Of Pedantry by Montaigne

We are commanded to learn all we can. This commandment can be found in the scriptures and from the words of the living prophets. There is always a condition that comes with the admonition to learn, and that is to always seek God first. This essay is about this command and condition. Montaigne condemns pedantry and philosophers. Pedants are those who are too proud of their education. They are vain and boastfully display their knowledge. Philosophers are those who have really great ideas, but neither worry about nor care about the practical side of their ideas. He doesn't consider either group fit for public office or much else for that matter.

The problem he sees, and I agree with him, is that they don't study the right way. They learn to look good, but never internalize it. He likens them to birds who forage for food and bring it home in their beaks for their young without actually tasting it. This is manifest by gleaning a few sentences from lots of books and keeping them on the tip of your tongue ready to spew out for show. Knowledge should be used to change us for the better. It is wrong to fill our minds and those of our children with out creating virtue. Parents and society are at fault. Parents expect teachers to teach facts to their children and then tie their hands when it comes to morality. The world values a learned man more than a good man. “We only labor to stuff the memory and leave the conscience and understand unfurnished and void.”

Education has three levels, references to these are found throughout the scriptures. They are knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Knowledge is filling our minds with facts, understanding is internalizing the knowledge, and wisdom naturally follows by using our knowledge and understanding to change us and in the process the world. This takes effort and can be painful. Montaigne's advice is to take the challenge to gain wisdom. He suggests that people stop learning for learning's sake, you need to apply it and do some good. Having large libraries and even reading them, according to Montaigne, is useless unless we form our own thoughts. I attempt to accomplish this by writing these essays. Most scholars, he claims, are just parrots saying what everyone else has said. He asks, “but what do we have to say?”

Obtaining wisdom is the only virtuous goal of education. It is not enough to just not let our education corrupt us, as hard as that is, it has to make us better. This takes time. “Though we could become learned by other men's learning, a man can never be wise but by his own wisdom.” He also tells us that is we can not incorporate what we are studying into soul and if this can't be done it is better to not learn at all. Denver Snuffer wrote in his book, The Second Comforter, Conversing With the Lord Through the Veil, “No education is better than no education.”

The right motivation is the key. Getting a job, just to have knowledge, or to look good are not correct motivation, wisdom is the only one that qualifies. The reason is summed up by Montaigne, “Knowledge is an excellent drug, but no drug has virtue enough to preserve itself from corruption and decay if the vessel be tainted and impure wherein it is put to keep.” It is our job to keep our vessel clean and pur of any unworthy motivation and do good with what we learn. We need to make sure that the balance of our lives is forever tipped toward faith so that we never find ourselves relying on our own are any other man's “arm of flesh,” reasoning, and intellect.