The self-conscious fuss of their pedagogy is half-redeemed by the unconscious grace which called a school not a seed-plot of citizens, but merely a garden of children.

All the first and best forest-spirit is infancy, its wonder, its wilfulness, even its still innocent fear.
Carlyle marks exactly the moment when the German child becomes the spoilt child.

The wonder turns to mere mysticism; and mere mysticism always turns to mere immoralism.

The wilfulness is no longer liked, but is actually obeyed.

The fear becomes a philosophy.