Study a delight. Reading French first. room tradition. "If the want of emulation was a drawback," says Sainte-Beuve, "it was a routine, from all pedantry. régents n'en approchaient pas.” clear gain to escape from all La crasse et la morgue des (P.R. vol. iij, p. 414) Piety as we have seen was their main object. Next to it they wished to "carry the intellects of their pupils to the highest point they could attain to.” 23. In doing this they profited by their freedom from routine to try experiments. They used their own judgments and sought to train the judgment of their pupils. Themselves knowing the delights of literature, they resolved that their pupils should know them also. They would banish all useless difficulties and do what they could to "help the young and make study even more pleasant to them than play and pastime." (Preface to Cic.'s Billets, quoted by SainteBeuve, vol. iij, p. 423.) 24. One of their innovations, though startling to their contemporaries, does not seem to us very surprising. It was the custom to begin reading with a three or four years' course of reading Latin, because in that language all the letters were pronounced. The connexion between sound and sense is in our days not always thought of, but even among teachers no advocates would now be found for the old method which kept young people for the first three or four years uttering sounds they could by no possibility understand. The French language might have some disadvantage from its silent letters, but this was small compared with the disadvantage felt in Latin from its silent sense. So the Port-Royalists began reading with French. 25. Further than this, they objected to reading through spelling, and pointed out that as consonants cannot be pronounced by themselves they should be taken only in Literature. Mother-tongue first. connexion with the adjacent vowel. Pascal applied himself to the subject and invented the method described in the 6th chap. of the General Grammar (Carré, p. xxiij) and introduced by his sister Jacqueline at Port Royal des Champs. § 26. When the child could read French, the Gentlemen of Port-Royal sought for him books within the range of his intelligence. There was nothing suitable in French, so they set to work to produce translations in good French of the most readable Latin books, "altering them just a little-en y changeant fort peu de chose," as said the chief translator De Saci, for the sake of purity. In this way they gallicised the Fables of Phædrus, three Comedies of Terence, and the Familiar Letters (Billets) of Cicero. § 27. In this we see an important innovation. As I have tried to explain (supra pp. 14 ff.) the effect of the Renascence was to banish both the mother-tongue and literature proper from the school-room; for no language was tolerated but Latin, and no literature was thought possible except in Latin or Greek. Before ar.y literature could be known, or indeed, instruction in any subject could be given, the pupils had to learn Latin. This neglect of the mothertongue was one of the traditional mistakes pointed out and abandoned by the Port-Royalists. "People of quality complain," says De Saci, "und complain with reason, that in giving their children Latin we take away French, and to turn them into citizens of ancient Rome we make them strangers in their native land. After learning Latin and Greek for 10 or 12 years, we are often obliged at the age of 30 to learn French." (Cadet, 10.) So Port-Royal proposed breaking through this bondage to Latin, and laid down the principle, new in France, though not in the country of Beginners' difficulties lightened. Mulcaster or of Ratke, that everything should be taught through the mother-tongue. Next, the Port-Royalists sought to give their pupils an early and a pleasing introduction to literature. The best literature in those days was the classical; and suitable works from that literature might be made intelligible by means of translations. In this way the Port-Royalists led their pupils to look upon some of the classical authors not as inventors of examples in syntax, but as writers of books that meant something. And thus both the mother-tongue and literature were brought into the school-room. § 28. When the boys had by this means got some feeling for literature and some acquaintance with the world. of the ancients, they began the study of Latin. Here again all needless difficulties were taken out of their way. No attempt indeed was made to teach language without grammar, the rationale of language, but the science of grammar was reduced to first principles (set forth in the Grammaire Générale et Raisonnée of Arnauld and Lancelot), and the special grammar of the Latin language was no longer taught by means of the work established in the University, the Latin Latin Grammar of Despautère, but by a "New Method" written in French which gave essentials only and had for its motto: "Mihi inter virtutes grammatici habebitur aliqua nescire To me it will be among the grammarian's good points not to know everything." (Quintil.)