The Education of Children

A plea to start a child's schooling early and gently, with Erasmus's own memory of a theologian who had boys flogged after dinner.

by Desiderius Erasmus241 passages held

Latin, the original language
English, a translation held here, and your language

Original title: De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis
First published: 1529(aged 63)
Original language: Latin

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Overview

Erasmus once stood beside a famous theologian, a man he knew well, while the theologian called out a boy of about ten who had only just come to the school from his mother, and had him beaten almost senseless. The boy had done nothing, the theologian explained afterwards, but he needed humbling. It was this man's custom to end every meal with a flogging, the way a comedy ends with a happy finale, and to beat the innocent too, so that they would get used to it. Erasmus tells the story in a short book arguing that a child's education should begin almost from the cradle and should be liberal — fit for a free person, and therefore gentle. Nature gives each child a disposition, but method and practice are in our hands, and they achieve astonishing things: training makes an elephant walk a tightrope and a bear dance. The early years, when the mind is soft and empty of vices, are the best time to fill it with good learning, and a teacher who has nothing to teach is usually the one who beats hardest. Erasmus is scathing about fathers who pay more for a groom to train their horses than for a tutor to form their sons, and who lose thirty thousand at dice in one evening but call a thousand spent on a son's education an extravagance. He drafted the book in Italy around 1509, and Thomas More probably received part of the manuscript in 1516. It was published only in 1529, dedicated to the young William, heir to the duchy of Cleves, at the urging of the boy's tutor, the humanist Konrad Heresbach.

Key concepts

What does a “liberal” education mean in Erasmus's The Education of Children?

It means an education fit for a free person rather than a slave, and so a gentle one. The Latin title asks that children be taught at once and liberally: early, and by kindness and interest rather than fear. A child driven by blows learns to hate learning, while one who is coaxed and praised comes to love it and keeps it.

What are nature, method and practice in this book?

They are the three things that make a person good and learned. Nature is the disposition a child is born with; method is skilled teaching; practice is steady exercise. Nature is not in our power, but the other two are, and they are astonishingly strong: training teaches a bear to dance and an elephant to walk a rope. So a father who blames nature for a dull son usually has his own neglect to blame.

Why does Erasmus think early childhood is the best time to learn?

Because a young child's mind is soft and still empty of vices, and certain things come more quickly and easily at that age than later: the first letters, languages, the tales and fables of the poets. Delaying wastes the years when learning costs least. Erasmus wants a good teacher chosen early so that, as he puts it, the child sucks in learning with his milk.

Why does Erasmus reject beating children?

Because fear teaches hatred of learning, not learning. Erasmus tells of a theologian who had boys flogged after every meal, the innocent included, to humble them, and calls such schools torture chambers. He notes that the teachers who beat most are usually those who have least to teach, and wants a master whom the child loves, so that respect does the work of the rod.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Early and Gently

When should a child's education begin, and may it be beaten into him? Erasmus answers almost at birth, and never by terror, and blames the parents before the child.

Nature gives each child a disposition, but method and practice are in human hands, and they can teach an elephant to walk a rope. The early years are the best time, because the tender mind takes in letters, languages and stories faster than an older one. Erasmus rages at fathers who pay a groom more than a tutor and lose fortunes at dice, at the cruel pity that keeps a boy among nurses, and at schoolmasters who flog: the teacher with least to teach beats hardest.

education
child development
parental responsibility
corporal punishment
early education
human nature
habit
teacher-student relationship
imitation

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 241
distinct concepts: 242
by passages held, corpus-wide: #308

