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218
ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE

jugglers; if in his heart he finds it no pleasanter and sweeter to return dusty and victorious from a wrestling-match, with the prize of that sport, than from the tennis court or from a ball, then I can see no other remedy than that [in good season his tutor strangle him, if he be without witnesses, or that][1] he be set up as a pastry-cook in some big city, were he a duke’s son, according to the counsel of Plato, that children should be disposed of,[2] not according to their father’s abilities, but according to the abilities of their minds.

(a) Since it is philosophy that teaches us to live, and childhood, like other ages, has its lessons to learn from her, why not make her known to childhood?

(b) Udum et molle lutum est; nunc, nunc properandus, et acri
Fingendus sine fine rota.[3]

(a) They teach us to live when life is past. A hundred students have caught the pox before they came to the reading of Aristotle "On Temperance." (c) Cicero said that, were he to live the lives of two men, he would not take the time to study the lyric poets;[4] and I consider these cavilling quibblers[5] even more deplorably futile. Our boy must be in far greater haste: he owes to study only the first fifteen or sixteen years of his life; the rest he owes to action. The time being so short, let us devote it to necessary instruction. (a) This is waste.[6] Cut out all these thorny subtleties of dialectic — by which our life can not be bettered; take the simple arguments of philosophy, learn how to select them and to discuss them pertinently; they are easier to understand than a tale of Boccaccio; a child just weaned is more capable of it than of learning to read or write. Philosophy has teachings for men at their birth as well as in their decrep-

  1. ↑ The clause in brackets omitted in 1595.
  2. ↑ Qu'il faut colloquer les enfans. See Plato, Republic; Jowett, (American edition), vol. iii, p. 104.
  3. ↑ The clay is moist and soft; now, now quickly fashion it with speed on the revolving wheel. — Persius, Satires, III, 23.
  4. ↑ See Seneca, Epistle 49.5.
  5. ↑ Ces ergotistes.
  6. ↑ Ce sont abus; literally, this is (i.e., our methods are) misspending.
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