ABSTRACT
The most traditional readings of De linstitution des enfants view Montaigne as advocating a formation of independent judgment rather than an education based on the knowledge and authority of book. Montaigne assumes the aristocratic duty of guiding in institution or education the future firstborn son of Madame de Foix, and of contributing to its continuity and to the patrilineal, aristocratic social order. Montaigne even suggests that generation could be so derailed from patrilineal transmission that it might unseat the male as the principal of the house, in a passage whose subtleties have to my knowledge remained largely neglected. Montaigne has characterized his book as a monstrous child, deformed, formless, not conforming to conventional restrictive institutions. In De linstitution des enfants, Montaigne decries the practice of colleges in his time of making students repeat what is shouted at them without speaking their own words.
