Between the Ancients and the Moderns: Charles Rollin, Popular Historian and Pedagogue of Virtue

Abstract

French writer Charles Rollin was one of the most popular international educational and historical thinkers of the eighteenth century, although largely forgotten until recently. His influence on the English-speaking world is readily apparent in the term belles lettres, which entered English through his writing and in his own lifetime. While he was controversial in his own day for some theological commitments, his famed treatise on education and best-selling work on ancient history continued to be cited approvingly on both sides of the Atlantic well into the nineteenth century. Bearing the strong pre-modern imprint of the classical authors Seneca and Quintilian (among others) and the early church writer St. Augustine of Hippo, he engaged his contemporary world directly and, at times, paradoxically. Rollin advocated that all students (not just a narrow segment of the aristocracy) have access to a Virtue Education that was understandable and popularly attractive, and even taught in the vernacular (not exclusively in Latin) in universities and public schools, and thus left a decided legacy on modern education. Yet his influence was mixed – some of his measures were felt immediately, some not until well after his death, and some were rejected or ignored altogether. While deeply steeped in the ancient world, he was surprisingly modern in adapting pedagogy to his own context and was thus a pivotal figure in European education between pre-modernity and modernity.