velvet were required, and 1,100 cow-hides for the soles. He could play 207 different games, picked his
teeth with an elephant's tusk, and did everything in the same "large way."
"It sounded like a Gargantuan order for a dram." - The Standard.
A Gargantuan course of studies. A
course including all languages, as well ancient as modern, all the sciences, all the -ologies and -onomies,
together with calisthenics and athletic sports. Gargantua wrote to his son Pantagruel, commanding him
to learn Greek, Latin, Chaldaic, Arabic; all history, geometry, arithmetic, and music; astronomy and natural
philosophy, so that "there be not a river in all the world thou dost not know the name of, and nature of
all its fishes; all the fowls of the air; all the several kinds of shrubs and herbs; all the metals hid in the
bowels of the earth; with all gems and precious stones. I would furthermore have thee study the Talmudists
and Cabalists, and get a perfect knowledge of man. In brief, I would have thee a bottomless pit of all
knowledge." (Rabelais: Pantagruel, book ii. 8.)
