173. Education in the Seventeenth Century.—Outside of the teaching congregations, the seventeenth century counts a certain number of independent educators, isolated thinkers, who have transmitted to us in durable records the results of their reflection or of their experience. The most of these belong to the clergy,—they are royal preceptors. In a monarchical government there is no grander affair than the education of princes. Some others are philosophers, whom the general study of human nature has led to reflect on the principles of education. Without pretending to include everything within the narrow compass of this elementary history, we would make known either the fundamental doctrines or the essential methods which have been concerned in the education of the seventeenth century, and which, at the same time, have made a preparation for the educational reforms of the succeeding centuries.

174. FÉnelon (1651-1715).—FÉnelon holds an important place in French literature; but it seems that of all the varied aspects of his genius, the part he played as an educator is the most important and the most considerable. FÉnelon wrote the first classical work of French pedagogy, and it may be said, considering the great number of authors who have been inspired by his thoughts, that he is the head of a school of educators.

175. How FÉnelon became a Teacher.—It is well known that the valuable treatise, On the Education of Girls, was written in 1680, at the request of the Duke and the Duchess of Beauvilliers. These noble friends of FÉnelon, besides several boys, had eight girls to educate. It was to assist, by his advice, in the education of this little family school, that FÉnelon wrote his book which was not designed at first for the public, and which did not appear till 1687. The young AbbÉ who, in 1680, was but thirty years old, had already had experience in educational matters in the management of the Convent of the New Catholics (1678). This was an institution whose purpose was to retain young Protestant converts in the Catholic faith, or even to call them there by mild force. It would have been better, we confess, for the glory of FÉnelon, if he had gained his experience elsewhere than in that mission of fanaticism, where he was the auxiliary of the secular arm, the accomplice of dragoons, and where was prepared the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. We would have preferred that the Education of Girls had not been planned in a house where were violently confined girls torn from their mothers, and wives stolen from their husbands. But if the first source of FÉnelon’s educational inspiration was not as pure as one could wish, at least in the book there is nothing that betrays the spirit of intolerance and violence with which the author was associated. On the contrary, The Education of Girls is a work of gentleness and goodness, of a complaisant and amiable grace, which is pervaded by a spirit of progress.

FÉnelon soon had occasion to apply the principles that he had set forth in his treatise. August 16, 1689, he was chosen preceptor of the Duke of Bourgogne,[123] with the Duke of Beauvilliers for governor, and the AbbÉ Fleury for sub-preceptor. From 1689 to 1695, he directed with marvellous success the education of a prince, “a born terror,” as Saint Simon expressed it, but who, under the penetrating influence of his master, became an accomplished man, almost a saint. It was for his royal pupil that he composed, one after another, a large number of educational works, such as the Collection of Fables, the Dialogues of the Dead, the treatise on The Existence of God, and especially the Telemachus, one of the most popular works in French literature.

In furnishing occasion for the exercise of his educational activity, events served FÉnelon according to his wish. We may say that his nature predestinated him to the work of education. With his tender soul, preserving its paternal instincts even in his celibate condition, with his admirable grace of spirit, with his various erudition and profound knowledge of antiquity, with his competence in the studies of grammar and history, attested by different passages in his Letter to the Academy; finally, with his temperate disposition and his inclinations towards liberalism in a century of absolute monarchy, he was made to become one of the guides, one of the masters, of French education.

176. Analysis of the Treatise on the Education of Girls.—This charming masterpiece of FÉnelon’s should be read entire. A rapid analysis would not suffice, as it is difficult to reduce to a few essential points the flowing thought of our author. With a facility in expression inclining to laxness, and with a copiousness of thought somewhat lacking in exactness, FÉnelon easily repeats himself; he returns to thoughts which have already been elaborated, and does not restrict his easy flowing thought to a rigorous and methodical plan. We may, however, distinguish three principal parts in the thirteen chapters composing the work. Chapters I. and II. are critical, and in these the ordinary faults in the education of women are brought into sharp outline; then in chapters III. to VIII. we have general observations, and the statement of the principles and methods that should be followed and applied in the education of boys as in the education of girls; and finally, from chapter IX. to the end of the book, are all the special reflections which relate exclusively to the merits and demerits, the duties and the studies, of women.

