Book VIII., the last, entitled _Of the interior government of

schools and colleges_, has a particular character. It does not treat of studies and intellectual exercises, but of discipline and moral education. It is, on all accounts, the most original and interesting part of Rollin’s work, and it opens to us the treasures of his experience. This eighth book has been justly called the “Memoirs of Rollin.” That which constitutes its merit and its charm is that the author here at last decides to be himself. He does not quote the ancients so much; but he speaks in his own name, and relates what he has done, or what he has seen done.

256. GENERAL REFLECTIONS ON EDUCATION.--There is little to be gathered out of the _Preliminary Discourse_ of Rollin. He is but slightly successful in general reflections. When he ventures to philosophize, Rollin easily falls into platitudes. He has a dissertation to prove that “study gives the mind more breadth and elevation; and that study gives capacity for business.”

On the purpose of education, Rollin, who copies the moderns when he does not translate from the ancients, is content with reproducing the preamble of the regulations of Henry IV., which assigned to studies three purposes: learning, morals and manners, and religion.

“The happiness of kingdoms and peoples, and particularly of a Christian State, depends on the good education of the youth, where the purpose is to cultivate and to polish, by the study of the sciences, the intelligence, still rude, of the young, and thus to fit them for filling worthily the different vocations to which they are destined, without which they will be useless to the State; and finally, to teach them the sincere religious practices which God requires of them, the inviolable attachment they owe to their fathers and mothers and to their country, and the respect and obedience which they are bound to render princes and magistrates.”

257. PRIMARY STUDIES.--Rollin is original when he introduces us to the classes of the great colleges where he has lived; but is much less so when he speaks to us of little children, whom he has never seen near at hand. He has never known family life, and scarcely ever visited public schools; and it is through his recollections of Quintilian that he speaks to us of children.

There is, then, but little to note in the few pages that he has devoted to the studies of the first years, from three to six or seven.

One of the most interesting things we find here, perhaps, is the method which he recommends for learning to read,--“the typographic cabinet of du Mas.” “It is a novelty,” says the wise Rollin, “and it is quite common and natural that we should be suspicious of this word _novelty_.” But after the examination, he decides in favor of the system in question, which consists in making of instruction in reading, something analogous to the work of an apprentice who is learning to print. The pupil has before him a table, and on this table is placed a set of pigeon-holes, “logettes,” which contain the letters of the alphabet, printed on cards. The pupil is to arrange on the table the different letters needed to construct the words required of him. The reasons that Rollin gives for recommending this method, successful tests of which he had seen made, prove that he had taken into account the nature of the child and his need of activity:--

“This method of learning to read, besides several other advantages, has one which seems to me very considerable,--it is that of being amusing and agreeable, and of not having the appearance of study. Nothing is more wearisome or tedious in infancy than severe mental effort while the body is in a state of repose. With this device, the mind of the child is not wearied. He need not make a painful effort at recollection, because the distinction and the name of the boxes strike his senses. He is not constrained to a posture that is oppressive by being always tied to the place where he is made to read. There is free activity for eyes, hands, and feet. The child looks for his letters, takes them out, arranges them, overturns them, separates them, and finally replaces them in their boxes. This movement is very much to his taste, and is exactly adapted to the active and restless disposition of that age.”

Rollin seems really to believe that there “is no danger in beginning with the reading of Latin.” However, “for the schools of the poor, and for those in the country, it is better,” he says, “to fall in with the opinion of those who believe that it is necessary to begin with the reading of French.”

It may be thought that Rollin puts a little too much into the first years of the child’s course of study. Before the age of six or seven he ought to have learned to read, to write, to be nourished on the _Historical Catechism_ of Fleury, to know some of the fables of La Fontaine by heart, and to have studied French grammar, and geography. At least, Rollin requires that “no thought, no expression, which is within the child’s range,” shall be allowed to be passed by. He requires that the teacher speak little, and that he make the child speak much, “which is one of the most essential duties and one of those that are the least practised.” He demands, above all else, clearness of statement, and commends the use of illustrations and pictures in reading books. “They are very suitable,” he says, “for striking the attention of children, and for fixing their memory; this is properly the writing of the ignorant.”[154]

258. THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.--The same reasons explain the shortcomings of Rollin’s views on the education of women, and the relative mediocrity of his ideas on the education of children. Living in solitude and in the celibate state, he had no personal information on these subjects, and so he goes back to Fénelon for his ideas on the education of women, and to Quintilian in the case of children.

