It is true that the Jansenist system of education was, upon the whole, a monastic one, and as such could not be a very great improvement. But its practice was distinguished by a few characteristics which made it superior to all parallel schemes of education. Nowhere do we find that perfect purity of motives, that eagerness on the part of the educator to keep his charges from temptation and evil. This circumstance found its origin in the tenets of Jansenism, asserting that a tendency to sin and evil is inherent in the infant soul. To the Jansenists, education meant the unrelaxing struggle of the educator, aided by divine grace, against this natural bias, for the purpose of saving the soul. That this constant watchfulness on the teacher's part involved the total disappearance of the last frail spark of liberty left to the child, is only natural. On the other hand, it strengthened the affections. The Jansenist "religieuses" were filled with a most laudable sense of responsibility and loved their charges with the most unselfish tenderness and devotion. Their individual kindness tempered the severity of the rules laid down in Jacqueline Pascal's "Règlement pour les enfants". (1657).
The discipline was of the strictest, and the entire system directed towards forming pious Christian women and docile wives, rich in virtue rather than in knowledge. The final decision was left to the girls themselves; they either became nuns or re-entered the world after some years of close sequestration, "selon qu'il plaisait à Dieu d'en disposer", but it is to be feared that some moral pressure was often brought to bear upon them. The rules for daily observance implied early rising, strict silence, very limited ablutions and the greatest simplicity in dress; the hours of daylight being divided among prayers, devotional literature, manual labour and the elements of practical knowledge.
The above will be sufficient to show that Port Royal was a convent rather than a school and that its spirit was directly opposed to both the Renaissance spirit and the philosophical spirit of the later generations. In the annals of female education the "Petites Ecoles" of Port Royal will therefore not be remembered as a milestone in the march of Woman towards the ideal of perfect enfranchisement. They derive their importance from the fact that they were among the very first institutions in which great stress was laid on a moral education and in which some attention was paid to psychology.
The convents of other religious orders also participated in the educational movement and tried to recover lost influence. The seclusion of convent-life in those days was not nearly so strict as it had been in the days of early christianity, and this concession gained for them many pupils who had no intention of taking the veil, but were merely obeying the increasing call for female instruction. Some of these religious orders, as for instance the Ursulines, did good service, although they aimed at the pursuit of the moral virtues rather than intellectual accomplishments. What constitutes their chief merit, however, is the fact that by the side of the existing boarding-schools for paying resident pupils they established dayschools for the benefit of the poorer classes, in which all instruction was gratuitous. The number of secular schools for girls was so small, that we may safely regard the above as a first attempt to bring education within the reach of the untaught female multitude. Unfortunately, the convent-schools became involved in the general decline which marks the latter half of the century. All sorts of abuses found their way into them. A great deal too much regard was paid to the social standing of pupils, the nuns were often unfit for their educational task, for which they lacked preparation, and many convents became havens of refuge to worldly ladies with a damaged reputation, who paid well, but in return introduced lazy morals and a loose conversational tone. Add to this the intense and general misery which both the Fronde and the later foreign wars had engendered, and it need not astonish anybody that the efforts of the religious orders were of too partial and desultory a nature to bring about a lasting improvement in female education. Although the actual progress recorded was slight, yet something had been gained. The necessity for some degree of female instruction—thanks largely to the indirect influence of the salons—was now universally granted, although opinions varied regarding the extent and the means to be employed. It had to a certain extent become a topic in France, and as such began to attract a good deal of notice among moral philosophers. There arose the philosophy of education, making the subject a basis for philosophical speculation and applying to the systems then in vogue the severe test of Reason. In this way some glaring abuses were revealed which urgently demanded correction. The entire monastic system, based upon conventional grounds, was full of faults and the reverse of practical, showing an utter disregard of the demands of life. Thus began the gradual emancipation of education from the shackles of monasticism, the urgent necessity of which was recognised even by some of the leading churchmen, whose works breathe the more liberal spirit of the new philosophy. The theorisings of Fénelon mark a new departure in moral education, and his ideas became the prevailing ones of the eighteenth century which he heralded. He did not fall into the error made by his predecessors of overlooking the female half of society, but placed himself on the standpoint that the education of women is as important a social problem as that of men. At