FOOTNOTES:

[60] Fustel de Coulanges, La Cité antique, p. 476.

[61] See the Homily of Saint Basil On the Utility which the young can derive from the reading of profane authors.

[62] Letter to Læta on the education of her daughter Paula (403). Letter to Gaudentius on the education of the little Pacatula. The letter to Gaudentius is far inferior to the other by reason of the perpetual digressions into which the author permits himself to be drawn.

[63] For writing, Saint Jerome, like Quintilian, recommends that children first practise on tablets of wood on which letters have been engraved.

[64] Écolâtre. The history of this word, as given by Littré, is instructive. “There was no cathedral church (sixteenth century) in which a sum was not appropriated for the salary of one who taught the ordinary subjects, and another for one who had leisure for teaching Theology. The first was called escolastre (écolâtre), the second theologal.” Pasquier. (P.)

[65] For other examples, see the Life of Alcuin, by Lorenz; and for Middle Age education in general, consult Christian Schools and Scholars, by Augusta Theodosia Drane. (P.)

[66] The following quotation illustrates this servile dependence on authority:

“At the time when the discovery of spots on the sun first began to circulate, a student called the attention of his old professor to the rumor, and received the following reply: ‘There can be no spots on the sun, for I have read Aristotle twice from beginning to end, and he says the sun is incorruptible. Clean your lenses, and if the spots are not in the telescope, they must be in your eyes!’” Naville, La Logique de l’Hypothèse. (P.)

[67] This is no exception to the rule that the education of an age is the exponent of its real or supposed needs. (P.)

[68] Monteil, Histoire des Français des divers états.

[69] Cambridge (1109), Oxford (1140).

[70] In the Traité de la visite des diocèses, in 1400, he directed the bishops to inquire whether each parish had a school, and, in case there were none, to establish one.

[CHAPTER V.]
THE RENAISSANCE AND THE THEORIES OF EDUCATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EDUCATION OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY; CAUSES OF THE RENAISSANCE IN EDUCATION; THE THEORY AND THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY; ERASMUS (1467-1536); EDUCATION OF ERASMUS; THE JEROMITES; PEDAGOGICAL WORKS OF ERASMUS; JUVENILE ETIQUETTE; EARLY EDUCATION; THE INSTRUCTION OF WOMEN; RABELAIS (1483-1553); CRITICISM OF THE OLD EDUCATION; GARGANTUA AND EUDEMON; THE NEW EDUCATION; PHYSICAL EDUCATION; INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION; THE PHYSICAL AND NATURAL SCIENCES; OBJECT LESSONS; ATTRACTIVE METHODS; RELIGIOUS EDUCATION; MORAL EDUCATION; MONTAIGNE (1533-1592) AND RABELAIS; THE PERSONAL EDUCATION OF MONTAIGNE; EDUCATION SHOULD BE GENERAL; THE PURPOSE OF INSTRUCTION; EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT; EDUCATIONAL METHODS; STUDIES RECOMMENDED; MONTAIGNE’S ERRORS; INCOMPLETENESS OF HIS VIEWS ON THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN; ANALYTICAL SUMMARY.

92. General Characteristics of the Education of the Sixteenth Century.—Modern education begins with the Renaissance. The educational methods that we then begin to discern will doubtless not be developed and perfected till a later period; the new doctrines will pass into practice only gradually, and with the general progress of the times. But from the sixteenth century education is in possession of its essential principles. The education of the Middle Age, over-rigid and repressive, which condemned the body to a régime too severe, and the mind to a discipline too narrow, is to be succeeded, at least in theory, by an education broader and more liberal; which will give due attention to hygiene and physical exercises; which will enfranchise the intelligence, hitherto the prisoner of the syllogism; which will call into play the moral forces, instead of repressing them; which will substitute real studies for the verbal subtilties of dialectics; which will give the preference to things over words; which, finally, instead of developing but a single faculty, the reason, and instead of reducing man to a sort of dialectic automaton, will seek to develop the whole man, mind and body, taste and knowledge, heart and will.

93. Causes of the Renaissance in Education.—The men of the sixteenth century having renewed with classical antiquity an intercourse that had been too long interrupted, it was natural that they should propose to the young the study of the Greeks and the Romans. What is called secondary instruction really dates from the sixteenth century. The crude works of the Middle Age are succeeded by the elegant compositions of Athens and Rome, henceforth made accessible to all through the art of printing; and, with the reading of the ancient authors, there reappear through the fruitful effect of imitation, their qualities of correctness in thought, of literary taste, and of elegance in form. In France, as in Italy, the national tongues, moulded, and, as it were, consecrated by writers of genius, become the instruments of an intellectual propaganda. Artistic taste, revived by the rich products of a race of incomparable artists, gives an extension to the horizon of life, and creates a new class of emotions. Finally, the Protestant Reform develops individual thought and free inquiry, and at the same time, by its success, it imposes still greater efforts on the Catholic Church.