Is the study of Latin fit for girls? Such is the first question which he raises; but he has the wisdom to answer it in the negative, save for “nuns, and also for Christian virgins and widows.” “There is no difference in minds,” Rollin emphatically says, “that is due to sex.” But he does not extend the consequences of this excellent principle very far. He is content to require of women the four rules of arithmetic; orthography, in which he is not over exacting, for “their ignorance of orthography should not be imputed to them as a crime, since it is almost universal in their sex;” ancient history and the history of France, “which it is disgraceful to every good Frenchman not to know.”[155] As to reading, Rollin is quite as severe as Madame de Maintenon: “The reading of comedies and tragedies may be very dangerous for young ladies.” He sanctions only _Esther_ and _Athalie_. Music and dancing are allowed, but without enthusiasm and with endless precautions:--

“An almost universal experience shows that the study of music is an extraordinary dissipation.”

“I do not know how the custom of having girls learn to sing and play on instruments at such great expense has become so common.... I hear it said that as soon as they enter on life’s duties, they make no farther use of it.”

259. THE STUDY OF FRENCH.--Rollin is chiefly preoccupied with the study of the ancient languages; but he has the merit, notwithstanding his predilection for exercises in Latin, of having followed the example of the Jansenists so far as the importance accorded to the French language is concerned.

“It is a disgrace,” he says, “that we are ignorant of our own language; and if we are willing to confess the truth, we will almost all acknowledge that we have never studied it.”

Rollin admitted that he was “much more proficient in the study of Latin than in that of French.” In the opening of his _Treatise_, which he wrote in French only that he might place himself within the reach of his young readers and their parents, he excuses himself for making a trial _in a kind of writing which is almost new to him_. And in congratulating him on his work, d’Aguesseau wrote, “You speak French as if it were your native tongue.” Such was the Rector of the University in France at the commencement of the eighteenth century.

Let us think well of him, therefore, for having so overcome his own habits of mind as to recommend the study of French. He would have it learned, not only through use, but also “through principles,” and would have “the genius of the language understood, and all its beauties studied.”

Rollin has a high opinion of grammar, but would not encourage a misuse of it:--

“Long-continued lessons on such dry matter might become very tedious to pupils. Short questions, regularly proposed each day after the manner of an ordinary conversation, in which they themselves would be consulted, and in which the teacher would employ the art of having them tell what he wished to make them learn, would teach them in the way of amusement, and, by an insensible progress, continued for several years, they would acquire a profound knowledge of the language.”

It is in the _Treatise on Studies_ that we find for the first time a formal list of classical French authors. Some of these are now obscure and forgotten, as the _Remarkable Lives_ written by Marsolier, and the _History of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres_, by de Boze; but the most of them have held their place in our programmes, and the judgments of Rollin have been followed for two centuries, on the _Discourse on Universal History_, by Bossuet, on the works of Boileau and Racine, and on the _Logic_ of Port Royal.

Like all his contemporaries, Rollin particularly recommends Latin composition to his pupils. However, he has spoken a word for French composition, which should bear, first, on fables and historical narratives, then on exercises in epistolary style, and finally, on common things, descriptions, and short speeches.

260. GREEK AND LATIN.--But it is in the teaching of the ancient languages that Rollin has especially tried the resources of his pedagogic art. For two centuries, in the colleges of the University, his recommendations have been followed. In Greek, he censures the study of themes, and reduces the study of this language to the understanding of authors. More of a Latinist than of a Hellenist, of all the arguments he offers to justify the study of Greek, the best is, that, since the Renaissance, Greek has always been taught; but, without great success, he admits:--

“Parents,” he says, “are but little inclined in favor of Greek. They also learned Greek, they claim, in their youth, and they have retained nothing of it; this is the ordinary language which indicates that one has not forgotten much of it.”

But Latin, which it does not suffice to learn to read, but which must be written and spoken, is the object of all Rollin’s care, who, on this point, gives proof of consummate experience. Like the teachers of Port Royal, he demands that there shall be no abuse of themes in the lower classes, and recommends the use of oral themes, but he holds firmly to version, and to the explication of authors:--

“Authors are like a living dictionary, and a speaking grammar, whereby we learn, through experience, the very force and the true use of words, of phrases, and of the rules of syntax.”

