Regarding the first principle, he maintained that it is only in the will to use their intelligence that men differ. His own process, depending on the third principle, was to give a student learning a language for the first time a short passage of a few lines, and to encourage the pupil to study first the words, then the letters, then the grammar, then the meaning, until a single paragraph became the occasion for learning an entire literature. A book that he often used as a source material for learning was "Les Aventures de Télémaque". After the revolution of 1830 Jacotot returned to France, and he died in Paris on 30 July 1840.