Often, books need not be used at all. One learns dancing by dancing; one learns to play the lute by playing the lute. The same is true of thinking, and indeed of living. Every experience can be a learning opportunity: ‘a page’s prank, a servant’s blunder, a remark at table’. The child should learn to question everything: to ‘pass everything through a sieve and lodge nothing in his head on mere authority and trust’. Travelling is useful; so is socialising, which teaches the child to be open to others and to adapt to anyone he finds around him. Eccentricities should be ironed out early, because
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