“collator, director, and judge of the primary schools of the city,
the suburbs, and the outskirts of Paris,” published his _Christian
and Moral Counsels for the Instruction of Children_. There is but
little to gather from this work, where the author is so forgetful
of elementary instruction as to speak only of secondary instruction
and of the education of princes. What most concerns Claude Joly
is to put in force the regulations which forbid the association
of boys and girls in the schools. The separation of the sexes was
for a long time an absolute principle in France. Démia, in article
nine of his regulations, restores the ordinance of the archbishop
of Lyons, “which forbids school-masters to admit girls, and
school-mistresses to admit boys.” Rollin was of the same opinion.
Claude Joly, in the capacity of chief precentor, bluntly claimed
his sovereign rights in the matter of primary instruction:--
“We shall contest the power claimed by the rectors of Paris to
control the schools, under the name and pretext of charity, without
the permission of the chief precentor, to whom alone belongs this
power. To him, also, belongs the right of nomination to the schools
of the religious and secular communities. We shall disclose,
besides, the attempts of writers to interfere with the teaching of
orthography, which belongs only to good grammarians, that is, to
the masters of the little schools.”
We see to what petty questions of prerogative was sacrificed, in
the seventeenth century, the great cause of popular instruction.
277. THE BOOK OF THE PARISH SCHOOL.--Under the title, _The Parish
School, or the Manner of Properly Instructing the Children in the
Little Schools_, a priest of the diocese of Paris had written,
in 1655, a school manual, often reprinted,[159] which became the
general standard of the schools during the years that followed, and
which gives an exact idea of what was narrow and poorly defined in
the primary instruction of that period.
The author of the _Parish School_ does not have a high opinion
of the office of the teacher, which he regards as an employment
_without lustre, without pleasure, and without interest_. He does
not expect great results from instruction, of which he is pleased
to say, that _it is not completely useless_. It is true that
instruction is reduced to a very few things,--reading, writing, and
counting. To this the author adds religion and politeness.
Let us observe in particular, that the programme of the parish
school also comprises the _principles of the Latin language_. The
primary school of that period was still confounded with the college
of secondary instruction; the ancient languages and rhetoric were
taught in it. In the catalogue of the master’s books, drawn up by
the author of the _Parish School_, we find a Greek grammar. In the
classes, the reading of Latin precedes the reading of French.
Some good advice in practical pedagogy might be extracted from
the first part of the work, especially on the duties of a
school-master, on the power of example, and on the necessity of
knowing the disposition of pupils. But how many artless assertions
and mischievous precepts, in that school code of the city of Paris,
in the near presence of the grand century! The _Parish School_
complains that the scholars eat too much bread:--
“The children of Paris, as a rule, eat a great deal of bread. This
food stupefies the mind, and very often makes them, at the age of
nine or ten, incapable of learning. _Omnis repletio mala, panis
vero pessima._” A serious matter is that espionage is not only
authorized, but is encouraged and organized:--
“The master will select two of the most reliable and intelligent to
be on the lookout for the disorders and the improprieties of the
school and the church. They shall write the names of the offenders,
and of those guilty of improprieties, on pieces of paper or on
tablets, to be given to the master. These officers shall be called
_observers_.”
278. LA SALLE (1651-1719) AND THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS.--The reading
of the _Parish School_ prepares us the better to comprehend the
work of La Salle. If one were in any degree tempted to depreciate
the Institute of the Brethren of the Christian Schools, it would
suffice, to counteract this disposition, to contrast the reforms
of La Salle, however insufficient they may be, with the real state
of the schools of that period. To be equitably judged, human
institutions ought to be replaced in their setting and in their
environment. It is easy to-day to formulate charges against the
pedagogy of the Brethren of the Christian Schools. But considered
in their time, and compared with what existed, or rather with what
did _not_ exist, the establishments of La Salle deserve the esteem
and the gratitude of the friends of instruction. They represent the
first systematic effort of the Catholic Church to organize popular
instruction. What the Jesuits did in the matter of secondary
instruction, with immense resources and for pupils who paid them
for their efforts, La Salle attempted in primary instruction,
through a thousand obstacles and for pupils who did not pay.
279. LIFE AND CHARACTER OF LA SALLE.--We shall have to criticise
in the most of its principles and in many details of its practice,
the educational institute of La Salle. But that which merits
an admiration without reserve is the professional zeal of the
founder of the order, the dauntless spirit of improvement which
he displayed in the organization of his schools, and in the
recruitment of his teachers; it is also his tenacious zeal which
was discouraged neither by the jealous opposition of corporations,
the writing-masters for example, nor by the inexplicable opposition
of the clergy; and, finally, it is the indefatigable devotion of a
beautiful life consecrated to the cause of instruction, which was
a long series of efforts and sacrifices.
At an early hour, La Salle had given proofs of the energy of his
character. Weak and sickly, he was obliged to struggle against the
infirmities of his constitution. To overcome sleep, and to prolong
his studious vigils, he sometimes kneeled on sharp stones, and
sometimes he placed in front of him, upon his study-table, a board
fitted with iron points, against which his head would strike as
soon as fatigue made him doze and he leaned forward. Canon of the
chapter of Reims in 1667, ordained priest in 1678, he resigned his
prebendship in 1683, and, voluntarily making himself poor, in order
to approach those whose souls he would save, he renounced his whole
patrimony, to the great disgust of his friends, who treated him as
a madman.
280. ASCETIC TENDENCIES.--But it is not a disinterested love of
the people, it is not the thought of their moral regeneration, and
of their intellectual progress, which animated and sustained the
efforts of La Salle. His purpose was above all else religious. He
pushed devotion even to asceticism. In his childhood, while he
still lived at home, he came to have a sense of unrest in the
parlors of his mother; and one evening, as his biographers relate,
while those about him were engaged in music, or were talking on
worldly matters, he threw himself into the arms of one of his
aunts, and said to her, “Madam, relate to me the life of one of
the saints.” He himself was a saint, though the Church did not
think him worthy of this venerable title. In his youth he passed
whole nights in prayer, and slept on boards. All his life he was
severe to himself and also to others, considering abstinence and
privations as the regimen of the Christian. His adversaries, at
different times, imputed this to him as a crime. He was represented
as a hardened man, pushing his ascetic requirements to the extreme
of cruelty. To appease their anger, he removed penances and bodily
inflictions from his institution, but he maintained them for
himself, and continued his life of voluntary suffering. Heroic
virtues, it may be; but it may be added also, an unfortunate
disposition for a teacher of children. We distrust, in advance,
a system of teaching whose beginning was so sad, whose founder
inclosed his life within so narrow an horizon, and which, at first,
was illuminated by no rays of gladness and good humor.
281. FOUNDATIONS OF THE INSTITUTE.--The Institute of the Brethren
was founded in 1684, but it was not sanctioned by pontifical
authority and royal power till forty years later, in 1724.
We shall not recite at full length the vicissitudes of the first
years of the Institute. We simply state that La Salle inaugurated
his work by offering hospitality in his own house to several poor
teachers. In 1679 he opened at Reims a school for boys. In 1684
he imposed on his disciples vows of _stability_ and _obedience_,
and prescribed their costume. In 1688 he went to Paris in order to
found schools there, and it was here in particular, as he himself
says, that “he saw himself persecuted by the men from whom he
expected help.” In spite of all these difficulties his enterprise
prospered, and when he died, in 1720, the Institute of the Brethren
already counted a large number of establishments for primary
instruction.
282. THE IDEA OF NORMAL SCHOOLS.--We know how the teaching force
was then recruited. In Paris, if we may believe Pourchot, the
chief precentor, Claude Joly, was obliged to employ, for the
direction of schools, old-clothes-men, innkeepers, cooks, masons,
wig-makers, puppet-players--the list might be continued. In 1682
Marie Moreau, a teacher, was sent by Bossuet to keep the school at
Ferté-Gaucher. The rector of the place, in his capacity as tutor
(_écolâtre_), wishing to ascertain her competence, subjected her to
an examination, of which the following is an account:--
“1. He asked her if she could read, and she replied that she read
passably well, but not well enough to teach.
“2. He gave her a pen to mend, and she declared that she could not
do it.
“3. He handed her a Latin book and requested her to read it, but
she was prevented from making the attempt by sister Remy, who had
just prevented her from exhibiting her writing.”[160]
Ignorance, and often moral unfitness, was the general character
of the teachers of that period. They often entered upon their
duties without the least preparation. La Salle had too great an
anxiety for the good condition of his schools to accept improvised
teachers. So in 1685 he opened at Reims, under the name of
_Seminary for Schoolmasters_, a real normal school, in which
teachers were to be trained for the rural districts. Only Démia had
preceded him in this work. Later he founded an establishment of
the same kind in Paris, and--a thing worthy of note--he annexed to
this normal school a primary school, in which the teaching was done
by the students in training under the direction of an experienced
teacher.
In the third part of his _Conduct of Schools_ La Salle has drawn up
the rules for what he calls the _training of new masters_. Here are
the faults that he notices in young teachers:--
1. An itching to talk; 2. too great activity, which degenerates
into petulance; 3. indifference; 4. preoccupation and
embarrassment; 5. harshness; 6. spite; 7. partiality; 8. slowness
and negligence; 9. pusillanimity and lack of force; 10. despondency
and fretfulness; 11. familiarity and trifling; 12. distractions and
loss of time; 13. fickleness; 14. giddiness; 15. exclusiveness; 16.
lack of attention to the different characters and dispositions of
children.
283. THE IDEA OF GRATUITOUS AND OBLIGATORY INSTRUCTION.--The
Institute of the Brethren of the Christian Schools, say the
statutes of the order in so many words, is a society whose members
make a profession to conduct schools _gratuitously_. “La Salle
thought only of the children of artisans and of the poor, who,
he said, being occupied during the whole day in earning their
own livelihood and that of their families, could not give their
children the instruction they need, and a respectable and Christian
education.” In 1694, the founder of the Institute and his first
twelve disciples went and kneeled at the foot of the altar, and
pledged themselves to “conduct collectively and through organized
effort schools of gratuitous instruction, even when, in order to
do this, they might be obliged to ask alms and to live on bread
alone.”
But a thing still more remarkable than to have popularized
gratuitous instruction, already realized in many places through
charity schools, is to have formed the conception of obligatory
instruction. La Salle, who did not believe that this was any
encroachment on the liberty of parents, proposes, in this _Conduct
of Schools_, a means for affecting their will:--
“If among the poor there are certain ones who are unwilling to take
advantage of the opportunities for instruction, they should be
reported to the rectors. The latter will be able to cure them of
their indifference by threatening to give them no more assistance
till they send their children to school.”
284. PROFESSIONAL INSTRUCTION.--Besides primary schools proper,
La Salle, who is truly an innovator, inaugurated the organization
of a technical and professional instruction. At Saint Yon, near
Rouen, he organized a sort of college where was taught “all that
a young man can learn, with the exception of Latin, and whose
purpose was to prepare the student for commercial, industrial, and
administrative occupations.”
285. CONDUCT OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS: SUCCESSIVE EDITIONS.--La
Salle took the trouble to draw up for his Institute a very minute
code of rules, with this title: _The Conduct of Schools_. The first
edition bears the date of 1720. It appeared at Avignon a year after
the author’s death.[161] Two other editions have since appeared, in
1811 and in 1870, with some important modifications. The substance
has not been changed, but certain passages relative to discipline,
and to the use of the rod, have been suppressed.
“With the view to adapt our education to the mildness of the
present state of manners,” says the preface of 1811, “we have
suppressed or modified whatever includes corporal correction, and
have advantageously (_sic_) replaced this, on the one hand, by good
marks, by promises and rewards, and on the other by bad marks, by
deprivations and tasks.”
On the other hand, some additions have been made. The Institute of
the Brethren had to yield in part to the demands of the times, and
to subtract something from the inflexibility of its government.
“The Brethren,” it is said in the preface to the edition of 1870,
written by the Frère Philip, “the Brethren have little by little
enlarged the original _Conduct_, in proportion as they have
perfected their methods.... It is plain that a book of this kind
cannot receive a final form. New experiments, progress in methods,
legislative enactments, new needs, etc., require that it receive
divers modifications from time to time.”