This is not saying that everything is faultless in the educational efforts of the sixteenth century. First, as is natural for innovators, the thought of the teachers of this period is marked by enthusiasm rather than by precision. They are more zealous in pointing out the end to be attained, than exact in determining the means to be employed. Besides, some of them are content to emancipate the mind, but forget to give it proper direction. Finally, others make a wrong use of the ancients; they are too much preoccupied with the form and the purity of language; they fall into Ciceromania, and it is not their fault if a new superstition, that of rhetoric, does not succeed the old superstition, that of the syllogism.

94. The Theory and the Practice of Education in the Sixteenth Century.—In the history of education in the sixteenth century, we must, moreover, carefully distinguish the theory from the practice. The theory of education is already boldly put forward, and is in advance of its age; while the practice is still dragging itself painfully along on the beaten road, notwithstanding some successful attempts at improvement.

The theory we must look for in the works of Erasmus, Rabelais, and Montaigne, of whom it may be said, that before pretending to surpass them, even at this day, we should rather attempt to overtake them, and to equal them in the most of their pedagogical precepts.

The practice is, first, the development of the study of the humanities, particularly in the early colleges of the Jesuits, and, before the Jesuits, in certain Protestant colleges, particularly in the college at Strasburg, so brilliantly administered by the celebrated Sturm (1507-1589). Then it is the revival of higher instruction, denoted particularly by the foundation of the College of France (1530), and by the brilliant lectures of Ramus. Finally, it is the progress, we might almost say the birth, of primary instruction, through the efforts of the Protestant reformers, and especially of Luther.

Nevertheless, the educational thought of the sixteenth century is in advance of educational practice; theories greatly anticipate applications, and constitute almost all that is deserving of special note.

95. Erasmus (1467-1536).—By his numerous writings, translations, grammars, dictionaries, and original works, Erasmus diffused about him his own passionate fondness for classical literature, and communicated this taste to his contemporaries. Without having a direct influence on education, since he scarcely taught himself, he encouraged the study of the ancients by his example, and by his active propagandism. The scholar who said, “When I have money, I will first buy Greek books and then clothes,” deserves to be placed in the first rank among the creators of secondary instruction.

96. The Education of Erasmus: the Jeromites.—Erasmus was educated by the monks, as Voltaire was by the Jesuits, a circumstance that has cost these liberal thinkers none of their independent disposition, and none of their satirical spirit. At the age of twelve, Erasmus entered the college of Deventer, in Holland. This college was conducted by the Jeromites, or Brethren of the Common Life. Founded in 1340 by Gerard Groot, the association of the Jeromites undertook, among other occupations, the instruction of children. Very mystical, and very ascetic at first, the disciples of Gerard Groot restricted themselves to teaching the Bible, to reading, and writing. They proscribed, as useless to piety, letters and the sciences. But in the fifteenth century, under the influence of John of Wessel and Rudolph Agricola, the Jeromites became transformed; they were the precursors of the Renaissance, and the promoters of the alliance between profane letters and Christianity. “We may read Ovid once,” said John of Wessel, “but we ought to read Virgil, Horace, and Terence, with more attention.” Horace and Terence were precisely the favorite authors of Erasmus, who learned them by heart at Deventer. Agricola, of whom Erasmus speaks only with enthusiasm, was also the zealous propagator of the great works of antiquity, and, at the same time, the severe critic of the state of educational practice of the time when the school was too much like a prison.

“If there is anything which has a contradictory name,” he said, “it is the school. The Greeks called it σχολὴ, which means leisure, recreation; and the Latins, ludus, that is, play. But there is nothing farther removed from recreation and play. Aristophanes called it φροντιστήριον, that is, place of care, of torment, and this is surely the designation which best befits it.”

Erasmus then had for his first teachers enlightened men, who, notwithstanding their monastic condition, both knew and loved antiquity. But, as a matter of fact, Erasmus was his own teacher. By personal effort he put himself at the school of the ancients. He was all his life a student. Now he was a foundation scholar at the college of Montaigu, in Paris, and now preceptor to gentlemen of wealth. He was always in pursuit of learning, going over the whole of Europe, that he might find in each cultivated city new opportunities for self-instruction.

97. Pedagogical Works of Erasmus.—Most of the works written by Erasmus relate to instruction. Some of them are fairly to be classed as text-books, elementary treatises on practical education, as, for example, his books On the Manner of writing Letters, Upon Rules of Etiquette for the Young, etc. We may also notice his Adages, a vast repertory of proverbs and maxims borrowed from antiquity; his Colloquies, a collection of dialogues for the use of the young, though the author here treats of many things which a pupil should never hear spoken of. Another category should include works of a more theoretical character, in which Erasmus sets forth his ideas on education. In the essay On the Order of Study (de Ratione Studii), he seeks out the rules for instruction in literature, for the study of grammar, for the cultivation of the memory, and for the explication of the Greek and Latin authors. Another treatise, entitled Of the First Liberal Education of Children (De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis), is still more important, and covers the whole field of education. Erasmus here studies the character of the child, the question of knowing whether the first years of child-life can be turned to good account, and the measures that are to be taken with early life. He also recommends methods that are attractive, and heartily condemns the barbarous discipline which reigned in the schools of his time.

