titles and honors he has obtained for him and his. No man divulges his
revenue; or at least, which way it comes in: but every one publishes
his acquisitions. The advantages of our study are to become better and
more wise. 'Tis, says Epicharmus, the understanding that sees and
hears, 'tis the understanding that improves everything, that orders
everything, and that acts, rules, and reigns: all other faculties
are blind, and deaf, and without soul. And certainly we render it
timorous and servile, in not allowing it the liberty and privilege
to do anything of itself. Whoever asked his pupil what he thought of
grammar or rhetoric, and of such and such a sentence of Cicero? Our
masters stick them, full feathered, in our memories, and there
establish them like oracles, of which the letters and syllables are of
the substance of the thing. To know by rote, is no knowledge, and
signifies no more but only to retain what one has intrusted to our
memory. That which a man rightly knows and understands, he is the free
disposer of at his own full liberty, without any regard to the
author from whence he had it or fumbling over the leaves of his
book. A mere bookish learning is a poor, paltry learning; it may serve
for ornament, but there is yet no foundation for any superstructure to
be built upon it, according to the opinion of Plato, who says that
constancy, faith, and sincerity, are the true philosophy, and the
other sciences, that are directed to other ends, mere adulterate
paint. I could wish that Paluel or Pompey, those two noted dancers
of my time, could have taught us to cut capers, by only seeing them do
it, without stirring from our places, as these men pretend to inform
the understanding, without ever setting it to work; or that we could
learn to ride, handle a pike, touch a lute, or sing, without the
trouble of practice, as these attempt to make us judge and speak well,
without exercising us in judging or speaking. Now in this initiation
of our studies and in their progress, whatsoever presents itself
before us is book sufficient; a roguish trick of a page, a sottish
mistake of a servant, a jest at the table, are so many new subjects.

    And for this reason, conversation with men is of very great use
and travel into foreign countries; not to bring back (as most of our
young monsieurs do) an account only of how many paces Santa Rotonda is
in circuit; or of the richness of Signora Livia's petticoats; or, as
some others, how much Nero's face, in a statue in such an old ruin, is
longer and broader than that made for him on some medal; but to be
able chiefly to give an account of the humors, manners, customs and
laws of those nations where he has been, and that we may whet and
sharpen our wits by rubbing them against those of others. I would that
a boy should be sent abroad very young, and first, so as to kill two
birds with one stone, into those neighboring nations whose language is
most differing from our own, and to which, if it be not formed
betimes, the tongue will grow too stiff to bend.

    And also 'tis the general opinion of all, that a child should
not be brought up in his mother's lap. Mothers are too tender, and
their natural affection is apt to make the most discreet of them all
so overfond, that they can neither find in their hearts to give them
due correction for the faults they commit, nor suffer them to be
inured to hardships and hazards, as they ought to be. They will not
endure to see them return all dust and sweat from their exercise, to
drink cold drink when they are hot, nor see them mount an unruly
horse, nor take a foil in hand against a rude fencer, or so much as to
discharge a carbine. And yet there is no remedy; whoever will breed
a boy to be good for anything when he comes to be a man, must by no
means spare him when young, and must very often transgress the rules
of physic:

               "Vitamque sub dio, et trepidis agat

                In rebus."

It is not enough to fortify his soul: you are also to make his
sinews strong; for the soul will be oppressed if not assisted by the
members, and would have too hard a task to discharge two offices
alone. I know very well, to my cost, how much mine groans under the
burden, from being accommodated with a body so tender and
indisposed, as eternally leans and presses upon her; and often in my
reading perceive that our masters, in their writings, make examples
pass for magnanimity and fortitude of mind, which really are rather
toughness of skin and hardness of bones; for I have seen men, women,
and children, naturally born of so hard and insensible a
constitution of body, that a sound cudgeling has been less to them
than a flirt with a finger would have been to me, and that would
neither cry out, wince, nor shrink, for a good swinging beating; and
when wrestlers counterfeit the philosophers in patience, 'tis rather
strength of nerves than stoutness of heart. Now to be inured to
undergo labor, is to be accustomed to endure pain: "labor callum
obducit dolori." A boy is to be broken into the toil and roughness
of exercise, so as to be trained up to the pain and suffering of
dislocations, cholics, cauteries, and even imprisonment and the rack
itself; for he may come, by misfortune, to be reduced to the worst
of these, which (as this world goes) is sometimes inflicted on the
good as well as the bad. As for proof, in our present civil war
whoever draws his sword against the laws, threatens the honestest
men with the whip and the halter.

    And, moreover, by living at home, the authority of this
governor, which ought to be sovereign over the boy he has received
into his charge, is often checked and hindered by the presence of
parents; to which may also be added, that the respect the whole family
pay him, as their master's son, and the knowledge he has of the estate
and greatness he is heir to, are, in my opinion, no small
inconveniences in these tender years.

    And yet, even in this conversing with men I spoke of but now, I
have observed this vice, that instead of gathering observations from