Quote: "Tant d'hummeurs, de sectes, de jugements, d'opinions, de lois et de coutumes, nous apprennent a juger sainement des notres, et entrainent notre jugement a reconnaitre son imperfection et sa naturelle faiblesse".
Synopsis: In this essay Montaigne puts forth his stance on what children should be taught. He seemed to be displeased with the education of philosophers. Such as Aristotle. He made the comment," que les principes d'Aristote ne soient principes pour lui, non plus que ceux des Stoiciens et des Epicuriens" He wants the child to form his own views of the world and humanity. He believes that the child should make his own judgements from his own experiences and efforts.
Reader's response: I personally enjoyed this essay on learning. I particularly like the idea behind thirsting and starving for knowledge. It was difficult for me to grasp all of what he was saying though. He wanted this lad to be very well rounded and used examples philosophers and popular texts to illustrate his ideology.
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6 comments:
I liked Montaigne's holistic approach to educating children, it's probably an improvement over the mass classroom-education system we use today. I don't know how realistic such an endeavor would have been in his day but it definitely would be pretty hard to pull off in today's world, unless maybe you're homeschooling your kids and have a lot of resources to be able to take them anywhere you want :)
I was very impressed with Montaigne's prose as well. It's intelligent and well-written, but still remarkably readable and accessible, especially considering my incomplete knowledge of the French language.
Every time I read Montaigne's approach to pain, I'm impressed with his wisdom. He takes every experience from his life and passes it through the sieve of close examination and from that he distills such astounding insight. I would like to be as stoic and from the pains that I endure learn the beauty and joy of life. He explains in detail his physical torture, but concludes that he passes through all this in order to appreciate the exquisite pleasures of good health. For him, both body and soul are inextricably connected.
I found his writings De l'institution des enfants was amazing. I loved when he said, "lui faisant gouter les choses, d'elle-meme les choisir et les discerner, quelquefois lui ouvrant le chemin, quelquefois le lui laissant ouvrir." The way he explains things was very powerfull and easy to understand. The way he painted the picture with his words really fascinated me and kept me reading.
I enjoyed reading "De l'institution des enfants". It reminds me of my last year in High School. We had to take a Philosophy class. It was a mandatory. We learned a lot about different approaches from philosophers. It's fascinating to me to read their quotes on how they see the world and how they interprete things. In some ways, I agree with Montaigne's view on how to educate children. I liked it when he said: "Apres qu'on lui aura appris ce qui sert a le faire plus sage et meilleur, on l'entretiendra de ce que sont logique, physique, geometrie, rhetorique; et la science qu'il choisira lorsqu'il aura deja le jugement forme, il en viendra bientot a bout. However, I think it's more helpful to help chidren make their own decision at a such yound age instead of just guiding and making decisions for them. I personally wished my parents would have taught me more how to make decisions when I grew up.
My favorite part about the whole institution was the part on the soul and the body and how they can not be separated. I also enjoyed the way he explained things. Everything just sort of made sense even if i didn't understand all the words.
I liked his way of looking at the way children should be taught. It's true that you can't have a child doing one thing for 14 to 15 hours a day. I really liked his feelings to have children study many different things. Also to address things to the entire human being, not only the body, or the soul, but both.
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