177. Criticism on Monastic Education.—In the opening of the treatise, as in another little essay[124] that is usually included in this volume, FÉnelon expresses a preference for a liberal and humane education, where the light of the world penetrates, and which is not confined to the shadow of a monastery:—

“I conclude that it is better for your daughter to be with you than in the best convent that you could select.... If a convent is not well governed, she will see vanity honored, which is the most subtile of all the poisons that can affect a young girl. She will there hear the world spoken of as a sort of enchanted place, and nothing makes a more pernicious impression than that deceptive picture of the world, which is seen at a distance with admiration, and which exaggerates all its pleasures without showing its disappointments and its sorrows.... So I would fear a worldly convent even more than the world itself. If, on the contrary, a convent conforms to the fervor and regularity of its constitution, a girl of rank will grow up there in a profound ignorance of the world.... She leaves the convent like one who had been confined in the shadows of a deep cavern, and who suddenly returns to the full light of day. Nothing is more dazzling than this sudden transition, than this glare to which one has never been accustomed.”

178. Refutation of the Prejudices relative to the Education of Women.—It is, then, for mothers that FÉnelon writes his book, still more than for the convents that he does not love. Woman is destined to play a grand part in domestic life. “Can men hope for any sweetness in life, if their most select companionship, which is that of marriage, is turned into bitterness?” Then let us cease to neglect the education of women, and renounce the prejudices by which we pretend to justify this neglect. A learned woman, it is said, is vain and affected! But it is not proposed that women shall engage in useless studies which would make ridiculous pedants of them; it is simply a question of teaching them what befits their position in the household. Woman, it is said again, ordinarily has a weaker intellect than man! But this is the best of reasons why it is necessary to strengthen her intelligence. Finally, woman should be brought up in ignorance of the world! But, replies FÉnelon, the world is not a phantom; “it is the aggregate of all the families”; and women have duties to fulfill in it which are scarcely less important than those of men. “Virtue is not less for women than for men.”

179. Good Opinion of Human Nature.—There are two categories of Christians: the first dwell particularly on the original fall; and the others attach themselves by preference to the doctrine of redemption. For the first, the child is deeply tainted with sin; his only inclinations are those towards evil; he is a child of wrath, who must be severely punished. For the others, the child, redeemed by grace, “has not yet a fixed tendency towards any object”; his instincts have no need of being thwarted; all they need is direction. FÉnelon follows this last mode of thinking, which is the correct one. He does not fear self-love, and does not interdict deserved praise. He counts upon the spontaneity of nature. He regrets the education of the ancients, who left more liberty to children. Finally, in his judgments on human nature, he is influenced by a cheerful and amiable optimism, and sometimes by an excess of complacency and approbation.

180. Feebleness of the Child.—But if FÉnelon believes in the innocence of the child, he is not the less convinced of its feebleness. Hence the measures he recommends to those who have in charge the bringing up of children: “The most important thing in the first years of infancy is the management of the child’s health. Through the selection of food and the rÉgime of a simple life, the body should be supplied with pure blood.... Another thing of great importance is to allow the organs to strengthen by holding instruction in abeyance....” The intellectual weakness of the child comes for the most part from his inability to fix his attention. “The mind of the child is like a lighted taper in a place exposed to the wind, whose flame is ever unsteady.” Hence the urgent necessity of not pressing children beyond measure, of training them little by little as occasion permits, “of serving and assisting Nature, without urging her.”

181. Instructive Curiosity; Object Lessons.—If the inattention of the child is a great obstacle to his progress, his natural curiosity, by way of compensation, is a potent auxiliary. FÉnelon knows the aid that can be derived from this source, and we shall quote entire the remarkable passage in which he indicates the means of calling it into exercise through familiar lessons which are already real lessons on objects:—

“Curiosity in children is a natural tendency which comes as the precursor of instruction. Do not fail to take advantage of it. For example, in the country they see a mill, and they wish to know what it is. They should be shown the manner of preparing the food that is needed for human use. They notice harvesters, and what they are doing should be explained to them; also, how the wheat is sown, and how it multiplies in the earth. In the city, they see shops where different arts are practised, and where different wares are sold. You should never be annoyed by their questions; these are so many opportunities offered you by nature for facilitating the work of instruction. Show that you take pleasure in replying to such questions, and by this means you will insensibly teach them how all the things are made that serve human needs, and that give rise to commercial pursuits.”

