solicitous to find him out a tutor, who has rather a well-made than a
well-filled head;--["'Tete bien faite', an expression created by
Montaigne, and which has remained a part of our language."--Servan.]--
seeking, indeed, both the one and the other, but rather of the two to
prefer manners and judgment to mere learning, and that this man should
exercise his charge after a new method.

'Tis the custom of pedagogues to be eternally thundering in their pupil's
ears, as they were pouring into a funnel, whilst the business of the
pupil is only to repeat what the others have said: now I would have a
tutor to correct this error, and, that at the very first, he should
according to the capacity he has to deal with, put it to the test,
permitting his pupil himself to taste things, and of himself to discern
and choose them, sometimes opening the way to him, and sometimes leaving
him to open it for himself; that is, I would not have him alone to invent
and speak, but that he should also hear his pupil speak in turn.
Socrates, and since him Arcesilaus, made first their scholars speak, and
then they spoke to them--[Diogenes Laertius, iv. 36.]

"Obest plerumque iis, qui discere volunt,
auctoritas eorum, qui docent."

["The authority of those who teach, is very often an impediment to
those who desire to learn."--Cicero, De Natura Deor., i. 5.]

It is good to make him, like a young horse, trot before him, that he may
judge of his going, and how much he is to abate of his own speed, to
accommodate himself to the vigour and capacity of the other. For want of
which due proportion we spoil all; which also to know how to adjust, and
to keep within an exact and due measure, is one of the hardest things I