CHARLES

See also:

• CHARLES ROLLIN (1661-1741)

ROLLIN (1661-1741)  , French historian and educationist, was born at Paris on the 3oth of January 1661 . He was the son of a cutler, and at the age of twenty-two was made a master in the College du Plessis . In 1694 he was rector of the university of Paris, rendering great service among other things by reviving the study of Greek . He held that post for two years instead of one, and in 1699 was appointed principal of the College de Beauvais . Rollin held Jansenist principles, and even went so far as to defend the miracles supposed to be worked at the tomb of Francois de Paris, commonly known as Deacon Paris . Unfortunately his religious opihions deprived him of his appointments and disqualified him for the rectorship, to which in 1719 he had been re-elected . It is said that the same reason prevented his election to the French Academy, though he was a member of the Academy of Inscriptions . Shortly before his death (14th December 1741) he protested publicly against the acceptance of the bull Unigenitus . Rollin's literary work dates chiefly from the later years of his life, when he had been forbidden to teach . His once famous Ancient History (Paris, 1730-38), and the less generally read Roman History, which followed it, were avowed compilations, uncritical and somewhat inaccurate . But they instructed and interested generation after generation almost to the present day . A more original and really important work was his Traite des etudes (Paris, 1726-31) .

It contains a

summary of what was even then a reformed and innovating system of education, including a more frequent and extensive use of the vulgar tongue, and discarded the medieval traditions that had lingered in France . See Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. vi .