182. Indirect Instruction.—Even when the child has grown up, and is more capable of receiving direct instruction, FÉnelon does not depart from his system of mild management and precaution. There are to be no didactic lessons, but as far as possible the instruction shall be indirect. This is the great educational method of FÉnelon, and we shall soon see how he applied it to the education of the Duke of Bourgogne. “The less formal our lessons are, the better.” However, there is need of discretion and prudence in the choice of the first ideas, and the first pictures that are to be impressed on the child’s mind.

“Into a reservoir so little and so precious only exquisite things should be poured.” The absence of pedantry is one of the characteristics of FÉnelon. “In rhetoric,” he says, “I will give no rules at all; it is sufficient to give good models.” As to grammar, “I will give it no attention, or, at least, but very little.” Instruction must be insinuated, not imposed. We must resort to unexpected lessons,—to such as do not appear to be lessons. FÉnelon here anticipates Rousseau, and suggests the system of pre-arranged scenes and instructive artifices, similar to those invented for Émile.[125]

183. All Activity must be Pleasurable.—One of the best qualities of FÉnelon as a teacher is that of wishing that study should be agreeable; but this quality becomes a fault with him, because he makes an abuse of attractive instruction. We can but applaud him when he criticises the harsh and crabbed pedagogy of the Middle Age, and depicts to us those tiresome and gloomy class-rooms, where teachers are ever talking to children of words and things of which they understand nothing. “No liberty,” he says, “no enjoyment, but always lessons, silence, uncomfortable postures, correction, and threats.” And so there is nothing more just than this thought: “In the current education, all the pleasure is put on one side, and all that is disagreeable on the other; the disagreeable is all put into study, and all the pleasure is found in the diversions.” FÉnelon would change all this. For study, as for moral discipline, “pleasure must do all.”

First, as to study, seek the means of making agreeable to children whatever you require of them. “We must always place before them a definite and agreeable aim to sustain them in their work.” “Conceal their studies under the appearance of liberty and pleasure.” “Let their range of vision extend itself a little, and their intelligence acquire more breadth.” “Mingle instruction with play.” “I have seen,” he says again, “certain children who have learned to read while playing.”

For giving direction to the will, as for giving activity to the intelligence, never subject children to cold and absolute authority. Do not weary them by an indiscreet exactness. Let wisdom appear to them only at intervals, and then with a laughing face. Lead them by reason whenever it is possible for you to do it. Never assume, save in case of extreme necessity, an austere, imperious air that makes them tremble.

“You would close their heart and destroy their confidence, without which there is no profit to hope for from education. Make yourself loved by them. Let them feel at ease in your presence, so that they do not fear to have you see their faults.”

Such, intellectually and morally, is the amiable discipline dreamed of by FÉnelon. It is evident that the imagination of our author conducts him a little too far and leads him astray. FÉnelon sees everything on the bright side. In education, such as this too complacent teacher dreams of it, there is no difficulty, nothing laborious, no thorns. “All metals there are gold; all flowers there are roses.” The child is almost exempted from making effort: he shall not be made to repeat the lesson he has heard, “for fear of annoying him.” It is necessary that he learn everything while playing. If he has faults, he must not be told of them, save with precaution, “for fear of hurting his feelings.” FÉnelon is decidedly too good-natured, too much given to cajolery. In his effort to shun whatever is repulsive, he comes to exclude whatever is laborious. He falls into an artless pleasantry when he demands that the books of his pupil shall be “beautifully bound, with gilt edges, and fine pictures.”

184. Fables and History.—FÉnelon’s very decided taste for agreeable studies, determines him to place in the foremost rank of the child’s intellectual occupations, fables and history, because narratives please the infant imagination above everything else. It is with sacred history especially that he would have the attention occupied, always selecting from it “that which presents the most pleasing and the most magnificent pictures.” He properly demands, moreover, that the teacher “animate his narrative with lively and familiar tones, and so make all his characters speak.” By this means we shall hold the attention of children without forcing it; “for, once more,” he says, “we must be very careful not to impose on them a law to hear and to remember these narratives.”

