Let us say, lastly, without being able to enter into detail, that the book of Madame Guizot deserves to be read with care. There will be found in it a great number of excellent reflections on instruction which ought to be substantial rather than extensive; upon the reading of romances, and upon the theatre, which she does not forbid; upon easy methods, which she condemns; and, finally, on almost all pedagogical questions.[247]
582. Madame Necker de Saussure (1765-1841).—There are in the history of education privileged moments, periods that are particularly and happily fruitful. It is thus that within the space of a few years there appeared in succession the books of Madame de Rémusat, of Madame Guizot, and, the most important of all, the Progressive Education of Madame Necker de Saussure.[248]
A native of Geneva, like Rousseau, Madame Necker de Saussure has endowed French literature with an educational masterpiece, which for elevation of view and nobleness of inspiration, can take rank by the side of the Émile. Though she may sometimes be too logical and too austere, and while in general she is lacking in good humor, and while she looks upon life only through a veil of sadness, Madame Necker is an incomparable guide in educational affairs. She brings to the subject remarkable qualities of perspicacity and penetration, and a spirit of marked gravity. She takes a serious view of life, and applies herself to training the noblest qualities of the human soul. Profoundly religious, she unites a “philosophical boldness to the submission of faith.” She is, in some measure, a Christian Rousseau.
583. Madame Necker de Saussure and Madame de Staël.—The first work of Madame Necker, Notice of the Character and the Writings of Madame de Staël, already gives proof of her interest in education. The author of the Progressive Education here studies with care the ideas of her heroine on education and instruction. It is plain that she has profited by some of the solid reflections in the noble book on Germany, and particularly by this opinion on the gradual and progressive method of Rousseau and of Pestalozzi:—
“Rousseau calls children into activity by degrees. He would have them do for themselves all that their little powers permit them to do. He does not in the least force their intelligence; he does not make them reach the result without passing over the route. He wishes the faculties to be developed before the sciences are taught.”
“What wearies children is to make them jump over intermediate parts, to make them advance without their really knowing what they think they have learned. With Pestalozzi there is no trace of these difficulties. With him, children take delight in their studies, because even in infancy, they taste the pleasure of grown men, namely, comprehending and completing that on which they have been engaged.”
Moreover, Madame Necker must have recognized her own spirit, her preference for a severe and painstaking education, in this passage where Madame de Staël vigorously protested against amusing and easy methods of instruction:—
“The education that takes place through amusement dissipates thought; labor of some sort is one of the great aids of nature; the mind of the child ought to accustom itself to the labor of study, just as our soul to suffering.... You will teach a multitude of things to your child by means of pictures and cards, but you will not teach him how to learn.”