Milton's tractate on education

MILTON'S
TRACTATE
ON
EDUCATION

4-

BROWNING

475
M54

Pitt Press Series

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,

C. F. CLAY, MANAGER.
Itanium: FETTER LANE, E.G.
©laagofo: 50, WELLINGTON STREET.

l.eipjifl: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
Hotfe: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
anto Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.

[All Rights reserved.]

MILTON'S
TRACTATE ON EDUCATION.

A FACSIMILE REPRINT FROM THE EDITION
OF 1673.

EDITED BY

OSCAR BROWNING, M.A.

FELLOW AND LECTURER OF KING'S COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE. AND
FORMERLY ASSISTANT MASTER AT ETON COLLEGE.

CAMBRIDGE:

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

1905

First Edition 1883.
Reprinted 1890, 1895, 1897,

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA

TO
JAMES WARD,

FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE,

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

MILTON'S Tractate, on Education has been
a favourite study of mine for five and twenty
years. When I first went as an assistant
master to a large public school, about the time
when the Public Schools Commission was
beginning to sit, it occurred to me as an ardent
educational reformer, that a cheap reprint of
Milton's Tractate would have a good effect
in clearing the thoughts and opinions of my
colleagues and others on the pressing question
of the day. I had opened negotiations with
the school bookseller for executing a reprint
which I intended to scatter broadcast in
pamphlet form through the public schools
of England. My theories received a rude

viii PREFACE.

shock. One of the senior masters at my
school set Milton as a subject for a Latin
theme to his division, and told his boys that
they were to prove that Milton, like Burke,
went mad in his old age. I had never heard
of this idea before, and I asked the master
on what grounds it rested. He replied, "Did
he not write a crack-brained book about
education in his old age?" Milton was by
no means in his old age when he wrote the
Tractate, but that did not matter. I concluded
that my scheme would be useless, and gave
it up

I am now able to carry out the design
formed so long ago, under more favourable
auspices. Milton's Tractate is a subject set
in the Teachers' Certificate Examination
of the University of Cambridge for the
present year. As far as I am aware, no.
separate reprint of the work exists, and it
therefore became necessary to prepare one.

The present edition is an exact facsimile
of the edition of 1673, published in Milton's

PREFACE. ix

lifetime. 1 have carried the accuracy of the
facsimile so far as even to reproduce Milton's
misprints. I have done this because it would
have in some cases spoilt the appearance and
the arrangement of the pages to have cor-
rected them, while in no case are they likely
to cause any difficulty to the reader. They
are all, I believe, mentioned in the notes.
The notes have been confined to what ap-
peared to be necessary for the explanation
of the text. I have edited the work as a
schoolmaster, and not as a philological student
of the English language. By the kindness
of Messrs C. K. Paul, Trench and Co.
I am able to reprint as an Introduction the
account which I had given of Milton's Trac-
tate in the sixth chapter of my Introduction
to the History of Educational Theories^.

1 An Introduction to the History of Educational Theories, by
Oscar Browning, M.A. London : Kegan Paul, Trench and Co.

INTRODUCTION.

THE tractate of John Milton is written in the
form of a letter to Mr Samuel Hartlib, the son of a
Polish merchant who resided mainly in London.
He was a friend of every new discovery which
seemed likely to advance the happiness of the hu-
man race. He took great interest in science, in
the union of the Protestant Churches, and above
all in education. He published in 1651, 'Proposi-
tions for the Erecting of a College of Husbandry
Learning,' or, in modern phraseology, an agricultu-
ral college, in which he proposed that apprentices,
received at the age of fifteen, should after seven
years' instruction receive money to set themselves
up in a farm, and a yearly payment for four years.
Also in 1647, Sir William Petty, the founder of the
Lansdowne family, wrote to Mr Hartlib a letter
containing a scheme for a trade or industrial school,
a grand plan which we may possibly see realised in
our own day by the establishment of a techno-
logical university in London. Sir William Petty
says, ' All apprentices might learn the theory of

xii INTRODUCTION.

their trades before they are bound to a master, and
consequently be exempted from the tedium of a
seven years' bondage, and having spent but about
three years with a master, may spend the other
four in travelling to learn breeding and the perfec-
tion of their trades.' To the same category belongs
Cowley's scheme of a philosophical college, pub-
lished in 1661, the school part of which bears so
much resemblance to Milton's scheme as to make
it certaia that Cowley in writing it must have had
the former in his mind. Although these plans were
never carried out, being indeed impossible in the
troubled times of the Commonwealth and ill suited
to the frivolous temper of the Restoration, they
shew us plainly enough the desire which was fer-
menting in men's minds for a better and more
liberal education. Had they met with more success
the English might have been by this time the best
educated nation in Europe.

It was natural that Hartlib should have been
specially attracted by the writings of Comenius,
the great Moravian teacher, who announced to his
age a discovery as important as that of Bacon,
heralded with the same confidence, and promising
as great results. We have seen that one of the
most important points on which Comenius insists
is the simultaneous teaching of words and things.
Endless time had been spent on the mere routine
of language — why not at least attempt to utilise
this labour, and while the drudgery of words and
sentences is proceeding, take care that what is

INTRODUCTION. xiii

learnt is worth remembering for itself. We shall
find these same lines of thought running through
Milton's tractate. Writing to Mr Hartlib, he
proceeds to set down 'that voluntary idea, which
hath long in silence presented itself to me, of a
better education in extent and comprehension far
more large, and yet of time far shorter and of
attainment far more certain than have yet been
in practice.' He asks his friend 'to accept these
few observations which have flowered off, and
are as it were the burnishings of many studious
and contemplative years altogether spent in the
search of civil and religious knowledge, and since
it pleased you so well in the relating, I here give
you them to dispose of.'

Milton begins by the principle that the end of
learning is to repair the sins of our first parents by
regaining to know God aright ; and, because God
can only be known in His works, we must by the
knowledge of sensible things arrive gradually at
the contemplation of the insensible and invisible.
Now we must begin with language ; but language
is only the instrument conveying to us things
useful to be known. No man can be called
learned who does not know the solid things in
languages as well as the languages themselves.
Here we see asserted the important principle that
words and things must go together, and that
things are more important than words. The next
principle with which we are familiar in the writings
of Comenius and others, is that we must proceed

xiv INTR OD UCTION.

from the easier to the more difficult. We are
warned against 'a preposterous exaction, forcing
the empty wits of children to compose themes,
verses, and orations, which are the acts of the
ripest judgment.' Matters were indeed far worse
in Milton's time than they are now in this re-
spect. We have to a great extent thrown off the
tyranny of the grammarians and the schoolmen.
But we are still guilty of the ' error of misspending
our prime youth at the schools and universities
either in learning mere words or such things chiefly
as were better unlearnt.' We have still as much
need as ever that someone should ' point us out
the right path of a virtuous and noble education,
so laborious indeed at first ascent, but else so
smooth, so green, and so full of goodly prospects
and melodious sounds on every side that the harp
of Orpheus was not more charming.'

