Athens and Sparta. Wisdom before knowledge. at Sparta about things. At Athens boys learnt to speak well, at Sparta to do well: at Athens to escape from sophistical arguments, and to face all attempts to deceive them; at Sparta to escape from the allurements of pleasure, and to face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, even death itself. In the one system there was constant exercise of the tongue, in the other of the soul. "So it is not strange that when Antipater demanded of the Spartans fifty children as hostages they replied they would sooner give twice as many grown men, such store did they set by their country's training." (Du Pédantisme, ad f.) 66 § 7. It is odd to find a man of the fifteen hundreds who quotes from the old authors at every turn, and yet maintains that we lean so much on the arm of other people that we lose our own strength." The thing a boy should learn is not what the old authors say, but "what he himself ought to do when he becomes a man." Wisdom, not knowledge ! "We may become learned from the learning of others; wise we can never be except by our own wisdom." (Bk. j, chap. 24). § 8. So entirely was Montaigne detached from the thought of the Renascence that he scoffs at his own learning, and declares that true learning has for its subject, not the past or the future, but the present. "We are truly learned from knowing the present, not from knowing the past any more than the future." And yet "we toil only to stuff the memory and leave the conscience and the understanding void. And like birds who fly abroad to forage for grain bring it home in their beak, without tasting it themselves, to feed their young, so our pedants go picking knowledge here and there out of several authors, and hold it at their tongue's end, only to spit it out and distribute it amongst Knowing, and knowing by heart. their pupils." (Du Pédantisme.) "We are all richer than we think, but they drill us in borrowing and begging, and lead us to make more use of other people's goods than of (Bk. iij, chap. 12, De la Physionomie, beg. of our own. "* 3rd paragraph). § 9. So far Montaigne. What do we schoolmasters say to all this? If we would be quite candid I think we must allow that, after reading Montaigne's essay, we put it down with the conviction that in the main he was right, and that he had proved the error and absurdity of a vast deal that goes on in the schoolroom. But from this first view we have had on reflection to make several drawbacks. § 10. Montaigne, like Locke and Rousseau, who fol lowed in his steps, arranges for every boy to have a tutor entirely devoted to him. We may question whether this method of bringing up children is desirable, and we may assert, without question, that in most cases it is impossible. It seems ordained that at every stage of life we should require the companionship of those of our own age. If we * Perhaps the saying of Montaigne's which is most frequently quoted is the paradox Savoir par cœur n'est pas savoir: (“to know by heart is not to know.") But these words are often misunderstood. The meaning, as I take it, is this: When a thought has entered into the mind it shakes off the words by which it was conveyed thither. Therefore so long as the words are indispensable the thought is not known. Knowing and knowing by heart are not necessarily opposed, but they are different things; and as the mind most easily runs along sequences of words a knowledge of the words often conceals ignorance or neglect of the thought. I once asked a boy if he thought of the meaning when he repeated Latin poetry and I got the instructive answer: "Sometimes, when I am not sure of the words." But there are cases in which we naturally connect a particular form of words with thoughts that have become part of our minds. We then know, and know by heart also. Learning necessary as employment. take two beings as little alike as a man and a child and force them to be each other's companions, so great is the difference in their thoughts and interests that they will fall into inevitable boredom and restraint. So we see that this plan, even in the few cases in which it would be possible, would not be desirable; and for the great majority of boys it would be out of the question. We must then arrange for the young to be taught, not as individuals, but in classes, and this greatly changes the conditions of the problem. One of the first conditions is this, that we have to employ each class regularly and uniformly for some hours every day. Schoolmasters know what their non-scholastic mentors forget: we can make a class learn, but, broadly speaking, we cannot make a class think, still less can we make it judge. As a great deal of occupation has to be provided, we are therefore forced to make our pupils learn. Whatever may be the value of the learning in itself it is absolutely necessary as employment. § 11. No doubt it will make a vast difference whether we consider the learning mainly as employment, as a means of taking up time and preventing "sauntering," as Locke boldly calls it, or whether we are chiefly anxious to secure some special results. The knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages and the Latin and Greek authors was a result so highly prized by the Renascence scholars that they insisted on a prodigious quantity of learning, not as employment, but simply as the means of acquiring this knowledge. As the knowledge got to be less esteemed the pressure was by degrees relaxed. In our public schools fifty or sixty years ago the learning was to some extent retained as employment, but there certainly was no pressure, and the majority of the boys never learnt the ancient languages. Montaigne and our Public Schools. cared for, But this is So the masters of that time had given up the Renascence enthusiasm for the classics, and on the negative side of his teaching had come to an agreement with Montaigne. Any one inclined to sarcasm might say that on the positive side they were still totally opposed to him, for he thought virtue and judgment were the main things to be and they did not care for these things at all. not a fair statement. The one thing gained, or supposed to to be gained, in the public schools was the art of living, and this art, though it does not demand heroic virtue, requires at least prudence and self-control. Montaigne's system was a revolt against the bookishness of the Renascence. "In our studies," says he, "whatever presents itself before us is book enough; a roguish trick of a page, a blunder of a servant, a jest at table, are so many new subjects." So the education out of school was in his eyes of more value than the education in school. And this was acknowledged also in our public schools: "It is not the Latin and Greek they learn or don't learn that we consider so important,” the masters used to say, "but it is the tone of the school and the discipline of the games." But of late years this virtual agreement with Montaigne has been broken up. School work is no longer mere employment, but it is done under pressure, and with penalties if the tale of brick turned out does not pass the inspector. § 12. What has produced this great change? It is due mainly to two causes: 1. The pressure put on the young to attain classical knowledge was relaxed when it was thought that they could get through life very well without this knowledge. But in these days new knowledge has awakened a new enthusiasm. The knowledge of science promises such great advantages Pressure from Science and Examinations. that the latest reformers, headed by Mr. Herbert Spencer, seem to make the well-being of the grown person depend mainly on the amount of scientific knowledge he stored up in his youth. This is the first cause of educational pressure. § 13. 2. The second and more urgent cause is the rapid development of our system of examinations. Everybody's educational status is now settled by the examiner, a potentate whose influence has brought back in a very malignant form all the evils of which Montaigne complains. Do what we will, the faculty chiefly exercised in preparing for ordinary examinations is the "carrying memory." So the acquisition of knowledge-mere memory or examination knowledge has again come to be regarded as the one thing needful in education, and there is great danger of everything else being neglected for it. Of the fourfold results of education-virtue, wisdom, good manners, learning—the last alone can be fairly tested in examinations; and as the schoolmaster's very bread depends nowadays first on his getting through examinations himself and then on getting his pupils through, he would be more than human, if with Locke he thought of learning "last and least." A great change has come over our public schools. The amount of work required from the boys is far greater than it used to be and masters again measure their success by the amount of knowledge the average boy takes away with him. It seems to me high time that another Montaigne arose to protest that a man's intellectual life does not consist in the number of things he remembers, and that his true life is not his intellectual life only, but embraces his power of will and action and his love of what is noble and right. "Wisdom cried of old, I am the mother of fair Love and Fear and Knowledge and holy Hope" (Ecclesiasticus). In these |