Descartes: A Biography

c CUNYB/Clarke     December, :

ALawyer’s Education 

usually in September, so that students could return home and help with

the harvest. Thus, apart from church holidays that had been traditional

in schools, Descartes had annual summer holidays that varied from two

weeks when he was in the junior grades to a maximum of two months when

he was studying philosophy. The Jesuits also reduced the classes each day

to about five and a half hours, leaving extra time for private study, recre-

ation, and of course for prayer. However, even with all these progressive

changes, the school week still appears extremely monastic from our per-

spective. There were minor variations from one school to another and for

students of different classes, but the general structure of the school day

was the following:

:/: .. Rise, pray, and repeat lessons to one’s prefect

:/: .. Formal classes

: .. Attend Mass

: .. Lunch in the refectory

: .. Recreation

: .. Private study, and repetition of lessons with one’s prefect

:–: .. Formal classes

: .. Dinner, and recreation until.or.

: .. General repetition of lessons

: .. Visit to the church and prayer before retiring

This daily schedule applied seven days a week, although there were some

variations on the weekend. Sunday included more formal religious ser-

vices, and philosophy students had a weekly disputation for two hours

onSaturday and, once a month, a disputation on a prearranged topic

that extended over the morning and afternoon on Saturday.Descartes

seems to have been excused from the early rise by the college rector, Father

Charlet, who was a distant relative of his. Many years later he wrote to him

as someone ‘who acted as a father to me during all my youth.’Descartes’

father had been dead for four years, at that stage, and he was able to tell

Father Charlet, without exaggeration: ‘I think of you as if you were my

father, and I believe you will not be offended if I communicate with you as

Iwould with him if he were still alive.’ Unfortunately, there was not much

difference, from Descartes’ perspective, in the paternal care he received

from his father while alive or dead.

The college integrated students from various social classes, at least in

the sense that it included some who were genuine nobles among the many