253. The Treatise on Studies.—Rollin has summed up his educational experience, an experience of fifty years, in a book which has become celebrated under the title of Treatise on Studies. The full title of this work was: De la manière d’enseigner et d’étudier les belles-lettres par rapport à l’esprit et au cœur. The first two volumes appeared in 1726, and the other two in 1728.
The Treatise on Studies is not like the Émile, which was published twenty years later, a work of venturesome inquiry and original novelties; but is a faithful exposition of the methods in use, and a discreet commentary on them. While this treatise belongs by its date to the eighteenth century, it is the pedagogy of the seventeenth century, and the traditions of the University under the reign of Louis XIV. that Rollin has collected, and of which he has simply wished to be the reporter. In the Latin dedication, which he addresses to the Rector of the University of Paris, he clearly defines his intentions and his purpose:—
“My first design was to put in writing and define the method of teaching which has long been in use among you, and which, up to this time, has been transmitted only by word of mouth, and through a sort of tradition; and to erect, so far as I am able to do it, a durable monument of the rules and practice which you have followed in the instruction of youth, for the purpose of preserving, in all its integrity, the taste for belles-lettres, and to preserve it, if possible, from the injuries and the alterations of time.”
254. Different Opinions.—Rollin has always had warm admirers. Voltaire called the Treatise a book “forever useful,” and whatever may be our reservations on the deficiences, and on the short and narrow views of certain parts of the pedagogy of Rollin, we must subscribe to this judgment. But we shall not go so far as to accept the enthusiastic declarations of Villemain, who complains that the study of the Treatise is neglected in our time, “as if new methods had been discovered for training the intelligence and the heart”; and he adds, “Since the Treatise on Studies, not a forward step has been taken.” This is to undervalue all the earnest efforts that have been made for two centuries by educators just as profound as was the ever timid and cautious Rollin. When we compare the precepts of the Treatise with the reforms which the spirit of progress has already effected, and particularly with those which it will effect, we are astonished to hear Nisard say: “In educational matters, the Treatise on Studies is the unique book, or better still, the book.”
To put such a burden of pompous praise on Rollin is to compromise his real worth; and without ceasing to do justice to his wise and judicious spirit, we wish to employ more discretion in our admiration.
255. Division of the Treatise on Studies.—Before calling attention to the most interesting parts of the Treatise on Studies, let us briefly state the object of the eight books of which it is composed.
The Treatise opens with a Preliminary Discourse which recites the advantages of instruction.
The title of the first book is: Exercises which are proper for very young children; of the education of girls. Rollin acknowledges that he treats only very superficially “this double subject,” which is foreign to his original plan. In fact, the first edition of his Treatise on Studies contained but seven books, and it is only in 1734 that he wrote, “at the urgent requests and prayers of several persons,” that short essay on the education of boys and girls which first appeared under the form of a supplement, and which became the first book of the work only in the subsequent editions.
The different subjects proper for training the youth in the public schools, that is, in the colleges,—such is the object of the six books which follow: Book II. Of the learning of the languages; that is, the study of Greek and Latin; Book III. Of poetry; Book IV. Of rhetoric; Book V. Of the three kinds of eloquence; Book VI. Of history; Book VII. Of philosophy.