286. ABUSE OF REGULATIONS.--A feature common to the pedagogy of
the Jesuits, and to that of the Brethren of the Christian Schools,
is, that everything is regulated in advance with extraordinary
exactness. No discretion is left to the teachers. The instruction
is but a rule in action. All novelty is interdicted.
“It has been necessary,” says the _Preface_ of La Salle, to prepare
this _Conduct_ of the Christian schools, “to the end that there may
be uniformity in all the schools, and in all the places where there
are Brethren of the Institute, and that the methods employed may
always be the same. Man is so subject to slackness, and even to
changeableness, that there must be written rules for him, in order
to keep him within the bounds of his duty, and to prevent him from
introducing something new, or from destroying that which has been
wisely established.”
Need we be astonished, after this, that the teaching of the
Brethren often became a useless routine?
287. DIVISION OF THE CONDUCT.--The _Conduct of the Christian
Schools_ is divided into three parts. The first treats of all the
exercises of the school, and of what is done in it from the time
the pupils enter till they leave. The second describes the means
for establishing and maintaining order; in a word, the discipline.
The third treats of the duties of the inspector of schools, of the
qualities of the teachers, and of the rules to be followed in the
education of the teachers themselves. This may be called, so to
speak, the manual of the normal schools of the Institute.
288. INTERIOR ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOLS.--That which first
strikes the attention in the Christian Schools, such as La Salle
organized, is the complete silence that reigns in them. Nothing is
better than silence on the part of pupils, when it can be obtained,
but La Salle enjoins silence on teachers as well. The Frère is a
professor who does not talk.
“He will watch carefully over himself, to speak very rarely, and
very low.” “It would be of but little use for the teacher to try
to make his pupils keep silence if he does not do this himself.”
“When necessity obliges him to speak--and he is careful that this
necessity is rare--he will always speak in a moderate tone.”
It might be said that La Salle fears a strong and sonorous voice.
How, then, shall the teacher communicate with his pupils, since he
is almost debarred from the use of speech? La Salle has invented,
to supersede language, a complete system of signs, a sort of
scholastic telegraphy, a long account of which will be found in
several chapters of the _Conduct_. To have prayers repeated, the
teacher will fold his hands; to have the catechism repeated, he
will make the sign of the cross. In other cases he will strike his
breast, will look at the pupil steadily, etc. Besides, he will
employ an instrument of iron named a _signal_, which he will raise
or lower, and handle in a hundred ways, to indicate his wish, or to
announce the beginning or the close of such or such an exercise.
What is the meaning of this distrust of speech? And what are we to
think of these schools of mutes where teachers and pupils proceed
only by signs? When a scholar asks permission to speak, he will
stand erect in his place, with hands crossed and eyes modestly
lowered. Doubtless, to attempt to excuse these practices, we must
consider the annoyances of a noisy school, and the advantages of a
silent school where everything is done discreetly and noiselessly.
Is there not, however, in these odd regulations, something besides
the desire for order and good conduct,--the revelation of a
complete system of pedagogy which is afraid of life and liberty,
and which, under the pretext of making the school quiet, deadens
the school, and, in the end, reduces teachers and pupils to mere
machines?
289. SIMULTANEOUS INSTRUCTION.--By the side of the evil we must
note the good. Up to the time of La Salle, the individual method
was almost alone in use in primary instruction; but he substituted
for this the simultaneous method, that is, teaching given to all
the pupils at the same time. For this purpose, La Salle divided
each school into three divisions: “The division of the weakest,
that of the mediocres, and that of the more intelligent or the more
capable.”
“All the scholars of the same order will receive the same lesson
together. The instructor will see that all are attentive, and that,
in reading for example, all read in a low voice what the teacher
reads in a loud voice.”
To aid the instructor, La Salle gives him one or two of the better
pupils of each division, who become his assistants, and whom he
calls _inspectors_. “The more children have taught,” said La Salle,
“the more they will learn.”
To be just, however, we must recognize, in certain recommendations
of La Salle, some desire to appeal to the judgment and the reason
of the child:--
“The teacher will not speak to the scholars during the catechism,
as in preaching, but he will interrogate them almost continually
by questions, direct or indirect, in order to make them comprehend
that which he is teaching them.”
The Frère Luccard, in his _Life of the Venerable J. B. de La
Salle_,[162] quotes this still more expressive passage, borrowed
from his manuscript _Counsels_:--
“Let the teacher be careful not to lend his pupils too much help
in resolving the questions that have been proposed to them. He
ought, on the contrary, to invite them not to be discouraged, but
to seek with ardor what he knows they will be able to find for
themselves. He will convince them that they will the better retain
the knowledge they have acquired by a personal and persevering
effort.”
290. WHAT WAS LEARNED IN THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS.--Reading, writing,
orthography, arithmetic, and the catechism,--this is the programme
of La Salle.
In reading, La Salle, agreeing in this respect with Port Royal,
requires that French books be used in the beginning.
“The book in which the pupil will begin to learn Latin is the
Psalter; but this lesson will be given only to those who can
readily read in French.”
La Salle requires that the pupil shall not be exercised in writing
till “he can read perfectly.” He attaches, moreover, an extreme
importance to calligraphy, and it is known that the Brethren have
remained masters in this art. La Salle does not weary in giving
advice on this subject: the pens, the knife for mending them, the
ink, the paper, the tracing-papers and blotters, round letters
and italic letters (a bastard script),--everything is passed in
review.[163] The _Conduct_ also insists “on the manner of teaching
the proper posture of the body” and “on the manner of teaching how
to hold the pen and the paper.”
“It will be useful and timely in the beginning to give the pupil a
stick of the bigness of a pen, on which there are three notches,
two on the right and one on the left, to mark the places where his
fingers should be put.”
The exercises in writing are to be followed by exercises in
orthography and in composition:--
“The teacher will require the pupils to compose and write for
themselves notes, receipts, bills, etc. He will also require them
to write out what they remember of the catechism, and of the
lectures that they have heard.”[164]
As to arithmetic, reduced to the four rules, we must commend La
Salle’s attempt to have it learned by reason and not by routine.
Thus, he requires the teacher to interrogate the pupil, in order
to make him the better comprehend and retain the rule, or to
make sure that he is attentive. He “will give him a complete
understanding” of what he teaches; and, finally, he will require
him “to produce a certain number of rules that he has discovered
for himself.”
Prayers and religious exercises naturally hold a large place in the
schools organized by La Salle:--
“There shall always be two or three scholars kneeling, one from
each class, who will tell their beads one after another.”
“Care will everywhere be taken that the scholars hear the holy mass
every day.”
“A half hour each day shall be devoted to the catechism.”
291. METHOD OF TEACHING.--The Institute of the Brethren has often
been criticised for the mechanical character of its instruction.
The Frère Philip, in the edition of the _Conduct_ published in
1870, implicitly acknowledges the justice of this criticism when he
writes: “Elementary instruction has assumed a particular character
in these last days, _of which we must take account_. Proposing for
its chief end to train the judgment of the pupil, it gives less
importance than heretofore to the culture of the memory; it makes
especial use of methods which call into activity the intelligence,
and lead the child to reflect, to take account of facts, to
withdraw from the domain of words to enter into that of ideas.” Do
not these wise cautions unmistakably betray the existence of an
evil tradition which should be corrected, but which tends to hold
its ground? He who has read the _Conduct_ is not left in doubt that
the general character of the pedagogy of the Christian Schools, at
the first, was a mechanical and routine exercise of the memory, and
the absence of life.
292. CHRISTIAN POLITENESS.--Under the title of _Rules of Decorum
and Christian Civility_, La Salle had composed a reading book,
intended for pupils already somewhat advanced, and printed in
Gothic characters.[165] It was not only a manual of politeness,
but was, the _Conduct_ claims, a treatise on ethics, “containing
all the duties of children, both towards God and towards
their parents.” But we would examine the work in vain for the
justification of this remark. In it are discussed only the puerile
details of outward behavior and of worldly bearing. It would,
however, be in bad taste to criticise at this day a book of
another age, whose artlessness makes us smile. La Salle’s purpose
was certainly praiseworthy, though attempting a little too much.
It is said in the _Preface_ that “there is not a single one of
our actions which ought not to be regulated by motives purely
Christian.” Hence an infinite number of minute prescriptions upon
the simplest acts of daily life.[166]
But here are a few specimens of this pretended elementary ethics:--
“It is not proper to talk when one has retired, the bed being made
for rest.”
“One should try to make no noise and not to snore while asleep;
nor should one often turn from side to side in bed as if he were
restless and did not know on which side to lie.”
“It is not becoming, when one is in company, to take off one’s
shoes.”
“It is impolite to play with a stick or a cane, and to use it to
strike the ground or pebbles, etc., etc.”
How many mistakes in politeness we should make every day of our
lives if the rules of La Salle were infallible!
293. CORPORAL CHASTISEMENTS.--The Brethren, within two centuries,
have singularly ameliorated their system of correction.
“_Imperative circumstances_,” said the Frère Philip in 1870, “no
longer permit us to tolerate corporal punishment in our schools.”
Already, in 1811, there was talk of suppressing entirely, or at
least modifying, the use of these punishments. The instruments
of torture were perfected. “We reduce the heavy ferule, the
inconvenience of which has been only too often felt, to a simple
piece of leather, about a foot long and an inch wide, and slit
in two at one end; still we hope that by divine help and by the
mildness of our very dear and dearly beloved colleagues, they will
make use of it only in cases of unavoidable necessity, and only to
give a stroke with it on the hand, without the permission ever to
make any other use of it.”
But at first, and in the original _Conduct_,[167] corporal
punishment is freely permitted and regulated with exactness.
La Salle distinguished five sorts of corrections,--reprimand,
penances, the ferule, the rod, expulsion from school.
294. REPRIMANDS.--Silence, we have seen, is the fundamental rule of
La Salle’s schools: “There must be as little speaking as possible.
Consequently, corrections by word of mouth are very rarely to be
employed.” It even seems, adds the _Conduct_, that “it is much
better not to use them at all”!
A curious system of discipline, verily, where it is as good as
forbidden to resort to admonitions, to severe reprimands, to an
appeal through speech to the reason and the feelings of the child;
where, consequently, there is no place for the moral authority of
the teacher, but where there is at once invoked the _ultima ratio_
of constraint and violence, of the ferule and the rod!
295. PENANCES.--La Salle recommends penances as well as corporal
corrections. By this term he means punishments like the following:
maintaining a kneeling posture in the school; learning a few pages
of the catechism by heart; “holding his book before his eyes for
the space of half an hour without looking off;” keeping motionless,
with clasped hands and downcast eyes, etc.
296. THE FERULE.--We have not to discuss in this place the use
of material means of correction. The Brethren themselves have
repudiated them. Only it is provoking that they bow to what they
call “imperative circumstances,” and not to considerations based on
principles. But it is interesting, were it only from an historical
point of view, to recall the minute prescriptions of the founder of
the Order.
The _Conduct_ first describes the ferule, “an instrument formed
of two pieces of leather sewed together; it shall be from ten to
twelve inches long, including the handle; the palm shall be oval,
and two inches in diameter; the palm shall be lined on the inside
so as not to be wholly flat, but rounded to fit the hand.” Nothing
is overlooked, we observe; the form of the ferule is officially
defined. But what shocks us still more is the nature of the faults
that provoke the application of the ferule: “1. for not having
attended to the lesson, or for having played; 2. for being tardy
at school; 3. for not having obeyed the first signal.” It is true
that La Salle, always preoccupied with writing, orders the ferule
to be applied only to the left hand; the right hand shall always be
spared. The child, moreover, is not to cry while he receives the
ferule; if he does, he is to be punished and corrected anew.
