Читать книгу Romain Rolland: The Man and His Work - Stefan Zweig - Страница 8

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ROLLAND'S childhood was passed amid the rural landscapes of Burgundy. His school life was spent in the roar of Paris. His student years involved a still closer confinement in airless spaces, when he became a boarder at the Normal School. To avoid all distraction, the pupils of this institution are shut away from the world, kept remote from real life, that they may understand historical life the better. Renan, in Souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse, has given a powerful description of the isolation of budding theologians in the seminary. Embryo army officers are segregated at St. Cyr. In like manner at the Normal School a general staff for the intellectual world is trained in cloistral seclusion. The "normaliens" are to be the teachers of the coming generation. The spirit of tradition unites with stereotyped method, the two breeding in-and-in with fruitful results; the ablest among the scholars will become in turn teachers in the same institution. The training is severe, demanding indefatigable diligence, for its goal is to discipline the intellect. But since it aspires towards universality of culture, the Normal School permits considerable freedom of organization, and avoids the dangerous over-specialization characteristic of Germany. Not by chance did the most universal spirits of France emanate from the Normal School. We think of such men as Renan, Jaurès, Michelet, Monod, and Rolland.