“As to the knowledge of the facts of nature,” he writes to Pantagruel, “I would have you devote yourself to them with great care, so that there shall be neither sea, river, nor fountain, whose fish you do not know. All the birds of the air, all the trees, shrubs, and fruits of the forests, all the grasses of the earth, all the metals concealed in the depths of the abysses, the precious stones of the entire East and South,—none of these should be unknown to you. By frequent dissections, acquire a knowledge of the other world, which is man. In a word, I point out a new world of knowledge.”
Nothing is omitted, it is observed, from what constitutes the science of the universe or the knowledge of man.
It is further to be noticed, that Rabelais wishes his pupil not only to know, but to love and experience nature. He recommends his pupils to go and read the Georgics of Virgil in the midst of meadows and woods. The precursor of Rousseau on this point as upon some others, he thinks there is a gain in spiritual health by refreshing the imagination and giving repose to the spirit, through the contemplation of the beauties of nature.
Ponocrates, in order to afford Gargantua distraction from his extreme attention to study, recommended once each month some very clear and serene day, on which they set out at an early hour from the city, and went to Chantilly, or Boulogne, or Montrouge, or Pont Charenton, or Vannes, or Saint Cloud. And there they passed the whole day in playing, singing, dancing, frolicking in some fine meadow, hunting for sparrows, collecting pebbles, fishing for frogs and crabs.[73]
107. Object Lessons.—In the scheme of studies planned by Rabelais, the mind of the pupil is always on the alert, even at table. There, instruction takes place while talking. The conversation bears upon the food, upon the objects which attract the attention of Gargantua, upon the nature and properties of water, wine, bread, and salt. Every sensible object becomes material for questions and explanations. Gargantua often takes walks across fields, and he studies botany in the open country, “passing through meadows or other grassy places, observing trees and plants, comparing them with ancient books where they are described, ... and taking handfuls of them home.” There are but few didactic lessons; intuitive instruction, given in the presence of the objects themselves, such is the method of Rabelais. It is in the same spirit that he sends his pupil to visit the stores of the silversmiths, the founderies, the alchemists’ laboratories, and shops of all kinds,—real scientific excursions, such as are in vogue to-day. Rabelais would form a complete man, skilled in art and industry, and also capable, like the Émile of Rousseau, of devoting himself to manual labor. When the weather is rainy, and walking impracticable, Gargantua employs his time in splitting and sawing wood, and in threshing grain in the barn.
108. Attractive Methods.—By a reaction against the irksome routine of the Middle Age, Rabelais would have his pupil study while playing, and even learn mathematics “through recreation and amusement.” It is in handling playing-cards that Gargantua is taught thousands of “new inventions which relate to the science of numbers.” The same course is followed in geometry and astronomy. The accomplishments are not neglected, especially fencing. Gargantua is an enormous man, who is to be developed in all directions. The fine arts, music, painting, and sculpture, are not strangers to him. The hero of Rabelais represents, not so much an individual man, as a collective being who personifies the whole of society, with all the variety of its new aspirations, and with all the intensity of its multiplied needs. While the Middle Age, through a narrow spirit, left in inaction certain natural tendencies, Rabelais calls them all into life, without choice, it is true, and without discrimination, with the whole ardor of an emancipated imagination.
109. Religious Education.—In respect of religion as of everything else, Rabelais is the adversary of an education wholly exterior and of pure form. He ridicules his Gargantua, who, before his intellectual conversion, when he was still at the school of “his preceptors, the sophists,” goes to church, after a hearty dinner, to hear twenty-six or thirty masses. What he substitutes for this exterior devotion, for this abuse of superficial practices, is a real feeling of piety, and the direct reading of the sacred texts: “It is while Gargantua was being dressed that there was read to him a page of Divine Scripture.”[74] Still more, it is the intimate and personal adoration “of the great psalmodist of the universe,” excited by the study of the works of God. Gargantua and his master, Ponocrates, have scarcely risen when they observe the state of the heavens, and admire the celestial vault. In the evening they devote themselves to the same contemplation. After his meals, as before going to sleep, Gargantua offers prayers to God, to adore Him, to confirm his faith, to glorify Him for His boundless goodness, to thank Him for all the time past, and to recommend himself to Him for the time to come. The religious feeling of Rabelais proceeds at the same time, both from the sentiment which provoked the Protestant Reformation, of which he came near being an adherent, and from tendencies still more modern,—those, for example, which animate the deistic philosophy of Rousseau.
110. Moral Education.—Those who know Rabelais only by reputation, or through some of his innumerable drolleries, will perhaps be astonished that the jovial author can be counted a teacher of morals. It is impossible, however, to misunderstand the sincere and lofty inspiration of such passages as this:
“Because, according to the wise Solomon, wisdom does not enter into a malevolent soul, and knowledge without conscience is but the ruin of the soul; it becomes you to serve, to love, and to fear God, and to place on Him all your thoughts, all your hopes.... Be suspicious of the errors of the world. Apply not your heart to vanity, for this life is transitory; but the word of God endures forever. Be useful to all your neighbors, and love them as yourself. Revere your teachers, flee the company of men whom you would not resemble; and the grace which God has given you receive not in vain. And when you think you have all the knowledge that can be acquired by this means, return to me, so that I may see you, and give you my benediction before I die.”[75]
111. Montaigne (1533-1592) and Rabelais.—Between Erasmus, the learned humanist, exclusively devoted to belles-lettres, and Rabelais, the bold innovator, who extends as far as possible the limits of the intelligence, and who causes the entire encyclopædia of human knowledge to enter the brain of his pupil at the risk of splitting it open, Montaigne occupies an intermediate place, with his circumspect and conservative tendencies, with his discreet and moderate pedagogy, the enemy of all excesses. It seemed that Rabelais would develop all the faculties equally, and place all studies, letters, and sciences upon the same footing. Montaigne demands a choice. Between the different faculties he attempts particularly to train the judgment; among the different knowledges, he recommends by preference those which form sound and sensible minds. Rabelais overdrives mind and body. He dreams of an extravagant course of instruction where every science shall be studied exhaustively.[76] Montaigne simply demands that “one taste the upper crust of the sciences”; that one skim over them without going into them deeply, “in French fashion.” In his view, a well-made head is worth more than a head well filled. It is not so much to accumulate, to amass, knowledge, as to assimilate as much of it as a prudent intelligence can digest without fatigue. In a word, while Rabelais sits down, so to speak, at the banquet of knowledge with an avidity which recalls the gluttony of the Pantagruelian repasts, Montaigne is a delicate connoisseur, who would only satisfy with discretion a regulated appetite.