297. THE ROD.--In the penal code of La Salle, the categories of
faults worthy of punishment are sharply defined. The rod shall be
employed for the following faults: 1. refusal to obey; 2. when the
pupil has formed the habit of not giving heed to the lesson; 3.
when he has made blots upon his paper instead of writing; 4. when
he has had a fight with his comrades; 5. when he has neglected his
prayers in church; 6. when he has been wanting in “modesty” at mass
or during the catechism; 7. when he has been absent from school,
from mass, or from the catechism.
Even supposing that the principle of the rod is admissible, we must
still condemn the wrong use which La Salle makes of it, for faults
manifestly out of proportion to such a chastisement.
I very well know that the author of the _Conduct_ requires that
corrections shall be rare; but could he be obeyed, when he put into
the hands of his teachers scarcely any other means of discipline?
But to comprehend to what extent La Salle forgot what is due to the
dignity of the child, and considered him as a machine, without any
regard to the delicacy of his feelings, with no respect for his
person, we must read to the end the strange prescriptions of this
manual of the rod. The precautions that La Salle exacts make still
more evident the impropriety of such punishments:--
“When the teacher would punish a scholar with the rod, he will
make the ordinary sign to summon the attention of the school; next
he will indicate by means of the _signal_ the decree which the
pupil has violated, and then show him the place where correction
is ordinarily administered; and he will at once go there, and will
prepare to receive the punishment, standing in such a way as not to
be seen indecently by any one. This practice of having the scholar
prepare himself for receiving the correction, without any need on
the part of the teacher of putting his hand upon him, shall be very
exactly observed.
“While the scholar is preparing himself to receive the correction,
the teacher shall be making an inward preparation to give it in a
spirit of love, and in a clear view of God. Then he will go from
his desk with dignity and gravity.
“And when he shall have reached the place where the scholar is” (it
is stated, moreover, that this place should be in one of the most
remote and most obscure parts of the school, where the nakedness of
the victim cannot be seen), “he will speak a few words to him to
prepare him to receive the correction with humility, submission,
and a purpose of amendment; then he will strike three blows as is
usual; to go beyond five blows, there would be needed a special
order of the director.
“He shall be careful not to put his hand on the scholar. If the
scholar is not ready, he shall return to his desk without saying
a word; and when he returns, he shall give him the most severe
punishment allowed without special permission, that is, five blows.
“When a teacher shall have thus been obliged to compel a scholar
to receive correction, he shall attempt in some way a little
time afterwards to make him see and acknowledge his fault, and
shall make him come to himself, and give him a strong and sincere
resolution never to allow himself again to fall into such a
revolt.”
The moment is perhaps not well chosen to preach a sermon and
to violate the rule which forbids the Brethren the use of the
reprimand.
“After the scholar has been corrected, he will modestly kneel in
the middle of the room before the teacher, with arms crossed, to
thank him for having corrected him, and will then turn towards the
crucifix to thank God for it, and to promise Him at the same time
not again to commit the fault for which he had just been corrected.
This he will do without speaking aloud; after which the teacher
will give him the sign to go to his place.”
Is it possible to have a higher misconception of human nature, to
trifle more ingeniously with the pride of the child, and with his
most legitimate feelings, and to mingle, in the most repulsive
manner, indiscreet and infamous practices with the exhibition of
religious sentiments?
“It is absurd,” says Kant, “to require the children whom we punish
to thank us, to kiss our hands, etc. This is to try to make servile
creatures of them.”
To justify La Salle, some quotations from his works have been
invoked.
“For the love of God, do not use blows of the hand. Be very careful
never to give children a blow.”
But it is necessary to know the exact thought of the author of the
_Conduct_, and this explains the following passage:--
“No corrections should be employed save those which are in use in
the schools; and so scholars should never be struck with the hand
or the foot.”
In other words, the teacher should never strike except with the
authorized instruments, and according to the official regulations.
298. MUTUAL ESPIONAGE.--We may say without exaggeration that the
_Conduct_ recommends mutual espionage:--
“The inspector of schools shall be careful to appoint one of the
most prudent scholars to observe those who make a noise while they
assemble, and this scholar shall then report to the teacher what
has occurred, without allowing the others to know of it.”
299. REWARDS.--While La Salle devotes more than forty pages to
corrections, the chapter on rewards comprises two small pages.
Rewards shall be given “from time to time.” They shall be of three
kinds: rewards for piety, for ability, and for diligence. They
shall consist of books, pictures, plaster casts, crucifix and
virgin, chaplets, engraved texts, etc.
300. CONCLUSION.--We have said enough to give an exact idea
of the Institute of the Christian Brethren in its primitive
form. Its faults were certainly grave, and we cannot approve
the general spirit of those establishments for education where
pupils are forbidden “to joke while they are at meals”; to give
anything whatsoever to one another; where children are to enter
the school-room so deliberately and quietly that the noise of
their footsteps is not heard; where teachers are forbidden “to
be familiar” with the pupils, “to allow themselves to descend to
anything common, as it would be to laugh ...” But whatever the
distance which separates those gloomy schools from our modern
ideal,--from the pleasant, active, animated school, such as we
conceive it to-day,--there is none the less obligation to do
justice to La Salle, to pardon him for the practices which were
those of his time, and to admire him for the good qualities that
were peculiarly his own. The criticism that is truly fruitful, is
that which is especially directed to the good, without caviling at
the bad.[168]
[301. ANALYTICAL SUMMARY.--1. This study exhibits the zeal of the
Catholic Church in the education of the children of the poor. The
motive was not the spirit of domination, as in the case of the
Jesuits, but a sincere desire to engage in a humane work.
2. A proof of the multiplication of schools, and so of the
diffusion of the new educational spirit, is the wretched quality
of those who were allowed to teach. There must be schools even if
they are poor ones.
3. The need of competent teachers led to the establishment of the
_Teachers’ Seminary_, the parent of the modern normal school.
The two elements in this professional instruction seem to have
been a knowledge of the subjects to be taught and of methods of
organization and discipline.
4. The severe discipline and enforced silence of La Salle’s
schools permit the inference that the school of the period was
the scene of lawlessness and disorder. The reaction went to an
extreme; but considering the times, this excess was a virtue.
5. The scarcity of teachers and the abundance of pupils led to
the expedient of mutual and simultaneous instruction. While this
method is absolutely bad, it was relatively good.
6. To the benevolent and inventive spirit of La Salle is due the
organization of industrial schools.]
FOOTNOTES:
[157] _Petites écoles._ This is the term commonly applied to
primary schools at this period. By the Jansenists this term was
used in a more distinctive sense, and for this reason I have
translated it “Little Schools” in Chap. VII. (P.)
[158] See the _Lectures pédagogiques_. Hachette, 1883, p. 420.
[159] We have before us the edition of 1722.
[160] _Histoire d’une école gratuite_, par V. Plessier, p. 15.
[161] We have before us a copy of this Avignon edition: J. Charles
Chastanier, printer and bookseller, near the College of the Jesuits.
[162] Two volumes, Paris, 1876.
[163] The use of the round script was in fashion. La Salle
introduced the bastard hand.
[164] See Chap. II. of the Second Part.
[165] We have before us the sixth edition of this work: Rouen,
1729. La Salle had written it towards the year 1703.
[166] See, for example, the following chapters: upon the nose
and the manner of using the handkerchief and of sneezing (chap.
vii.); upon the back, the shoulders, the arms, and the elbow (chap.
viii.); on the manner in which one ought to behave with respect
to the bones, the sauce, and the fruit (chap. vi., of the second
part); on the manner of behaving while walking in the streets, on
journeys, in carriages, and on horseback (chap. x.).
[167] See the edition of 1720, from page 140 to page 180.
[168] The influence of the teaching congregations in general, and
of this one in particular, on public education as administered by
the State, is very strikingly exhibited by Meunier in his _Lutte
du Principe Clérical et du Principe Laïque dans l’Enseignement_
(Paris: 1861). There is also interesting information concerning La
Salle. See particularly the introductory _Letter_ and Chaps. I. and
II. (P.)
CHAPTER XIII.
ROUSSEAU AND THE ÉMILE.
THE PEDAGOGY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY; THE PRECURSORS OF
ROUSSEAU; THE ABBÉ DE SAINT PIERRE; OTHER INSPIRERS OF ROUSSEAU;
PUBLICATION OF THE ÉMILE (1762); ROUSSEAU AS A TEACHER; GENERAL
PRINCIPLES OF THE ÉMILE; ITS ROMANTIC AND UTOPIAN CHARACTER;
DIVISION OF THE WORK; THE FIRST TWO BOOKS; EDUCATION OF THE BODY
AND OF THE SENSES; LET NATURE ACT; THE MOTHER TO NURSE HER OWN
CHILDREN; NEGATIVE EDUCATION; THE CHILD’S RIGHT TO HAPPINESS; THE
THIRD BOOK OF THE ÉMILE; CHOICE IN THE THINGS TO BE TAUGHT; THE
ABBÉ DE SAINT PIERRE AND ROUSSEAU; ÉMILE AT FIFTEEN; EDUCATION OF
THE SENSIBILITIES; THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE ÉMILE; GENESIS OF THE
AFFECTIONS; MORAL EDUCATION; RELIGIOUS EDUCATION; THE PROFESSION
OF FAITH OF THE SAVOYARD VICAR; SOPHIE AND THE EDUCATION OF
WOMEN; GENERAL CONCLUSION; INFLUENCE OF ROUSSEAU; ANALYTICAL
SUMMARY.
302. THE PEDAGOGY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.--The most striking
of the general characteristics of French pedagogy in the
eighteenth century, is that in it the lay spirit comes into
mortal collision with the ecclesiastical spirit. What a contrast
between the clerical preceptors of the seventeenth century and
the philosophical educators of the eighteenth! The Jesuits,
all-powerful under Louis XIV., are to be decried, condemned, and
finally expelled in 1762. The first place in the theory and in
the practice of education, will belong to laymen. Rousseau is to
write the _Émile_. D’Alembert and Diderot will be the educational
advisers of the Empress of Russia. The parliamentarians, La
Chalotais and Rolland, will attempt to substitute for the action
of the Jesuits the action of the State, or, at least, one of the
powers of the State. Finally, with the Revolution, the lay spirit
will succeed in triumphing.
Again, the pedagogy of the eighteenth century is distinguished by
its critical and reformatory tendencies. The century of Louis XIV.
is, in general, a century of content; the century of Voltaire, a
century of discontent.
Besides, the philosophical spirit, which associates the theory
of education with the laws of the human spirit, which is not
content to modify routine by a few ameliorations of detail,
which establishes general principles and aspires to an ideal
perfection,--the philosophical spirit, with its excellencies and
with its defects,--will come to the light in the _Émile_, and in
some other writings of the same period.
Finally, and this last characteristic is but the consequence of the
others, education tends to become national, and at the same time
humane. Preparation for life replaces preparation for death. During
the whole of the eighteenth century, a conception is in process of
elaboration which the men of the Revolution will exhibit in its
true light,--that of an education, public and national, which makes
citizens, which works for country and for real life.
303. PRECURSORS OF ROUSSEAU.--The greatest educational event of the
eighteenth century, before the expulsion of the Jesuits and the
events of the French Revolution, is the publication of the _Émile_.
Rousseau is undeniably the first in rank among the founders of
French pedagogy, and his influence will be felt abroad, especially
in Germany. But whatever may be the originality of the author of
the _Émile_, his system is not a stroke of genius for which no
preparation had been made. He had his precursors, and he profited
by their works. A Benedictine, who might have spent his strength
to better advantage, has written a book on the _Plagiarisms of J.
J. Rousseau_.[169]
We do not propose to treat Rousseau as a plagiarist, for he surely
has inspiration of his own, and his own boldness in invention;
but however much of an innovator he may be, he was inspired by
Montaigne, by Locke, and without speaking of those great masters
whom he often imitated, he had his immediate predecessors, whose
ideas on certain points are in conformity with his own.