Milton defines what he means by education in
the following words : ' I call a complete and gene-
rous education that which fits a man to perform
justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices,
both public and private, of peace and war.' To
attain this object, first a spacious house and
grounds about it is to be found, fit for an academy
to lodge about 1 30 students under the government
of one head. This is to be both school and uni-
versity, to give a complete education from twelve
to twenty-one, not needing a removal to any other
place of learning. There is something strange in
the idea of welding together the school and uni-

INTRODUCTION. xv

versity, but it was more consonant to the opinions
and practice of Milton's own age. He himself
spent at the university the years between fourteen
and twenty-one ; the ordinary length of the aca-
demical course being seven years from entrance to
the degree of M.A. So that his proposal is not so
much to suppress the university as the school.
Doubtless he saw little hope of reforming a large
body like the university, or weaning it from the
useless babblements of the Aristotelian philosophy,
whereas by a private establishment such as he de-
scribes the reform might be begun at once. We
must remember also that the age of entrance at
public schools is now what the age of entrance
at the university was in Milton's time; while many
of our public school boys do not go to the univer-
sity at all. The plan advocated by Milton is in this
respect carried out in France, and pupils graduate
directly from the lyc/e, only attending afterwards
a special school of law or physic. Such institutions
as Owens College at Manchester are doing pre-
cisely the work which Milton recommends.

Milton divides his scheme of education into
three parts: (i) Studies; (2) Exercises; (3) Diet.
In order to do justice to his method we must
remember that he does not conceive of any educa-
tion possible except through the Latin or Greek
tongues. To make his precepts useful to us we
must tear aside this veil, and go as deeply as we
can into the principles which underlie his teaching,
and infer what he would have recommended to us

xvi INTRODUCTION.

under a different state of things. In those days
Latin was the language of the whole learned world.
A man ignorant of Latin would have no access
to the best books of the age, and no opportunity of
communicating his thoughts to the world at large.
It is natural, therefore, that he should recommend
Latin grammar to be taught first, but with the
Italian pronunciation of the vowels such as is
rapidly making its way amongst us at the present
day. But here at the outset the means are sub-
ordinate to the end. Language is to be the vehicle
of moral teaching for the formation of a lofty
character. The Pinax of Cebes, which as a school-
book is coming now again into favour, and which
advocates moral principles in simple language; the
moral works of Plutarch, one of the purest and
most high-minded of the ancients, and the best
dialogues of Plato are to be read to the youthful
scholars. For here Milton says, 'the main rule
and ground-work will be to tempt them with such
lectures and explanations upon every opportunity
as may lead and draw them in willing obedience,
enflamed with the study of learning and the admi-
ration of virtue, cheered up with high hope of
living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear
to God and famous to all ages.' Milton empha-
sises the cardinal truth of education, that it resides
not in the mechanical perfection of study and rou-
tine, but in the spirit of the teacher working in the
heart of the pupil. The first step in education
is to make the pupils ' despise and scorn all their

TNTR OD UCTION. xvii

childish and ill-taught qualities, to delight in manly
and liberal exercises, to infuse into their young
hearts such an ingenuous and noble ardour as
would not fail to make many of them renowned
and matchless men.' Together wiith their Latin
exercises, arithmetic, and geometry, are to be
taught playing, 'as the old manner was,' and re-
ligion is to occupy them before going to bed. Thus
ends the first stage of their education. It should
be remarked that the Greek authors, Cebes, Plu-
tarch, and Plato, are to be read, of course in Latin
translations, and that they are to be ' read to ' the
boys probably in the manner recommended by
Ratich and Ascham. As soon as they are masters
of the rudiments of Latin Grammar they are to
read those treatises, such as Cato, Varro, and Colu-
mella, which are concerned with agriculture. The
object of this is not only to teach them Latin
but to incite and enable them to improve the til-
lage of their country, to remove the bad soil and to
remedy the waste that is made of good. Then
after learning the use of globes and maps, and the
outlines of geography, ancient and modern, they
are to read some compendious method of natural
philosophy. After this they are to begin Greek,
but the authors read have reference to natural
science, which is at this period the staple of their
education. When in their mathematical studies
they have reached trigonometry, that will intro-
duce them to fortification, architecture, engineering,
and navigation. They are to proceed in the study

B. 2

xviii INTR OD UCTION,

of nature as far as anatomy, and they are to ac-
quire the principles of medicine that they may
know the tempers, the humours, the seasons, and
how to manage a crudity. No advocate of scien-
tific education could have sketched out a more
comprehensive plan of study in these departments.

Then follows a suggestion which has often been
made by educational theorists, but not often tried.
There are some minds which are inaccessible to
purely abstract knowledge ; learning takes no hold
on them unless it is connected with doing, and it
has occurred to many that, if to the whole cur-
riculum of science there could be added a cur-
riculum of practice, few pupils would be found
incapable of receiving intellectual education. We
find this feature in the Paedagogic Province of
Goethe's ' Wilhelm Meister,' and the few occasions
on which it has been tried give encouragement for
its further use. Milton accepts it without reserve.
'To set forward all these proceedings in nature
and mathematics, what hinders but they may pro-
cure, as oft as shall be needful, the helpful ex-
periences of hunters, fowlers, fishermen, shepherds,
gardeners, apothecaries, and, in the other sciences,
architects, engineers, anatomists, who, doubtless,
would be ready, some for reward and some to
favour such a hopeful seminary. And this will
give them such a real tincture of natural know-
ledge as they will never forget, but daily augment
with delight.'