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “child development” and “education”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 22 pairings. 81 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
child development	education	40
education	parental responsibility	35
education	virtue	28
corporal punishment	education	22
education	human nature	18
childhood	education	15
parental responsibility	virtue	13
human nature	virtue	10
moral education	parental responsibility	9
child development	virtue	7
moral education	virtue	7
child development	corporal punishment	5
child development	moral education	5
child development	parental responsibility	5
human nature	parental responsibility	5
child development	human nature	4
childhood	moral education	4
childhood	parental responsibility	3
education	moral education	3
corporal punishment	virtue	2
human nature	moral education	2
childhood	human nature	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1500 Adages (Adagia)
The work that first made Erasmus famous and the one he revised for longest, from 1500 until the year he died; Erasmus Against War began as one of its entries.
LA
1503 The Manual of the Christian Knight (Enchiridion militis Christiani)
The earnest twin of In Praise of Folly: when critics attacked the satire, Erasmus answered that it treats the same subject as this manual, only in a playful spirit.
EN
1504 Panegyric for Archduke Philip of Austria (Panegyricus ad Philippum Austriae ducem)
Erasmus's advice to a ruler, delivered as a speech of welcome; The Complaint of Peace and the essay on war later make its case for peace without the obligatory flattery.
LA
1511 In Praise of Folly (Moriae encomium)
A mock oration in Folly's own voice and Erasmus's most famous book; The Tongue of 1525 has been read as an attempt at a companion piece.
LAEN
1511 On the Method of Study (De ratione studii)
Part of the same English years' work as De copia, with which it was later printed; Erasmus's later The Education of Children moves the same programme back to infancy.
LA
1515 Erasmus Against War (Dulce bellum inexpertis)
The fullest essay on war in the Adages and the core of Erasmus's writings for peace; The Complaint of Peace restates its case two years later in Peace's own voice.
EN
1516 The Education of a Christian Prince (Institutio principis christiani)
Erasmus's one full treatise on government, in the old genre of advice books for rulers; The Complaint of Peace followed a year later.
LA
1517 The Complaint of Peace (Querela pacis)
A declamation in the voice of Peace, the device of In Praise of Folly turned to a serious purpose, and the most direct of Erasmus's several writings against war.
LAEN
1518 Familiar Colloquies (Colloquia familiaria)
The book that carried Erasmus's views on fasting, pilgrimage and monks to far more readers than his devotional treatises ever reached.
LAEN
1518 In Praise of Marriage (De laude matrimonii)
A schoolroom piece that turned into a controversy: the first of three works on marriage, followed by The Institution of Christian Matrimony in 1526 and On the Christian Widow in 1529.
LA
1520 The Antibarbarians (Antibarbari)
The first statement of the cause Erasmus served all his life, classical learning as the ally of Christian faith, written before any of the books that made his name.
LA
1521 On Disdaining the World (De contemptu mundi)
The counterweight to everything Erasmus later wrote about monks, from The Manual of the Christian Knight to the Familiar Colloquies, and probably the earliest of his surviving prose works.
LA
1524 On Praying to God (Modus orandi Deum)
Pastoral rather than polemical, though written in the same year as On Free Will, his challenge to Luther; the first of the late handbooks on Christian practice that end with An Explanation of the Apostles' Creed.
LA
1525 The Tongue (Lingua)
Erasmus's fullest treatment of a theme that runs through all his writing, speech as the mirror of the soul, written in Basel in the middle of the polemics of the 1520s.
LA
1526 The Institution of Christian Matrimony (Christiani matrimonii institutio)
Commissioned through the English court and dedicated to its queen, it is Erasmus's main statement on the law and practice of marriage, where In Praise of Marriage had been a single persuasive letter.
LA
1528 The Ciceronian (Dialogus cui titulus Ciceronianus)
Satire aimed at fellow humanists rather than at theologians, unusual in Erasmus's later years; it first appeared in one volume with his dialogue on the pronunciation of Latin and Greek.
LA
1529 On the Christian Widow (Vidua christiana)
The last of Erasmus's writings on women's lives, after In Praise of Marriage and The Institution of Christian Matrimony, and like the second of those dedicated to a queen.
LA
1529 The Education of Children (De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis) you are here LAEN
1533 An Explanation of the Apostles' Creed (Explanatio symboli)
Erasmus's catechism, written for lay readers rather than theologians three years before his death.
LA

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