109. Religious Education. ВЂ” In respect of religion as of

everything else, Rabelais is the adversary of an education

wholly exterior and of pure form. He ridicules his Gargan-

tua, who, before his intellectual conversion, when he was

still at the school of " his preceptors, the sophists,." goes to

church, after a heart}* dinner, to hear twent} 7 -six or thirty

masses. What he substitutes for this exterior devotion, for

THE RENAISSANCE. 99

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." 1 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 the} T observe

the state of the heavens, and admire the celestial vault. In

the evening they devote themselves to the same contempla-

tion. After his meals, as before going to sleep, Gargantua

offers prayers to God, to adore Him, to confirm his faith, to

glorify Ilim 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 cub-

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 pas-

sages as this :

" Because, according to the wise Solomon, wisdom does

not enter into a malevolent soul, and knowledge without con-

science 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,

1 Rabelais recommends the study of Hebrew, so that the sacred books

may be known in their original form. In some place he says: " I love much

more to bear the Gospel than to bear the life of Saint Margaret or some

other cant."

100 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

all your hopes. ... Be suspicious of the errors of the world.

Apply uot your heart to vauity, 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 j-ou receive not in vain. And

when you think you have all the knowledge that can be ac-

quired by this means, return to me, so that I may see you,

and give you my benediction before I die." 1

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 encyclopedia 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 ped-

agogy, 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. Mon-

taigne demands a choice. Between the different faculties he

attempts particularly to train the judgment ; among the dif-

ferent knowledges, he recommends by preference those which

form sound and sensible minds. Rabelais overdrives mind

and body. He dreams of an extravagant course of instruc-

tion where every science shall be studied exhaustively. 2

1 Book II. chap. vin.

2 This pansophic scheme of Rabelais has been revived in later times by

Bentham, in his Chrestomathia, and still later by Spencer, in his Educa-

tion. It seems to have been forgotten that the division of labor affects

education in much the same way as it affects all other departments of

human activity: that there is no more need of having as a personal posses-

sion all the knowledge we need for guidance, than for owning all the

agencies we need for locomotion or communication. (P.)

THE RENAISSANCE. 101

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 dis-

cretion a regulated appetite.

112. The Personal Education of Montaigne. — One

often becomes teacher through recollection of his personal

education. This is what happened to Montaigne. His ped-

agogy is at once an imitation of the methods which a father

full of solicitude had himself applied to him, and a protest

against the defects and the vices of the college of Guienne,

which he entered at the age of six years. The home

education of Montaigne affords the interesting spectacle of

a child who develops freely. My spirit, he himself says, was

trained with all gentleness and freedom, without severity or

constraint. His father, skilful in his tender care, had him

awakened each morning at the souud of musical instruments,

so as to spare him those brusque alarms that are bad pre-

parations for toil. In a word, he applied to him that tem-

pered discipline, at once indulgent and firm, equally removed

from complacency and harshness, which Montaigne has

christened with the name of severe mildness. Another char-

acteristic of Montaigne's education is, thai he learned Latin

as one learns his native tongue. His father had surrounded

him with domestics and teachers who conversed with him

only in Latin. The result of this was, that at the age of six

he was so proficient in the language of Cicero, that the best

102 THE HISTOKY OF PEDAGOGY.

Latinists of the time feared to address hirn (craignissent ti

I'accoster). On the other hand, he knew no more of French

than he did of Arabic. 1 It is evident that Montaigne's father

had taken a false route, but at least Montaigne derived a just

conception from this experience, namely, that the methods

ordinarily pursued in the study of the dead languages are too

slow "and too mechanical ; that an abuse is made of rules,

and that sufficient attention is not given to practice : " No

doubt but Greek and Latin are very great ornaments, and

of very great use, but we buy them too dear." 2

At the college of Guienne, where he passed seven years,

Montaigne learned to detest corporal chastisements and the

hard discipline of the scholars of his day : " . . . Instead of

tempting and alluring children to letters by apt and gentle

ways, our pedants do in truth present nothing before them

but rods and ferules, horror and cruelty. Away with this