These rudimentary studies, classical, mathe-

INTRODUCTION. xix

matical, and practical, may be supposed to have
occupied them to the age of sixteen, when they are
for the first time to be introduced to graver and
harder topics. 'As they begin to acquire charac-
ter, and to reason on the difference between good
and evil, there will be required a constant and
sound indoctrinating to set them right and firm,
instructing them more amply in the knowledge
of virtue and the hatred of vice. For this purpose
their young and pliant affections are to be led
through the moral works of Plato, Xenophon, Cice-
ro, and Plutarch, but in their nightward studies
they are to submit to the more determinate sen-
tence of Holy Writ ' Thus they will have tra-
versed the circle of ethical teaching. During this
and the preceding stage, poetry is to be read as an
amusement, and as a golden fringe to the practice
of serious labour. ' And either now,' Milton re-
marks, ' or before this, they may have easily learnt,
at any odd hour, the Italian tongue.' This sen-
tence has often been quoted to shew how visionary
and baseless Milton's idea of education was. But
experience is here in his favour, and those who
have tried the experiment are well aware that
Italian may easily be learnt by intelligent and
studious boys with little expenditure of time or
interruption of other studies. Ethics is to be suc-
ceeded by politics. After the foundation of their
character and principles, then is to follow their
education as citizens. They are to learn 'the be-
ginning, end, and reason of political societies ; that

2—2

xx INTRODUCTION.

they may not in a dangerous fit of the Common-
wealth be such poor, shaken, uncertain reeds, of
such a tottering conscience as many of our good
councillors have of late shewed themselves, but
steadfast pillars of the State.' The study of law is
to'come next, including all the Roman edicts, and
tables with Justinian, and also the Saxon law, and
common law of England, and the statutes of the
realm. 'Sundays also and every evening may be
now understandingly spent in the highest matters
of theology, and Church history, ancient and mo-
dern.' By the age of eighteen Hebrew will have
been learnt, and possibly Syrian and Chaldaic.
Tragedy will be read and learned in close con-
nection with political oratory. 'These, if got by
memory and solemnly pronounced with right ac-
cent and grace, as might be taught, would endue
them even with the spirit and vigour of Demos-
thenes or Cicero, Euripides or Sophocles.' When
their minds are truly stored with this wealth of
learning, they are at length to acquire the art of
expression, both in writing and in speech. ' From
henceforth, and not till now, will be the right
season for forming them to be able writers and
composers in every excellent matter, when they
shall be thus fraught with an universal insight into
things.' Thus ends this magnificent and compre-
hensive scheme. ' These are the studies wherein
our noble and our gentle youth ' (observe that
Milton is thinking of the education of a gentleman)
' ought to bestow their time in a disciplinary way

INTRODUCTION. xxi

from twelve to one-and-twenty, unless they rely
more upon their ancestors dead than upon them-
selves living. In the which methodical course it is
so supposed they must proceed by the steady
pace of learning onward, as in convenient times to
retire back into the middle ward, and sometimes
into the rear of what they have been taught, until
they have confirmed and solidly united the whole
body of their perfected knowledge like the last
embattelling of a Roman legion.'

One of the main hopes of the improvement of
education lies in adopting the truth that manly
and serious studies are capable of being handled
and mastered by intelligent schoolboys. We might
have hoped that the publication of John Stuart
Mill's 'Autobiography' would have led to the imi-
tation of the method by which he gained a start ot
twenty years over his contemporaries in the race
of life. It seems to have produced the contrary
effect. But no one can read Mill's letters to Sir
S. Bentham without acknowledging that he had
done at the age of thirteen nearly as much as Mil-
ton expected from his" matured students. Mill was
reading Thucydides, Euclid, and algebra at eight,
Pindar and conic sections at nine, trigonometry at
ten, Aristotle at eleven, optics and fluxions at
twelve, logic and political economy at thirteen. He
had also by this time written two histories and a
tragedy. There is no reason to suppose that the
studies thus early acquired did not form an inte-
gral part of his mind, or that when writing his

xxii INTRODUCTION,

standard works on logic and political economy, or
sketching a complete scheme of education at St
Andrew's, he was not using the knowledge which
he had acquired in these very tender years.

The physical exercise proposed by Milton for
his students is of an equally practical character,
and differs widely from the laborious toiling at
unproductive games, which is the practice of our
own day. With him amusement, emulation, bodily
skill, the cheerfulness of bright companionship, are
all pressed into the service of practical life. Dinner
is taken at noon, and about an hour or an hour
and a half before that meal is to be allowed them
for exercise, and rest afterwards. The first exer-
cise recommended is 'the use of the sword, to
guard and to strike safely with edge or point.
This will keep them healthy, nimble, strong, and
well in breath, is also the likeliest means to make
them grow large and tall, and to inspire them with
a gallant and fearless courage.' They are also to
be practised in ' all the locks and gripes of wrest-
ling.' After about an hour of such exercise, during
the needful repose which precedes their mid-day
meal, they may ' with profit and delight be taken
up in recruiting and composing their travailed
spirits with the solemn and divine harmonies of
.music, heard or learnt, either while the skilful or-
ganist plies his grave and fancied descant in lofty
fugues, or the whole symphony with artful and
unimaginable touches adorn and grace the well-
studied chords of some choice composer. Some-

INTRODUCTION. xxiii

times the lute or soft organ- stop, waiting on elegant
voices either to religious, martial, or civil ditties,
which, if wise men and prophets be not extremely
outy have a great power over dispositions and man-
ners, to smooth and make them gentle from rustic
harshness and distempered passions.' The same
rest, with the same accompaniment, is to follow
after food. About two hours before supper, which
I suppose would be at about seven or eight o'clock,
'they are by a sudden alarum or watchword to
be called out to their military motions under sky
or covert, according to the season, as was the Ro-
man wont, first on foot, then, as their age permits,
on horseback, to all the arts of cavalry ; that hav-
ing in sport, but with much exertion and daily
muster, served out the rudiments of their soldier-
ship in all the skill of encamping, marching, em-
battelling, fortifying, besieging and battering, with
all the help of ancient and modern stratagems,
tactics, and warlike maxims, they may, as* it were,
out of a long war come forth renowned and perfect
commanders in the service of their country.' Mil-
ton had good reason to desire the formation of
the nucleus of a citizen army, and much service
might be rendered by a school rifle corps if they
were organised on a more serious and laborious
model.