185. Moral and Religious Education.—Contrary to Rousseau’s notions, FÉnelon requires that children should early have their attention turned to moral and religious truths. He would have this instruction given in the concrete, by means of examples drawn from experience. We need not fear to speak to them of God as a venerable old man, with white beard, etc. Whatever of the superstitious there may be in these conceptions adapted to the infant imagination will be corrected afterwards by the reason. It is to be noted, moreover, that a religion of extremes is not what FÉnelon desires. He fears all exaggerations, even that of piety. What he demands is a tempered devotion, a reasonable Christianity. He is suspicious of false miracles. “Accustom girls,” he says, “not to accept thoughtlessly certain unauthorized narrations, and not to practise certain forms of devotion introduced by an indiscreet zeal.” But possibly, without intending it, FÉnelon himself is preparing the way for the superstition he combats, when, for the purpose of indoctrinating the child with the first principles of religion, he presents to him the notion of God under sensible forms, and speaks to him of a paradise where all is of gold and precious stones.

186. Studies Proper for Women.—So far, we have noted in FÉnelon’s work only general precepts applicable to boys and girls alike. But in the last part of his work, FÉnelon treats especially of women’s own work, of the qualities peculiarly their own, of their duties, and of the kind of instruction they need in order to fulfill them.

No one knew better than FÉnelon the faults that come to woman through ignorance,—unrest, unemployed time, inability to apply herself to solid and serious duties, frivolity, indolence, lawless imagination, indiscreet curiosity concerning trifles, levity, and talkativeness, sentimentalism, and, what is remarkable with a friend of Madame Guyon, a mania for theology: “Women are too much inclined to speak decisively on religious questions.”

What does FÉnelon propose as a corrective of these mischievous tendencies? It must be confessed that the plan of instruction which he proposes is still insufficient, and that it scarcely accords with the ideal as we conceive it to-day.

“Keep young girls,” he says, “within the common bounds, and teach them that there should be for their sex a modesty with respect to knowledge almost as delicate as that inspired by the horror of vice.”

Is not this the same as declaring that knowledge is not intended for women, and that it is repugnant to their delicate nature?

When FÉnelon tells us that a young girl ought to learn to read and write correctly (and observe that account is taken only of the daughters of the nobility and of the wealthy middle classes); when he adds, let her also learn grammar, we can infer from these puerile prescriptions, that FÉnelon does not exact any great things from women in the way of knowledge. And yet, such as it is, this programme surpassed, in the time of FÉnelon, the received custom, and constituted a substantial progress. It was to state an excellent principle, whose consequences should have been more fully analyzed, to demand that women should learn all that is necessary for them to know, in order to bring up their children. FÉnelon should also be commended for having recommended to young women the reading of profane authors. He who had been nourished on such literature, who was, so to speak, but a Greek turned Christian, who knew Homer so perfectly as to write the Telemachus, could not, without belying himself, advise against the studies from which he had derived so much pleasure and profit. He also recognized the utility of history, ancient and modern. He grants a place to poetry and eloquence, provided an elimination be made of whatever would be dangerous to purity of morals. What we comprehend less easily is that he condemns, as severely as he does, music, which, he says, “furnishes diversions that are poisonous.”

But these faults, this mistrust of too high an intellectual culture, ought not to prevent us from admiring the Education of Girls. Let us be grateful to FÉnelon for having resisted, in part, the prejudices of a period when young women were condemned by their sex to an almost absolute ignorance; for having declared that he would follow a course contrary “to that of alarm and of a superficial culture of the intelligence”; and finally, for having written a book, all the generous inspirations of which Madame de Maintenon herself has not caught; and of which we may say, finally, that almost everything that it contains is excellent, and that it is defective only in what it does not contain.

187. Madame de Lambert (1647-1733).—FÉnelon, as an educator of women, was the founder of a school. From Rollin to Madame de Genlis, how many teachers have been inspired by him! But in the front rank of his pupils we must place Madame de Lambert. In her Counsels to her Son (1701), and especially in her Counsels to her Daughter (1728), she has taken up the tradition of FÉnelon with greater breadth and freedom of spirit. “As discreet as he with respect to works of the imagination, of which she fears that the reading may inflame the mind;” more severe, even, than he towards Racine, whose name she seems to hesitate to pronounce; disposed to exclude her daughter from “plays, representations that move the passions, music, poetry,—all belonging to the retinue of pleasure,—in other respects, Madame de Lambert takes precedence and surpasses her master” (GrÉard). She reproaches MoliÈre for having abandoned women to idleness, pastime, and pleasure. She loves history, especially the history of France, “which no one is permitted not to know.” Finally, without entering into the details of her protests, she makes a powerful plea for the cause of woman’s education; she already belongs to the eighteenth century.

