I

ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES

but always and everywhere the proper

study of mankind is man.

-GOETHE (translated by John

Stuart Blackie)

OF EDUCATION 1

Montaigne

I

To Madam Diane de Foix, Countess of Gurson:

ADAM, if I had any sufficiency in this subject [the

MAD

education of children], I could not possibly better employ it than to present my best instructions to the little man that threatens you shortly with a happy birth (for you are too generous to begin otherwise than with a male); for, having had so great a hand in the treaty of your marriage, I have a certain particular right and interest in the greatness and prosperity of the issue that shall spring from it; beside that, your having had the best of my services so long in possession, sufficiently obliges me to desire the honor and advantage of all wherein you shall be concerned. But, in truth, all I understand as to that particular [the subject in hand] is only this, that the greatest and most important difficulty of human science is the education. of children. For as in agriculture the husbandry that is to precede planting, as also planting itself, is certain, plain, and well known; but after that which is planted comes to life,

1 Under this title are here united parts of two essays. The first section is from Of the Education of Children, the second from Of Pedantry. The text is substantially-that of the version by Charles Cotton as revised by William Carew Hazlitt, edition of 1902, The introduction to the essay Of the Education of Children, following the inscription to Madam Diane de Foix, is omitted. All other omissions, within the limits of the passages reprinted, are indicated in the text, those of less extent than a paragraph by three periods, those of a paragraph or more by a dotted line. Quotations from Latin and Greek authors are given in the translations supplied in the footnotes of the Hazlitt-Cotton Montaigne. Other footnotes taken from this work are followed by the name Hazlitt, in square brackets. Within the text, parentheses following a quotation inclose the name of the author cited, and square brackets inclose matter inserted by the present editors.

there is a great deal more to be done, more art to be used, more care to be taken, and much more difficulty to cultivate and bring it to perfection: so it is with men; it is no hard matter to get children; but after they are born, then begins the trouble, solicitude, and care rightly to train, principle, and bring them up. The symptoms of their inclinations in that tender age are so obscure, and the promises so uncertain and fallacious, that it is very hard to establish any solid judgment or conjecture upon them. Look at Cimon, for example, and Themistocles, and a thousand others, who very much deceived the expectation men had of them. Cubs of bears and puppies readily discover their natural inclination; but men, so soon as ever they are grown up, applying themselves to certain habits, engaging themselves in certain opinions, and conforming themselves to particular laws and customs, easily alter, or at least disguise, their true and real disposition; and yet it is hard to force the propension of nature. Whence it comes to pass, that for not having chosen the right course we often take very great pains and consume a good part of our time in training up children to things for which, by their natural constitution, they are totally unfit. In this difficulty, nevertheless, I am clearly of opinion that they ought to be elemented in the best and most advantageous studies, without taking too much notice of or being too superstitious in those light prognostics they give of themselves in their tender years, and to which Plato, in his Republic, gives, methinks, too much authority.

For a boy of quality who pretends to letters not upon the account of profit (for so mean an object as that is unworthy of the grace and favor of the Muses, and, moreover, in it a man directs his service to and depends upon others) nor so much for outward ornament as for his own proper and peculiar use, and to furnish and enrich himself within, having rather a desire to come out an accomplished cavalier than a