The charge that must be brought against Diderot in this place, is not merely that he puts an unreasonable restriction on literary studies, but also that he makes a bad distribution of scientific studies in placing the mathematics before physics. It is useless for him to assert that “it is easier to learn geometry than to learn to read.” He does not convince us of this. It is a grave error to begin by keeping the child’s attention on numerical abstractions, by leaving his senses unemployed, by postponing so long the study of natural history and experimental physics, those sciences expressly adapted to children, because, as Diderot himself expresses it, “they involve a continuous exercise of sight, smell, taste, and memory.”
To excuse Diderot’s error, it does not suffice to state that his pupil does not enter the Faculty of Arts till his twelfth year. Till that period, he will learn only reading, writing, and orthography. There is ground for thinking that these first years will be rather poorly employed; but besides this, it is evident that even at the age of twelve the mind is not sufficiently mature to be plunged into the cold deductions of mathematics.
355. Incomplete Views as to the Scope of Literary Studies.—Diderot’s attitude with respect to classical studies is a matter of surprise. On the one hand, he postpones their study till the pupil’s nineteenth and twentieth year. On the other, with what enthusiasm this eloquent scholar speaks of the ancients, particularly of Homer!
“Homer is the master to whom I am indebted for whatever merit I have, if indeed I have any at all. It is difficult to attain to excellence in taste without a knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages. I early drew my intellectual nourishment from Homer, Virgil, Horace, Terence, Anacreon, Plato, and Euripides on the one hand, and from Moses and the Prophets on the other.”
How are we to explain this contradiction of an inconsistent and ungrateful humanist who extols the humanities to the skies, and at the same time puts such restrictions on the teaching of them as almost to annihilate them? The reason for this is, that, in his opinion, the belles-lettres are useful only for the training of orators and poets, but are not serviceable in the general development of the mind. Consequently, being fancy studies, so to speak, they are fit only for a small minority of pupils, and have no right to the first place in a common education, destined for men in general. Diderot is not able to discern what, in pedagogy, is their true title to nobility,—that they are an admirable instrument of intellectual gymnastics, and the surest and also the most convenient means of acquiring those qualities of justness, of precision, and of clearness, which are needed by all conditions of men, and are applicable to all the special employments of life.[185]
356. Opinion of Marmontel.—Diderot seems to reduce the office of letters to a study of words, and to an exercise of memory. He might have learned a lesson from one of his contemporaries, Marmontel, whose intellect, though less brilliant, was sometimes more just, an advantage which the intelligence gains from early discipline in the study of the languages:—
“The choice and use of words, in translating from one language to another, and even then some degree of elegance in the construction of sentences, began to interest me; and this work, which did not proceed without the analysis of ideas, fortified my memory. I perceived that it was the idea attached to the word which made it take root, and reflection soon made me feel that the study of the languages was also the study of the art of distinguishing shades of thought, of decomposing it, of forming its texture, and of catching with precision its spirit and its relations; and that along with words, an equal number of new ideas were introduced and developed in the heads of the young,[186] and that in this way the early classes were a course in elementary philosophy, much more rich, more extended, and of greater real utility than we think, when we complain that in our colleges nothing is learned but Latin.”[187]
357. Other Novelties in Diderot’s Plan.—Without entering into the details of the very elaborate organization of Diderot’s Russian University, we shall call attention to some other novelties of his system:—
1. The division of the classes into several series of parallel courses: first, the series of scientific and literary courses; then, the series of lectures devoted to religion, to ethics, and to history; and finally, courses in drawing, music, etc.
2. The whimsical idea of teaching history in an inverted order, so to speak, in beginning with the most recent events, and little by little going back to antiquity.