188. Education of the Duke of Bourgogne.—Singularly enough, FÉnelon did not make an application of his ideas on education till after he had set them forth in a theoretical treatise. The education of the Duke of Bourgogne permitted him to make a practical test of the rules established in the Education of Girls. Nothing is of more interest to the historian of pedagogy than the study of that princely education into which FÉnelon put all his mind and heart, and which, by its results, at once brilliant and insufficient, exhibits the merits and the faults of his plan of education.

189. Happy Results.—The Duke of Bourgogne with his active intelligence, and also with his impetuous, indocile character, and his fits of passion, was just the pupil for the teacher who relied on indirect instruction. It would have been unwise to indoctrinate with heavy didactic lessons a spirit so impetuous. Through tact and industry, FÉnelon succeeded in captivating the attention of the prince, and in skillfully insinuating into his mind knowledges that he would probably have rejected, had they been presented to it in a scientific and pedantic form. “I have never seen a child,” says FÉnelon, “who so readily understood the finest things of poetry and eloquence.” Doubtless the happy nature of the prince contributed a large part towards these results; but the art of FÉnelon had also its share in the final account.

190. Moral Lessons; The Fables.—How shall morals be taught to a violent and passionate child? FÉnelon did not think of preaching fine sermons to him; but presented to him, under the form of Fables, the moral precepts that he wished to inculcate. The Fables of FÉnelon certainly have not, as a whole, a large literary value; but, to form a just appreciation of them, we must recollect that their merit is especially to be seen in the circumstances attending their composition. Composed from day to day, they were adapted to the circumstances of the life of the young prince; they were filled with allusions to his faults and his virtues, and they conveyed to him, at the favorable moment, under the veil of a pleasing fiction, the commendation or the censure that he deserved. “One might,” says the Cardinal de Bausset, “follow the chronological order in which these pieces were composed, by comparing them with the progress which age and instruction must have made in the education of the prince.” The apologues, even with their very general morals, will always have their value and place in the education of children. What shall be said of the fables in which the moral, wholly individual, was addressed exclusively to the pupil for whom they were written, either on account of some perversity that he let come to the surface, or of a rising virtue that had been manifested in his conduct? It is thus that the fable called The Capricious presented to the young duke the picture of his fits of passion, and taught him to correct himself; that of the Bee and the Fly reminded him that the most brilliant qualities serve no good purpose without moderation. One day, in a fit of anger, the prince so far forgot himself as to say to FÉnelon, who was reproving him: “No, no, Sir! I know who I am, and who you are!” The next day, doubtless in response to this explosion of princely self-conceit, FÉnelon had him read the fable entitled Bacchus and the Faun: “As Bacchus could not abide a malicious jeerer always ready to make sport of his expressions that were not correct and elegant, he said to him in a fiery and important tone: ‘How dare you jeer the son of Jupiter?’ The Faun replied without emotion: ‘Alas! how does the son of Jupiter dare to commit any fault?’”

Certain fables, of a more elevated tone than the others, are not designed simply to correct the faults of children; they prepare the prince for the exercise of government. Thus, the fable of the Bees disclosed to him the beauties of an industrious State, and one where order reigns; the Nile and the Ganges taught him love for the people, “compassion for humanity, harassed and suffering.” Finally, from each of these fables there issued a serious lesson under the pleasing exterior of a witticism; and more than once, in reading them, the prince doubtless felt an emotion of pleasure or of shame, as he recognized himself in a commendation or in a reproof addressed to the imaginary personages of the Fables.

191. Historical Lessons; The Dialogues of the Dead.—It is not alone in moral education, but in intellectual education as well, that FÉnelon resorts to artifice. The ingenious preceptor has employed fiction in all its forms the better to compass and dominate the spirit of his pupil. There are the fables for moral instruction, the dialogues for the study of history, and finally, the epopÉe in the Telemachus, for the political education of the heir to the throne of France.

The Dialogues of the Dead put on the stage men of all countries and conditions, Charles the Fifth and a monk of Saint-Just, Aristotle and Descartes, Leonardo da Vinci and Poussin, CÆsar and Alexander. History proper, literature, philosophy, the arts, were the subjects of conversations composed, as in the Fables, at different intervals, according to the progress and the needs of the Duke of Bourgogne. These were attractive pictures that came from time to time to be introduced into the scheme for the didactic study of universal history. They should be taken only for what they were intended to be,—the pleasing complement to a regular and consecutive course of instruction. FÉnelon knew better than any one else that history is interesting in itself, and that to make the study of it interesting, it is sufficient to present it to the childish imagination with clearness, with vivacity, and with feeling.