304. THE ABBÉ DE SAINT PIERRE (1658-1743).--Among the precursors
of Rousseau, a place among the first must be assigned to the
Abbé de Saint Pierre, a dreamy, fantastic spirit, fitted more to
excite curiosity than to deserve admiration, whom Rousseau himself
called “a man of great projects and petty views.” His projects in
fact were great, at least in number. Between “a _project_ to make
sermons more useful, and a _project_ to make roads more passable,”
there came, in his incoherent and varied work, several projects
for perfecting education in general, and the education of girls in
particular.
The dominant idea of the Abbé de Saint Pierre is his anxiety in
behalf of moral education. In proportion as we advance towards
the era of liberty, we shall notice a growing interest in the
development of the moral virtues.
The Abbé de Saint Pierre requires of man four essential qualities:
justice, benevolence, the discernment of virtue or judgment, and,
lastly, instruction, which holds but the lowest rank. Virtue is of
more worth than the knowledge of Latin.
“It cannot be said that a great knowledge of Latin is not an
excellent attainment; but in order to acquire this knowledge,
it is necessary to give to it an amount of time that would be
incomparably better employed in acquiring great skill in the
observation of prudence. Those who direct education make a very
great mistake in employing tenfold too much time in making us
scholarly in the Latin tongue, and in employing tenfold too little
of it in giving us a confirmed use of prudence.”[170]
But what are the means proposed by the Abbé de Saint Pierre?
All that he has devised for organizing the teaching of the
social virtues is reduced to the requirement of reading edifying
narratives, of playing moral pieces, and of accustoming young
people to do meritorious acts in the daily intercourse of the
school. When the lessons have been recited and the written
exercises corrected, the teacher will say to the pupil: “Do for
me an act of prudence, or of justice, or of benevolence.” This is
easier to say than to do. College life scarcely furnishes occasion
for the application of the social virtues.
But the Abbé de Saint Pierre should be credited with his good
intentions. He is the first in France to give his thought to this
matter of professional instruction. The mechanic arts, the positive
sciences, the apprenticeship to trades,--these things he places
above the study of languages. Around his college, and even in his
college, there are to be mills, printing offices, agricultural
implements, garden tools, etc.
Was it not also an idea at once new and wise, to establish a
_continuous department_ of public instruction, a sort of permanent
council, charged with the reformation of methods and with
establishing, as far as possible, uniformity in all the colleges of
the kingdom?
Finally, we shall commend the Abbé de Saint Pierre for having
persistently urged the necessity of the education of women.
From Fénelon to the Abbé de Saint Pierre, from 1680 to 1730,
great progress was made in this question. We seem already to hear
Condorcet when we read the following passage:--
“The purpose should be to instruct girls in the elements of all
the sciences and of all the arts which can enter into ordinary
conversation, and even in several things which relate to the
different employments of men, such as the history of their country,
geography, police regulations, and the principal civil laws, _to
the end that they can listen with pleasure to what men shall say to
them_, ask relevant questions, and easily keep up a conversation
with their husbands on the daily occurrences in their occupations.”
For the purpose of sooner attaining his end, the Abbé de Saint
Pierre, anticipating the centuries, demanded for women national
establishments, colleges of secondary instruction. He did not
hesitate to cloister young girls in boarding-schools, and in
boarding-schools without vacations; and he entreated the State
to organize public courses for those who, he said, “constitute
one-half of the families in society.”
305. OTHER INSPIRERS OF ROUSSEAU.--With the eighteenth century
there begins for modern thought, in education as in everything
else, an era of international relations, of mutual imitation, of
the action and reaction of people on people. The Frenchman of
the seventeenth century had almost absolutely ignored Comenius.
Rousseau knows Locke, and also the Hollander Crousaz,[171] whom, by
the way, he treats rather shabbily, speaking of him as “the pedant
Crousaz.”
Crousaz, however, had some good ideas. He criticised the old
methods, which make “of the knowledge of Latin and Greek
the principal part of education”; and he preached scientific
instruction and moral education.
In the _Spectacle of Nature_, which was so popular in its day, the
Abbé Pluche also demanded that the study of the dead languages
should be abridged[172]:--
“Experience with the pitiable Latinity which reigns in the colleges
of Germany, Flanders, Holland, and in all places where the habit
of always speaking Latin is current, suffices to make us renounce
this custom which prevents a young man from speaking his own tongue
correctly.”
The Abbé Pluche demanded that the time saved from Latin be devoted
to the living languages. On the other hand, he insisted on early
education, and on this point he was the complement to his master,
Rollin, who, he said, wrote rather “for the _perfection_ of studies
than for their beginning.”
Still other writers were able to suggest to Rousseau some of
the ideas which he developed in the _Émile_. Before him, La
Condamine declared that the _Fables_ of La Fontaine are above the
capacity of children.[173] Before him, Bonneval, much interested
in physical education, violently criticised the use of long
clothes, and claimed for children an education of the senses. He
demanded, besides, that in early instruction, the effort of the
teacher should be limited to the keeping of evil impressions from
the childish imagination, and that instruction in the truths of
religion should be held in abeyance.
We shall discover in the _Émile_ all these ideas in outline revived
and developed with the power and with the brilliancy of genius,
sometimes transformed into boisterous paradoxes, but sometimes,
also, transformed into solid and lasting truths.
306. PUBLICATION OF THE ÉMILE (1762).--Rousseau has made striking
statements of nearly all the problems of education, and he has
sometimes resolved them with wisdom, and always with originality.
Appearing in 1762, at the moment when the Parliament was excluding
the Jesuits from France, the _Émile_ came at the right moment in
that grand overthrow of routine and tradition to disclose new hopes
to humanity, and to announce the advent of philosophic reason in
the art of educating men. But Rousseau, in writing his book, did
not think of the Jesuits, of whom he scarcely speaks; he wrote,
not for the man of the present, but for the future of humanity;
he composed a book endowed with endless vitality, half romance,
half essay, the grandest monument of human thought on the subject
of education. The _Émile_, in fact, is not a work of ephemeral
polemics, nor simply a practical manual of pedagogy, but is a
general system of education, a treatise on psychology and moral
training, a profound analysis of human nature.
307. WAS ROUSSEAU PREPARED TO BECOME A TEACHER?--Before entering
upon the study of the _Émile_, it is well to inquire how the
author had been prepared by his character and by his mode of life
to become a teacher. The history of French literature offers
nothing more extraordinary than the life of Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Everything is strange in the destiny of that unfortunate great man.
Rousseau committed great faults, especially in his youth; but at
other moments of his life he is almost a sage, a hero of private
virtues and civic courage. He traversed all adventures and all
trades. Workman, servant, charlatan, preceptor, all in turn; he
lodged in garrets at a sou, and experienced days when he complained
that bread was too dear. Through all these miseries and these
humiliations a soul was in process of formation made up, above all
else, of sensibility and imagination.
Rousseau’s sensibility was extreme. The child who, unjustly
treated, experienced one of those violent fits of passion which he
has so well described in his _Confessions_, and who writhed a whole
night in his bed, crying “_Carnifex, carnifex!_” was surely not
an ordinary child. “I had no idea of things, but all varieties of
feeling were already known to me. I had conceived nothing; I had
felt everything.” Even a mediocre representation of _Alzire_ made
him beside himself, and he refused witnessing the play of tragedies
for fear of becoming ill.
The sentiment of nature early inspired him with a passion which
was not to be quenched. His philosophic optimism and his faith in
providence were never forgotten. Other pure and generous emotions
filled his soul. The study of Plutarch had inspired him with a
taste for republican virtues and with an enthusiasm for liberty.
Falsehood caused him a veritable horror. He had the feeling of
equity in a high degree. Later, to the hatred of injustice there
was joined in his heart an implacable resentment against the
oppressors of the people. He had doubtless received the first germ
of this hate when, making the journey afoot from Paris to Lyons,
he entered the cabin of a poor peasant, and there found, as in a
picture, the affecting summary of the miseries of the people.
At the same time he was an insatiable reader. He nourished himself
on the poets, historians, and philosophers of antiquity, and he
studied the mathematics and astronomy. As some one has said, “That
life of reading and toil, interrupted by so many romantic incidents
and adventurous undertakings, had vivified his imagination as
a regular course of study in the College of Plessis could not
possibly have done.”
It is in this way that his literary genius was formed, and, in due
order, his genius for pedagogy. We need not seek in the life of
Rousseau any direct preparation for the composition of the _Émile_.
It is true that for a time he had been preceptor, in 1739, in the
family of Mably, but he soon resigned duties in which he was not
successful. A little essay which he composed in 1740[174] does not
yet give proof of any great originality. On the other hand, if he
loved to observe children, he observed, alas, only the children of
others. There is nothing sadder than that page of the _Confessions_
in which he relates how he often placed himself at the window
to observe the dismission of school, in order to listen to the
conversations of children as a furtive and unseen observer!
The _Émile_ is thus less the result of a patient induction and
of a real experience than a work of inspiration or a brilliant
improvisation of genius.
308. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE ÉMILE.--A certain number of general
principles run through the entire work, and give it a systematic
form and a positive character.
The first of these is the idea of the innocence and of the
perfect goodness of the child. The _Émile_ opens with this solemn
declaration:--
“Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Author
of nature; everything degenerates in the hands of man.” And in
another place, “Let us assume as an incontestable maxim that the
first movements of nature are always right; there is no original
perversity in the human heart.”
Without doubt Rousseau was right in opposing the pessimism of
those who see in the child a being thoroughly wicked and degraded
before birth; he is deceived in turn when he affirms that there is
no germ of evil in human nature.
Society is wicked and corrupt, he says, and it is from society
that all the evil comes; it is from its pernicious influence that
the soul of the child must be preserved! But, we reply, how did
society itself happen to be spoiled and vitiated? It is nothing but
a collection of men; and if the individuals are innocent, how can
the aggregate of individuals be wicked and perverse? But let the
contradictions of Rousseau pass; the important thing to note is
that from his optimism are derived the essential characteristics of
the education which he devises for Émile. This education will be at
once natural and negative:--
“Émile,” says Gréard, “is a child of nature, brought up by nature,
according to the rules of nature, for the satisfaction of the needs
of nature. This sophism is not merely inscribed at random on the
frontispiece of the book, but is its very soul; and it is by reason
of this sophistry that, separated from the body of reflections and
maxims that give it so powerful an interest, Rousseau’s plan of
education is but a dangerous chimera.”
Everything that society has established, Rousseau condemns in a
lump as fictitious and artificial. Conventional usages he despises;
and he places Émile at the school of nature, and brings him up
almost like a savage.
On the other hand, the education of Émile is negative, at least
till his twelfth year; that is, Rousseau lets nature have her way
till then. For those who think nature evil, education ought to be a
work of compression and of repression. But nature is good; and so
education consists simply in letting her have free course. To guard
the child from the shock of opinions, to form betimes a defence
about his soul, to assure against every exterior influence the
free development of his faculties--such is the end that he proposes
to himself.
Another general principle of the _Émile_, another truth which
Rousseau’s spirit of paradox quickly transforms into error, is the
idea of the distinction of ages:--
“Each age, each state of life, has its proper perfection, and a
sort of maturity which is its own. We have often heard of a man
grown; but let us think of a child grown. That sight will be newer
to us, and perhaps not less agreeable.”
“We do not know infancy. With the false ideas we have, the further
we go, the more we are astray. The most learned give their
attention to that which it is important for men to know without
considering what children are in a condition to comprehend. They
always look for the man in the child, without thinking of what he
was before he became a man.”
“Everything is right so far, and from these observations there
proceeds a progressive education, exactly conforming in its
successive requirements to the progress of the faculties.
But Rousseau does not stop in his course, and he goes beyond
progressive education to recommend an education in fragments, so to
speak, which isolates the faculties in order to develop them one
after another, which establishes an absolute line of demarkation
between the different ages, and which ends in distinguishing three
stages of progress in the soul. Rousseau’s error on this point is
in forgetting that the education of the child ought to prepare
for the education of the young man. Instead of considering the
different ages as the several rings of one and the same chain, he
separates them sharply from one another. He does not admit that
marvellous unity of the human soul, which seems so strong in man
only because God has, so to speak, woven its bands into the child
and there fastened them.” (Gréard).