In Milton's institution the vacations were in-
tended to be short, but the time was not all to be
spent in work without a break. ' In those vernal
seasons of the year, when the air is calm and

xxiv INTRODUCTION.

pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against
nature not to go out and see her riches, and par-
take in her rejoicing with heaven and earth. I
should not therefore be a persuader to them of
studying much then, after two or three years, that
they have well laid their grounds, but: to ride out in
companies with prudent and staid guides into all
quarters of the land, learning and observing all
places of strength, all commodities of building and
of soil for towns and villages, harbours and ports of
trade ; sometimes taking sea as far as our navy,
to learn also what they can in the practical know-
ledge of sailing and sea fights. These journeys
would try all their peculiarities of nature, and if
there were any such excellence among them would
fetch it out, and give it fair opportunities to ad-
vance itself by.' ' This/ he says, ' will be much
better than asking Monsieur of Paris to take our
hopeful youths into their slight and prodigal cus-
tody, and send them back transformed into mimics,
apes and kickshoes.' Travelling abroad is to be
deferred to the age of three-and-twenty, when
they will be better able to profit by it. In Milton's
time communication was far more difficult than it
is now. Not only was a short trip on the Conti-
nent out of 'the question, but even travelling in
England was laborious and slow. Yet even in
these days our young statesmen are profoundly
ignorant of the country to which they belong, and
a knowledge of its character and resources should
be the first foundation of sound political wisdom.

INTR OD UCTION. xxv

In our own day we might go so far as to regard
a knowledge of the whole world as the fitting con-
clusion to a liberal education, and Milton, if he
were writing now, might recommend an educa-
tional cruise such as has been attempted in Ameri-
ca and France. Of diet, his last division, Milton
tells us nothing except that it should be in the
same house, and that it should be plain, healthful,
and moderate.

In conclusion Milton anticipates some of the
objections which might be raised against his plan,
on the score of its impracticability, or its aiming at
too high a standard. He admits that a scheme
of this kind cannot be carried out except under
the most favourable conditions, with teachers and
scholars above the average. ' I believe,' he says,
' that this is not a bow for every man to shoot in,
that counts himself a teacher; but will require
sinews almost equal to those which Homer gave
Ulysses ; yet I am withal persuaded that it may
prove much more easy in the essay than it now
seems at a distance, and much more illustrious,
howbeit, not more difficult than I imagine, and
that imagination presents me with nothing else,
but very happy and very possible, according to
best wishes, if God have so decreed, and this age
have spirit and capacity enough to apprehend.'

O F

EDUCATION.

To Master Samuel Hartlib.
Written above twenty Years since.

Mr. Hartlib,

Am long since perswaded, that to
say, or do ought worth memory
and imitation, no purpose or re-
spect should sooner move us, then
simply the love of God, and of
Nevertheless to write now the re-
forming of Education, though it be one of the
greatest and noblest designs that can be thought
on, and for the want whereof this Nation
perishes, I had not yet at this time been in-
duc't, but by your earnest entreaties, and
serious conjurements ; as having my mind for
the present half diverted in the pursuance of
some other assertions, the knowledge and the
use of which, cannot but be a great furthe-
rance both to the enlargement of truth, and

honest

mankind.

honest living, with much more peace. Nor
should the laws of any private friendship have
prevail'd with me to divide thus, or transpose
my former thoughts, but that I see those aims,
those actions which have won you with me the
esteem of a person sent hither by some good
providence from a far country to be the occa-
sion and the incitement of great good to this
Island. And, as I hear, you have obtain'd the
same repute with men of most approved wis-
dom, and some of highest authority among us.
Not to mention the learned correspondence
which you hold in forreign parts, and the ex-
traordinary pains and diligence which you
have us'd in this matter both here, and beyond
the Seas ; either by the definite will of God so
ruling, or the peculiar sway of nature, which
also is Gods working. Neither can I think that
so reputed, and so valu'd as you are, you would
to the forfeit of your own discerning ability,
impose upon me an unfit and over-ponderous
argument, but that the satisfaction which you
profess to have receiv'd from those incidental
Discourses which we have wander'd into, hath
prest and almost constrain'd you into a per-
swasion, that what you require from me in this
point, I neither ought, nor can in conscience
deferre beyond this time both of so much need

at

(3)

at once, and so much opportunity to try what
God hath determin'd. I will not resist there-
fore, whatever it is either of divine, or hu-
mane obligement that you lay upon me ; but
will forthwith set down in writing, as you
request me, that voluntary Idea, which hath
long in silence presented it self to me, of a bet-
ter Education, in extent and comprehension
far more large, and yet of time far shorter,
and of attainment far more certain, then hath
been yet in practice. Brief I shall endeavour
to be ; for that which I have to say, assuredly
this Nation hath extream need should be done
sooner then spoken. To tell you therefore
what I have benefited herein among old re-
nowned Authors, I shall spare ; and to search
what many modern Januas and Didactics more
then ever I shall read, have projected, my in-
clination leads me not. But if you can accept
of these few observations which have flowr'd
off, and are, as it were, the burnishing of many
studious and contemplative years altogether
spent in the search of religious and civil know-
ledge, and such as pleas'd you so well in the
relating, I here give you them to dispose of.

The end then of Learning is to repair the
ruines of our first Parents by regaining to know
God aright, and out of that knowledge to love

him,

(4)

him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may
the neerest by possessing our souls of true ver-
tue, which being united to the heavenly grace
of faith makes up the highest perfection. But
because our understanding cannot in this body
found it self but on sensible things, nor arrive
so clearly to the knowledge of God and things
invisible, as by orderly conning over the vi-
sible and inferior creature, the same method
is necessarily to be follow'd in all discreet
teaching. And seeing every Nation affords
not experience and tradition enough for all
kind of Learning, therefore we are chiefly
taught the Languages of those people who
have at any time been most industrious after
Wisdom ; so that Language is but the Instru-
ment conveying to us things usefull to be
known. And though a Linguist should pride
himself to have all the Tongues that Babel cleft
the world into, yet, if he have not studied the
solid things in them as well as the Words & Le-
xicons, he were nothing so much to be esteem'd
a learned man, as any Yeoman or Tradesman
competently wise in his Mother Dialect only.
Hence appear the many mistakes which have
made Learning generally so unpleasing and
so unsuccessful ; firstwe do amiss tospend seven
or eight years meerly in scraping together so

much

(5)

