proceed in the book wherein he was, also to write handsomely, to draw and form the antique and Roman letters.' Then he went to the riding school and practised every feat of arms on horse and on foot. The list of bodily exercises which Gargantua performed is given with the usual exuberance of Rabelais. It comprises every exercise practised by modern athletes, and many more besides. In returning, his attention was directed to ‘all the plants and trees, and to what is written of them by the ancients.' Being come to their lodging, whilst supper was making ready, they repeated certain passages of that which had been read, and then sat down at table. · Here remark that his dinner was sober and thrifty, for he did then eat only to prevent the gnawings of his stomach, but his supper was copious and large. During that repast was continued the lesson read at dinner, as long as they thought good; the rest was spent in good discourse, learned and profitable. Then, after music and games, they went to bed. 'When it was full night, before they retired themselves, they went into the most open place of the house to see the face of the sky, and there beheld the comets, if any were, as likewise the figures, situations, aspects, oppositions and conjunctions of both the fixed stars. and planets. Then, with his master, did he briefly recapitulate, after the manner of the Pythagoreans, that which he had read, seen, learned, done, and understood in the whole course of that day. Then prayed they unto God their Creator, in falling down before Him, and strengthening their faith towards Him, and glorifying Him for His boundless bounty; and, giving thanks unto Him for the time that was past, they recommended themselves to His divine clemency for the future, which being done, they went to bed, and betook themselves to their repose and rest.' In rainy weather they stayed indoors and re

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created themselves with the 'bottling up of hay, cleaving of wood, and thrashing sheaves of corn at the barn.' They visited all kinds of trades, heard lectures, pleadings, and sermons. Once a month they took a holiday in the beautiful country near Paris.

What is the practical advice to be derived from this? First a sensible tutor must be chosen. Rabelais shows no favour to public education. The hard work is about six hours a day. During the morning hours of study the pupil is to be lectured to; there is no talk of learning by heart. Great stress is laid upon physical exercise. Teaching is done by the personal influence of the tutor, and only subordinately through books. Natural objects are made use of as far as possible. The chief points on which Rabelais insists have been thus summed up by Arnstädt: (1) Teaching through the senses. (2) Independence of thought. (3) Training for practical life. (4) Equal development of mind and body. (5) Gentle treatment, and improved methods. In Gargantua's education there is no mention of punishment. Although by his insistence on the importance of learning things, Rabelais belongs to the realists, yet we shall see that he exercised a predominant influence on Locke and Rousseau, who are the principal advocates of naturalistic education.

Such were Rabelais' methods. The end which he proposed to himself to reach is set forth in a letter from Gargantua to his son Pantagruel, which, although it is possibly of earlier composition than the passages we have quoted, comes more properly after the narration of Gargantua's youth. Although my deceased father of happy memory, Grandgousier, had used his best endeavours to make me profit in all perfection and political

1 François Rabelais und sein Traité d'éducation, Leipzig, 1872.

knowledge, and that my labour and study was fully correspondent to, yea, and went beyond, his desire, nevertheless the time was not so proper and fit for learning as it is at present, neither had I plenty of such good masters as thou hast had. For that time was darksome, obscured with clouds of ignorance, and savouring a little of that infelicity and calamity of the Goths, who had wherever they set footing destroyed all good literature, which in my age hath by the divine goodness been restored unto its former light and dignity; that amendment and increase of knowledge that now hardly should I be admitted to the first form of the little grammar school boys. I say, I, who in my youthful days was and that justly reputed the most learned of my age. Now it is that the minds of men are qualified with all manner of discipline, and the old sciences revived which for many ages were extinct. Now it is that the learned languages are to their pristine purity restored, namely, Greek, without which a man may be ashamed to count himself a scholar, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldean, and Latin. Printing likewise is now in use, so elegant, and so correct that better cannot be imagined, although it was found out in my time by a divine inspiration, as by a diabolical suggestion on the other side was the invention of ordnance. All the world is full of most knowing men, of most learned schoolmasters, and vast libraries, and it appears to me as a truth that neither in Plato's time, nor Cicero's, nor Papinian's, there was ever such conveniency for studying as we see at this day there is. Nor must any adventure to come in public or present himself in company that hath not been pretty well polished in the shop of Minerva. I see robbers, hangmen, freebooters, tapsters, cobblers, and such like, of the very rubbish of the people, more learned now than the doctors and preachers

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were in my time. . . . The very women and children have aspired to this praise and celestial manner of good learning. . . . Wherefore, my son, I admonish thee to employ thy youth to profit as well as thou canst, both in thy studies and in virtue.

'I intend and will have it so that thou learn the languages perfectly, first of all the Greek, as Quintilian will have it, secondly the Latin, and then the Hebrew for the Holy Scriptures' sake, and then the Chaldee and Arabic likewise, and that thou frame thy style in Greek after the manner of Plato, in Latin after that of Cicero. Let there be no history. which thou shalt not have ready in thy memory, unto the prosecuting of which design books of cosmography will be very conducible, and help thee much. Of the liberal arts of geometry, arithmetic, and music, I gave thee some taste when thou wast yet little and not above five or six years old. Proceed further in them and learn the remainder if thou canst. As for astronomy study all the rules thereof. Let pass nevertheless the divining and judicial astronomy and the art of Lullius, as being nothing else but plain abuses and vanities. As for the civil law, of that I would have thee to know the texts by heart, and then to compare them with philosophy. Now in the matter of the knowledge of the works of nature, I would have thee to study that exactly; that so there be no sea, river, nor fountain of which thou dost not know the fishes, all the fowls of the air, all the several kinds of shrubs and trees whether in forests or orchards, all the sorts of herbs and flowers that grow on the ground, all the various metals that are hid within the bowels of the earth, together with all the diversity of precious stones that are to be seen in the orient and south parts of the world. Let nothing of all these be hidden from thee. Then fail not most carefully to peruse the books of the Greek, Arabian, and Latin phy

sicians, not despising the Talmudists and Cabalists, and by frequent anatomies get the perfect knowledge of that other world called the microcosm, which is man. And at some of the hours of the day apply thy mind to the study of the Holy Scriptures, first, in Greek, the New Testament with the Epistles of the Apostles, and then the Old Testament in Hebrew. In brief let me see thee an abyss and bottomless pit of knowledge, for from henceforth as thou growest great and becometh a man, thou must part from this tranquillity and rest of study, thou must learn chivalry, warfare, and the exercises of the field, the better thereby to defend my house and our friends, and to succour and protect them at all their needs against the invasions and assaults of evil doers.' This letter is very properly dated from Utopia. It is a mixture of jest and carnest, and in it Rabelais may be seen 'laughing in his easy chair' at the polymaths of his age. If the dates allowed it might be considered as a satire on Milton's Tractate.

The second great vindicator of naturalistic education, Montaigne, is more outspoken and more consistent. One of his longest essays is entitled 'On the Education of Children,' and is addressed to Madame Diane de Foix, Countess of Guerson. In other essays he touches on the same topic; in the essay on 'pedantry,' in that on 'anger,' in that on 'books,' in that on 'the affections of fathers to their children.' Although his precepts are not systematic, and are thrown out rather as hints for reflection, yet there is no doubt that they exercised a very important influence both upon Locke and Rousseau. Like Rabelais he was profoundly dissatisfied with the pedantry of his time. To what use serves learning if the understanding be away.' He says of the scholars of the age, 'Whosoever shall narrowly pry into and thoroughly