XXVI. But better than the best books, is good conversation. The instruction which is communicated by means of the voice, is natural, that which is conveyed by writing, is artificial; the one is animated, the other dead; consequently, the first will be efficacious and active, the second languid and faint. The tongue writes on the soul, as the hand on paper. That which we hear, is conveyed to us immediately and in the first instance, from the mind of him from whom the instruction proceeds; that which we read, is the copy of a copy. If princes in their childhood, were daily attended by discreet and good-intentioned people, who under the colour of amusing and entertaining them, were to instruct them; any one might venture to be bound, for their future good behaviour and wise conduct. The learning insinuates itself deepest, which is conveyed under the veil of diversion; and as that nourishes the body best, which we eat with desire and an appetite, so that which we listen to with delight, is most improving to the soul. The word instruction is unpleasing to children, therefore it is necessary as far as we are able, to take away the name, and leave or preserve the substance of the thing; and this is much more necessary to be done in the case of Princes, because from their early time of life, either their own vanity, or the flattery of other people, inspires them with a notion, that persons of their rank and station have no need of learning. The rules of equity and civil jurisprudence, conveyed under the disguise of engaging and entertaining relations of the conduct and management of just Princes, who by acting well, attained the accomplishment of all their wishes with respect to foreign concerns, and acquired the adoration of their own subjects at home, and the admiration of all strangers; I say, if improvement was insinuated into them in this way, by some person whose conversation was pleasing to them, and who had the address to introduce it, not as if he was instructing, but entertaining, them; it would be the best method of ingrafting in their minds, plants of the choicest quality, from whence in time you might expect to gather excellent fruit. For this reason, the wise Bishop of Cambray composed for the education of the Duke of Burgundy, whose preceptor he was, a collection of pleasing fables, in the stile and manner of such tales, with which old women are accustomed to entertain children, and which children for their amusement are used to relate to one another; in these, he in natural and easy language, suited to their capacities and comprehensions, conveyed all the precepts which compose the most Christian policy. SECT. VII.