309. ROMANTIC CHARACTER OF THE ÉMILE.--A final observation is
necessary before entering into an analysis of the _Émile_; it is
that in this, as in his other works, Rousseau is not averse to
affecting singularities, and with deliberation and effrontery to
break with received opinions. Doubtless we should not go so far
as to say with certain critics that the _Émile_ is rather the
feat of a wit than the serious expression of a grave and serious
thought; but what it is impossible not to grant is that which
Rousseau himself admits in his preface: “One will believe that he
is reading, not so much a book on education as the reveries of a
visionary.” Émile, in fact, is an imaginary being whom Rousseau
places in strange conditions. He does not give him parents, but has
him brought up by a preceptor in the country, far from all society.
Émile is a character in a romance rather than a real man.
310. DIVISION OF THE WORK.--Without doubt, there are in the _Émile_
long passages and digressions that make the reading of it more
agreeable and its analysis more difficult. But, notwithstanding
all this, the author confines himself to a methodical plan, at
least to a chronological order. The different ages of Émile serve
as a principle for the division of the work. The first two books
treat especially of the infant and of the earliest period of life
up to the age of twelve. The only question here discussed is the
education of the body and the exercise of the senses. The third
book corresponds to the period of intellectual education, from the
twelfth to the fifteenth year. In the fourth book, Rousseau studies
moral education, from the fifteenth to the twentieth year.
Finally, the fifth book, in which the romantic spirit is still
rampant, is devoted to the education of woman.
311. THE FIRST TWO BOOKS OF THE ÉMILE.--It would be useless to
search this first part of the _Émile_ for precepts relative to
the education of the mind and the heart. Rousseau has purposely
eliminated from the first twelve years of the child’s life
everything which concerns instruction and moral discipline. At
the age of twelve, Émile will know how to run, jump, and judge of
distances; but he will be perfectly ignorant. The idea would be
that he has studied nothing at all, and “that he has not learned to
distinguish his right hand from his left.”
The exclusive characteristic of Émile’s education, during this
first period, is, then, the preoccupation with physical development
and with the training of the senses.
Out of many errors, we shall see displayed some admirable flashes
of good sense, and grand truths inspired by the principle of nature.
312. LET NATURE HAVE HER WAY.--What does nature demand? She demands
that the child have liberty of movement, and that nothing interfere
with the nascent activities of his limbs. What do we do, on the
contrary? We put him in swaddling clothes; we imprison him. He
is deformed by his over-tight garments,--the first chains that
are imposed on a being who is destined to have so many others to
bear! On this subject, the bad humor of Rousseau does not tire.
He is prodigal in outbreaks of spirit, often witty, and sometimes
ridiculous.
“It seems,” he says, “as though we fear that the child may appear
to be alive.” “Man is born, lives, and dies, in a state of slavery;
at his birth he is stitched into swaddling-clothes; at his death he
is nailed in his coffin; and as long as he preserves the human form
he is held captive by our institutions.”
We shall not dwell on these extravagances of language
which transforms a coffin and a child’s long-clothes into
_institutions_. The protests of Rousseau have contributed towards
a reformation of usages; but, even on this point, with his great
principle that everything must be referred to nature, because
whatever nature does she does well, the author of _Émile_ is on
the point of going astray. No more for the body than for the mind
is nature sufficient in herself; she must have help and watchful
assistance. Strong supports are needed to prevent too active
movements and dangerous strains of the body; just as, later on,
there will be needed a vigorous moral authority to moderate and
curb the passions of the soul.
313. THE MOTHER TO NURSE HER OWN CHILDREN.--But there is another
point where it has become trite to praise Rousseau, and where
his teaching should be accepted without reserve. This is when
he strongly protests against the use of hired nurses, and when
he eloquently summons mothers to the duties of nursing their
own children. Where there is no mother, there is no child, says
Rousseau, and he adds, where there is no mother, there is no
family! “Would you recall each one to his first duties? Begin
with the mothers. You will be astonished at the changes you will
produce!” It would be to fall into platitudes to set forth, after
Rousseau, and after so many others, the reasons which recommend
nursing by the mother. We merely observe that Rousseau insists on
this, especially on moral grounds. It is not merely the health of
the child; it is the virtue and the morality of the family; it is
the dignity of the home, that he wishes to defend and preserve.
And, in fact, how many other duties are provided for and made
easier by the performance of a primal duty.
314. HARDENING OF THE BODY.--So far, the lessons of nature have
instructed Rousseau. He is still right when he wishes Émile to
grow hardy, to become inured to privations, to become accustomed at
an early hour to pain, and to learn how to suffer; but from being a
stoic, Rousseau soon becomes a cynic. Contempt for pain gives place
to a contempt for proprieties. Émile shall be a barefoot, like
Diogenes. Locke gives his pupil thin shoes; Rousseau, surpassing
him, completely abolishes shoes. He would also like to suppress
all the inventions of civilization. Thus Émile, accustomed to
walk in the dark, will do without candles. “I would rather have
Émile with eyes at the ends of his fingers than in the shop of a
candle-maker.” All this tempts us to laugh; but here are graver
errors. Rousseau objects to vaccination, and proscribes medicine.
Émile is forehanded. He is in duty bound to be well. A physician
will be summoned only when he is in danger of death. Again,
Rousseau forbids the washing of the new-born child in wine, because
wine is a fermented liquor, and nature produces nothing that is
fermented. And so there must be no playthings made by the hand
of man. A twig of a tree or a poppy-head will suffice. Rousseau,
as we see, by reason of his wish to make of his pupil a man of
nature, brings him into singular likeness with the wild man, and
assimilates him almost to the brute.
315. NEGATIVE EDUCATION.--It is evident that the first period
of life is that in which the use of negative education is both
the least dangerous and the most acceptable. Ordinarily, Émile’s
preceptor will be but the inactive witness, the passive spectator
of the work done by nature. Had Rousseau gone to the full length
of his system, he ought to have abolished the preceptor himself,
in order to allow the child to make his way all alone. But if the
preceptor is tolerated, it is not to act directly on Émile, it is
not to perform the duties of a professor, in teaching him what
it is important for a child to know; but it is simply to put him
in the way of the discoveries which he ought to make for himself
in the wide domain of nature, and to arrange and to combine,
artificially and laboriously, those complicated scenes which are
intended to replace the lessons of ordinary education. Such, for
example, is the scene of the juggler, where Émile is to acquire at
the same time notions on physics and on ethics. Such, again, is the
conversation with the gardener, Robert, who reveals to him the idea
of property. The preceptor is no longer a teacher, but a mechanic.
The true educator is nature, but nature prepared and skillfully
adjusted to serve the ends that we propose to attain. Rousseau
admits only the teaching of things:--
“Do not give your pupil any kind of verbal lesson; he should
receive none save from experience.” “The most important, the most
useful rule in all education, is not to gain time, but to lose it.”
The preceptor will interfere at most only by a few timid and
guarded words, to aid the child in interpreting the lessons of
nature. “State questions within his comprehension, and leave him
to resolve them for himself. Let him not know anything because
you have told it to him, but because he has comprehended it for
himself.”
“For the body as for the mind, the child must be left to himself.”
“Let him run, and frolic, and fall a hundred times a day. So much
the better; for he will learn from this the sooner to help himself
up. The welfare of liberty atones for many bruises.”
In his horror for what he calls “the teaching and pedantic mania,”
Rousseau goes so far as to proscribe an education in habits:--
“The only habit that a child should be allowed to form is to
contract no habit.”
316. THE CHILD’S RIGHT TO HAPPINESS.--Rousseau did not tire of
demanding that we should respect the infancy that is in the child,
and take into account his tastes and his aptitudes. With what
eloquence he claims for him the right of being happy!
“Love childhood. Encourage its sports, its pleasures, and its
instinct for happiness. Who of you has not sometimes regretted that
period when a laugh was always on the lips, and the soul always
in peace? Why will you deny those little innocents the enjoyment
of that brief period which is so soon to escape them, and of that
precious good which they cannot abuse? Why will you fill with
bitterness and sorrow those first years so quickly passing which
will no more return to them than they can return to you? Fathers,
do you know the moment when death awaits your children? Do not lay
up for yourselves regrets by depriving them of the few moments
that nature gives them. As soon as they can feel the pleasure of
existence, try to have them enjoy it, and act in such a way that
at whatever hour God summons them they may not die without having
tasted the sweetness of living.”
317. PROSCRIPTION OF INTELLECTUAL EXERCISES.--Rousseau rejects from
the education of Émile all the intellectual exercises ordinarily
employed. He proscribes history on the pretext that Émile cannot
comprehend the relations of events. He takes as an example the
disgust of a child who had been told the anecdote of Alexander and
his physician:--
“I found that he had an unusual admiration for the courage, so much
lauded, of Alexander. But do you know in what he saw that courage?
Simply in the fact that he swallowed a drink that had a bad taste.”
And from this Rousseau concludes that the child’s intelligence is
not sufficiently open to comprehend history, and that he ought not
to learn it. The paradox is evident. Because Émile is sometimes
exposed to the danger of falling into errors of judgment, must he
be denied the opportunity of judging? Similarly, Rousseau does not
permit the study of the languages. Up to the age of twelve, Émile
shall know but one language, because, till then, incapable of
judging and comprehending, he cannot make the comparison between
other languages and his own. Later, from twelve to fifteen,
Rousseau will find still other reasons for excluding the study
of the ancient languages. And it is not only history and the
languages; it is literature in general from which Émile is excluded
by Rousseau. No book shall be put into his hands, not even the
_Fables_ of La Fontaine. It is well known with what resolution
Rousseau criticises _The Crow and the Fox_.
318. EDUCATION OF THE SENSES.--The grand preoccupation of Rousseau
is the exercise and development of the senses of his pupil. The
whole theory of object lessons, and even all the exaggerations of
what is now called the intuitive method, are contained in germ in
the _Émile_:--
“The first faculties which are formed and perfected in us are the
senses. These, then, are the first which should be cultivated; but
these are the very ones that we forget or that we neglect the most.”
Rousseau does not consider the senses as wholly formed by nature;
but he makes a special search for the means of forming them and of
perfecting them through education.
“To call into exercise the senses, is, so to speak, to learn to
feel; for we can neither touch, nor see, nor hear, except as we
have been taught.”
Only, Rousseau is wrong in sacrificing everything to this
education of the senses. He sharply criticises this favorite maxim
of Locke, “We must reason with children.” Rousseau retards the
education of the judgment and the reason, and declares that “he
would as soon require that a child be five feet high as that he
reason at the age of eight.”
319. THE THIRD BOOK OF THE ÉMILE.--From the twelfth to the
fifteenth year is the length of time that Rousseau has devoted
to study and to intellectual development proper. It is necessary
that the robust animal, “the roe-buck,” as he calls Émile, after a
negative and temporizing education of twelve years, become in three
years an enlightened intelligence. As the period is short, Rousseau
disposes of the time for instruction with a miser’s hand. Moreover,
Émile is very poorly prepared for the rapid studies which are to be
imposed on him. Not having acquired in his earlier years the habit
of thinking, having lived a purely physical existence, he will have
great difficulty in bringing to life, within a few months, his
intellectual faculties.
But without dwelling on the unfavorable conditions of Émile’s
intellectual education, let us see in what it will consist.
320. CHOICE IN THE THINGS TO BE TAUGHT.--The principle which guides
Rousseau in the choice of Émile’s studies is no other than the
principle of utility:--
“There is a choice in the things which ought to be taught as well
as in the time fit for learning them. Of the knowledges within our
reach, some are false, others are useless, and still others serve
to nourish the pride of him who has them. Only the small number of
those which really contribute to our good are worthy the care of a
wise man, and consequently of a child whom we wish to render such.
It is not a question of knowing what is, but only what is useful.”