much miserable Latine and Greek, as might be
learnt otherwise easily and delightfully in one
year. And that which casts our proficiency
therein so much behind, is our time lost partly in
too oft idle vacancies given both to Schools and
Universities, partly in a preposterous exaction,
forcing the empty wits of Children to compose
Theams, Verses and Orations, which are the
acts of ripest judgment and the final work of a
head fill'd by long reading and observing,
with elegant maxims, and copious invention.
These are not matters to be wrung from poor
striplings, like blood out of the Nose, or the
plucking of untimely fruit : besides the ill habit
which they get of wretched barbarizing against
the Latin and Greek idiom, with their untu-
tor'd Anglicisms, odious to be read, yet not to
be avoided without a well continu'd and judi-
cious conversing among pure Authors digested,
which they scarce taste, whereas, if after some
preparatory grounds of speech by their certain
forms got into memory, they were led to the
praxis thereof in some chosen short book les-
son'd throughly to them, they might then forth-
with proceed to learn the substance of good
things, and Arts in due order, which would
bring the whole language quickly into their
power. This I take to be the most rational

and

(6)

and most profitable way of learning Languages,
and whereby we may best hope to give account
to God of our youth spent herein : And for the
usual method of teaching Arts, I deem it to be
an old errour of Universities not yet well re-
cover'd from the Scholastick grossness of bar-
barous ages, that in stead of beginning with
Arts most easie, and those be such as are most
obvious to the sence, they present their young
unmatriculated Novices at first comming with
the most intellective abstractions of Logick and
Metaphysicks ; So that they having but newly
left those Grammatick flats and shallows where
they stuck unreasonably to learn a few words
with lamentable construction, and now on the
sudden transported under another climate to
be tost and turmoil'd with their unballasted
wits in fadomless and unquiet deeps of contro-
versie, do for the most part grow into hatred
and contempt of Learning, mockt and delu-
ded all this while with ragged Notions and
Babblements, while they expected worthy
and delightful knowledge ; till poverty or
youthful years call them importunately their
several wayes, and hasten them with the sway
of friends either to an ambitious and merce-
nary, or ignorantly zealous Divinity ; Some
allur'd to the trade of Law, grounding their

purposes

(7 )

purposes not on the prudent and heavenly con-
templation of justice and equity which was
never taught them, but on the promising and
pleasing thoughts of litigious terms, fat con-
tentions, and flowing fees ; others betake them
to State affairs, with souls so unprincipl'd in
vertue, and true generous breeding, that
flattery, and Court shifts and tyrannous Apho-
risms appear to them the highest points of
wisdom ; instilling their barren hearts with a
conscientious slavery, if, as I rather think, it
be not fain'd. Others lastly of a more deli-
cious and airie spirit, retire themselves know-
ing no better, to the enjoyments of ease and
luxury, living out their daies in feast and
jollity ; which indeed is the wisest and the
safest course of all these, unless they were with
more integrity undertaken. And these are the
fruits of mispending our prime youth at the
Schools and Universities as we do, either in
learning meer words or such things chiefly, as
were better unlearnt.

I shall detain you no longer in the demon-
stration of what we should not do, but strait
conduct ye to a hill side, where I will point ye
out the right path of a vertuous and noble
Education ; laborious indeed at the first ascent,
but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly

prospect,
B.

(8)

prospect, and melodious sounds on every side,
that the Harp of Orpheus was not more charm-
ing. I doubt not but ye shall have more adoe
to drive our dullest and laziest youth, our
stocks and stubbs from the infinite desire of
such a happy nurture, then we have now to
hale and drag our choicest and hopefullest Wits
to that asinine feast of sowthistles and brambles
which is commonly set before them, as all the
food and entertainment of their tenderest and
most docible age. I call therefore a compleat
and generous Education that which fits a man
to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously
all the offices both private and publick of Peace
and War. And how all this may be done be-
tween twelve, and one and twenty, less time
then is now bestow'd in pure trifling at Gram-
mar and Sophistry, is to be thus order'd.

First to find out a spatious house and ground
about it fit for an Academy, and big enough
to lodge a hundred and fifty persons, whereof
twenty or thereabout may be attendants, all
under the government of one, who shall be
thought of desert sufficient, and ability either
to do all, or wisely to direct, and oversee it
done. This place should be at once both
School and University, not heeding a remove
to any other house of Schollership, except it

be

(9)

be some peculiar Colledge of Law, or Physick,
where they mean to be practitioners ; but as
for those general studies which take up all our
time from Lilly to the commencing, as they
term it, Master of Art, it should be absolute.
After this pattern, as many Edifices may be
converted to this use, as shall be needful in
every City throughout this Land, which would
tend much to the encrease of Learning and
Civility every where. This number, less or
more thus collected, to the convenience of a
foot Company, or interchangeably two Troops
of Cavalry, should divide their daies work
into three parts, as it lies orderly. Their Stu
dies, their Exercise, and their Diet.

For their Studies, First they should begin
with the chief and necessary rules of some
good Grammar, either that now us'd, or any
better : and while this is doing, their speech
is to be fashion'd to a distinct and clear pro-
nuntiation, as near as may be to the Italian,
especially in the Vowels. For we Englishmen
being far Northerly, do not open our
mouths in the cold air, wide enough to grace a
Southern Tongue ; but are observ'd by all
other Nations to speak exceeding close and
inward : So that to smatter Latine with an
English mouth, is as ill a hearing as Law-
French.
3—2

French. Next to make them expert in the
usefullest points of Grammar, and withall to
season them, and win them early to the love
of vertue and true labour, ere any flatter-
ing seducement, or vain principle seise them
wandering, some easie and delightful Book of
Education would be read to them ; whereof
the Greeks have store, as Cedes, Phitarck, and
other Socratic discourses. But in Latin we have
none of classic authority extant, except the two
or three first Books of Quintilian, and some
select pieces elsewhere. But here the main
skill and groundwork will be, to temper them
such Lectures and Explanations upon every
opportunity, as may lead and draw them in
willing obedience, enflam'd with the study of
Learning, and the admiration of Vertue ;
stirr'd up with high hopes of living to be brave
men, and worthy Patriots, dear to God, and
famous to all ages. That they may despise and
scorn all their childish, and ill-taught qualities,
to delight in manly, and liberal Exercises :
which he who hath the Art, and proper Elo-
quence to catch them with, what with mild
and effectual perswasions, and what with the
intimation of some fear, if need be, but chietiy
by his own example, might in a short space
gain them to an incredible diligence and cou-
rage

rage : infusing into their young brests such an
ingenuous and noble ardor, as would not fail
to make many of them renowned and match-
less men. At the same time, some other hour
of the day, might be taught them the rules of
Arithmetick, and soon after the Elements of
Geometry even playing, as the old manner
was. After evening repast, till bed-time their
thoughts will be best taken up in the easie
grounds of Religion, and the story of Scrip-
ture. The next step would be to the Authors
Agriculture, Cato, Varro, and CoLumella, for
the matter is most easie, and it the language
be difficult, so much the better, it is not a
difficulty above their years. And here will be
an occasion of inciting and inabling them here-
after to improve the tillage of their Country,
to recover the bad Soil, and to remedy the
waste that is made of good : for this was one of
Hercules praises. Ere half these Authors be
read (which will soon be with plying hard,
and daily) they cannot chuse but be masters of
any ordinary prose. So that it will be then
seasonable for them to learn in any modern
Author, the use of the Globes, and all the
Maps ; first with the old names, and then with
the new : or they might be then capable to
read any compendious method of natural Phi-
losophy.

