For giving direction to the will, as for giving activity to the intelligence, never subject children to cold and absolute authority. Do not weary them by an indiscreet exactness. Let wisdom appear to them only at intervals, and then with a laughing face. Lead them by reason whenever it is possible for you to do it. Never assume, save in case of extreme necessity, an austere, imperious air that makes them tremble.
“You would close their heart and destroy their confidence, without which there is no profit to hope for from education. Make yourself loved by them. Let them feel at ease in your presence, so that they do not fear to have you see their faults.”
Such, intellectually and morally, is the amiable discipline dreamed of by Fénelon. It is evident that the imagination of our author conducts him a little too far and leads him astray. Fénelon sees everything on the bright side. In education, such as this too complacent teacher dreams of it, there is no difficulty, nothing laborious, no thorns. “All metals there are gold; all flowers there are roses.” The child is almost exempted from making effort: he shall not be made to repeat the lesson he has heard, “for fear of annoying him.” It is necessary that he learn everything while playing. If he has faults, he must not be told of them, save with precaution, “for fear of hurting his feelings.” Fénelon is decidedly too good-natured, too much given to cajolery. In his effort to shun whatever is repulsive, he comes to exclude whatever is laborious. He falls into an artless pleasantry when he demands that the books of his pupil shall be “beautifully bound, with gilt edges, and fine pictures.”
184. Fables and History.—Fénelon’s very decided taste for agreeable studies, determines him to place in the foremost rank of the child’s intellectual occupations, fables and history, because narratives please the infant imagination above everything else. It is with sacred history especially that he would have the attention occupied, always selecting from it “that which presents the most pleasing and the most magnificent pictures.” He properly demands, moreover, that the teacher “animate his narrative with lively and familiar tones, and so make all his characters speak.” By this means we shall hold the attention of children without forcing it; “for, once more,” he says, “we must be very careful not to impose on them a law to hear and to remember these narratives.”
185. Moral and Religious Education.—Contrary to Rousseau’s notions, Fénelon requires that children should early have their attention turned to moral and religious truths. He would have this instruction given in the concrete, by means of examples drawn from experience. We need not fear to speak to them of God as a venerable old man, with white beard, etc. Whatever of the superstitious there may be in these conceptions adapted to the infant imagination will be corrected afterwards by the reason. It is to be noted, moreover, that a religion of extremes is not what Fénelon desires. He fears all exaggerations, even that of piety. What he demands is a tempered devotion, a reasonable Christianity. He is suspicious of false miracles. “Accustom girls,” he says, “not to accept thoughtlessly certain unauthorized narrations, and not to practise certain forms of devotion introduced by an indiscreet zeal.” But possibly, without intending it, Fénelon himself is preparing the way for the superstition he combats, when, for the purpose of indoctrinating the child with the first principles of religion, he presents to him the notion of God under sensible forms, and speaks to him of a paradise where all is of gold and precious stones.
186. Studies Proper for Women.—So far, we have noted in Fénelon’s work only general precepts applicable to boys and girls alike. But in the last part of his work, Fénelon treats especially of women’s own work, of the qualities peculiarly their own, of their duties, and of the kind of instruction they need in order to fulfill them.
No one knew better than Fénelon the faults that come to woman through ignorance,—unrest, unemployed time, inability to apply herself to solid and serious duties, frivolity, indolence, lawless imagination, indiscreet curiosity concerning trifles, levity, and talkativeness, sentimentalism, and, what is remarkable with a friend of Madame Guyon, a mania for theology: “Women are too much inclined to speak decisively on religious questions.”
What does Fénelon propose as a corrective of these mischievous tendencies? It must be confessed that the plan of instruction which he proposes is still insufficient, and that it scarcely accords with the ideal as we conceive it to-day.
“Keep young girls,” he says, “within the common bounds, and teach them that there should be for their sex a modesty with respect to knowledge almost as delicate as that inspired by the horror of vice.”