Early Studies

The weakness of his constitution and the instability of his health obliged him to leave the child for a long time under the care of women.

But while they were busy only with strengthening his body and giving him a healthy appearance, the child gave almost continual signs of the brilliance of his intellect.

In the midst of his infirmities he showed such happy dispositions for study that his father, in order to begin cultivating this natural gift, could not prevent himself from providing exercises suitable for this purpose, despite his earlier resolution to secure his son’s bodily health before undertaking anything with regard to his mind.

So much precaution was taken that nothing was spoiled. Indeed, one could say that these first studies were nothing more than light trials and superficial sketches of the more serious studies intended for him at a more advanced age.

When the boy was approaching the end of his eighth year, his father began seriously considering the best means to cultivate both his mind and his heart through an excellent education. It was at this time that he heard of the establishment of a new college being prepared at La Flèche for the Jesuits.

King Henry IV, having restored the Company of Jesus in France by an edict registered in parliament on January 2, 1604, did not limit his generosity to them merely to the restitution of what they had lost by their earlier expulsion. Their presence rekindled in him the design he had formed since his conversion: to found a college where the French nobility might be instructed in good letters and in the maxims of the true religion. The king entrusted this grand project to the Jesuits. They were powerfully supported at such a favorable juncture by Monsieur de La Varenne, one of their most zealous friends and one of the king’s closest favorites at court.

This man, who had risen step by step to the office of general controller of the posts, had long aspired to make his native town of La Flèche, in Anjou, both rich and famous, the king having granted him its governorship. He had recently established there a presidial court, an election bureau, and a salt granary, all newly created, when the opportunity arose to fulfill his desire of seeing a Jesuit college founded in his town.

The matter was no sooner proposed to the king than it was granted. The good prince, having chosen that place—where he himself had been conceived, and which was the inheritance of his ancestors—as the glorious monument of his affection for the Jesuits, gave them his palace to convert into a college, along with large sums of money to render the buildings both convenient and magnificent. He endowed it richly with an assured revenue of eleven thousand gold écus, with stipends for a physician, an apothecary, and a surgeon, who were to serve the college free of charge. So that students would not be forced to go elsewhere for sciences not ordinarily taught by the Jesuits, he also established four public professors of law, four of medicine, and two of anatomy or surgery, with generous salaries, all under the authority of the fathers of the college. He also left funds for the support of twenty-four poor students, and for the dowries of twelve poor girls each year, who were to be raised in piety. Finally, he had resolved to provide for one hundred young noblemen, to train them in all exercises befitting their rank. But not having lived long enough to carry this project to completion, the institution remained on the footing of the ordinary colleges—though one may say it long held the first rank in France for the affluence of noble students, and still holds it today for the magnificence of its buildings.

The Jesuits were installed in this royal house in January 1604. Monsieur Descartes delayed sending his son there only in order to spare him the rigors of the season, fearing to expose a child of such tender age to the harshness of winter so far from the comforts of the paternal home. When winter and Lent were past, he sent him there to begin the Easter term, and entrusted him particularly to the care of Father Charlet, who was related to the family.

This father, who was for a long time rector of La Flèche before being called to other posts in the order, conceived such tender affection for the young Descartes that he took charge of all his needs of both body and mind, acting as both father and guardian during the more than eight years the boy spent at the college. The young pupil was not insensible to so much kindness, and remained grateful all his life, leaving public testimony of it in his letters. Father Charlet, on his side, soon added esteem to affection, and after having guided Descartes in his studies and morals, he made of him a friend whom he cherished until death, maintaining a mutual exchange of letters and recommendations.

The young Descartes came to college with an extraordinary passion for learning, and this passion, supported by a solid and lively mind, already well-developed, enabled him to fulfill both his father’s expectations and his masters’ care. Throughout his five and a half years of humanities, he showed no affected singularity, except that born of the emulation by which he strove to surpass those classmates who surpassed others. With a good disposition and an agreeable, accommodating nature, he was never troubled by the perfect obedience he showed to the will of his teachers and prefects; and the scrupulous diligence with which he fulfilled his classroom and dormitory duties cost him nothing.

With such happy qualities, he made great progress in the knowledge of both classical languages, and later testified to having early understood their importance and necessity for reading ancient authors.

He loved poetry much more than might be imagined of a philosopher thought to have renounced trifles. He even had a talent for it, and confessed he was not insensible to its charms, nor ignorant of its refinements. He did not give it up even when leaving college, and it may surprise some to learn that the last compositions of his life were French verses he wrote at the court of Sweden, shortly before his death.

He also took great pleasure in the fables of antiquity—not so much because of the physical or moral mysteries they might contain, but because their wit helped to enliven his mind.

He valued eloquence no less than he loved poetry. Yet it does not appear that he gave more time to rhetorical exercises than required by his classwork.

Even then, he was already persuaded that eloquence, like poetry, is a gift of the mind rather than the fruit of study. “Those,” he said, “who have the strongest reasoning, and who best digest their thoughts so as to render them clear and intelligible, will always be the most persuasive, even if they spoke only in the rough Breton tongue and had never studied rhetoric. And those with the most agreeable inventions, who know how to express them with ornament and grace, would still be the best poets, even if they knew nothing of poetic art.”

He had for history all the inclination that springs from the natural curiosity to know the condition of one’s fellow men. From an early age he felt that remarkable deeds, especially the extraordinary events recorded in history, elevate the spirit and help form judgment, when read with discretion.

As a reward for the fidelity and diligence with which he fulfilled his duties, his masters granted him the freedom not to limit himself to the readings and compositions common to the other students. He wished to use this freedom to satisfy the passion that grew in him with his age and his studies—for acquiring a clear and certain knowledge of all that is useful in life, which he had been promised through the study of the liberal arts.

We must believe him when he later said that, not content with what was taught in college, he had gone through all the books he could obtain that treated of the most curious and rare sciences.

This must, of course, be understood of whatever fell into his hands at that time. I will add, to correct the mistaken impression of those who later suspected him of having little inclination or esteem for books, that we find few judgments more favorable than those he expressed of them even then.

He had persuaded himself that the reading of all good books is like a conversation with the most honorable men of past centuries, who were their authors—but a studied conversation, in which they reveal to us only the best of their thoughts.