A treatise on cosmopolitan education: the Letters of Lord Chesterfield to his son

The Letters written by Lord Chesterfield to his son are a fascinating testimony which allows us to reconstruct the education received at the end of the Old Regime by the members of the high nobility in charge of leading the destinies of nations. This article is intended to show this education's strong cosmopolitan character, the ultimate aim of which was to convey young people a way of understanding life and politics whose cultural background was common to the whole of Eastern Europe. After referring briefly to the genesis and the importance of the analyzed work, different aspects are studied separately. First, the value and the relative weight the author accords to the wide variety of languages he wants his son to learn: Latin, Greek, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Second, the role of Greek and Latin culture, and subsequently that of the vernacular, closely linked to the exercise of politics. Thirdly, the wide, multifaceted and multilingual canon of readings proposed. Finally, the peculiar Ciceronianism - somewhat Machiavellian - of the author, as well as the importance of the knowledge of the world, that is to say, the proper integration within the "good society" of the time are examined.