The next piece of work was provided by Louis Bonaparte, the King of Holland. He wished to reorganise education in his Kingdom, and in June, 1809, consulted Fontanes, who forwarded the letter to Joubert, together with a folio volume sent by the King, for him to make a précis. Joubert was, as usual, ill and, as usual, full of ideas.
“I was dead yesterday’? ; he wrote. “I feel a little resuscitated to-day, and I should like not to spoil the feeling ; but it depends on how great a hurry you are in. If you only wish to reply to the King’s letter, you can do it at once ; but if you wish to give him pleasure, you must take a little time. There are doubts, scruples, confusions of thought: to dissipate all these, there must be lucidity. The subject must be treated with some depth, if with a light touch, and we must discuss our notes.
Will you take the risk of waiting a few more days, and give me this week? ... Think, and decide. I can, with the stump of my pen, dispatch hurriedly what remains to be done; but I shall wear myself out and spoil everything. If you can wait over the holidays, I can go to Issy, take a bath, and finish without fatigue and with pleasure. Your King will be better served, and you will end better pleased with him, me and yourself.”
Fontanes knew his Joubert, and pressed for a quick answer.
He got it, possibly less philosophical, and certainly more practical than usual : including a prayer that heaven might defend the children of the poor from learning all that the Dutch Ministry wished to have them taught.
“‘ They would be no longer fit to work. The strength of a man, if it is drawn to the brain, leaves the hands. Whosoever is fitted to give profound and sustained attention to what is abstract becomes unfitted for what is mechanical. Nature has provided for the necessary tasks of life by giving the majority of men brains that do not work.” Joubert was all against the possibility of experiment allowed for in the Dutch code ; such experiments in education, if they did not prove phenomenally successful, did nothing but break the tradition of respect for antiquity, rouse ambition and destroy the modesty of mediocrity. In such work lay vanity, and in inaction, good sense. Fontanes hurriedly wrote an appreciative letter, asking for a final instalment; that received, he could shine, even though it were with borrowed light. So the next day, for the third day running, Joubert once more took up his quill, and continued with a précis and criticism of the Dutch plan for secondary education, which he found inferior to the scheme for primary schools.
He made the criticism that the Dutchmen were wrong in thinking that a change of subject was enough to rest a child and enable him to concentrate afresh; it might rest a grown man, but a child needed movement, games and real distractions. The Dutch scheme might make a hard-working boy seem more intelligent than he was, but it would be a false and unprofitable seeming that could lead to nothing. No child should be taught to be cleverer than he was. Joubert was too tired to finish that day; Fontanes must wait for his opinion on the Dutch universities until the morrow. Fontanes reluctantly waited, only to receive a grand condemnation of Protestant education in its later stages, and a still finer eulogy of the classical training given by the Teaching Orders in Catholic countries. ‘The difference between them was the difference between grammar and literature. The letter ended with a magnificent condemnation of modern education, which left its pupils ignorant of how little they knew. The letter was one of the best and most consecutive pieces of literature that Joubert ever produced; but it was not of much use to Fontanes when he came to compose his final report to the King of Holland.
Joubert returned to Villeneuve in the middle of October to make the postponed inspection of the schools of the Yonne.
He announced his departure in a letter to Fontanes that began “‘ Monseigneur,” and after giving him details of the proposed journey, continued with a jesting appreciation of himself.
“I say to you in all sincerity and in that popular style which suits frankness so well: ‘ My lord, you are very lucky to have me.’ I do my duty remarkably well, and I know how to amuse you in the process ; I play with your ermine and enliven your royalty. You have subjugated everyone around you except me. Every voice is silent before yours, except mine. I tell you everything I think, and in your company I think what I please. But for me, you would not have in your empire a subject who would always dare to tell you the entire truth. But for me, there would not be a free man at your court, or at least not one who, having regard to ancient intimacy and friendship, could appear free, as I can, publicly and completely, without offending against the proprieties. But for me, you would not enjoy, outside your family, the delights of contradiction ; but for me, nothing would ever recall to your memory the sweet and ancient state of equality.
“And remark this, my lord: he who knows how to laugh with you at his own occupations, and at yours, is a man of gravity and even of austerity ; he who plays with your dignities is the man who attaches the greatest importance to your rank, to your functions, who respects them most in his heart and mind ; the man who contra- dicts you most often is he who has for you, in secret, the most decided weakness ; the man who is the least your slave is also the man who is most devoted to you.
"You have never obtained from me, and you never will obtain, a blind approbation always ; but you have always exercised over me, and always will, each and every day, in spite of yourself and of me, a more glorious ascendancy. For thirty years and some months I have loved you; that is but a trifle; for thirty years and some months I have had for your talent in all its details, for the great traits of conduct and of character, a sentiment much greater than friendship ; a sentiment more rare and more lofty ; a sentiment which few souls can inspire and few keep ; a sentiment of which few men are worthy and few great men even capable ; in fine, a unique sentiment, to say all, of an incurable admiration. . .”
Joubert duly made his tour of inspection, and made it as a crusade in favour of the classics and of religion, of austerity in judgment and of gentleness in conduct, and of a spiritual reticence that should make the teacher inspire his pupils to be themselves rather than impress his own soul upon them.
Altogether both Joubert and the schoolmasters of the Yonne found the inspection more interesting and less alarming than they had anticipated. Joubert returned to Villeneuve with a new idea of the infinity of things a man could do well if only he were forced to do them. He reported his findings in due form to the inspector-general, with a postscript, not quite official, to say that he had written twice to the Grand-Maitre and that he thought Fontanes might at least have indicated to him that he had read the letters. He would never in his life write to him again, even though the whim to do so might seize him from time to time. Indeed Fontanes’ neglect in replying to his outburst of affection had hurt him deeply.
He wrote to Chénedollé, who wished to be appointed a professor, with a tender kindness that strove to efface the memory of Fontanes’ casual forgetfulness to himself.
Joubert returned to Paris after Christmas, having successfully avoided an official reception, at which Fontanes had covered himself with glory by declaring to Napoleon that youth no longer had need of the example of the heroes of antiquity, now that they had in the Emperor an example of perfect heroism. Joubert attended his educational committees and consoled himself with the reading of seventeenth century writers. He was faor ever advising Fontanes about education in general and the University in particular, and for ever being disappointed when expediency proved more important than the principles he advocated.
The Unselfish Egoist
A Life of Joseph Joubert
Joan Evens
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