want of success have not discouraged him, he can rely only on perseverance, the sole compass of the poor.2