98. Juvenile Etiquette.—Erasmus is one of the first educators who comprehended the importance of politeness. In an age still uncouth, where the manners of even the cultivated classes tolerated usages that the most ignorant rustic of to-day would scorn, it was good to call the attention to outward appearances and the duties of politeness. Erasmus knew perfectly well that politeness has a moral side, that it is not a matter of pure convention, but that it proceeds from the inner disposition of a well-ordered soul. So he assigns it an important place in education:

“The duty of instructing the young,” he says, “includes several elements, the first and also the chief of which is, that the tender mind of the child should be instructed in piety; the second, that he love and learn the liberal arts; the third, that he be taught tact in the conduct of social life; and the fourth, that from his earliest age he accustom himself to good behavior, based on moral principles.”

We need not be astonished, however, to find that the civility of Erasmus is still imperfect, now too free, now too exacting, and always ingenuous. “It is a religious duty,” he says, “to salute him who sneezes.” “Morally speaking, it is not a proper thing to throw the head back while drinking, after the manner of storks, in order to drain the last drop from the glass.” “If one let bread fall on the ground, he should kiss it after having picked it up.” On the other hand, Erasmus seems to allow that the nose may be wiped with the fingers, but he forbids the use of the cap or the sleeve for this purpose. He requires that the face shall be bathed with pure water in the morning; “but,” he adds, “to repeat this afterwards is nonsense.”

99. Early Education.—Like Quintilian, by whom he is often inspired, Erasmus does not scorn to enter the primary school, and to shape the first exercises for intellectual culture. Upon many points, the thought of the sixteenth century scholar is but an echo of the Institutes of Oratory, or of the educational essays of Plutarch. Some of his maxims deserve to be reproduced: “We learn with great willingness from those whom we love;” “Parents themselves cannot properly bring up their children if they make themselves only to be feared;” “There are children who would be killed sooner than made better by blows: by mildness and kind admonitions, one may make of them whatever he will;” “Children will learn to speak their native tongue without any weariness, by usage and practice;” “Drill in reading and writing is a little bit tiresome, and the teacher will ingeniously palliate the tedium by the artifice of an attractive method;” “The ancients moulded toothsome dainties into the forms of the letters, and thus, as it were, made children swallow the alphabet;” “In the matter of grammatical rules, instruction should at the first be limited to the most simple;” “As the body in infant years is nourished by little portions distributed at intervals, so should the mind of the child be nurtured by items of knowledge adapted to its weakness, and distributed little by little.”

From out these quotations there appears a method of instruction that is kindly, lovable, and full of tenderness for the young. Erasmus claims for them the nourishing care and caresses of the mother, the familiarity and goodness of the father, cleanliness, and even elegance in the school, and finally, the mildness and indulgence of the teacher.

100. The Instruction of Women.—The scholars of the Renaissance did not exclude women from all participation in the literary treasures that a recovered antiquity had disclosed to themselves. Erasmus admits them to an equal share.

In the Colloquy of the Abbé and the Educated Woman, Magdala claims for herself the right to learn Latin, “so that she may hold converse each day with so many authors who are so eloquent, so instructive, so wise, and such good counsellors.” In the book called Christian Marriage, Erasmus banters young ladies who learn only to make a bow, to hold the hands crossed, to bite their lips when they laugh, to eat and drink as little as possible at table, after having taken ample portions in private. More ambitious for the wife, Erasmus recommends her to pursue the studies which will assist her in educating her own children, and in taking part in the intellectual life of her husband.

Vives, a contemporary of Erasmus (1492-1540), a Spanish teacher, expressed analogous ideas in his books on the education of women, in which he recommends young women to read Plato and Seneca.

To sum up, the pedagogy of Erasmus is not without value; but with him, education ran the risk of remaining exclusively Greek and Latin. A humanist above everything else, he granted but very small place to the sciences, and to history, which it sufficed to skim over, as he said; and, what reveals his inmost nature, he recommended the study of the physical sciences for this reason in particular, that the writer will find in the knowledge of nature an abundant source of metaphors, images, and comparisons.

101. Rabelais (1483-1553).—Wholly different is the spirit of Rabelais, who, under a fanciful and original form, has sketched a complete system of education. Some pages of marked gravity in the midst of the epic vagabondage of his burlesque work, give him the right to appear in the first rank among those who have reformed the art of training and developing the human soul.[71]

The pedagogy of Rabelais is the first appearance of what may be called realism in instruction, in distinction from the scholastic formalism. The author of Gargantua turns the mind of the young man towards objects truly worthy of occupying his attention. He catches a glimpse of the future reserved to scientific education, and to the study of nature. He invites the mind, not to the labored subtilties and complicated tricks which scholasticism had brought into fashion, but to manly efforts, and to a wide unfolding of human nature.

102. Criticism of the Old Education: Gargantua and Eudemon.—In the manners of the sixteenth century, the keen satire of Rabelais found many opportunities for disporting itself; and his book may be regarded as a collection of pamphlets. But there is nothing that he has pursued with more sarcasms than the education of his day.

