The following passage may also be quoted:—
“When I see them tampering with rhetoric, law, logic, and the like, so improper and unnecessary for their business, I begin to suspect that the men who inspire them with such things do it that they may govern them upon that account.”[93]
It is impossible to express a greater contempt for women. Montaigne goes so far as to deny her positive qualities of heart. He chances to say, with reference to Mlle. de Gournay, his adopted daughter: “The perfection of the most saintly affection has been attained when it does not exhibit the least trace of sex.”
To conclude: notwithstanding some grave defects, the pedagogy of Montaigne is a pedagogy of good sense, and certain parts of it will always deserve to be admired. The Jansenists, and Locke, and Rousseau, in different degrees, draw their inspiration from Montaigne. In his own age, it is true, his ideas were accepted by scarcely any one save his disciple Charron, who, in his book of Wisdom,[94] has done scarcely more than to arrange in order the thoughts that are scattered through the Essays. But if he had no influence upon his own age, Montaigne has at least remained, after three centuries, a sure guide in the matter of intellectual education.
[121. Analytical Summary.—1. The dominant characteristic of education during the Renaissance period is the reaction which it exhibits against certain errors in Middle Age education.
2. A second characteristic is a disposition to conciliate or harmonize principles and methods whose fault is exaggeration.
3. Against instruction based almost wholly on authority, there is a reaction in favor of free inquiry.
4. Opposed to an education of the professional or technical type, there is proposed an education of the general or liberal type.