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And how many men have I seen in my time, stultified by a reckless greediness of learning! Carneades was so besotted with it that he had no time to attend to his hair and his nails.^[1] (b) Nor would I have his good manners spoilt by others’ clownishness and rudeness. French discretion was long ago proverbial as a discretion which took root early but had little hold. In truth, we still see that there is nothing so charming as the young French children; but commonly they disappoint the hopes conceived of them, and as grown men, no excellence is seen in them. I have heard it maintained by men of understanding that it is these schools towhich they are sent, of which there are so many, that brutify them thus.

To our pupil, a closet, a garden, table and bed, solitude, company, morning and evening — all hours will be alike to him, every place his study: for philosophy, which, as the moulder of opinions and manners, will be his principal lesson, has this privilege of entering into every thing. Isocrates the orator being urged at a banquet to talk about his art, every one thought he was right in replying: "It is not the time now for what I can do; and I can not do that for which it is now the time."^[2] For to offer harangues or rhetorical discussions to a company assembled for merry-making and feasting would be too discordant a combination; and one might say as much of all the other kinds of learning. But, as for philosophy, in those parts where she treats of man, and of his duties and functions, it has been the universal opinion of all wise men that the charm of her conversation is such that she should not be denied admission to either banquets or games; and Plato, having bidden her to his Banquet, ^[3] we see how she discourses to the company in a pleasant fashion, adapted to the time and place, although it is one of his loftiest and most salutary treatises.