321. ROUSSEAU AND THE ABBÉ DE SAINT PIERRE.--Among educators, some
wish to teach everything, while others demand a choice, and would
retain only what is necessary. The Abbé de Saint Pierre follows
the first tendency. He would have the scholar learn everything at
college; a little medicine towards the seventh or eighth year,
and in the other classes, arithmetic and blazonry, jurisprudence,
German, Italian, dancing, declamation, politics, ethics, astronomy,
anatomy, chemistry, without counting drawing and the violin, and
twenty other things besides. Rousseau is wiser. He is dismayed at
such an accumulation, at such an obstruction of studies, and so
yields too much to the opposite tendency, and restricts beyond
measure the list of necessary studies.
322. ÉMILE’S STUDIES.--These, in fact, are the studies to which
Émile is limited: first, the physical sciences, and, at the head of
the list, astronomy, then geography, geography taught without maps
and by means of travel:--
“You are looking for globes, spheres, maps. What machines! Why all
these representations? Why not begin by showing him the object
itself?”
Here, as in other places, Rousseau prefers what would be best, but
what is impossible, to that which is worth less, but which alone is
practicable.
But Rousseau does not wish that his pupil, like the pupil of
Rabelais, become an “abyss of knowledge.”
“When I see a man, enamored of knowledge, allow himself to yield to
its charms, and run from one kind to another without knowing where
to stop, I think I see a child on the sea-shore collecting shells,
beginning by loading himself with them; then, tempted by those he
still sees, throwing them aside, picking them up, until, weighed
down by their number, and no longer knowing which to choose, he
ends by rejecting everything, and returns empty-handed.”
No account is made of grammar and the ancient languages in the
plan of Émile’s studies. Graver still, history is proscribed. This
rejection of historical studies, moreover, is systematically done.
Rousseau has placed Émile in the country, and has made him an
orphan, the better to isolate him; to teach him history would be to
throw him back into society that he abominates.
323. NO BOOKS SAVE ROBINSON CRUSOE.--One of the consequences of an
education that is natural and negative is the suppression of books.
Always going to extremes, Rousseau is not content to criticise the
abuse of books. He determines that up to his fifth year Émile shall
not know what a book is:--
“I hate books,” he exclaims; “they teach us merely to speak of
things that we do not know.”
Besides the fact that this raving is rather ridiculous in the
case of a man who is a writer by profession, it is evident that
Rousseau is roving at random when he condemns the use of books in
instruction.
One book, however, one single book, has found favor in his sight.
_Robinson Crusoe_ will constitute by itself for a long time
the whole of Émile’s library. We understand without difficulty
Rousseau’s kindly feeling for a work which, under the form of a
romance, is, like the _Émile_, a treatise on natural education.
Émile and Robinson strongly resemble each other, since they are
self-sufficient and dispense with society.
324. EXCELLENT PRECEPTS ON METHOD.--At least in the general method
which he commends, Rousseau makes amends for the errors in his plan
of study:--
“Do not treat the child to discourses which he cannot understand.
No descriptions, no eloquence, no figures of speech. Be content to
present to him appropriate objects. Let us transform our sensations
into ideas. But let us not jump at once from sensible objects
to intellectual objects. Let us always proceed slowly from one
sensible notion to another. In general, let us never substitute the
sign for the thing, except when it is impossible for us to show the
thing.”
“I have no love whatever for explanations and talk. Things! things!
I shall never tire of saying that we ascribe too much importance to
words. With our babbling education we make only babblers.”
But the whole would bear quoting. Almost all of Rousseau’s
recommendations, in the way of method, contain an element of truth,
and need only to be modified in order to become excellent.
325. EXCLUSIVE MOTIVES OF ACTION.--A great question in the
education of children is to know to what motive we shall address
ourselves. Here again, Rousseau is exclusive and absolute. Up to
the age of twelve, Émile will have been guided by necessity; he
will have been made dependent on things, not on men. It is through
the possible and the impossible that he will have been conducted,
by treating him, not as a sensible and intelligent being, but as
a force of nature against which other forces are made to act. Not
till the age of twelve must this system be changed. Émile has now
acquired some judgment; and it is upon an intellectual motive that
one ought now to count in regulating his conduct. This motive is
utility. The feeling of emulation cannot be employed in a solitary
education. Finally, at the age of fifteen, it will be possible to
appeal to the heart, to feeling, and to recommend to the young man
the acts we set before him, no longer as necessary or useful, but
as noble, good, and generous. The error of Rousseau is in cutting
up the life of man to his twentieth year into three sharply defined
parts, into three moments, each subordinated to a single governing
principle. The truth is that at every age an appeal must be made to
all the motives that act on our will, that at every age, necessity,
interest, sentiment, and finally, the idea of duty, an idea too
often overlooked by Rousseau, as all else that is derived from
reason,--all these motives can effectively intervene, in different
degrees, in the education of man.
326. ÉMILE LEARNS A TRADE.--At the age of fifteen, Émile will
know nothing of history, nothing of humanity, nothing of art and
literature, nothing of God; but he will know a trade, a manual
trade. By this means, he will be sheltered from need in advance, in
case a revolution should strip him of his fortune.
“We are approaching,” says Rousseau, with an astonishing
perspicacity, “a century of revolutions. Who can give you assurance
of what will then become of you? I hold it to be impossible for the
great monarchies of Europe to last much longer. They have all had
their day of glory, and every State that dazzles is in its decline.”
We have previously noticed, in studying analogous ideas in the
case of Locke, for what other reasons Rousseau made of Émile an
apprentice to a cabinet-maker or a carpenter.
327. ÉMILE AT THE AGE OF FIFTEEN.--Rousseau takes comfort in the
contemplation of his work, and he pauses from time to time in his
analyses and deductions, to trace the portrait of his pupil. This
is how he represents him at the age of fifteen:--
“Émile has but little knowledge, but that which he has is really
his own; he knows nothing by halves. In the small number of things
that he knows, and knows well, the most important is that there
are many things which he does not know, but which he can some day
learn; that there are many more things which other men know, but
which he will never know; and that there is an infinity of other
things which no man will ever know. He has a universal mind, not
through actual knowledge, but through the ability to acquire it. He
has a mind that is open, intelligent, prepared for everything, and,
as Montaigne says, if not instructed, at least capable of being
instructed. It is sufficient for me that he knows how to find the
_of what good is it?_ with reference to all that he does, and the
_why?_ of all that he believes. Once more, my object is not at all
to give him knowledge, but to teach him how to acquire it as he may
need it, to make him estimate it at its exact worth, and to make
him love truth above everything else. With this method, progress is
slow; but there are no false steps, and no danger of being obliged
to retrace one’s course.”
All this is well; but it is necessary to add that even Émile has
faults, great faults. To mention but one of them, but one which
dominates all the others, he sees things only from the point of
view of utility, and he would not hesitate, for example, “to give
the Academy of Sciences for the smallest bit of pastry.”
328. EDUCATION OF THE SENSIBILITIES.--It is true that Rousseau
finally decides to make of Émile an affectionate and reasonable
being. “We have formed,” he says, “his body, his senses, his
judgment; it remains to give him a heart.” Rousseau, who proceeds
like a magician, by wave of wand and clever tricks, flatters
himself that within a day’s time Émile is going to become the most
affectionate, the most moral, and the most religious of men.
329. THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE ÉMILE.--The development of the
affectionate sentiments, the culture of the moral sentiment, and
that of the religious sentiment, such is the triple subject of
the fourth book,--vast and exalted questions that lend themselves
to eloquence in such a way that the fourth book of the _Émile_ is
perhaps the most brilliant of the whole work.
330. GENESIS OF THE AFFECTIONATE SENTIMENTS.--Here Rousseau is
wholly in the land of chimeras. Émile, who lives in isolation,
who has neither family, friends, nor companions, is necessarily
condemned to selfishness, and everything Rousseau can do to warm
his heart will be useless. Do we wish to develop the feelings of
tenderness and affection? Let us begin by placing the child under
family or social influences which alone can furnish his affections
the occasion for development. For fifteen years Rousseau leaves
the heart of Émile unoccupied. What an illusion to think he will
be able to fill it all at once! When we suppress the mother in the
education of a child, all the means that we can invent to excite in
his soul emotions of gentleness and affection are but palliatives.
Rousseau made the mistake of thinking that a child can be taught
to love as he is taught to read and write, and that lessons could
be given to Émile in feeling just as lessons are given to him in
geometry.
331. MORAL EDUCATION.--Rousseau is more worthy of being followed
when he demands that the moral notions of right and wrong have
their first source in the feelings of sympathy and social
benevolence, on the supposition that according to his system he can
inspire Émile with such feelings.
“We enter, finally, the domain of morals,” he says. “If this were
the place for it, I would show how from the first emotions of the
heart arise the first utterances of the conscience, and how, from
the first feelings of love and hate arise the first notions of good
and evil. I would make it appear that _justice_ and _goodness_ are
not merely abstract terms, conceived by the understanding, but real
affections of the soul enlightened by the reason.”
Yes; let the child be made to make his way gradually towards a
severe morality, sanctioned by the reason, in having him pass
through the gentle emotions of the heart. Nothing can be better.
But this is to be done on one condition: this is, that we shall
not stop on the way, and that the vague inspirations of the
sensibilities shall be succeeded by the exact prescriptions of the
reason. Now Rousseau, as we know, was never willing to admit that
virtue was anything else than an affair of the heart. His ethics is
wholly an ethics of sentiment.
332. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.--We know the reasons which determined
Rousseau to delay till the sixteenth or eighteenth year the
revelation of religion. It is that the child, with his sensitive
imagination, is necessarily an idolater. If we speak to him of God,
he can form but a superstitious idea of him. “Now,” says Rousseau,
pithily, “when the imagination has once seen God, it is very rare
that the understanding conceives him.” In other terms, once plunged
in superstition, the mind of the child can never extricate itself
from it. We must then wait, in the interest of religion itself,
till the child have sufficient maturity of reason and sufficient
power of thought to seize in its truth, divested of every veil of
sense, the idea of God, whose existence is announced to him for the
first time.
It is difficult to justify Rousseau. First, is it not to be feared
that the child, if he has reached his eighteenth year in ignorance
of God, may find it wholly natural to be ignorant of him still,
and that he reason and dispute at random with his teacher, and
that he doubt instead of believe? And if he allows himself to be
convinced, is it not at least evident that the religious idea,
tardily inculcated, will have no profound hold on his mind? On the
other hand, will the child, with his instinctive curiosity, wait
till his eighteenth year to inquire the cause of the universe? Will
he not form the notion of a God in his own way?
“One might have read, a few years ago,” says Villemain, “the
account, or rather the psychological confession, of a writer
(Sentenis), a German philosopher, whom his father had submitted
to the experiment advised by the author of _Émile_. Left alone
by the loss of a tenderly loved wife, this father, a learned and
thoughtful man, had taken his infant son to a retired place in
the country; and not allowing him communication with any one, he
had cultivated the child’s intelligence through the sight of the
natural objects placed near him, and by the study of the languages,
almost without books, and in carefully concealing from him all idea
of God. The child had reached his tenth year without having either
read or heard that great name. But then his mind found what had
been denied it. The sun which he saw rise each morning seemed the
all-powerful benefactor of whom he felt the need. He soon formed
the habit of going at dawn to the garden to pay homage to that
god that he had made for himself. His father surprised him one
day, and showed him his error by teaching him that all the fixed
stars are so many suns distributed in space. But such was then the
disappointment and the grief of the child deprived of his worship,
that the father, overcome, acknowledged to him that there was a
God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth.”[175]
333. THE SAVOYARD VICAR’S PROFESSION OF FAITH.--Rousseau has at
least attempted to retrieve, by stately language and an impassioned
demonstration of the existence of God, the delay which he has
spontaneously imposed on his pupil.
The _Savoyard Vicar’s Profession of Faith_ is an eloquent catechism
on natural religion, and the honest expression of a sincere and
profound deism. The religion of nature is evidently the only one
which, in Rousseau’s system, can be taught, and ought to be taught,
to the child, since the child is exactly the pupil of nature. If
Émile wishes to go beyond this, if he needs a positive religion,
this shall be for himself to choose.