At the outset, Gargantua is educated according to the scholastic methods. He works for twenty years with all his might, and learns so perfectly the books that he studies that he can recite them by heart, backwards and forwards, “and yet his father discovered that all this profited him nothing; and what is worse, that it made him a madcap, a ninny, dreamy, and infatuated.”

To that unintelligent and artificial training which surcharges the memory, which holds the pupil for long years over insipid books, which robs the mind of all independent activity, which dulls rather than sharpens the intelligence,—to all this Rabelais opposes a natural education, which appeals to experience and to facts, which trains the young man, not only for the discussions of the schools, but for real life, and for intercourse with the world, and which, finally, enriches the intelligence and adorns the memory without stifling the native graces and the free activities of the spirit.

Eudemon, who, in Rabelais’ romance, represents the pupil trained by the new methods, knows how to think with accuracy and speak with facility; his bearing is without boldness, but with confidence. When introduced to Gargantua, he turns towards him, “cap in hand, with open countenance, ruddy lips, steady eyes, and with modesty becoming a youth”; he salutes him elegantly and graciously. To all the pleasant things which Eudemon says to him, Gargantua finds nothing to say in reply: “His countenance appeared as though he had taken to crying immoderately; he hid his face in his cap, and not a single word could be drawn from him.”

In these two pupils, so different in manner, Rabelais has personified two contrasted methods of education: that which, by mechanical exercises of memory, enfeebles and dulls the intelligence; and that which, with larger grants of liberty, develops keen intelligences, and frank and open characters.

103. The New Education.—Let us now notice with some detail how Rabelais conceives this new education.[72] After having thrown into sharp relief the faults contracted by Gargantua in the school of his first teachers, he entrusts him to a preceptor, Ponocrates, who is charged with correcting his faults, and with re-moulding him; he is to employ his own principles in the government of his pupil.

Ponocrates proceeds slowly at first; he considers that “nature does not endure sudden changes without great violence.” He studies and observes his pupil; he wishes to judge of his natural disposition. Then he sets himself to work; he undertakes a general recasting of the character and spirit of Gargantua, while directing, at the same time, his physical, intellectual, and moral education.

104. Physical Education.—Hygiene and gymnastics, cleanliness which protects the body, and exercise which strengthens it,—these two essential parts of physical education receive equal attention from Rabelais. Erasmus thought it was nonsense (“ne rime à rien”) to wash more than once a day. Gargantua, on the contrary, after eating, bathes his hands and his eyes in fresh water. Rabelais does not forget that he has been a physician; he omits no detail relative to the care of the body, even the most repugnant. He is far from believing, with the mystics of the Middle Age, that it is permissible to lodge knowledge in a sordid body, and that a foul or neglected exterior is not unbefitting virtuous souls. The first preceptors of Gargantua said that it sufficed to comb one’s hair “with the four fingers and the thumb; and that whoever combed, washed, and cleansed himself otherwise, was losing his time in this world.” With Ponocrates, Gargantua reforms his habits, and tries to resemble Eudemon, “whose hair was so neatly combed, who was so well dressed, of such fine appearance, and was so modest in his bearing, that he much more resembled a little angel than a man.”

Rabelais attaches equal importance to gymnastics, to walking, and to active life in the open air. He does not allow Gargantua to grow pale over his books, and to protract his study into the night. After the morning’s lessons, he takes him out to play. Tennis and ball follow the application to books: “He exercises his body just as vigorously as he had before exercised his mind.” And so, after the study of the afternoon till the supper hour, Gargantua devotes his time to physical exercises. Riding, wrestling, swimming, every species of physical recreation, gymnastics under all its forms,—there is nothing which Gargantua does not do to give agility to his limbs and to strengthen his muscles. Here, as in other places, Rabelais stretches a point, and purposely resorts to exaggeration in order to make his thought better comprehended. It would require days of several times twenty-four hours, in order that a real man could find the time to do all that the author of Gargantua requires of his giant. In contrast with the long asceticism of the Middle Age, he proposes a real revelry of gymnastics for the colossal body of his hero. We will not forget that here, as in all the other parts of Rabelais’ work, fiction is ever mingled with fact. Rabelais wrote for giants, and it is natural that he should demand gigantesque efforts of them. In order to comprehend the exact thought of the author, it is necessary to reduce his fantastic exaggerations to human proportions.

105. Intellectual Education.—For the mind, as for the body, Rabelais requires prodigies of activity. Gargantua rises at four in the morning, and the greater part of the long day is filled with study. For the indolent contemplations of the Middle Age, Rabelais substitutes an incessant effort and an intense activity of the mind. Gargantua first studies the ancient languages, and the first place is given to Greek, which Rabelais rescues from the long discredit into which it had fallen in the Middle Age, as is proved by the vulgar adage, “Græcum est, non legitur.”

“Now, all disciplines are restored, and the languages reinstated,—Greek (without which it is a shame for a person to call himself learned), Hebrew, Chaldean, Latin. There are very elegant and correct editions in use, which have been invented in my age by divine inspiration, as, on the other hand, artillery was invented by diabolic suggestion. The whole world is full of wise men, of learned teachers, and of very large libraries, and it is my opinion that neither in the time of Plato nor in that of Cicero, nor in that of Papinian, were there such opportunities for study as we see to-day.”