(12}

losophy. And at the same time might be en-
tering into the Greek tongue, after the same
manner as was before prescrib'd in the Latin ;
whereby the difficulties of Grammar being
soon overcome, all the Historical Physiology
<&{ Aristotle and Theophrastus are open before
them, and as I may say, under contribution.
The like access will be to Vitruvius, to Seneca s
natural questions, to Mela, Celsus, Pliny, or
Solinus. And having thus past the principles
of Arithmetick, Geometry, Astronomy, and
Geography with a general compact of Physicks,
they may descend in Mathematicks to the in-
strumental science of Trigonometry, and from
thence to Fortification, Architecture, Enginry,
or Navigation. And in natural Philosophy
they may proceed leisurely from the History of
Meteors, Minerals, plants and living Creatures
as far as Anatomy. Then also in course might
be read to them out of some not tedious Writer
the Institution of Physick ; that they may know
the tempers, the humours, the seasons, and how
to manage a crudity : which he who can wisely
and timely do, is not only a great Physitian to
himself, and to his friends, but also may at
some time or other, save an Army by this fru-
gal and expenseless means only ; and not let
the healthy and stout bodies of young men rot

away

away under him for want of this discipline;
which is a great pity, and no less a shame to
the Commander. To set forward all these
proceedings in Nature and Mathematicks, what
hinders, but that they may procure, as oft as shal
be needful, the helpful experiences of Hunters,
Fowlers,Fishermen,Shepherds,Gardeners, Apo-
thecaries ; and in the other sciences, Architects,
Engineers, Mariners, Anatomists; who doubt-
less would be ready some for reward, and
some to favour such a hopeful Seminary. And
this will give them such a real tincture of na-
tural knowledge, as they shall never forget,
but daily augment with delight. Then also
those Poets which are now counted most hard,
will be both facil and pleasant, Orpheus, Hesiod,
Theocritus, Aratus,Nicander,Oppian,Dionysius,
and in Latin Lucretius, Manilius, and the rural
part of Virgil.

By this time, years and good general pre-
cepts will have furnisht them more distinctly
with that act of reason which in Ethicks is call'd
Proairesis: that they may with some judgement
contemplate upon moral good and evil. Then
will be requir'd a special reinforcement of
constant and sound endoctrinating to set them
right and firm, instructing them more amply
in the knowledge of Vertue and the hatred of

Vice :

( 14 )

Vice : while their young and pliant affecti-
ons are led through all the moral works of
Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, Plutarch, Laertius, and
those Locnan remnants; but still to be reduc't
in their nightward studies wherewith they
close the dayes work, under the determinate
sentence of David or Salomon, or the Evanges
and Apostolic Scriptures. Being perfect in the
knowledge of personal duty, they may then
begin the study of Economics. And either
now, or before this, they may have easily learnt
at any odd hour the Italian Tongue. And
soon after, but with wariness and good anti-
dote, it would be wholesome enough to let
them taste some choice Comedies, Greek, Latin,
or Italian : Those Tragedies also that treat of
Household matters, as Trachiniez, Alcestis,"&\\&
the like. The next remove must be to the
study of Politicks ; to know the beginning,
end, and reasons of Political Societies ; that
they may not in a dangerous fit of the Com-
mon-wealth be such poor, shaken, uncertain
Reeds, of such a tottering Conscience, as many
of our great Counsellers have lately shewn
themselves, but stedfast pillars of the State.
After this they are to dive into the grounds of
Law, and legal Justice ; deliver'd first, and
with best warrant by Moses ; and as far as hu-
mane

(t5)

mane prudence can be trusted, in those ex-
toll'd remains of Grecian Law-givers, Licurgus,
Solon,Zaleucus,Charondas,a.n& thence to all the
Roman Edicts*&n.& Tables with their Justinian ;
and so down to the Saxon and common Laws
of 'England, and the Statutes. Sundayes also and
every evening may be now understandingly
spent in the highest matters of Theology, and
Church History ancient and modern : and ere
this time the Hebrew Tongue at a set hour
might have been gain'd, that the Scriptures
may be now read in their own orginal ; where-
to it would be no impossibility to add the
Chaldey, and the Syrian Dialect. When all
these employments are well conquer'd, then
will the choice Histories, Heroic Poems, and
Attic Tragedies of stateliest and most regal ar-
gument, with all the famous Political Ora-
tions offer themselves ; which if they were not
only read ; but some of them got by memory,
and solemnly pronounc't with right accent,
and grace, as might be taught, would endue
them even with the spirit and vigor of De-
mosthenes or Cicero, Euripides, or Sophocles.
And now lastly will be the time to read with
them those organic arts which inable men to
discourse and write perspicuously, elegantly,
and according to the fitted stile of lofty, mean,

or

( r6)

or lowly. Logic therefore so much as is use-
ful, is to be referr'd to this due place withall
her well coucht Heads and Topics, untill it be
time to open her contracted palm into a grace-
full and ornate Rhetorick taught out of the rule
of 'Plato, A ristotle, Phalereiis, Cicero, Hermogenes,
Longinus. To which Poetry would be made
subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as
being less suttle and fine, but more simple, sen-
suous and passionate. I mean not here the
prosody of a verse, which they could not but
have hit on before among the rudiments of
Grammar ; but that sublime Art which in
Aristotles Poetics, in Horace, and the Italian
Commentaries of Castelvetro, Tasso, Mazzoni,
and others, teaches what the laws are of a true
Epic Poem, what of a Dramatic, what of a
Lyric, what Decorum is, which is the grand
master-piece to observe. This would make
them soon perceive what despicable creatures
our comm Rimers and Play-writers be, and
shew them, what religious, what glorious and
magnificent use might be made of Poetry both
in divine and humane things. From hence
and not till now will be the right season of
forming them to be able Writers and Compo-
sers in every excellent matter, when they shall
be thus fraught with an universal insight into

things.

