Twenty years later, the village teacher became the governess of the daughters of the Duchesse de Chartres, and the governor of the sons of the Duke de Chartres (Philippe-Égalité).
564. Pedagogical Works.—The principal work of Madame de Genlis, Letters on Education (1782), treats of the education of princes and also of “that of young persons and of men.” In giving it that other title, Adèle and Théodore, the author indicated her intention of rivaling Rousseau, and of educating a man and a woman more perfect than Émile and Sophie.
Although she had a profoundly aristocratic nature, Madame de Genlis, after the revolution of 1789, seemed for an instant to follow the liberal current which was sweeping minds along. It was then that she published the Counsels on the Education of the Dauphin, and some parts of her educational journal, entitled Lessons of a Governess. She never ceased to preach love of the people to sovereigns, and in justice this must be said to her credit, that she did not write merely for courtly people. She protests, and with spirit, “that she is the first author who has concerned herself with the education of the people. This glory,” she adds, “is dear to my heart.” In support of these assertions, Madame de Genlis cites the fourth volume of her Théâtre d’éducation, which is, she says, “solely intended for the children of tradesmen and artisans; domestics and peasants will there see a detailed account of their obligations and their duties.”
565. Encyclopædic Education.—It has been said with reason that Madame de Genlis was the personification of encyclopædic instruction.[237]
“Her programme of instruction had no limits. She favors Latin, without, however, thinking the knowledge of it indispensable. She gives a large place to the living languages. At Saint Leu, her pupils garden in German, dine in English, and sup in Italian. At the same time she invents gymnastic apparatus,—pulleys, baskets, wooden beds, lead shoes. Nothing takes her at unawares, her over-facile pen stops at nothing; she is universal. A plan for a rural school for children in the country is wanted, and she furnishes it.”
566. Imitation of Rousseau.—Madame de Genlis never ceased to criticise Rousseau, and yet, in her educational romances, the inspiration of Rousseau is everywhere present. How can we fail to recognize a pupil of Rousseau in the father of Adèle and Théodore, who leaves Paris in order to devote himself entirely to the education of his children, to make himself “their governor and their friend, and finally, to screen the infancy of his son and daughter from the examples of vice”? And the methods manufactured by Rousseau, the unforeseen lessons, the indirect means employed to instruct without having the appearance of doing so,—Madame de Genlis desires no others. Nothing is more amusing than the description of the country-seat of the Baron d’Almane, the father of Adèle and Théodore. It is no longer a country-seat; it is a school-house. The walls are no longer walls; they are charts of history and maps of geography.
“When we would have our children study history according to a chronological order, we start from my bed-chamber, which represents sacred history; from there we enter my gallery, where we find ancient history; we reach the parlor, which contains Roman history, and we end with the gallery of Monsieur d’Almane (it is the Baroness who speaks), where is found the history of France.”
In her pedagogic fairyland, Madame de Genlis does not wish the child to meet a single object which may not be transformed into an instrument of instruction. Adèle and Théodore cannot take a hand-screen without finding a geography lesson represented on it, and drawn out at full length. Here are pictures worked in tapestry; they are historical scenes; on the back of them care has been taken to write an explanation of what they represent. At least, those five or six movable partitions which are displayed in the apartment on cold days have no instructive purposes? You are mistaken. There is painted and written on them the history of England, of Spain, of Germany, and that of the Moors and the Turks. Even in the dining-room, mythology encumbers the panels of the room, and “it usually forms the subject of conversation during the dinner.” In that castle, bewitched, so to speak, by the elf of history, there is not a glance that is lost, not a minute without its lesson, not a corner where one may waste his time in dreaming. History pursues you like a ghost, like a nightmare, along the corridors, on the stairs, even on the carpet on which you tread, and on the chairs upon which you sit. The true way to disgust a child forever with historical studies is to condemn him to live for eight days in this house-school of Madame de Genlis.