Like all his contemporaries, Rabelais is an enthusiast in classical learning; but he is distinguished from them by a very decided taste for the sciences, and in particular for the natural sciences.

106. The Physical and Natural Sciences.—The Middle Age had completely neglected the study of nature. The art of observing was ignored by those subtile dialecticians, who would know nothing of the physical world except through the theories of Aristotle or the dogmas of the sacred books; who attached no value to the study of the material universe, the transient and despised abode of immortal souls; and who, moreover, flattered themselves that they could discover at the end of their syllogisms all that was necessary to know about it. Rabelais is certainly the first, in point of time, of that grand school of educators who place the sciences in the first rank among the studies worthy of human thought.

The scholar of the Middle Age knew nothing of the world. Gargantua requires of his son that he shall know it under all its aspects:

“As to the knowledge of the facts of nature,” he writes to Pantagruel, “I would have you devote yourself to them with great care, so that there shall be neither sea, river, nor fountain, whose fish you do not know. All the birds of the air, all the trees, shrubs, and fruits of the forests, all the grasses of the earth, all the metals concealed in the depths of the abysses, the precious stones of the entire East and South,—none of these should be unknown to you. By frequent dissections, acquire a knowledge of the other world, which is man. In a word, I point out a new world of knowledge.”

Nothing is omitted, it is observed, from what constitutes the science of the universe or the knowledge of man.

It is further to be noticed, that Rabelais wishes his pupil not only to know, but to love and experience nature. He recommends his pupils to go and read the Georgics of Virgil in the midst of meadows and woods. The precursor of Rousseau on this point as upon some others, he thinks there is a gain in spiritual health by refreshing the imagination and giving repose to the spirit, through the contemplation of the beauties of nature.

Ponocrates, in order to afford Gargantua distraction from his extreme attention to study, recommended once each month some very clear and serene day, on which they set out at an early hour from the city, and went to Chantilly, or Boulogne, or Montrouge, or Pont Charenton, or Vannes, or Saint Cloud. And there they passed the whole day in playing, singing, dancing, frolicking in some fine meadow, hunting for sparrows, collecting pebbles, fishing for frogs and crabs.[73]

107. Object Lessons.—In the scheme of studies planned by Rabelais, the mind of the pupil is always on the alert, even at table. There, instruction takes place while talking. The conversation bears upon the food, upon the objects which attract the attention of Gargantua, upon the nature and properties of water, wine, bread, and salt. Every sensible object becomes material for questions and explanations. Gargantua often takes walks across fields, and he studies botany in the open country, “passing through meadows or other grassy places, observing trees and plants, comparing them with ancient books where they are described, ... and taking handfuls of them home.” There are but few didactic lessons; intuitive instruction, given in the presence of the objects themselves, such is the method of Rabelais. It is in the same spirit that he sends his pupil to visit the stores of the silversmiths, the founderies, the alchemists’ laboratories, and shops of all kinds,—real scientific excursions, such as are in vogue to-day. Rabelais would form a complete man, skilled in art and industry, and also capable, like the Émile of Rousseau, of devoting himself to manual labor. When the weather is rainy, and walking impracticable, Gargantua employs his time in splitting and sawing wood, and in threshing grain in the barn.

108. Attractive Methods.—By a reaction against the irksome routine of the Middle Age, Rabelais would have his pupil study while playing, and even learn mathematics “through recreation and amusement.” It is in handling playing-cards that Gargantua is taught thousands of “new inventions which relate to the science of numbers.” The same course is followed in geometry and astronomy. The accomplishments are not neglected, especially fencing. Gargantua is an enormous man, who is to be developed in all directions. The fine arts, music, painting, and sculpture, are not strangers to him. The hero of Rabelais represents, not so much an individual man, as a collective being who personifies the whole of society, with all the variety of its new aspirations, and with all the intensity of its multiplied needs. While the Middle Age, through a narrow spirit, left in inaction certain natural tendencies, Rabelais calls them all into life, without choice, it is true, and without discrimination, with the whole ardor of an emancipated imagination.

109. Religious Education.—In respect of religion as of everything else, Rabelais is the adversary of an education wholly exterior and of pure form. He ridicules his Gargantua, who, before his intellectual conversion, when he was still at the school of “his preceptors, the sophists,” goes to church, after a hearty dinner, to hear twenty-six or thirty masses. What he substitutes for this exterior devotion, for this abuse of superficial practices, is a real feeling of piety, and the direct reading of the sacred texts: “It is while Gargantua was being dressed that there was read to him a page of Divine Scripture.”[74] Still more, it is the intimate and personal adoration “of the great psalmodist of the universe,” excited by the study of the works of God. Gargantua and his master, Ponocrates, have scarcely risen when they observe the state of the heavens, and admire the celestial vault. In the evening they devote themselves to the same contemplation. After his meals, as before going to sleep, Gargantua offers prayers to God, to adore Him, to confirm his faith, to glorify Him for His boundless goodness, to thank Him for all the time past, and to recommend himself to Him for the time to come. The religious feeling of Rabelais proceeds at the same time, both from the sentiment which provoked the Protestant Reformation, of which he came near being an adherent, and from tendencies still more modern,—those, for example, which animate the deistic philosophy of Rousseau.

