When Things That Don’t Matter, Matter

 “On Pedantry,” Montaigne examines the question of “What matters most?” To find that answer, one must first answer the question of which is better: to be educated, or to be good? Montaigne observes how “the cares and expense our parents are at in our education, point at nothing, but to furnish our heads with knowledge; but not a word of judgment and virtue.” The test for our time is to discover whether we turn out scholars or wise men and women. Montaigne suggests there should be a third category of people: “O, the blockheads!” 

“We should rather examine,” Montaigne writes, “who is better learned, than who is more learned. We only labour to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.” If Montaigne were alive today, he might shudder at the shallow-verse of our meme culture, as we pass inspiration “like a counterfeit coin in counters, of no other use or value,” than a warm fuzzy. Drawing from Cicero, he teases the point emphasizing “They have learned to speak from others, not from themselves.” Montaigne redeems the quote because he has taken home his own fire, pursuant of virtue without being pedantic.