This is not the place to analyze the parts of the _Treatise on Studies_ which relate to poetics and rhetoric, and which are the code, now somewhat antiquated, of Latin verse and prose. Rollin brings to bear on this theme great professional sagacity, but also a spirit of narrowness. He condemns ancient mythology, and excludes, as dangerous, the French poets, save some rare exceptions. He claims that the true use of poetry belongs to religion. He has no conception of the salutary and wholesome influence which the beauties of poetry and eloquence can exercise over the spirit.

261. ROLLIN THE HISTORIAN.--Rollin has made a reputation as an historian. Frederick II. compares him to Thucydides, and Chateaubriand has emphatically called him the “Fénelon of History.” Montesquieu himself has pleasantly said: “A noble man has enchanted the public through his works on history; it is heart which speaks to heart; we feel a secret satisfaction in hearing virtue speak; he is the bee of France.”

Modern criticism has dealt justly with these exaggerations. The thirteen volumes of his _Ancient History_, which Rollin published, from 1730 to 1738, are scarcely read to-day. His great defect as an historian is his lack of erudition and of the critical spirit; he accepts with credulity every fable and every legend.

We are to recollect, however, that as professor of history--and in truth he pretended to be only this--Rollin has greater worth than as an historian. He knew how to introduce into the exposition of facts great simplicity and great facility. And especially he attempted to draw from events their moral lesson. “We ought not to forget,” says a German of our time, “that Rollin has never made any personal claim to be considered an investigator in historical study, but that the purpose he had chiefly in view was educational. As he was the first to introduce the study of history into French colleges (this is true only of the colleges of the University), he sought to remedy the complete absence of historical reading adapted to the needs of the young. This is a great educational feat; for it is undeniable that his works are of a nature to give to the young of all nations a real taste for the study of history, and at the same time a vivid conception of the different epochs, and of the life of nations.”[156]

262. THE TEACHING OF HISTORY.--However, considered simply as a professor of history, Rollin is far from being irreproachable. Doubtless it is good to moralize on history, and to make of it, as he says, “a school of enduring glory and real grandeur.” But is not historical accuracy necessarily compromised, and is there not danger of making the subject puerile, when the teacher is guided exclusively by the idea of moral edification?

Another graver fault in Rollin is that he systematically omits the history of France, and with it, all modern history. In this respect, he falls below the Oratory, Port Royal, Bossuet, Fénelon, and Madame de Maintenon. It is interesting to observe, moreover, that Rollin recognizes the utility of the study of national history, but his excuse for omitting it is the lack of time:--

“I do not speak of the history of France.... I do not think it possible to find time, during the regular course of instruction, to make a place for this study; but I am far from considering it as of no importance, and I observe with regret that it is neglected by many persons to whom, nevertheless, it would be very useful, not to say necessary. When I say this, it is myself that I criticise first, for I acknowledge that I have not given sufficient attention to it, and I am ashamed of being in some sort a stranger in my own country after having traversed so many others.”

263. PHILOSOPHY.--It is moral edification that Rollin seeks in philosophical studies, as in historical studies. With but little competence in these matters, he admits that he has applied himself only very superficially to the study of philosophy. He knows, however, the value of ethics and logic, which govern the morals and perfect the mind; of physics, which furnishes us a mass of interesting knowledge; and finally, of metaphysics, which fortifies the religious sentiment. The ethics of antiquity seems to him worthy of attention; it is, in his view, the introduction to Christian ethics.

264. SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION.--Rollin has given us a compendium of astronomy, of physics, and of natural history. Without doubt his essays have but a moderate value. Rollin’s knowledge is often inexact, and his general ideas are narrow. He is capable of believing that “nature entire is made for man.” But yet he deserves some credit for having comprehended the part that the observation of the sensible world ought to play in education:--

“I call _children’s physics_ a study of nature which requires scarcely anything but eyes, and which, for this reason, is within the reach of all sorts of persons, and even of children. It consists in making ourselves attentive to the objects which nature presents to us, to consider them with care, and to admire their different beauties; but without searching into their secret causes, which comes within the province of the physics of the scientist.

“I say that even children are capable of this, for they have eyes, and are not wanting in curiosity. They wish to know; they are inquisitive. It is only necessary to awaken and nourish in them the desire to learn and to know, which is natural to all men. This study, moreover, if it may be so called, far from being painful and tedious, affords only pleasure and amusement; it may take the place of recreation, and ordinarily ought not to take place save in playing. It is inconceivable how much knowledge of things children might gain, if we knew how to take advantage of all the occasions which they furnish for the purpose.”

