The History of Pedagogy

by Gabriel Compayré

“For my part,” she said, “if I were to bring up my granddaughter, I would have her read what is good, but not too simple. I would reason with her.”[140]

226. The Abbé Fleury.—But Madame de Sévigné and Madame de Grignan were but brilliant exceptions. If one were to doubt the ignorance of the women of this period, it would suffice to read this striking passage from the Abbé Fleury, the assistant of Fénelon in the education of the Duke of Bourgogne:—

“This, doubtless, will be a great paradox, that women ought to learn anything else than their catechism, sewing, and different little pieces of work, singing, dancing, and dressing in the fashion, and to make a fine courtesy. As things now go, this constitutes all their education.”[141]

Fleury desires something else for woman. He demands that she learn to write correctly in French, and that she study logic and arithmetic. But we need not fear lest the liberalism of a thinker of the seventeenth century carry him too far. Fleury admits, for example, that history is absolutely useless to women.

227. Education in the Convents.—It is almost exclusively in convents that young girls then received what passed for an education. The religious congregations that devoted themselves to female education were numberless; we note, for example, among the most celebrated, the Ursulines, founded in 1537; the Association of the Angelics, established in Italy in 1536; and the Order of Saint Elizabeth. But, notwithstanding the diversity of names, all the convents for girls resemble one another. In all of them woman was educated for heaven, or for a life of devotion. Spiritual exercises formed the only occupation of the pupils, and study was scarcely taken into account.

228. Port Royal and the Regulations of Jacqueline Pascal.—The best means of penetrating into the inner life of the convents of the seventeenth century is to read the Regulations for Children, written towards 1657 by Jacqueline Pascal, Sister Saint Euphemia. The education of girls interested the Jansenists not less than the education of men; but in this respect, Port Royal is far from deserving the same encomiums in both cases.

229. General Impression.—There is nothing so sombre and sad as the interior of their institution for girls, and nothing so austere as the rules of Jacqueline Pascal.

“A strange emotion, even at the distance of centuries, is caused by the sight of those children keeping silent or speaking in a whisper from rising till retiring, never walking except between two nuns, one in front and the other behind, in order to make it impossible, by slackening their pace on the pretext of some indisposition, for them to hold any communication; working in such a way as never to be in companies of two or three; passing from meditation to prayer, and from prayer to instruction; learning, besides the catechism, nothing but reading and writing; and, on Sunday, ‘a little arithmetic, the older from one to two o’clock, and the younger from two to half past two’; the hands always busy to prevent the mind from wandering; but without being able to become attached to their work, which would please God as much the more as it pleased themselves the less; opposing all their natural inclinations, and despising the attentions due the body ‘destined to serve as food for worms’; doing nothing, in a word, except in the spirit of mortification. Imagine those days of fourteen and sixteen hours, slowly succeeding one another, and weighing down on the heads of those poor little sisters, for six or eight years in that dreary solitude, where there was nothing to bring in the stir of life, save the sound of the bell announcing a change of exercise or of penance, and you will comprehend Fénelon’s feeling of sadness when he speaks of the shadows of that deep cavern in which was imprisoned and, as it were, buried the youth of girls.”[142]

230. Severity and Love.—The severity of the Regulations is such that the editor, M. de Pontchartrain, also a Jansenist, allows that it will be impossible to obtain from all children “so complete a silence and so formal a life”; and requires that the mistresses shall try to gain their affections. Love must be united with severity. Jacqueline Pascal does not seem to be entirely of this opinion, since she declares that only God must be loved. However, notwithstanding her habitual severity, human tenderness sometimes asserts its rights in the rules which she established. We feel that she loves more than she confesses, those young girls whom she calls “little doves.” On the one hand, the Regulations incite the pupils to eat of what is placed before them indifferently, and to begin with what they like the least, through a spirit of penitence; but, on the other hand, Jacqueline writes: “They must be exhorted to take sufficient nourishment so as not to allow themselves to become weakened, and this is why care is taken that they have eaten enough.” And so there is a touching solicitude that is almost maternal in this remark: “As soon as they have retired, each particular bed must be visited, to see whether all proprieties have been observed, and whether the children are well covered in winter.” The mystic sister of the ascetic Pascal has moments of tenderness. “Nevertheless, we must not cease to feel pity for them, and to accommodate ourselves to them in every way that we can, but without letting them know that we have thus condescended.” However, the dominant conception ever reappearing, is the idea that human nature is evil; that we have to do with rebellious spirits which must be conquered, and that they deserve no commiseration.