the time of the composition of his treatise "De l'Education des Filles" (published in 1683) he was director of the "Nouvelles Catholiques", a Parisian institution in which female converts from Protestantism were educated. Its direct claims on behalf of woman—apart from absolute insistence on the right of a moral education—are rather modest, but its originality consists in the introduction of the problems of feminine psychology, lifting the subject into the sphere of moral philosophy. Unmoved by the passion which swayed some of the later feminists—there is a wide gulf between his ideal of morality and theirs of equality—the moderation of his views and the soundness of his logic gained him a hearing and procured him some staunch supporters among the better Précieuses, who justly admired his insight into the female character. Madame de Maintenon was very much taken with his ideas and even procured him an appointment to the archbishopric of Cambrai. While insisting on the fundamental difference between the male and the female character, Fénelon never hesitates to put woman on the same level as man, without troubling to decide the theoretical question of superiority. The all-important promise of eternity he believed to apply with perfect equality to both sexes, and as regards earthly life he held that man and woman are too fundamentally different to allow of comparison in the sense of competition. However, he recognised that while the chief duties of man were concerned with social life, those of woman lay within a smaller circle: that of the home, upon the management of which depend both the happiness of every individual and the prosperity of the state; thus granting to woman a sphere of interest and activity in no wise inferior to, though different from, that of man, and exhorting her to fulfil those sacred duties to the very best of her ability. The domestic duties of womanhood are first regarded by Fénelon as an important social function, for which the monastic education was the worst preparation that could be imagined. There are not only children to be educated, but servants to be managed. The more deeply we enter into the spirit and full purport of Fénelon's contentions, the more it strikes us how he anticipates all the points of discussion which were to keep the philosophical moralists of the next century busy. A woman may excel in the art of being served; she may show in her treatment of her inferiors that she realises the great truth that all human beings in their widely different social stations are equal before God, and that any amount of authority involves an equal amount of responsibility. Ideas like the above seem to belong to the eighteenth century rather than to the seventeenth. Fénelon was in the full sense of the word: a pioneer.
We have said that the Jansenist educators held that "la composition du coeur de l'homme est mauvaise dès son enfance", directing their efforts towards reclamation from innate evil. Fénelon's views are more optimistic.
To him, there is no original tendency towards either good or evil. Everything depends upon guidance; give a child a good education and all its possibilities for good will be developed and bear fruit. The sole aim of education is not social influence or intellectual culture, but merely what he calls "l'amour de la vertu". And who can be fitter for such a task than the girl's own mother? "A good mother", says Fénelon, "is infinitely preferable to the best convent". Only she can prepare her daughter for the domestic circle over which it will one day be her task to preside, and only she has enough natural affection for her to impress upon her receptive mind lessons of moral wisdom. Boys, who are brought up to be citizens, require a public education, but for girls there is no place of education like the home, watched over by a loving mother.
A few of the points introduced may here be passed in rapid review. Great stress is laid on tenderness in education. Unless the pupil feels real affection for the teacher, unless the task of learning lessons is made a pleasant, and not a wearisome one, the results will be disappointing. Gentle reasoning and persuasion ought therefore as a rule to take the place of severity. Also in matters of religion an appeal should be made to the child's budding reason. The religious principles should be instilled in a subtle, slightly philosophical manner, and cleverly arranged questions—often in the form of metaphors or similes—should suggest to the pupil the expected replies. Here we have an anticipation of that "mise en scène" which becomes a striking feature in Rousseau.
A close study of the characters of women implies an insight into the essentially feminine failings, which may render them unfit for their task, and therefore ought to be first exposed and then carefully eradicated. Fénelon's list of female shortcomings and their remedies proves that there was no great difference in the matter of inclinations between the female youth of France and that of England.
Their worst vices are said to proceed from the misdirection of two characteristically feminine qualities: imagination and sensibility. Want of purpose renders the former over-active and turns it towards dangerous objects. A careful watch should be kept over the literature put into the hands of young females, for of the amorous romances then in vogue which were so eagerly devoured by the sex, the majority were far too stimulating to an imagination which in the close seclusion of home- or convent-life was but too apt to run riot. By living in an imaginary society of "précieux et précieuses" the girls became dissatisfied with everyday life and were made unfit for it.