Montaigne's education began in early childhood and followed a pedagogical plan that his father had developed...

>Montaigne's education began in early childhood and followed a pedagogical plan that his father had developed, refined by the advice of the latter's humanist friends. Soon after his birth, Montaigne was brought to a small cottage, where he lived the first three years of life in the sole company of a peasant family, in order to, according to the elder Montaigne, "draw the boy close to the people, and to the life conditions of the people, who need our help".[16] After these first spartan years, Montaigne was brought back to the château. The objective was for Latin to become his first language.

>The intellectual education of Montaigne was assigned to a German tutor (a doctor named Horstanus, who could not speak French). His father hired only servants who could speak Latin, and they also were given strict orders always to speak to the boy in Latin. The same rule applied to his mother, father, and servants, who were obliged to use only Latin words he himself employed, and thus acquired a knowledge of the very language his tutor taught him. Montaigne's Latin education was accompanied by constant intellectual and spiritual stimulation. He was familiarized with Greek by a pedagogical method that employed games, conversation, and exercises of solitary meditation, rather than the more traditional books.
>tfw educationlet

Total language immersion is still possible today OP. Go, do. And don't gimme no shit about b-but my best years are behind me. Try faggot.

A similar thing happened to John Stuart Mill but he ended up going crazy. I guess Frenchmen are made of sterner stuff.

John Stuart Mill was gifted and a genius, I wouldn't call him crazy. He was also tutored.

not sure what your point is OP, is it in the directed dirigisme of education or rather the exposure and openness to influence

I've lived in five countries, spoke a different language with each of my parents, had a tutor and had a school where I learned a language and nobody spoke mine at an early age then my family moved to another country and another school, then went on camps involving sports where meditation and conversation were involved, then in yurop usually a program called erasmus favours the exchange between countries where you live in the home of another student and then the student lives in yours, just saying that the environment eventually opens you to education whether its directed or not, currently living in another country.

The books and the language aren't ends in themselves, rather the culture and exposure to learning.

>but he ended up going crazy. I guess Frenchmen are made of sterner stuff.

Kek. Someone isn't familiar with Montaigne's life.

Yeah yeah don't compare that cultural exposure bullshit to what someone like Mill went through.

Exchange programmes and speaking multiple languages isn't comparable to the training these elites went through, it's best to draw parallels between them and the modern elite. I mean, by and large, rich white kids who are rigorously trained by helicopter parents, ideally those who go to schools for gifted children and who, as a necessity, eventually make it to a prestigious university before dwelling into academia.

Exposing yourself culturally might be beneficial depending on your goals, but if you're talking about making the kinds of academic achievements that Mill made, a more rigorous academic training is needed, exchange programmes are a huge time sink, as is learning too many languages.

Not comparing, academia training for its own sake is utilitarian through a conditioned skillset which can be beneficial depending on the perfectioning of potential and contribution to a particular field of study and skillset, thus realizing the essence of a goal.

Consider a classicist training in this day in age to be imitated as the adequate means to develop a noteworthy life. Theory of multiple intelligences.

This rigid and determined framework within an assumed right course isn't simply out of free will as natural development and expression eventually prevail outside of a structure to contribute an original individual which isn't motivated by differentiation or achievement and recognition but throughout its own existence in liberty without an underlying intention for worldly judgement to greatness. Humility essentially as the margin of expression, not predefined forcibly but serving with the means as a platform to cultivate thought.

>claims to be educated
>can't write a coherent English sentence

>exercises of solitary meditation
What did they mean by this?

And yet, Montaigne isn't anywhere near as major a figure in Western literature and philosophy as any other number of figures you could name.

All the other major philosophers had equal or better education.

What about Shakespeare? Shakespeare was very unlearned compared to the other writers of his era. He couldn't read French or Latin or Italian, for example, without the help of translations. Ben Jonson had more severe and wide classical learning, and yet even his best poems and plays have not survived nearly as well as Shakespeare's.

Your clauses are joined together like a car pileup.

I bet the servants spoke a horribly bastardized latin.

You are aware the fact that Montaigne was a highly privileged noble and he had to go through all of this without the usage of more effective modern learning methods, right? Which means you can obtain the same mastery in Latin tongue with less effort and by more technological advantage in 2017.

he's one of the most prominent figures in French letters, what are you on about

And yet, people outside of France don't really care about him that much. He's certainly "big", but when people think of French writers and thinkers who are important to the history of modern Western thought and literature, they're probably more likely to think of Descartes or Proust.

>not sure what your point is OP,

He said right at the end of his post: "tfw educationlet". OP is probably American and went to a public school.

Whores in the Suburra all spoke latin back in the day, I don't see what's such a big deal

This is true, unfortunately. But read Emerson, and then read Montaigne. The comparison's laughable.

Shakespeare was quite ignorant before starting as an actor and look at him now.

When it comes to rationalism, relativism and skepticism Montaigne is far more relevant than Descartes, who is in fact mostly remembered for the sentence "Cogito ergo sum" (everything else is usually discarded by both the public and academics) and some of his mathematical formulations. Montaigne instead was necessary in the education of heavy weights such as Descartes himself, Pascal, Russeau and Nietzsche. That's a truly impressive legacy.

I'm sorry but I don't understand your post. What's laughable?

Do you realize that Montaigne was a MASSIVE infouence for both Proust and Descartes?

Now he's dead.

I guess he's not so smart after all, huh?

Lol

Have you actually read Montaigne? He almost totally forgot Latin while still a child, and he ended up considering Latin/Greek as being (comparative) wastes of time, suggesting that the time spent on learning them could be better applied to becoming better men, practicing virtue, etc., and reading the Greek/Latin classics in translation to reach that end.

Yup, with the internet and libraries the only barrier is yourself