"Pick up & Read"
On the value of education & how to avoid being a Theorycel
“Madame [de Foix…], learning is a great ornament and a wonderfully serviceable tool, notably for people raised to such a degree of fortune as you are. In truth, it does not receive its proper use in mean and lowborn hands. It is much prouder to lend its resources to conducting a war, governing a people, or gaining the friendship of a prince or a foreign nation, than to constructing a dialectical argument, pleading an appeal, or prescribing a mass of pills.” Bk. I, E. 26, pg. 133, Essays
Entirely contrary to our modern, materialist minds, Montaigne maligns that one would learn for mere material gain (133). What appears upon first glance as classist commentary, that education just isn’t for everyone and that education suits statesmen better than the bourgeoisie, really conveys his judgement of human character: those who are ignoble (of whatever rank) will learn in order to better themselves only in a material sense (and be satisfied), while those with noble character will learn to better themselves in ways that transcend themselves. Montaigne makes clear that learning and ignobility are a toxic mix in his not-so-subtle dig at the clergy: “Nor will he [the ideal student] take up the trade in which men sell for ready cash the liberty to repent and acknowledge their mistakes [i.e., indulgences].”1 (138) Moreover, notice how Montaigne does not believe that learning is a necessity as he calls it a “great ornament” (133). So why would one bother to seek an education, especially now at such a cost?
Montaigne tackles this question at its root. To his mind, a true education instills a way of thinking rather than just knowing; in the same vein, gaining an understanding of something is (worth) more than mere knowledge of something. Just because one knows something does not necessarily mean that one understands that thing. Thus learning entails much more than schooling or memorization. With this epistemological distinction in mind, one easily follows what Montaigne means when he remarks, “I would rather make him an able man than a learned man.” (133). But this distinction demeans excessive or misdirected education, not learning per se; as Montaigne himself notes, the epitome of a learned man is a useful one (“wonderfully serviceable tool” (133)). So a true education enables one to become useful, but for what end? “The gain from our study is become better and wiser from it” (135).
The real purpose of an education lay in learning how to live. What could prove more useful than that? Put as a contrapositive, what is the use of money if one does not know how to spend it well? But the full connotation of being useful cannot be reduced to just being practical, as Montaigne invokes history, literature, and poetry as the bedrock for a true education. A true education, therefore, comprises the liberal arts. “Among the liberal arts, let us begin with the art that liberates us.” (142) Montaigne singles out philosophy as the keystone of learning, which unites if not crowns the constituent fields it interfaces with as it interprets each to scholars of the others. Through this study, learning then amounts to an approach to living as much as to thinking. Hence Montaigne’s maxim that “the true mirror of our discourse is the course of our actions.” (151)2 While it is logical that thinking a certain way would imply actions consistent with that thinking, this hardly seems like true as humans are not perfectly rational beings.
Montaigne’s genius here is that he justifies the liberal arts (and their fruit of moral & aesthetic refinement, & self-reflection) as useful & notes that utility is truly useful when beautiful (“ornamental”). Would it be hypocritical to study the Canon for its utility? Far from it, as this study liberates one’s mind from the mundane & heightens the senses, which raises one’s expectations. Ambition enables the goals one strives for. This is why Montaigne bemoans that students who “do not understand themselves yet.” (152), of ‘mean or lowborn’ mind, will squander an ennobling experience & relegate it to passing exams with their eyes on “constructing a dialectical argument, pleading an appeal, or prescribing a mass of pills” in order to live how one wants; (133) whereas students who understand themselves, those of nobility, who learn it & intuit its demands, turn their eyes toward higher ends & try to live as one ought.3 So even if these students practice the same vocation, one does so mechanistically whilst the other thinks for himself. One venerates the status quo, the other violates it & vies for new horizons. Creativity is thus inherently transgressive & liberal arts enables one to think this way toward constructive ends.
The telos of education is action. To characterize education as ornamental & useful in equal measure evokes to my mind Achilles’ armor, a Medieval knight or a prize pistol—wonderfully filigreed, inlaid yet sturdy—ready to do battle with the utmost panache. Satiate your curiosity while subordinating it to utility & you will never be in danger of being a theorycel, but will become a gentleman who conquers all with “constant cheerfulness” (144).
A corrupt clergyman epitomizes the worst outcome of education as he subordinates the transcendent to material concerns; i.e., loving thy neighbor means more redistribution rather seeking (& repenting for failing to seek) an existential disposition out of gratitude to Christ and duty to God.
Montaigne clearly echoes Christ who says, in Matt 7:16-20, that actions, shaped by habituation, reveal the true mettle of a teacher (“ye shall know them by their fruits”). How much more true would this be for a student who receives more than professes?
How many today leave college for law or med school etc “just because”? Too many.