CHAPTER XI.

ROLLIN.

THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS; STATUTES OF 1598 AND OF 1600; ORGANIZATION OF THE DIFFERENT FACULTIES; DECADENCE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY; THE RESTORATION OF STUDIES AND ROLLIN (1661-1741); THE TREATISE ON STUDIES; DIFFERENT OPINIONS; DIVISION OF THE TREATISE ON STUDIES; GENERAL REFLECTIONS ON EDUCATION; STUDIES FOR THE FIRST YEARS; THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS; THE STUDY OF FRENCH; GREEK AND LATIN; ROLLIN THE HISTORIAN; THE TEACHING OF HISTORY; PHILOSOPHY; SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION; EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER OF ROLLIN’S PEDAGOGY; INTERIOR DISCIPLINE OF COLLEGES; PUBLIC EDUCATION; THE ROD; PUNISHMENTS IN GENERAL; CONCLUSION; ANALYTICAL SUMMARY.

248. THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS.--Since the thirteenth century, the University of Paris had been a centre of light and a resort for students. Ramus could say: “This University is not the university of one city only, but of the entire world.” But even in the time of Ramus, in consequence of the civil discords, and by reason also of the progress in the colleges organized by the Company of Jesus, the University of Paris declined; she saw the number of her pupils diminish. She persisted, however, in the full light of the Renaissance, in following the superannuated regulations which the Cardinal d’Estouteville had imposed on her in 1452; she fell behind in the routine of the scholastic methods. A reform was necessary, and in 1600 it was accomplished by Henry IV.

249. STATUTES OF 1600.--The statutes of the new university were promulgated “by the order and the will of the most Christian and most invincible king of France and Navarre, Henry IV.” This was the first time that the State directly intervened in the control of education, and that secular power was set up in opposition to the absolute authority of the Church.

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries a reform had been made in the University, by the Popes Innocent III. and Urban V. The reformer of 1452, the Cardinal d’Estouteville, acted as the legate of the pontifical power. On the contrary, the statutes of 1600 were the work of a commission named by the king, and there sat at its deliberations, by the side of a few ecclesiastics, magistrates, and even professors.

250. ORGANIZATION OF THE DIFFERENT FACULTIES.--The University of Paris comprised four Faculties: the Faculties of Theology, of Law, and of Medicine, which corresponded to what we to-day call superior instruction, and the Faculty of Arts, which was almost the equivalent of our secondary instruction.[151]

It would take too long to enumerate in this place the different innovations introduced by the statutes of 1600. Let us merely say a word of the Faculty of Arts.

In the Faculty of Arts the door was finally opened to the classical authors. In a certain degree the tendencies of the Renaissance were obeyed. Nevertheless, the methods and the general spirit were scarcely changed. Catholicism was obligatory, and the French language remained under ban. Frequent exercises in repetition and declamation were maintained. The liberal arts were always considered “the foundation of all the sciences.” Instruction in philosophy was always reduced to the interpretation of the texts of Aristotle. As to history, and the sciences in general, no account whatever was taken of them.

251. DECADENCE OF THE UNIVERSITY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--The reform, then, was insufficient, and the results were bad. While the colleges of the Jesuits attracted pupils in crowds, and while the Oratorians and the Jansenists reformed secondary instruction, the colleges of the University[152] remained mediocre and obscure. Save in rare exceptions, there were no professors of distinction; the education was formal, in humble imitation of that of the Company of Jesus; there was an abuse of abstract rules, of grammatical exercises, of written tasks, and of Latin composition; there was no disposition to take an advance step; but an obstinate resistance to the new spirit, which was indicated either by the interdiction of the philosophy of Descartes, or by the refusal to teach in the French language; in a word, there was complete isolation in immovable routine, and in consequence, decadence,--such is a summary history of the University of Paris up to the last quarter of the seventeenth century.

252. THE RESTORATION OF STUDIES AND ROLLIN (1661-1741).--We must go forward to the time when Rollin taught, to observe a revival in the studies of the University. Several distinguished professors, as his master Hersan, Pourchot, and still others, had prepared the way for him. There was then, from 1680 to 1700, a real rejuvenescence of studies, which was initiated in part by Rollin.