110. Moral Education.—Those who know Rabelais only by reputation, or through some of his innumerable drolleries, will perhaps be astonished that the jovial author can be counted a teacher of morals. It is impossible, however, to misunderstand the sincere and lofty inspiration of such passages as this:

“Because, according to the wise Solomon, wisdom does not enter into a malevolent soul, and knowledge without conscience is but the ruin of the soul; it becomes you to serve, to love, and to fear God, and to place on Him all your thoughts, all your hopes.... Be suspicious of the errors of the world. Apply not your heart to vanity, for this life is transitory; but the word of God endures forever. Be useful to all your neighbors, and love them as yourself. Revere your teachers, flee the company of men whom you would not resemble; and the grace which God has given you receive not in vain. And when you think you have all the knowledge that can be acquired by this means, return to me, so that I may see you, and give you my benediction before I die.”[75]

111. Montaigne (1533-1592) and Rabelais.—Between Erasmus, the learned humanist, exclusively devoted to belles-lettres, and Rabelais, the bold innovator, who extends as far as possible the limits of the intelligence, and who causes the entire encyclopædia of human knowledge to enter the brain of his pupil at the risk of splitting it open, Montaigne occupies an intermediate place, with his circumspect and conservative tendencies, with his discreet and moderate pedagogy, the enemy of all excesses. It seemed that Rabelais would develop all the faculties equally, and place all studies, letters, and sciences upon the same footing. Montaigne demands a choice. Between the different faculties he attempts particularly to train the judgment; among the different knowledges, he recommends by preference those which form sound and sensible minds. Rabelais overdrives mind and body. He dreams of an extravagant course of instruction where every science shall be studied exhaustively.[76] Montaigne simply demands that “one taste the upper crust of the sciences”; that one skim over them without going into them deeply, “in French fashion.” In his view, a well-made head is worth more than a head well filled. It is not so much to accumulate, to amass, knowledge, as to assimilate as much of it as a prudent intelligence can digest without fatigue. In a word, while Rabelais sits down, so to speak, at the banquet of knowledge with an avidity which recalls the gluttony of the Pantagruelian repasts, Montaigne is a delicate connoisseur, who would only satisfy with discretion a regulated appetite.

112. The Personal Education of Montaigne.—One often becomes teacher through recollection of his personal education. This is what happened to Montaigne. His pedagogy is at once an imitation of the methods which a father full of solicitude had himself applied to him, and a protest against the defects and the vices of the college of Guienne, which he entered at the age of six years. The home education of Montaigne affords the interesting spectacle of a child who develops freely. My spirit, he himself says, was trained with all gentleness and freedom, without severity or constraint. His father, skilful in his tender care, had him awakened each morning at the sound of musical instruments, so as to spare him those brusque alarms that are bad preparations for toil. In a word, he applied to him that tempered discipline, at once indulgent and firm, equally removed from complacency and harshness, which Montaigne has christened with the name of severe mildness. Another characteristic of Montaigne’s education is, that he learned Latin as one learns his native tongue. His father had surrounded him with domestics and teachers who conversed with him only in Latin. The result of this was, that at the age of six he was so proficient in the language of Cicero, that the best Latinists of the time feared to address him (craignissent à l’accoster). On the other hand, he knew no more of French than he did of Arabic.[77] It is evident that Montaigne’s father had taken a false route, but at least Montaigne derived a just conception from this experience, namely, that the methods ordinarily pursued in the study of the dead languages are too slow and too mechanical; that an abuse is made of rules, and that sufficient attention is not given to practice: “No doubt but Greek and Latin are very great ornaments, and of very great use, but we buy them too dear.”[78]

At the college of Guienne, where he passed seven years, Montaigne learned to detest corporal chastisements and the hard discipline of the scholars of his day: “ ... Instead of tempting and alluring children to letters by apt and gentle ways, our pedants do in truth present nothing before them but rods and ferules, horror and cruelty. Away with this violence! away with this compulsion! than which, I certainly believe, nothing more dulls and degenerates a well-descended nature.... The strict government of most of our colleges has evermore displeased me.... ’Tis the true house of correction of imprisoned youth.... Do but come in when they are about their lesson, and you shall hear nothing but the outcries of boys under execution, with the thundering noise of their Pedagogues, drunk with fury, to make up the consort. A pretty way this! to tempt these tender and timorous souls to love their book, with a furious countenance, and a rod in hand. A cursed and pernicious way of proceeding.... How much more decent would it be to see their classes strewed with green leaves and fine flowers, than with bloody stumps of birch and willows? Were it left to my ordering, I should paint the school with the pictures of Joy and Gladness, Flora and the Graces ... that where their profit is, they might have their pleasure too.”[79]

113. Importance of a General rather than a Special Education.—If Montaigne, in different chapters of his essays,[80] has given passing attention to pedagogical questions, it is not only through a recollection of his own years of apprenticeship, but also because of his judgment as a philosopher, that “the greatest and most important task of human understanding is in those matters which concern the nurture and instruction of children.”