265. THE EDUCATIVE CHARACTER OF ROLLIN’S PEDAGOGY.--It should not be supposed that Rollin’s exclusive purpose was to make Latinists and literary men. I know very well that he himself has said that “to form the taste was his principal aim.” Nevertheless, he has thought of other things,--moral qualities not less than intellectual endowments. He wished to train at once “the heart and the intellect.” With him, instruction in all its phases takes an educative turn. He esteems knowledge only because it leads to virtue. In the explication of authors, attention should be directed to the morality of their thoughts, at least as much as to their literary beauty. The maxims and examples which their writings contain should be skillfully put in relief, so that these readings may become moral lessons not less than studies in rhetoric. To sum up in a word, Rollin follows the tradition of the Jansenists, and not that of the Company of Jesus.

266. CHRISTIANITY OF ROLLIN.--Rollin, though persecuted for his Jansenist tendencies, was a fervent Christian. “A Roman probity” did not suffice for him; he desired a Christian virtue. Consequently, he requires that religious instruction should form a part of every lesson. A regulation which dates from his rectorship required that the scholar in each class should learn and recite each day one or more maxims drawn from the Holy Scriptures. This custom has been maintained to this day. Rollin knew, moreover, that the best means of inspiring piety is to preach by example, and to be pious one’s self:--

“To make true Christians,--this is the end and purpose of the education of children; all the rest but fulfills the purpose of means.... When a teacher has received this spirit, there is nothing more to say to him....”

The religious spirit of Rollin comes to view on each page of his book:--

“It remains for me,” he says, in concluding his preface, “to pray God, in whose hands we all are, we and our discourses, to deign to bless my good intentions.”

267. INTERIOR DISCIPLINE OF THE COLLEGES.--The part of the _Treatise on Studies_ which has preserved the most interest, and which will be studied with the most profit, is certainly that which treats of _the interior government of schools and colleges_. Here, though he does not completely divest himself of his method of borrowings, and references to the authority of others, and though he is especially under the influence of Locke, whose wise advice on rewards and punishments he reproduces almost verbatim, Rollin makes use of a long personal experience. We have charged him with not knowing the little child. On the other hand, he knows exactly what scholars a little older are,--children from ten to sixteen years old. And he not only knows them, but he loves them tenderly. He gives them this testimony, which affection alone can explain, that he has always found them reasonable.

268. ENUMERATION OF THE QUESTIONS TREATED BY ROLLIN.--To give an idea of this part of the _Treatise_, the best way is to reproduce the titles of the thirteen articles composing the chapter entitled _General Counsels on the Education of the Young_:--

I. What end should be proposed in education? II. How to study the character of children in order to become able to instruct them properly. III. How at once to gain authority over children. IV. How to become loved and feared. V. Punishments: 1. Difficulties and dangers in punishments; 2. Rules to be observed in punishments. VI. Reprimands: 1. Occasion for reprimanding; 2. Time for making the reprimand; 3. Manner of reprimanding. VII. Reasoning with children. Stimulating them with the sense of honor. Making use of commendation, rewards, and caresses. VIII. How to train children to be truthful. IX. How to train children to politeness, to cleanliness, and to exactness. X. How to make study attractive. XI. How to give rest and recreation to children. XII. How to train the young to goodness by instruction and example. XIII. Piety, religion, zeal for the salvation of children.

269. PUBLIC EDUCATION.--Rollin does not definitely express himself on the superiority of public education. He does not dare give formal advice to parents; but he brings forward the advantages of the common life of colleges with so much force, that it is very evident that he prefers it to a private education. Let it be noted, besides, that he accepts on his own account “the capital maxim of the ancients, that children belong more to the State than to their parents.”

270. THE ROD.--In the matter of discipline, Rollin leans rather to the side of mildness. However, he does not dare pronounce himself absolutely against the use of the rod. That which in particular causes him to hesitate, which gives him scruples, which prevents him from expressing a censure which is at the bottom of his heart, but which never rises to his lips, is that there are certain texts of the Bible whose interpretation is favorable to the use of the rod. It is interesting to notice how, in a strait between his sentiments as a docile Christian and his instincts towards mildness, the good and timid Rollin tries to find a less rigorous meaning in the sacred text, and to convince himself that the Bible does not say what it seems to say. After many hesitations, he finally comes to the conclusion that corporal chastisements are permitted, but that they are not to be employed save in extreme and desperate cases; and this is also the conclusion of Locke.

