ABSTRACT
We have completed the analysis of the educational system which operated in France from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. We are now about to enter a new era. But before we do so it seems worthwhile to return one last time to Scholastic education in order to conclude, by seeing it as a whole and drawing up a balance sheet of pros and cons. What I want to do is to ignore all matters of detail in order to bring out the features of this education which were essential; and then to distinguish those which should be regarded henceforth as organically embedded in our history, those which ought to become a fundamental part of our own national educational system, from those which, by contrast, were destined to disappear or to transform themselves. Since the men of the Renaissance set themselves the task of demolition, of radically revolutionising the work of their predecessors, we shall also need to make a thorough and accurate appraisal of the value of this project; only when we have done this shall we be able to understand and assess the work of those who came after them.
