beat of drum, that excites the youthful ardor of his companions,
leaves that to follow another that calls to a morris or the bears; who
would not wish, and find it more delightful and more excellent, to
return all dust and sweat victorious from a battle, than from tennis
or from a ball, with the prize of those exercises; I see no other
remedy, but that he be bound prentice in some good town to learn to
make minced pies, though he were the son of a duke; according to
Plato's precept, that children are to be placed out and disposed of,
not according to the wealth, qualities, or condition of the father,
but according to the faculties and the capacity of their own souls.

    Since philosophy is that which instructs us to live and that
infancy has there its lessons as well as other ages, why is it not
communicated to children betimes?

    "Udum et molle lutum est; nunc, nunc properandus, et acri
Fingendus sine fine rota."

    They begin to teach us to live when we have almost done living.
A hundred students have got the pox before they have come to read
Aristotle's lecture on temperance. Cicero said, that though he
should live two men's ages, he should never find leisure to study
the lyric poets; and I find these sophisters yet more deplorably
unprofitable. The boy we would breed has a great deal less time to
spare; he owes but the first fifteen or sixteen years of his life to
education; the remainder is due to action. Let us, therefore, employ
that short time in necessary instruction. Away with the thorny
subtleties of dialectics, they are abuses, things by which our lives
can never be amended: take the plain philosophical discourses, learn
how rightly to choose, and then rightly to apply them; they are more
easy to be understood than one of Bocaccio's novels; a child from
nurse is much more capable of them, than of learning to read or to
write. Philosophy has discourses proper for childhood, as well as
for the decrepit age of men.

    I am of Plutarch's mind, that Aristotle did not so much trouble
his great disciple with the knack of forming syllogisms, or with the
elements of geometry, as with infusing into him good precepts
concerning valor, prowess, magnanimity, temperance, and the contempt
of fear; and with this ammunition, sent him, while yet a boy, with
no more than thirty thousand foot, four thousand horse, and but
forty-two thousand crowns, to subjugate the empire of the whole earth.
For the other arts and sciences, he says, Alexander highly indeed
commended their excellence and charm, and had them in very great honor
and esteem, but not ravished with them to that degree, as to be
tempted to affect the practice of them in his own person.

               "Petite hinc, juvenesque senesque,

           Finem animo certum, miserisque viatica canis."

    Epicurus, in the beginning of his letter to Meniceus, says,
"That neither the youngest should refuse to philosophize, nor the
oldest grow weary of it." Who does otherwise, seems tacitly to
imply, that either the time of living happily is not yet come, or that
it is already past. And yet, for all that, I would not have this pupil
of ours imprisoned and made a slave to his book; nor would I have
him given up to the morosity and melancholic humor of a sour,
ill-natured pedant; I would not have his spirit cowed and subdued,
by applying him to the rack, and tormenting him, as some do,
fourteen or fifteen hours a day, and so make a pack-horse of him.
Neither should I think it good, when, by reason of a solitary and
melancholic complexion, he is discovered to be overmuch addicted to
his book, to nourish that humor in him; for that renders him unfit for
civil conversation, and diverts him from better employments. And how
many have I seen in my time totally brutified by an immoderate
thirst after knowledge? Carneades was so besotted with it, that he
would not find time as so much as to comb his head or to pare his
nails. Neither would I have his generous manners spoiled and corrupted
by the incivility and barbarism of those of another. The French wisdom
was anciently turned into proverb: "early, but of no continuance."
And, in truth, we yet see, that nothing can be more ingenious and
pleasing than the children of France; but they ordinarily deceive
the hope and expectation that have been conceived of them; and grown
up to be men, have nothing extraordinary or worth taking notice of:
I have heard men of good understanding say, these colleges of ours
to which we send our young people (and of which we have but too
many) make them such animals as they are.

    But to our little monsieur, a closet, a garden, the table, his
bed, solitude and company, morning and evening, all hours shall be the
same, and all places to him a study; for philosophy, who, as the
formatrix of judgment and manners, shall be his principal lesson,
has that privilege to have a hand in everything. The orator Isocrates,
being at a feast entreated to speak of his art, all the company were
satisfied with and commended his answer: "It is not now a time,"
said he, "to do what I can do; and that which it is now time to do,
I cannot do." For to make orations and rhetorical disputes in a
company met together to laugh and make good cheer, had been very
unseasonable and improper, and as much might have been said of all the
other sciences. But as to what concerns philosophy, that part of it at
least that treats of man, and of his offices and duties, it has been
the common opinion of all wise men, that, out of respect to the
sweetness of her conversation, she is ever to be admitted in all
sports and entertainments. And Plato, having invited her to his feast,
we see after how gentle and obliging a manner, accommodated both to
time and place, she entertained the company, though in a discourse
of the highest and most important nature.

          "Aeque pauperibus prodest locupletibus aeque;