271. PUNISHMENTS IN GENERAL.--But how many wise counsels on punishments, and on the precautions that must be taken when we punish or reprimand! One should refrain from punishing a child at the moment he commits his fault, because this might then exasperate him and provoke him to new breaches of duty. Let the master be cool when he punishes, and avoid the anger which discredits his authority. The whole of this excellent code of scholastic discipline might be quoted with profit. Rollin is reason and good sense itself when he guides and instructs the teacher as to his relations with the pupil. Doubtless the most of these precepts are not new; but when they come from the mouth of Rollin, there is something added to them which I cannot describe, but which gives to the most threadbare advice the authority of personal experience.

272. CONCLUSION.--We shall not dwell on the other precepts of Rollin. The text must be consulted for his reflections on plays, recreations, the means of making study attractive, and on the necessity of appealing to the child’s reason betimes, and of explaining to him why one does this or that. In this last part of the _Treatise on Studies_ there is a complete infant psychology which is lacking neither in keenness nor in penetration. In particular, there is a code of moral discipline which cannot be too highly commended to educators, and to all those who desire, in the words of Rollin, “to train at once the heart and the mind” of the young. Rollin has worked for virtue even more than for science. His works are less literary productions than works on morals, and the author himself is the perfect expression of what can be done for the education of the young by the Christian spirit allied to the university spirit.

[273. ANALYTICAL SUMMARY.--1. The characteristic fact disclosed by this study is the very slow rate at which progress in education takes place. There is also an enforcement of the lesson which has reappeared from time to time, that education follows in the wake of new and general movements in human thought.

2. A more specific fact is the extreme conservatism of universities, or the tenacity with which they hold to traditions. The question is suggested whether, after all, the conservative habit of the university does not best befit its judicial functions.

3. In the elbowing of the classics by history and French, we see the rise of innovations which have become embodied in the modern university.

4. A new factor in the higher education is the intervention of the State, as opposed to the historical domination of the Church. In the reform of the University of Paris the State became an educator.

5. There is evidence of some progress in the historical struggle towards the conception that woman has equal rights with man in the benefits of education.]

FOOTNOTES:

[151] “Formerly secondary schools were schools in which was given a more advanced instruction then in the primary schools; and they were distinguished into communal secondary schools, or communal colleges, and into private secondary schools or institutions.... To-day, secondary instruction includes the colleges and lycées in which are taught the ancient languages, modern languages, history, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and philosophy. Public instruction is divided into primary, secondary, and superior instruction.”--LITTRÉ.

[152] This refers to the University of Paris, which must be distinguished from the Napoleonic University. “The latter was founded by a decree of Napoleon I., March 17, 1808. It was first called the Imperial University, and then the University of France. It comprises: 1. The faculties;[153] 2. the lycées or colleges of the State; 3. the communal colleges; 4. the primary schools. All these are under the direction of a central administration.”--LITTRÉ.

[153] There are now five Faculties or institutions for special instruction,--the Faculties of the Sciences, of Letters, of Medicine, of Law, and of Theology. (P.)

[154] Save once, Rollin has scarcely made an allusion to primary instruction proper. We quote this passage on account of its singularity: “Several years ago there was introduced into most of the schools for the poor in Paris a method which is very useful to scholars, and which spares much trouble to the teachers. The school is divided into several classes. I select only one of them, that composed of children who already know how to write syllables; the others must be judged by this one. I suppose that the subject of the reading lesson is _Dixit Dominus Domino meo: Sede a dextris meis_. Each child pronounces one syllable, as _Di_. His competitor, who stands opposite, takes up the next, _xit_, and so on. The whole class is attentive; for the teacher, without warning, passes at once from the head of the line to the middle, or to the foot, and the recitation must continue without interruption. If a pupil makes a mistake in some syllable, the teacher, without speaking, raps upon the table with his stick, and the competitor is obliged to repeat as it should be the syllable that has been wrongly pronounced. If he fail also, the next, upon a second rap of the stick, goes back to the same syllable, and so on till it has been pronounced correctly. More than thirty years ago, I saw with unusual pleasure this method in successful operation at Orleans, where it originated through the care and industry of M. Garot, who presided over the schools of that city.”

[155] Rollin does not require it, however, of young men.

[156] Doctor Wolker, quoted by Cadet, in his edition of Rollin, Paris, 1882.