192. Variety of Disciplinary Agents.—The education of the Duke of Bourgogne is the practical application of FÉnelon’s principles as to the necessity of employing an insinuating gentleness rather than an authority which dryly commands. There are to be no sermons, no lectures, but indirect means of moral instruction. The Duke of Bourgogne was irascible. Instead of reading to him Seneca’s treatise On Anger, this is FÉnelon’s device: One morning he has a cabinet-maker come to his apartments, whom he has instructed for the purpose. The prince enters, stops, and looks at the tools. “Go about your business, Sir,” cries the workman, who assumes a most threatening air, “for I am not responsible for what I may do; when I am in a passion, I break the arms and legs of those whom I meet.” We guess the conclusion of the story, and how, by this experimental method, FÉnelon contrives to teach the prince to guard against anger and its effects.

When indirect means did not answer, FÉnelon employed others. It is thus that he made frequent appeals to the self-love of his pupil; he reminded him of what he owed to his name and to the hopes of France. He had him record his word of honor that he would behave well: “I promise the AbbÉ FÉnelon, on the word of a prince, that I will obey him, and that, in case I break my word, I will submit to any kind of punishment and dishonor. Given at Versailles, this 29th day of November, 1689. Signed: Louis.” At other times FÉnelon appealed to his feelings, and conquered him by his tenderness and goodness. It is in such moments of tender confidence that the prince said to him, “I leave the Duke of Bourgogne outside the door, and with you I am but the little Louis.” Finally, at other times, FÉnelon resorted to the harshest punishments; he sequestered him, took away his books, and interdicted all conversation.

193. Diversified Instruction.—By turns serious and tender, mild and severe, in his moral discipline, FÉnelon was not less versatile in his methods of instruction. His dominant preoccupation was to diversify studies—the term is his own. If a given subject of study was distasteful to his pupil, FÉnelon passed to another. Although the success of his tutorship seems to be a justification of his course, there is ground for thinking that, as a general rule, FÉnelon’s precept is debatable, and that his example should not be followed by making an over-use of amusement and agreeable variety. FÉnelon has too often made studies puerile through his attempts to make them agreeable.

194. Results of the Education of the Duke of Bourgogne.—It seems like a paradox to say that FÉnelon was too successful in his educational apostleship; and yet this is the truth. Under his hand—“the ablest hand that ever was,” says Saint Simon—the prince became in all respects the image of his master. He was a bigot to the extent of being unwilling to attend a royal ball because that worldly entertainment coincided with the religious celebration of the Epiphany; he was rather a monk than a king; he was destitute of all spirit of initiative and liberty, irresolute, absorbed in his pious erudition and mystic prayers; finally, he was another Telemachus, who could not do without his Mentor. FÉnelon had monopolized and absorbed the will of his pupil. He had forgotten that the purpose of education is to form, not a pale copy, an image of the master, but a man independent and free, capable of sufficing for himself.

195. The Telemachus.—The Telemachus, composed from 1694 to 1698, was designed for the Duke of Bourgogne; but he was not to read it, and did not read it, in fact, till after his marriage. Through this epopÉe in prose, this romance borrowed from Homer, FÉnelon purposed to continue the moral education of his pupil. But the book abounds in sermons. “I could have wished,” said Boileau, “that the AbbÉ had made his Mentor a little less a preacher, and that the moral of the book could have been distributed a little more imperceptibly, and with more art.” At least, they are beautiful and excellent sermons, aimed against luxury, the spirit of conquest, the consequences of absolute power, and against ambition and war. Louis XIV. had probably read the Telemachus, and had comprehended the allusions concealed in the description of the Republic of Salentum, when he said of FÉnelon that he was “the most chimerical spirit in his kingdom.” Besides the moral lesson intended for princes, the Telemachus also contains bold reflections on political questions. For example, note the conception of a system of public instruction, very new for the time: “Children belong less to their parents than to the Republic, and ought to be educated by the State. There should be established public schools in which are taught the fear of God, love of country, and respect for the laws.”

