“After having learned to think, the Prince made the study of history his principal object for six years.”
Twelve volumes of the Course of Study have transmitted to us Condillac’s lessons in history. In this he does not take delight, as Rollin does, in long narrations; but he analyzes, multiplies his reflections, and abridges facts; he philosophizes more than he recites the facts of history.
345. Personal Reflection.—What we have said of Condillac’s Course of Study suffices to justify the judgment expressed of his pedagogy by one of his disciples, Gérando, when he wrote: “He who had so thoroughly studied the manner in which ideas are formed in the human mind, had but little skill in calling them into being in the intelligence of his pupil.”
But we would judge our author unjustly if, after the criticisms we have made of him, we were not to accord him the praise he deserves, especially for having comprehended, as he has done, the value of personal reflection, and the superiority of judgment over memory. A few quotations will rehabilitate the pedagogy of Condillac in the minds of our readers.
Above all else there must be an exercise in personal reflection:—
“I grant that the education which cultivates only the memory may make prodigies, and that it has done so; but these prodigies last only during the time of infancy.... He who knows only by heart, knows nothing.... He who has not learned to reflect has not been instructed, or, what is still worse, has been poorly instructed.”
“True knowledge is in the reflection, which has acquired it, much more than in the memory, which holds it in keeping; and the things which we are capable of recovering are better known than those of which we have a recollection. It does not suffice, then, to give a child knowledge. It is necessary that he instruct himself by seeking knowledge on his own account, and the essential point is to guide him properly. If he is led in an orderly way, he will acquire exact ideas, and will seize their succession and relation. Then, able to call them up for review, he will be able to compare them with others that are more remote, and to make a final choice of those which he wishes to study. Reflection can always recover the things it has known, because it knows how it originally found them; but the memory does not so recover the things it has learned, because it does not know how it learns.”
This is why Condillac places far above the education we receive, the education that we give ourselves:—
“Henceforth, Sir, it remains for you alone to instruct yourself. Perhaps you imagine you have finished; but it is I who have finished. You are to begin anew!”