(17)

things. Or whether they be to speak in Par-
liament or Counsel, honour and attention
would be waiting on their lips. There would
then also appear in Pulpits other Visages, other
gestures, and stuff otherwise wrought then what
we now sit under, oft times to as great a trial
of our patience as any other that they preach
to us. These are the Studies wherein our
noble and our gentle Youth ought to bestow
their time in a disciplinary way from twelve to
one and twenty ; unless they rely more upon
their ancestors dead, then upon themselves
living. In which methodical course it is so
suppos'd they must proceed by the steddy
pace of learning onward, as at convenient
times for memories sake to retire back into the
middle ward, and sometimes into the rear of
what they have been taught, untill they have
confirmed, and solidly united the whole body
of their perfeted knowledge, like the last em-
battelling of a Roman Legion. Now will be
worth the seeing what Exercises and Recreati-
ons may best agree, and become these Studies.

Their Exercise.

The course of Study hitherto briefly de-
scrib'd, is, what I can guess by reading, likest

to

to those ancient and famous Schools of Pytha-
goras, Plato, I socrates, Aristotle&h& such others,
out of which were bred up such a number of
renowned Philosophers, Orators, Historians,
Poets and Princes all over Greece, Italy, and
Asia, besides the flourishing Studies of Cyrene
and Alexandria. But herein it shall exceed
them, and supply a defect as great as that which
Plato noted in the Common-wealth of Sparta;
whereas that City train'd up their Youth most
for War, and these in their Academies and
Lycceum, all for the Gown, this institution of
breeding which I here delineate, shall be equal-
ly good both for Peace and War. Therefore
about an hour and a half ere they eat at Noon
should be allow'd them for exercise and due
rest afterwards: But the time for this may be
enlarg'd at pleasure, according as their rising
in the morning shall be early. The Exercise
which I commend first, is the exact use of their
Weapon, to guard and to strike safely with
edge, or point ; this will keep them healthy,
nimble, strong, and well in breath, is also the
likeliest means to make them grow large and
tall, and to inspire them with a gallant and
fearless courage, which being temper'd with
seasonable Lectures and Precepts to them of
true Fortitude and Patience, will turn into a

native

native and heroick valour, and make them
hate the cowardise of doing wrong. They
must be also practiz'd in all the Locks and
Gripes of Wrastling, wherein English men
were wont to excell, as need may often be in
fight to tugg or grapple, and to close. And
this perhaps will be enough, wherein to prove
and heat their single strength. The interim of
unsweating themselves regularly, and conve-
venient rest before meat may both with profit
and delight be taken up in recreating and com-
posing their travail'd spirits with the solemn
and divine harmonies of Musick heard or
learnt; either while the skilful Organist plies
his grave and fancied descant, in lofty fugues,
or the whole Symphony with artful and un-
imaginable touches adorn and grace the well
studied chords of some choice Composer, some-
times the Lute, or soft Organ stop waiting on
elegant Voices either to Religious, martial,
or civil Ditties ; which if wise men and Pro-
phets be not extreamly out, have a great
power over dispositions and manners, to
smooth and make them gentle from rustick
harshness and distemper'd passions. The like
also would not be unexpedient after Meat to
assist and cherish Nature in her first concoction,
and send their minds back to study in good

tune

(20)

tune and satisfaction. Where having follow'd
it close under vigilant eyes till about two hours
before supper, they are by a sudden alarum
or watch word, to be call'd out to their mili-
tary motions, under skie or covert, according
to the season, as was the Roman wont : first
on foot, then as their age permits, on Horse-
back, to all the Art of Cavalry ; That having
in sport, but with much exactness, and daily
muster, serv'd out the rudiments of their Soul-
diership in all the skill of Embattelling, March-
ing, Encamping, Fortifying, Besieging and Bat-
tering, with all the helps of ancient and mo-
dern stratagems, Tacticks and warlike maxims,
they may as it were out of a long War come
forth renowned and perfect Commanders in
the service of their Country. They would
not then, if they were trusted with fair and
hopeful armies, suffer them for want of just and
wise discipline to shed away from about them
like sick feathers, though they be never so oft
suppli'd : they would not suffer their empty
and unrecrutible Colonels of twenty men in a
Company to quaff out, or convey into secret
hoards, the wages of a delusive list, and a
miserable remnant : yet in the mean while to
be over-master'd with a score or two of drun-
kards, the only souldery left about them, or

else

(21)

else to comply with all rapines and violences.
No certainly, if they knew ought of that know-
ledge that belongs to good men or good Go-
vernours, they would not suffer these things.
But to return to our own institute, besides these
constant exercises at home, there is another
opportunity of gaining experience to be won
from pleasure it self abroad ; In those vernal
seasons of the year, when the air is calm and
pleasant, it were an injury andsullenness against
nature not to go out, and see her riches, and
partake in her rejoycing with Heaven and
Earth. I should not therefore be a perswader
to them of studying much then, after two or
three year that they have well laid their
grounds, but to ride out in Companies with
prudent and staid Guides, to all the quar-
ters of the Land : learning and observing
all places . of strength, all commodities of
building and of soil, for Towns and Tillage,
Harbours and Ports for Trade. Sometimes
taking Sea as far as to our Navy, to learn
there also what they can in the practical know-
ledge of sailing and of Sea-fight. These ways
would try all their peculiar gifts of Nature,
and if there were any secret excellence among
them, would fetch it out, and give it fair op-
portunities to advance it self by, which could

not

( 22 )

not but mightily redound to the good of this
Nation, and bring into fashion again those
old admired Vertues and Excellencies, with
far more advantage now in this purity of Chri-
stian knowledge. Nor shall we then need
the Monsieur s of Paris to take our hopefull
Youth into their slight and prodigal custodies
and send them over back again transform'd
into Mimicks, Apes and Kicshoes. But if
they desire to see other Countries at three or
four and twenty years of age, not to learn
Principles but to enlarge Experience, and
make wise observation, they will by that time
be such as shall deserve the regard and honour
of all men where they pass, and the society
and friendship of those in all places who are
best and most eminent. And perhaps then
other Nations will be glad to visit us for their
Breeding, or else to imitate us in their own
Country.