334. SOPHIE AND THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN.--The weakest part of the
_Émile_ is that which treats of the education of woman. This is
not merely because Rousseau, with his decided leaning towards the
romantic, leads Émile and his companion into odd and extraordinary
adventures, but it is especially because he misconceives the proper
dignity of woman. Sophie, the perfect woman, has been educated
only to complete the happiness of Émile. Her education is wholly
relative to her destiny as a wife.
“The whole education of women should be relative to men; to please
them, to be useful to them, to make themselves honored and loved by
them, to educate the young, to care for the older, to advise them,
to console them, to make life agreeable and sweet to them,--these
are the duties of women in every age.”
“Sophie,” says Gréard, “has but virtues of the second order,
virtues of conjugal education.” It has been said that marriage
is a second birth for man, that he rises or falls according to
the choice which he makes. For woman, according to the theory
of Rousseau, it is the true advent into life. According to the
expressive formula of Michelet, who, in a sentence, has given a
marvellous summary of the doctrine, but in attaching to it a sense
which poetizes it, “the husband creates the wife.” Sophie, up to
the day of her marriage, did not exist. She had learned nothing
and read nothing “except a _Barême_ and a _Télémaque_ which
have chanced to fall into her hands.” She has been definitely
admonished, “that were men sensible, every lettered girl will
remain a girl.” It is Émile alone who is to instruct her, and
he will instruct her and mould her into his own ideal, and in
conformity to his individual interest.
While it was only in his youth that he received the first
principles of the religious feeling, Sophie must be penetrated
with it from infancy, in order that she may early form the habit
of submission. He commands and she obeys, the first duty of the
wife being meekness. If, during her youth, she has freely attended
banquets, amusements, balls, the theatre, it is not so much to be
initiated into the vain pleasures of the world, under the tutelage
of a vigilant mother, as to belong, once married, more fully to her
home and to her husband. She is nothing except as she is by his
side, or as dependent on him, or as acting through him. Strange
and brutal paradox, which Rousseau, it is true, corrects and
repairs in detail, at every moment by the most happy and charming
inconsistencies.
Sophie, briefly, is an incomplete person whom Rousseau is not
careful enough to educate for herself.
In her subordinate and inferior position, the cares of the
household occupy the largest place. She cuts and makes her own
dresses:--
“What Sophie knows best, and what was taught her with most care,
is the work of her sex. There is no needle-work which she does not
know how to make.”
It is not forbidden her, but is even recommended that she introduce
a certain coquetry into her employments:--
“The work she loves the best is lace-making, because there is no
other that gives her a more agreeable attitude, and in which the
fingers are used with more grace and deftness.”
She carries daintiness a little too far:--
“She does not love cooking; its details have some disgust for her.
She would sooner let the whole dinner go into the fire than to soil
her cuffs.”
Truly this is fine housewifery! We feel that we have here to do
with a character in a romance who has no need to dine. Sophie would
not have been well received at Saint Cyr, where Madame de Maintenon
so severely scolded the girls who were too fastidious, “fearing
smoke, dust, and disagreeable odors, even to making complaints and
grimaces on their account as though all were lost.”
335. GENERAL CONCLUSION.--In order to form a just estimate of the
_Émile_, it is necessary to put aside the impressions left by the
reading of the last pages. We must consider as a whole, and without
taking details into account, that work, which, notwithstanding
all, is very admirable and profound. It is injured by analysis.
To esteem the _Émile_ at its real worth, it must be read entire.
In reading it, in fact, we are warmed by contact with the passion
which Rousseau puts into whatever he writes. We pardon his errors
and chimeras by reason of the grand sentiments and the grand truths
which we meet at every step. We must also take into account the
time when Rousseau lived, and the conditions under which he wrote.
We have not a doubt that had it been written thirty years later,
in the dawn of the Revolution, for a people who were free, or who
desired to be free, the _Émile_ would have been wholly different
from what it is. Had he been working for a republican society, or
for a society that wished to become such, Rousseau would not have
thrown himself, out of hatred for the reality, into the absurdities
of an over-specialized and exceptional education. We can judge of
what he would have done as legislator of public instruction in the
time of the Revolution, by what he wrote in his _Considerations on
the Government of Poland_:--
“National education belongs only to people who are free.... It
is education which is to give to men the national mould, and so
to direct their opinions and their tastes that they will become
patriots by inclination, by passion, and by necessity” (we would
only add, by duty). “A child, in opening his eyes, ought to see
his country and nothing but his country. Every true republican,
along with his mother’s milk, will imbibe love of country, that
is, of law and liberty. This love constitutes his whole existence.
He sees but his country, he lives but for her. So soon as he is
alone, he is nothing; so soon as there is no more of country, he is
no more.... While learning to read, I would have a child of Poland
read what relates to his country; at the age of ten, I would have
him know all its productions; at twelve, all its provinces, all its
roads, all its cities; at fifteen, the whole of its history; and
at sixteen, all its laws; and there should not be in all Poland a
notable deed or an illustrious man, of which his memory and his
heart were not full.”
336. INFLUENCE OF THE ÉMILE.--That which proves better than any
commentary can the high standing of the _Émile_, is the success
which it has obtained, the influence which it has exerted, both
in France and abroad, and the durable renown attested by so many
works designed, either to contradict it, to correct it, or to
approve it and to disseminate its doctrines. During the twenty-five
years that followed the publication of the _Émile_, there appeared
in the French language twice as many books on education as during
the first sixty years of the century. Rousseau, besides all that
he said personally which was just and new, had the merit of
stimulating minds and of preparing through his impulsion the rich
educational harvest of this last one hundred years.
To be convinced of this, it suffices to read this judgment of
Kant:--
“The first impression which a reader who does not read for vanity
or for killing time derives from the writings of Rousseau, is that
this writer unites to an admirable penetration of genius a noble
inspiration and a soul full of sensibility, such as has never been
met with in any other writer, in any other time, or in any other
country. The impression which immediately follows this, is that of
astonishment caused by the extraordinary and paradoxical thoughts
which he develops.... I ought to read and re-read Rousseau, till
the beauty of his style no more affects me. It is only then that I
can adjust my reason to judge of him.”
[337. ANALYTICAL SUMMARY.--1. The study of the _Émile_ exhibits,
in a very striking manner, the contrast between the respective
agencies of art and nature in the work of education, and also the
power of sentiment as a motor to ideas.
2. What Monsieur Compayré has happily called Rousseau’s “misuse
of the principle of nature” marks a recoil against the artificial
and fictitious state of society and opinion in France in the
eighteenth century. In politics, in religion, and in philosophy,
there was the domination of authority, and but a small margin
was left for the exercise of freedom, versatility, and individual
initiative; while education was administered rather as a process
of manufacture, than of regulated growth.
3. The conception that the child, by his very constitution,
is predetermined, like plants and animals, to a progressive
development quite independent of artificial aid, easily
degenerates into the hypothesis that the typical education is a
process of spontaneous growth.
4. The error in this hypothesis is that of exaggeration or of
disproportion. Education is neither a work of nature alone, nor
of art alone, but is a natural process, supplemented, controlled,
and perfected by human art. What education would become when
abandoned wholly to “nature” may be seen in the state of a
perfected fruit which has been allowed to revert to its primitive
or natural condition.
5. Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the fact that
he is not the victim of his environment, but is endowed with the
power to control his environment, almost to re-create it, and so
to rise superior to it. This ability gives rise to human art,
which is a coördinate factor with nature in the work of education.
6. This convenient fiction of “Nature,” conceived as an
infallible and incomparable guide in education, has introduced
countless errors into educational theory; and Miss E. R. Sill
is amply justified in saying that “probably nine-tenths of the
popular sophistries on the subject of education, would be cleared
away by clarifying the word Nature.”[176]
7. In spite of its paradoxes, its exaggerations, its overwrought
sentiment, and florid declamation, the _Émile_, in its general
spirit, is a work of incomparable power and of perennial value.]
FOOTNOTES:
[169] Dom Joseph Cajet, _Les Plagiats de J. J. R. de Genève sur
l’éducation_, 1768.
[170] _Œuvres diverses_, Tome I. p. 12.
[171] _De l’éducation des enfants_, La Haye, 1722; _Pensées libres
sur les instructions publiques des bas collèges_, Amsterdam, 1727.
[172] _Spectacle de la nature_, Paris, 1732, Vol. VI. _Entretien
sur l’éducation_.
[173] _Lettre critique sur l’éducation_, Paris, 1751.
[174] _Projet pour l’éducation de M. de Ste-Marie._
[175] Report of Villemain on the work of the Père Girard (1844).
[176] _Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1883, p. 178.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PHILOSOPHERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.--CONDILLAC, DIDEROT,
HELVETIUS, AND KANT.
THE PHILOSOPHERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY; CONDILLAC
(1715-1780); ABUSE OF THE PHILOSOPHIC SPIRIT; MUST WE REASON
WITH CHILDREN? PRELIMINARY LESSONS; THE ART OF THINKING; OTHER
PARTS OF THE COURSE OF STUDY; PERSONAL REFLECTION; EXCESSES OF
DEVOTION CRITICISED; DIDEROT (1713-1784); HIS PEDAGOGICAL WORKS;
HIS QUALITIES AS AN EDUCATOR; NECESSITY OF INSTRUCTION; IDEA OF
A SYSTEM OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION; CRITICISM OF FRENCH COLLEGES;
PROPOSED REFORMS; PREFERENCE FOR THE SCIENCES; INCOMPLETE
VIEWS ON THE PROVINCE OF LETTERS; OPINION OF MARMONTEL; OTHER
NOVELTIES OF DIDEROT’S PLAN; HELVETIUS (1715-1771); PARADOXES
OF THE TREATISE ON MAN; REFUTATION OF HELVETIUS BY DIDEROT;
INSTRUCTION SECULARIZED; THE ENCYCLOPÆDISTS; KANT (1724-1804);
HIGH CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION; PSYCHOLOGICAL OPTIMISM; RESPECT
FOR THE LIBERTY OF THE CHILD; CULTURE OF THE FACULTIES; STORIES
INTERDICTED; DIFFERENT KINDS OF PUNISHMENT; RELIGIOUS EDUCATION;
ANALYTICAL SUMMARY.
338. THE PHILOSOPHERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.--If there has been
considerable progress made in education in the eighteenth century,
it is due, in great part, to the efforts of the philosophers of
that age. It is no longer alone the men who are actually engaged
in the schools that are preoccupied with education; but nearly all
the illustrious thinkers of the eighteenth century have discussed
these great questions with more or less thoroughness. The subject
is far from being exhausted by the study of Rousseau. Besides the
educational current set in movement by the _Émile_, the other
philosophers of that period, in their isolated and independent
march, left original routes which it remains to follow. From out
their errors and conceptions of systems there emerge some new
outlooks and some definite truths.
339. CONDILLAC (1715-1780).--An acute and ingenious psychologist, a
competitor and rival of Locke in philosophy, Condillac is far from
having the same authority in matters pertaining to education; but
still there is profit to be derived from the reading of his _Course
of Study_, which includes not less than thirteen volumes. This
important work is a collection of the lessons which he had composed
for the education of the infant Ferdinand, the grandson of Louis
XV., and heir of the dukedom of Parma, whose preceptor he became in
1757.
340. ABUSE OF THE PHILOSOPHIC SPIRIT.--It is certainly a matter
of congratulation that the philosophical spirit is entering more
and more largely into the theories of education, and there would
be only words of commendation for Condillac had he restricted
himself to this excellent declaration, that pedagogy is nothing if
it is not a deduction from psychology. But he does not stop there,
but with an indiscretion that is to be regretted, he arbitrarily
transports into education certain philosophical principles which
it is not proper to apply to the art of educating men, whatever
may be their theoretical truth; thus Condillac, having established
the natural order of the development of the sciences and the arts
in the history of humanity, presumes to impose the same law of
progress upon the child.
