SECT. VI.
XXIV. The soul then, in the state of nonage, receiving impressions like wax, and retaining them like brass; I repeat once more, that the inspiring young people with wholesome maxims in their tender years, is a thing of the utmost importance. The method of education should be thus laid out: to begin with religion, to proceed next to ethics or morality, and to finish with politics. In these three parts, there is an admirable connection. Religion (which we don’t speak of here as a special virtue, but only with relation to the firm faith contained in it, and the truths it persuades) informs the understanding of the greatness and goodness of God, and disposes the heart to love him. Ethics, or moral instruction, directs all our actions, and causes them to conspire unanimously to promote this end, serving at the same time, as a vehicle to convey, and as an ultimate disposer to the practice of the most sound policy; or, to speak more properly, the morality of a King, with relation to his kingly office, is no other thing but policy itself, taken in general and comprehensive sense; because that consists, in a combination or assemblage of all those virtues, which conduce or lead to the exercise of good government.
XXV. The reading of good books is very useful, to instruct Princes in the maxims of sound policy. But which are the good books? I believe very few. Those which contain sound doctrine are infinite; but what signifies their informing, if they don’t stimulate or move? The most difficult part of morality, does not so much consist in coming at a knowledge of what is right, as in exciting and moving an effectual inclination to practise it. There are books of short sentences, and abounding with affectation, (in the stile of Seneca, which a certain Emperor called sand without lime) which tingle in the ear, but their echo never reaches the heart. There are others, filled with texts and pulpit conceits, which, instead of illustrating, confound, and instead of moving, become tiresome and surfeiting. There are others again, which abound with the sentences of Thucydides, Polybius, Tacitus, Livy, and Sallust, intermixed with a number of historical passages. I shall say of all these, as Apelles said of a pupil of his, who had painted Helen with very little beauty, but in a very costly dress stuck full of jewels: Cum non posses facere pulchram, fecisti divitem. As you was unable to make her handsome, you have made her rich. These forced and unnatural ornaments, with which erudition in the books that treat of it, dress virtue, do not conduce to fire the minds of those who read them, with the love of her. He only will accomplish this end, who has the art of painting in lively colours her native beauty; and who has the address and genius, to impress on the understanding, a clear and agreeable idea, of the magnificence of her charms.
XXVI. But better than the best books, is good conversation. The instruction which is communicated by means of the voice, is natural, that which is conveyed by writing, is artificial; the one is animated, the other dead; consequently, the first will be efficacious and active, the second languid and faint. The tongue writes on the soul, as the hand on paper. That which we hear, is conveyed to us immediately and in the first instance, from the mind of him from whom the instruction proceeds; that which we read, is the copy of a copy. If princes in their childhood, were daily attended by discreet and good-intentioned people, who under the colour of amusing and entertaining them, were to instruct them; any one might venture to be bound, for their future good behaviour and wise conduct. The learning insinuates itself deepest, which is conveyed under the veil of diversion; and as that nourishes the body best, which we eat with desire and an appetite, so that which we listen to with delight, is most improving to the soul. The word instruction is unpleasing to children, therefore it is necessary as far as we are able, to take away the name, and leave or preserve the substance of the thing; and this is much more necessary to be done in the case of Princes, because from their early time of life, either their own vanity, or the flattery of other people, inspires them with a notion, that persons of their rank and station have no need of learning. The rules of equity and civil jurisprudence, conveyed under the disguise of engaging and entertaining relations of the conduct and management of just Princes, who by acting well, attained the accomplishment of all their wishes with respect to foreign concerns, and acquired the adoration of their own subjects at home, and the admiration of all strangers; I say, if improvement was insinuated into them in this way, by some person whose conversation was pleasing to them, and who had the address to introduce it, not as if he was instructing, but entertaining, them; it would be the best method of ingrafting in their minds, plants of the choicest quality, from whence in time you might expect to gather excellent fruit. For this reason, the wise Bishop of Cambray composed for the education of the Duke of Burgundy, whose preceptor he was, a collection of pleasing fables, in the stile and manner of such tales, with which old women are accustomed to entertain children, and which children for their amusement are used to relate to one another; in these, he in natural and easy language, suited to their capacities and comprehensions, conveyed all the precepts which compose the most Christian policy.