For him, education is the art of forming men, and not specialists. This he explains in his original manner under the form of an anecdote:

“Going to Orleans one day, I met in that plain this side Clery, two pedants who were going towards Bordeaux, about fifty paces distant from one another. Still further back of them, I saw a troop of horse, and at their head a gentleman who was the late Count de la Rochefoucault. One of my company inquired of the foremost of these dominies, who that gentleman was who was following him. He had not observed the train that was following after, and thought that the question related to his companion; and so he replied pleasantly, ‘He is not a gentleman, but a grammarian, and I am a logician.’ Now, as we are here concerned in the training, not of a grammarian, or of a logician, but of a complete gentleman, we will let those who will abuse their leisure; but we have business of another nature.”[81]

It is true that Montaigne says gentleman, and not simply man; but in reality his thought is the same as that of Rousseau and of all those who require a general education of the human soul.

114. The Purpose of Instruction.—From what has now been said, it is easy to comprehend that, in the opinion of Montaigne, letters and other studies are but the means or instrument, and not the aim and end of instruction. The author of the Essays does not yield to the literary craze, which, in the sixteenth century, took certain scholars captive, and made the ideal of education to consist of a knowledge of the ancient languages. It is of little consequence to him that a pupil has learned to write in Latin; what he does require, is that he become better and more prudent, and have a sounder judgment. “If his soul be not put into better rhythm, if the judgment be not better settled, I would rather have him spend his time at tennis.”[82]

115. Education of the Judgment.—Montaigne has expressed his dominant thought on education in a hundred different ways. He is preoccupied with the training of the judgment, and on this point we might quote whole pages:

“ ... According to the fashion in which we are instructed, it is not singular that neither scholars nor masters become more able, although they become more wise. In fact, our parents devote their care and expense to furnishing our heads with knowledge; but to judgment and virtue no additions are made. Say of a passer-by to people, ‘O what a learned man!’ and of another, ‘O what a good man goes there!’ and they will not fail to turn their eyes and attention towards the former. There should be a third to cry, ‘O the blockheads!’ Men are quick to inquire, ‘Does he know Greek or Latin? Does he write in verse or in prose?’ But whether he has become better or more prudent, which is the principal thing, this receives not the least notice; whereas we ought to inquire who is the better learned, rather than who is the more learned?”

“We labor only at filling the memory, and leave the understanding and the conscience void. Just as birds sometimes go in quest of grain, and bring it in their bills without tasting it themselves, to make of it mouthfuls for their young; so our pedants go rummaging in books for knowledge, only to hold it at their tongues’ end, and then distribute it to their pupils.”[83]

116. Studies Recommended.—The practical and utilitarian mind of Montaigne dictates to him his programme of studies. With him it is not a question of plunging into the depths of the sciences; disinterested studies are not his affair. If Rabelais proposed to develop the speculative faculties, Montaigne, on the contrary, is preoccupied with the practical faculties, and he makes everything subordinate to morals. For example, he would have history learned, not for the sake of knowing the facts, but of appreciating them. It is not so necessary to imprint in the memory of the child “the date of the fall of Carthage as the character of Hannibal and Scipio, nor so much where Marcellus died as why it was unworthy of his duty that he died there.”[84]

And so in philosophy, it is not the general knowledge of man and nature that Montaigne esteems and recommends; but only those parts that have a direct bearing on morals and active life.

“It is a pity that matters should be at such a pass as they are in our time, that philosophy, even with people of understanding, should be looked upon as a vain and fanciful name, a thing of no use and no value, either for opinion or for action. I think that it is the love of quibbling that has caused things to take this turn.... Philosophy is that which teaches us to live.”[85]

117. Educational Methods.—An education purely bookish is not to Montaigne’s taste. He counts less upon books than upon experience and mingling with men; upon the observation of things, and upon the natural suggestions of the mind:

“For learning to judge well and speak well, whatever presents itself to our eyes serves as a sufficient book. The knavery of a page, the blunder of a servant, a table witticism,—all such things are so many new things to think about. And for this purpose conversation with men is wonderfully helpful, and so is a visit to foreign lands ... to bring back the customs of those nations, and their manners, and to whet and sharpen our wits by rubbing them upon those of others.”

“ ... The lesson will be given, sometimes by conversation, sometimes by book.... Let the child examine every man’s talent, a peasant, a mason, a passer-by. Put into his head an honest curiosity in everything. Let him observe whatever is curious in his surroundings,—a fine house, a delicate fountain, an eminent man, the scene of an ancient battle, the routes of Cæsar, or of Charlemagne....”[85]

Things should precede words. On this point Montaigne anticipates Comenius, Rousseau, and all modern educators.