“The method which I have followed does not resemble the usual
manner of teaching; but it is the very way in which men were led to
create the arts and the sciences.”[177]
In other terms, the child must do over again, on his own account,
“that which the race has done.” He must be compelled to follow,
step by step, in its long gropings, the slow progress made by the
race.[178]
There is, doubtless, an element of truth in the error of
Condillac. The sciences and the arts began with the observation
of particulars, and thence slowly rose to general principles; and
to-day no one thinks of denying the necessity of proceeding in the
same manner in education, so far as this is possible. It is well
at the first to present facts to the child, and to lead him step
by step, from observation to observation, to the law which governs
them and includes them; but there is a wide distance between the
discreet use of the inductive and experimental method, and the
exaggerations of Condillac. No one should seriously think of
absolutely suppressing the synthetic method of exposition, which,
taking advantage of the work accomplished through the centuries,
teaches at the outset the truths that have been already acquired.
It would be absurd to compel the child painfully to recommence the
toil of the race.[179]
Graver still, Condillac, led astray by his love for philosophizing,
presumes to initiate the child, from the very beginning of his
studies, into psychological analysis.
“The first thing to be done is to make the child acquainted with
the faculties of his soul, and to make him feel the need of making
use of them.”
In other terms, the analysis of the soul shall be the first object
proposed to the reflection of the child. It is not proposed to make
him attentive, but to teach him what attention is.
How can one seriously think of making of the child a little
psychologist, and of choosing as the first element of his education
the very science that is the most difficult of all, the one which
can be but the coronation of his studies?
341. MUST WE REASON WITH CHILDREN?--Rousseau had sharply criticised
the famous maxim of Locke: “We must reason with children.”
Condillac tries to restore it to credit, and for this purpose he
invokes the pretended demonstrations of a superficial and inexact
psychology.
“It has been proved,” he says, “that the faculty of reasoning
begins as soon as the senses commence to develop; and we have the
early use of our senses only because we early began to reason.”
Strange assertions, which are disproved by the most elementary
observation of the facts in the case. Condillac here allows himself
to be imposed upon by his sensational psychology, the tendency
of which is to efface the peculiar character of the different
intellectual faculties, to derive them all from the senses, and,
consequently, to suppress the distance which separates a simple
sensation from the subtile, reflective, and abstract process which
is called reasoning. It cannot be admitted for a single instant
that the faculties of the understanding are, as he says, “the same
in the child as in the mature man.” There is, doubtless, in the
child a beginning of reasoning, a sort of instinctive logic; but
this infantile reasoning can be applied only to familiar objects,
such as are sensible and concrete. It were absurd to employ it on
general and abstract ideas.
342. PRELIMINARY LESSONS.--We shall quote, without comment, the
first subjects of instruction which, under the title of _Leçons
préliminaires_, Condillac proposes to his pupil: 1. the nature
of ideas; 2. the operations of the soul; 3. the habits; 4. the
difference between the soul and the body; 5. the knowledge of God.
How are we to conceive that Condillac had the pretension to place
these high philosophical speculations within the reach of a child
of seven years who has not yet studied the grammar of his native
language! How much better some fables or historical narratives
would answer his purpose!
But Condillac does not stop there. When his pupil has a systematic
knowledge of the operations of the soul, when he has comprehended
the genesis of ideas; in a word, when, towards the age of eight or
ten, he is as proficient in philosophy as his master, and almost as
capable of writing the _Treatise on Sensations_, what do you think
he is invited to study? Something which very much resembles the
philosophy of history:--
“After having made him reflect on his own infancy, I thought that
the infancy of the world would be the most interesting subject for
him, and the easiest to study.”
343. THE ART OF THINKING.--It is only when he judges that the mind
of his pupil is sufficiently prepared by psychological analysis and
by general reflections on the progress of humanity, that Condillac
decides to have him enter upon the ordinary course of study. Here
the spirit of system disappears, and gives place to more judicious
and more practical ideas. Thus Condillac thinks that “the study of
grammar would be more wearisome than useful if it come too early.”
Would that he had applied this principle to psychology! Before
studying grammar, then, Condillac’s pupil reads the poets,--the
French poets, of course,--and preferably the dramatic authors,
Racine especially, whom he reads for the twelfth time. The real
knowledge of the language precedes the abstract study of the
rules. Condillac himself composed a grammar entitled the _Art of
Speaking_. In this he imitates the authors of Port Royal, “who,” he
says, “were the first to write elementary books on an intelligent
plan.” After the _Art of Speaking_ he calls the attention of
his pupil to three other treatises in succession,--the _Art of
Writing_, or rhetoric, the _Art of Reasoning_, or logic, and the
_Art of Thinking_. We shall not attempt an analysis of these works,
which have gone out of date, notwithstanding the value of certain
portions of them. The general characteristic of these treatises
on intellectual education is that the author is pre-occupied with
the relations of ideas more than with the exterior elegancies of
style, with the development of thought more than with the beauties
of language:--
“Especially must the intelligence be nourished, even as the body is
nourished. We must present to it knowledge, which is the wholesome
aliment of spirit, opinions and errors being aliment that is
poisonous. It is also necessary that the intelligence be active,
for the thought remains imbecile as long as, passive rather than
active, it moves at random.”
344. OTHER PARTS OF THE COURSE OF STUDY.--It seems that Condillac
is in pursuit of but one single purpose,--to make of his pupil a
thinking being. The study of Latin is postponed till the time when
the intelligence, being completely formed, will find in the study
of that language only the difficulty of learning words. Condillac
has but little taste for the study of the ancient languages. He
relegates the study of Latin to the second place, and omits Greek
entirely. But he accords a great importance to historical studies.
“After having learned to think, the Prince made the study of
history his principal object for six years.”
Twelve volumes of the _Course of Study_ have transmitted to us
Condillac’s lessons in history. In this he does not take delight,
as Rollin does, in long narrations; but he analyzes, multiplies
his reflections, and abridges facts; he philosophizes more than he
recites the facts of history.
345. PERSONAL REFLECTION.--What we have said of Condillac’s _Course
of Study_ suffices to justify the judgment expressed of his
pedagogy by one of his disciples, Gérando, when he wrote: “He who
had so thoroughly studied the manner in which ideas are formed in
the human mind, had but little skill in calling them into being in
the intelligence of his pupil.”
But we would judge our author unjustly if, after the criticisms we
have made of him, we were not to accord him the praise he deserves,
especially for having comprehended, as he has done, the value of
personal reflection, and the superiority of judgment over memory. A
few quotations will rehabilitate the pedagogy of Condillac in the
minds of our readers.
Above all else there must be an exercise in personal reflection:--
“I grant that the education which cultivates only the memory may
make prodigies, and that it has done so; but these prodigies last
only during the time of infancy.... He who knows only by heart,
knows nothing.... He who has not learned to reflect has not been
instructed, or, what is still worse, has been poorly instructed.”
“True knowledge is in the reflection, which has acquired it, much
more than in the memory, which holds it in keeping; and the things
which we are capable of recovering are better known than those of
which we have a recollection. It does not suffice, then, to give
a child knowledge. It is necessary that he instruct himself by
seeking knowledge on his own account, and the essential point is
to guide him properly. If he is led in an orderly way, he will
acquire exact ideas, and will seize their succession and relation.
Then, able to call them up for review, he will be able to compare
them with others that are more remote, and to make a final choice
of those which he wishes to study. Reflection can always recover
the things it has known, because it knows how it originally found
them; but the memory does not so recover the things it has learned,
because it does not know how it learns.”
This is why Condillac places far above the education we receive,
the education that we give ourselves:--
“Henceforth, Sir, it remains for you alone to instruct yourself.
Perhaps you imagine you have finished; but it is I who have
finished. You are to begin anew!”
346. EXCESSIVE DEVOTION CRITICISED.--What beautiful lessons
Condillac also addresses to his pupil to induce him to enfranchise
himself from ecclesiastical tutelage! Written by an abbot, the
eloquent page we are about to read proves how the lay spirit tended
to pronounce itself in the eighteenth century.
“You cannot be too pious, Sir; but if your piety is not
enlightened, you will so far forget your duties as to be engrossed
in the little things of devotion. Because prayer is necessary, you
will think you ought always to be praying, not considering that
true devotion consists first of all in fulfilling the duties of
your station in life: it will not be your fault that you do not
live in your heart as in a cloister. Hypocrites will swarm around
you, the monks will issue from their cells. The priests will
abandon the service of the altar in order to be edified with the
sight of your holy works. Blind prince! you will not perceive how
their conduct is in contradiction with their language. You will
not even observe that the men who praise you for always being at
the foot of the altar, themselves forget that it is their own duty
to be there. You will unconsciously take their place and leave to
them your own. You will be continually at prayer, and you will
believe that you assure your salvation. They will cease to pray,
and you will believe that they assure their salvation. Strange
contradiction, which turns aside ministers from the Church to give
bad ministers to the State.”[180]
347. DIDEROT (1713-1784).--To him who knows nothing of Diderot save
his works of imagination, often so licentious, it will doubtless be
a surprise to see the name of this fantastic writer inscribed in
the catalogue of educators. But this astonishment will disappear if
we will take the trouble to recollect with what versatility this
mighty spirit could vary the subject of his reflections, and pass
from the gay to the solemn, and especially with what ardor, in
conjunction with D’Alembert, he was the principal founder of the
_Encyclopédie_, and the indefatigable contributor to it.
348. HIS PEDAGOGICAL WORKS.--But there is no room for doubt.
Diderot has written at least two treatises that belong to the
history of education: first, about 1773, _The Systematic Refutation
of the Book of Helvetius on Man_, an incisive and eloquent
criticism of the paradoxes and errors of Helvetius; and, in the
second place, about 1776, a complete scheme of education, composed
at the request of Catherine II., under the title, _Plan of a
University_.[181]
349. HIS MERITS AS AN EDUCATOR.--Doubtless Diderot did not have
sufficient gravity of character or sufficiently definite ideas
to be a perfect educator; but, by way of compensation, the
natural and acquired qualities of his mind made him worthy of
the confidence placed in him by Catherine II. in entrusting him
with the organization, at least in theory, of the instruction of
the Russian people. First of all, he had the merit of being a
universal thinker, “sufficiently versed in all the sciences to
know their value, and not sufficiently profound in any one to
give it a preference inspired by predilection.” Engaged in the
scientific movement, of which the _Encyclopédie_ was the centre,
he at the same time cherished an enthusiastic passion for letters.
He worshipped Shakespeare and modern poetry, but he was not less
enamored of classical antiquity, and for several years, he says,
“he thought it as much a religious duty to read a song of Homer as
a good priest would to recite his breviary.”
350. NECESSITY OF INSTRUCTION.--Diderot, and this is to his
praise, is distinguished from the most of his contemporaries, and
especially from Rousseau, by his ardent faith in the moral efficacy
of instruction:--
“Far from corrupting,” he exclaims, “instruction sweetens
character, throws light on duty, makes vice less gross, and either
chokes it or conceals it.... I dare assert that purity of morals
has followed the progress of dress, from the skin of animals to
fabrics of silk.”
Hence he decides on the necessity of instruction for all:--
“From the prime minister to the lowest peasant, it is good for
every one to know how to read, write, and count.”
And he proposes to all people the example of Germany, with her
strongly organized system of primary instruction. He demands
schools open to all children, “schools of reading, writing,
arithmetic, and religion,” in which will be studied both a moral
and a political catechism. Attendance on these schools shall be
obligatory, and to make compulsion possible, Diderot demands
gratuity. He goes even farther, and would have the child fed at
school, and with his books would have him find bread.
351. THE CONCEPTION OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.--Like all who sincerely
desire a strong organization of instruction, Diderot assigns the
direction of it to the State. His ideal of a Russian university
bears a strong resemblance to the French University of 1808. He
would have at its head a politician, a statesman, to whom should be
submitted all the affairs of public instruction. He even went so
far as to entrust to this general master of the university the duty
of presiding over the examinations, of appointing the presidents of
colleges, of excluding bad pupils, and of deposing professors and
tutors.
352. CRITICISM OF FRENCH COLLEGES.--Secondary instruction, what
was then called the _Faculty of Arts_, is the principal object
of Diderot’s reflections. He criticises the traditional system
with extreme severity, and his charge, thought sometimes unjust,
deserves to be quoted:--