Whatever
regarded the health, strength, and agility of my son had amply
justified the system of my master; but I found myself entangled in
difficulties with regard to my child's mind and temper. He was
generous, brave, good-natured, and what is commonly called
goodtempered; but he was scarcely to be controlled. It was difficult
to urge him to anything that did not suit his fancy, and more
difficult to restrain him from what he wished to follow. In short,
he was self-willed, from a spirit of independence, which had been
inculcated by his early education, and which he cherished the more
from the inexperience of his own powers.
'I must here acknowledge, with deep regret, not only the error of a
theory, which I had adopted at a very early age, when older and
wiser persons than myself had been dazzled by the eloquence of
Rousseau; but I must also reproach myself with not having, after my
arrival in France, paid as much attention to my boy as I had done
in England, or as much as was necessary to prevent the formation of
those habits, which could never afterwards be eradicated.
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