Latin lost a little ground in consequence of a growing recognition of the rights of the French language and the national literature, which had just been made illustrious by so many masterpieces. The spirit of the Jansenist methods penetrated the colleges of the University. The Cartesian philosophy was taught in them, and a little more attention was given to the explication of authors, and a little less to the verbal repetition of lessons. New ideas began to infiltrate into the old citadel of scholasticism. The question came to be asked if celibacy was indeed an indispensable condition of the teaching office. Men began to comprehend that at least marriage was not a reason for exclusion. Finally, real progress was made in discipline as well as in methods, and the indubitable proof of this is the _Treatise on Studies_, by Rollin.

253. THE TREATISE ON STUDIES.--Rollin has summed up his educational experience, an experience of fifty years, in a book which has become celebrated under the title of _Treatise on Studies_. The full title of this work was: _De la manière d’enseigner et d’étudier les belles-lettres par rapport à l’esprit et au cœur_. The first two volumes appeared in 1726, and the other two in 1728.

The _Treatise on Studies_ is not like the _Émile_, which was published twenty years later, a work of venturesome inquiry and original novelties; but is a faithful exposition of the methods in use, and a discreet commentary on them. While this treatise belongs by its date to the eighteenth century, it is the pedagogy of the seventeenth century, and the traditions of the University under the reign of Louis XIV. that Rollin has collected, and of which he has simply wished to be the reporter. In the Latin dedication, which he addresses to the Rector of the University of Paris, he clearly defines his intentions and his purpose:--

“My first design was to put in writing and define the method of teaching which has long been in use among you, and which, up to this time, has been transmitted only by word of mouth, and through a sort of tradition; and to erect, so far as I am able to do it, a durable monument of the rules and practice which you have followed in the instruction of youth, for the purpose of preserving, in all its integrity, the taste for _belles-lettres_, and to preserve it, if possible, from the injuries and the alterations of time.”

254. DIFFERENT OPINIONS.--Rollin has always had warm admirers. Voltaire called the _Treatise_ a book “forever useful,” and whatever may be our reservations on the deficiences, and on the short and narrow views of certain parts of the pedagogy of Rollin, we must subscribe to this judgment. But we shall not go so far as to accept the enthusiastic declarations of Villemain, who complains that the study of the _Treatise_ is neglected in our time, “as if new methods had been discovered for training the intelligence and the heart”; and he adds, “Since the _Treatise on Studies, not a forward step has been taken_.” This is to undervalue all the earnest efforts that have been made for two centuries by educators just as profound as was the ever timid and cautious Rollin. When we compare the precepts of the _Treatise_ with the reforms which the spirit of progress has already effected, and particularly with those which it will effect, we are astonished to hear Nisard say: “In educational matters, the _Treatise on Studies_ is the unique book, or better still, the book.”

To put such a burden of pompous praise on Rollin is to compromise his real worth; and without ceasing to do justice to his wise and judicious spirit, we wish to employ more discretion in our admiration.

255. DIVISION OF THE TREATISE ON STUDIES.--Before calling attention to the most interesting parts of the _Treatise on Studies_, let us briefly state the object of the eight books of which it is composed.

The _Treatise_ opens with a _Preliminary Discourse_ which recites the advantages of instruction.

The title of the first book is: _Exercises which are proper for very young children; of the education of girls_. Rollin acknowledges that he treats only very superficially “this double subject,” which is foreign to his original plan. In fact, the first edition of his _Treatise on Studies_ contained but seven books, and it is only in 1734 that he wrote, “at the urgent requests and prayers of several persons,” that short essay on the education of boys and girls which first appeared under the form of a supplement, and which became the first book of the work only in the subsequent editions.

The different subjects proper for training the youth in the public schools, that is, in the colleges,--such is the object of the six books which follow: Book II. _Of the learning of the languages_; that is, the study of Greek and Latin; Book III. _Of poetry_; Book IV. _Of rhetoric_; Book V. _Of the three kinds of eloquence_; Book VI. _Of history_; Book VII. _Of philosophy_.