“Let our pupil be provided with things; words will follow only too fast.”[86]

“The world is given to babbling; I hardly ever saw a man who did not rather prate too much, than speak too little. Yet the half of our life goes in that way; we are kept four or five years in learning words....”[87]

“This is not saying that it is not a fine and good thing to speak well; but not so good as it is made out to be. I am vexed that our life is so much occupied with all this.”

118. How we should read.—Montaigne has keenly criticised the abuse of books: “I would not have this boy of ours imprisoned, and made a slave to his book.... I would not have his spirit cow’d and subdu’d by applying him to the rack, and tormenting him, as some do, fourteen or fifteen hours a day, and so make a pack-horse of him. Neither should I think it good, when, by a solitary and melancholic complexion, he is discovered to be much addicted to his book, to nourish that humor in him, for that renders them unfit for civil conversation, and diverts them from better employments.”[88]

But while he advises against excess in reading, he has admirably defined the manner in which we ought to read. Above all, he says, let us assimilate and appropriate what we read. Let the work of the reader resemble that of bees, that, on this side and on that, tap the flowers for their sweet juices, and make them into honey, which is no longer thyme nor marjoram. In other terms, we should read with reflection, and with a critical spirit, while mastering the thoughts of the author by our personal judgment, without ever becoming slaves to them.

119. Montaigne’s Errors.—Montaigne’s greatest fault, it must be confessed, is that he is somewhat heartless. Somewhat of an egoist and Epicurean, he celebrates only the easy virtues that are attained “by shady routes through green meadows and fragrant flowers.” Has he himself ever performed painful duties that demand effort? To love children, he waits till they are amiable; while they are small, he disdains them, and keeps them at a distance from him:

“I cannot entertain that passion of dandling and caressing an infant, scarcely born, having as yet neither motion of soul nor shape of body distinguishable, by which they can render themselves amiable; and have not suffered them to be nursed near me....”[89] “Never take, and, still less, never give, to the women of your household the care of the feeding of your children!”

Montaigne joined precept to example. He somewhere says unfeelingly: “My children all died while at nurse.”[90] He goes so far as to say that a man of letters ought to prefer his writings to his children: “The births of our intelligence are the children the most truly our own.”[91]

120. Incompleteness of his Views on the Education of Women.—Another mental defect in Montaigne is, that, by reason of his moderation and conservatism, he remains a little narrow. High conceptions of human destiny are not to be expected of him; his manner of conceiving of it is mean and commonplace. This lack of intellectual breadth is especially manifest in his reflections on the education of women. Montaigne is of that number, who, through false gallantry, would keep woman in a state of ignorance on the pretext that instruction would mar her natural charms. In their case, he would prohibit even the study of rhetoric, because, he says, that would “conceal her charms under borrowed charms.” Women should be content with the advantages which their sex assures to them. With the knowledge which they naturally have, “they command with the switch, and rule both the regents and the schools.” However, he afterwards thinks better of it; but in his concessions there is more of contempt than in his prohibitions: “If, however, it displeases them to make us any concessions whatever, and they are determined, through curiosity, to know something of books, poetry is an amusement befitting their needs; for it is a wanton, crafty art, disguised, all for pleasure, all for show, just as they are.”[92]

The following passage may also be quoted:—

“When I see them tampering with rhetoric, law, logic, and the like, so improper and unnecessary for their business, I begin to suspect that the men who inspire them with such things do it that they may govern them upon that account.”[93]

It is impossible to express a greater contempt for women. Montaigne goes so far as to deny her positive qualities of heart. He chances to say, with reference to Mlle. de Gournay, his adopted daughter: “The perfection of the most saintly affection has been attained when it does not exhibit the least trace of sex.”

To conclude: notwithstanding some grave defects, the pedagogy of Montaigne is a pedagogy of good sense, and certain parts of it will always deserve to be admired. The Jansenists, and Locke, and Rousseau, in different degrees, draw their inspiration from Montaigne. In his own age, it is true, his ideas were accepted by scarcely any one save his disciple Charron, who, in his book of Wisdom,[94] has done scarcely more than to arrange in order the thoughts that are scattered through the Essays. But if he had no influence upon his own age, Montaigne has at least remained, after three centuries, a sure guide in the matter of intellectual education.

[121. Analytical Summary.—1. The dominant characteristic of education during the Renaissance period is the reaction which it exhibits against certain errors in Middle Age education.

2. A second characteristic is a disposition to conciliate or harmonize principles and methods whose fault is exaggeration.

3. Against instruction based almost wholly on authority, there is a reaction in favor of free inquiry.

4. Opposed to an education of the professional or technical type, there is proposed an education of the general or liberal type.

5. From being almost exclusively ethical and religious, education tends to become secular.

6. Didactic, formal instruction out of books, dealing in second-hand knowledge, is succeeded by informal, intuitive instruction from natural objects, dealing in knowledge at first hand.

7. The conception that education is a process of manufacture begins to give place to the conception that it is a process of growth.

8. Teaching whose purpose was information is succeeded by teaching whose purpose is formation, discipline, or training.

9. A discipline that was harsh and cruel is succeeded by a discipline comparatively mild and humane; and manners that were rude and coarse, are followed by a finer code of civility.]