196. Bossuet and FÉnelon.—Bossuet, as preceptor of the Dauphin,[126] was far from having the same success as FÉnelon. Nothing was overlooked, however, in the education of the son of Louis XIV.; and the Letter to Pope Innocent XI. (1679), in which Bossuet presents his scheme of study, gives proof of high fitness for educational work. He recommends assiduous labor, no leaves of absence, and play mingled with study. “A child must play and enjoy himself,” he says. Emulation excited by the presence of other children, who came to compete with the prince; a thorough reading of the Latin authors, explained, not in fragments, as with the Jesuits, but in complete texts; a certain breadth of spirit, since the study of the comic poets—of Terence in particular—was expressly recommended; a familiarity with the Greeks and the Romans, “especially with the divine Homer”; the grammar learned in French; history, “the mistress of human life,” studied with ardor, and presented, first, in its particular facts, in the lessons which the Dauphin drew up, and then in its general laws, the spirit of which has been transmitted to us in the Discourse on Universal History; geography learned “while playing and making imaginary journeys”; philosophy; and finally the sciences, brilliantly presented,—with such a programme, and under such a master, it seems that the Dauphin ought to have been a student of the highest rank; but he remained a mediocre pupil, “absorbed,” to use Saint Simon’s expression, “in his own fat and gloom.”

It must certainly be acknowledged that, notwithstanding his excellent intentions, Bossuet was in part responsible for the fact that these results were insufficient, or, rather, nil. He did not know how “to condescend,” as Montaigne says, “to the boyish ways of his pupil.” In dealing with him he proceeded on too high a plane. “The austere genius of Bossuet,” says Henry Martin, “did not know how to become small with the small.” Bossuet lacked in flexibility and tact, precisely the qualities that characterized FÉnelon. Bossuet, in education, as in everything else, is grandeur, noble and sublime bearing; FÉnelon, as preceptor, is address, insinuating grace. That which dominates in the one is authority, a majesty almost icy; that which constitutes the charm of the other is versatility, a persuasive gentleness, a penetrating tenderness.

To be just, however, it must be added that the faults were not all on Bossuet’s side. In that education, stamped with failure, the pupil was the great culprit, with his ungrateful and rebellious nature. “My lord has much spirit,” said a courtier, “but he has it concealed.” For one not a courtier, does it not amount to the same thing to have one’s spirit concealed and to have none at all?

197. Sphere and Limits of Education.—It seems that, on one page of the Education of Girls, FÉnelon has traced in advance, and by a sort of divination, the parallels of the two educations of the Dauphin and of the Duke of Bourgogne respectively. How can we fail to recognize the anticipated portrait of FÉnelon’s future pupil in this passage, written in 1680?

“It must be acknowledged, that of all the difficulties in education, none is comparable to that of bringing up children who are lacking in sensibility. The naturally quick and sensitive are capable of terrible mistakes,—passion and presumption do so betray them! But they have also great resources, and when far gone often come to themselves. Instruction is a germ concealed within them, which starts, and sometimes bears fruit, when experience comes to the aid of knowledge, and the passions lose their power. At least, we know how to make them attentive, and to awaken their curiosity. We have the means of interesting them, and of stimulating them through their sense of honor; but, on the other hand, we can gain no hold on indolent natures.”

On the other hand, all that follows applies perfectly to the Dauphin, the indocile pupil of Bossuet:—

“ ... All the thoughts of these are distractions; they are never where they ought to be; they cannot be touched to the quick even by corrections; they hear everything and feel nothing. This indolence makes the pupil negligent, and disgusts him with whatever he does. Under these conditions, the best planned education runs the risk of failure.... Many people, who think superficially, conclude from this poor success that nature does all for the production of men of merit, and that education has no part in the result; but the only conclusion to be drawn from the case is, that there are natures like ungrateful soils, upon which culture has but little effect.”[127]

Nothing better can be said, and FÉnelon has admirably summed up the lesson that should be drawn from these two princely illustrations of the seventeenth century. If the sorry results of Bossuet’s efforts should inspire the educator with some modesty, and prove to him that the best grain does not grow in an ingrate soil, is not the brilliant education of the Duke of Bourgogne, which developed almost all the virtues in a soul where nature seemed to have planted the seeds of all the vices, of a nature to increase the confidence of teachers, and show them what can be done by the art of a shrewd and able teacher?