* * Lancelot's "New way of easily learning Latin (Nouvelle Méthode pour apprendre facilement la langue Latine)” was published in 1644, his method for Greek in 1655. This was followed in 1657 by his "Garden of Greek Roots Jardin des racines grecques)” (see Cadet, pp. 15 ff.) The Port-Royalists seem to me in some respects far behind Comenius, but they were right in rejecting him as a meth diser in language Begin with Latin into Mother-tongue. § 29. With this minimum of the essentials of the grammar and with a previous acquaintance with the sense of the book the pupils were introduced to the Latin language and were taught to translate a Latin author into French. This was a departure from the ordinary route, which after a course of learning grammar-rules in Latin went to the "theme," ie., to composition in Latin. The art of translating into the mother-tongue was made much of. School "construes," which consist in substituting a word for a word, were entirely forbidden, and the pupils had to produce the old writer's thoughts in French.* learning. Lancelot in the preface to his "Garden of Greek Roots," says that the Janua of Comenius is totally wanting in method. "It would need," says he, "an extraordinary memory; and from my experience I should say that few children could learn this book, for it is long and difficult; and as the words in it are not repeated, those at the beginning would be forgotten before the learner reached the end. So he would feel a constant discouragement, because he would always find himself in a new country where he would recognize nothing. And the book is full of all sorts of uncommon and difficult words, and the first chapters throw no light on those which follow." To this well-grounded criticism he adds: "The entrances to the Tongues, to deserve its name, should be nothing but a short and simple way leading us as soon as possible to read the best books in the language, so that we might not only acquire the words we are in need of, but also all that is most characteristic in the idiom and pure in the phraseology, which make up the most difficult and most important part of every language." (Quoted by Cadet, p. 17). * Lemaître, a nephew of La Mère Angélique, was one of the most celebrated orators in France. In renouncing the world for Port-Royal, he retired from a splendid position at the Bar. Such men had qualifications out of the reach of ordinary schoolmasters. Dufossé, in after years, told how, when he was a boy, Lemaître called him often to his room and gave him solid instruction in learning and piety. "He read Sense before Sound. Reason must rule. § 30. From this we see that the training was literary But in the study of form the Port-Royalists did not neglect the inward for the outward. Their great work, which still stands the attacks of time, is the Port-Royal Logic, or the Art of Thinking (see Trans. by T. Spencer Baynes, 1850). This was substantially the work of Arnauld; and it was Arnauld who led the Port-Royalists in their rupture with the philosophy of the Middle Age, and who openly followed Descartes. In the Logic we find the claims of reason asserted as if in defiance of the Jesuits. "It is a heavy bondage to think oneself forced to agree in everything with Aristotle and to take him as the standard of truth in philosophy. . . . . The world cannot long continue in this restraint, and is recovering by degrees its natural and reasonable liberty, which consists in accepting that which we judge to be true and rejecting that which we judge to be false." (Quoted by Cadet, p. 31.)* to me and made me read pieces from poets and orators, and saw that I noticed the beauties in them both in thought and diction. Moreover he taught me the right emphasis and articulation both in verse and prose, in which he himself was admirable, having the charm of a fine voice and all else that goes to make a great orator. He gave me also many rules for good translation and for making my progress in that art easy to me." (Dufossé's Mémoires, &c., quoted by Cadet, p. 9.) It was Lemaître who instructed Racine (born 1639, admitted at Les Granges, Port Royal des Champs, in 1655). *In 1670 the General of the Jesuits issued a letter to the Society against the Cartesian philosophy. The University in this agreed with its rivals, and petitioned the Parliament to prohibit the Cartesian teaching. This produced the burlesque Arrêt by Boileau (1675). "Whereas it is stated that for some years past a stranger named Reason has endeavoured to make entry by force into the Schools of the University . . . where Aristotle has always been acknowledged as judge without appeal and ... |