Now lastly for their Diet there cannot be
much to say, save only that it would be best
in the same House ; for much time else would
be lost abroad, and many ill habits got ; and
that it should be plain, healthful, and mode-
rate I suppose is out of controversie. Thus
Mr. Hartlib, you have a general view in wri-
ting, as your desire was, of that which at se-
veral

(23)

veral times I had discourst with you concern-
ing the best and Noblest way of Education;
not beginning as some have done from the
Cradle, which yet might be worth many con-
siderations, if brevity had not been my scope,
many other circumstances also I could have
mention'd, but this to such as have the worth
in them to make trial, for light and direction
may be enough. Only I believe that this is
not a Bow for every man to shoot in that
counts himself a Teacher ; but will require
sinews almost equal to those which Homer gave
Ulysses, yet I am withall perswaded that it may
prove much more easie in the assay, then it
now seems at distance, and much more illu-
strious : howbeit not more difficult then I
imagine, and that imagination presents me with
nothing but very happy and very possible ac-
cording to best wishes ; if God have so de-
creed, and this age have spirit and capacity
enough to apprehend.

NOTES.

To Master Samuel Hartlib. For an account of
Samuel Hartlib see Masson's Life of Milton, m. 193.
He was the son of a Polish merchant of German extrac-
tion, who had settled at Elbing in Prussia. His mother
was the daughter of an English merchant at Danzic, so
Hartlib though Prussian born with Polish connexions
could call himself half English. He was probably about
eight or ten years older than Milton. He first came to
England about the year 1628 and from that time made
London his headquarters. " He was one of those
persons now styled 'philanthropists' or 'friends of
progress,' who take an interest in every question or
project of their time promising social improvement, have
always some iron in the fire, are constantly forming
committees or writing letters to persons of influence and
altogether live for the public. By the common consent
of all who have explored the intellectual and social
history of England in the seventeenth century, he is one
of the most interesting and memorable figures of that
whole period."

written above twenty years since. According to Masson,
Life of Milton, in. 233. The treatise "of Education"

4—2

26 NOTES.

was first published on June 5, 1644. The treatise was
reprinted in 1673 at the end of the second edition
of the minor poems with the words "written above
twenty years since " (really nearly thirty) added to the
original title. The text of the present edition is a fac-
simile of the reprint of 1673.

1. 8. respect, consideration.

1. 9. then. The old spelling of than, as our then
was then, spelt than, and in Shakespere's Lucrece rhymes
to van and began.

1. 17. eonjurementS) " solemn appeals."

1. 18. diverted, "turned off."

1.19. assertions, positions, statements. Milton's mind
was now principally occupied with the questions of
Divorce and of the liberty of unlicensed printing. The
second edition of the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce
was published about three months before the Tractate,
and his Judgement of Master Bucer concerning Divorce
five weeks after. The Areopagitica was published
Nov 24, 1644.

P. 2, 1. 3. divide, to break up. transpose, to change.

1. 6. the esteem of person sent hither, the reputation of.

1. 15. beyond the seas. John Amos Comenius spent
the years 1643 — 1646 at Elbing, Hartlib's own birthplace,
writing his didactic treatises, and his going there was
largely owing to Hartlib's recommendation. For an
account of him see John Amos Comenius by S. S. Laurie
in Kegan Paul's Education Library, also Masson's Life
of Milton, vol. in. There are also accounts of him in
Browning's History of Educational Theories, and Quick's
Educational Reformers. Comenius came to London at
Hartlib's invitation, Sept. 22, 1641. He left it for
Sweden in August, 1642. When he was in London

NOTES. 27

the Parliament thought of assigning to Comenius for
his plans of a College- University some College with its
revenues. Comenius tells us " there was even named
for the purpose the Savoy in London ; Winchester College
out of London was named; and again nearer the city
Chelsea College, inventories of which and of its revenues
were communicated to us ; so that nothing seemed more
certain than that the design of the great Verulam con-
cerning the opening somewhere of a Universal College
devoted to the advancement of the Sciences, would be
carried out. But the rumour of the insurrection in
Ireland and of the massacre in one night of more than
200,000 English, and the sudden departure of the King
from London, and the plentiful signs of the bloody war
about to break out disturbed these plans, and obliged
me to hasten my return to my own people."

P. 3, 1. 4. obligement, duty, obligation.

1. 17. Janua's and Didactics. This is a reference
apparently a little contemptuous to Comenius's two
great works ; the Janua linguarum reserata was pub-
lished in 1631, and was translated into most European
and some Eastern languages. His Didactica Magna
was first written in his own language, Czech, and after-
wards translated into Latin. It is doubtful if it was
published in 1644, but Milton had of course heard of it.

1. 20. flowed off. Latham explains this as " come
off as flowers by sublimation." I should rather connect
it with the " burnishing " below.

1. 2 1 . burnishing, the particles rubbed off in polishing.

1. 27. mines, the fall.

P. 4, 1. 6. sensible things. This is the keynote of
Milton's teaching. Things are to be taught before words,
or rather things and words are to be taught together, the

28 NOTES.

only value of words being that they lead us to the things
of which they are symbols, as he says below " language
is but the instrument conveying to us things usefull to be
known."

P. 5, 1. 5. idle vacancies. This probably does not
refer so much to vacations and holidays as to perpetual
interruption caused by Saints' days and holidays. This
is a principal cause of the inefficiency of the education
given by Jesuits and other Roman Catholic bodies. At
Eton College, when I was a boy there, every Saint's day
was a holiday and every eve a half-holiday, the work
of these days was supposed to be done on other days, so
also at the University there were no lectures on Saints'
days. The long vacation at the University of course
existed in Milton's time.

1. 6. preposteroiis, inverting the natural order.

1. 15. barbarizing, so a lexicon of pure idiomatic
latinity is called antibarbarus.

1. 16. untutored, rude, raw. So Shakespere Lucrece,
Ded. "my untutored lines," and II. Henry VI. in. 2,
"some stern untutored churl."

1. 19. conversing among, "becoming familiar with."

1. 21. certain forms, "paradigms," the regular forms
in which they habitually occur.

1. 23. lesson'd, "taught."

1. 26. Arts, the subject-matter of a liberal educa-
tion, originally the seven liberal arts contained in the
Trivium and Quadrivium, Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric,
Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy. So Shakes-
pere uses Arts as a synonym for education generally,
Taming of the Shrew, i. i. 2, " Padua, Nursery of Arts,"
and Twelfth Night, i. 3. 99, " Had I but followed the
Arts." Compare Bachelor and Master of Arts.

NOTES. 29

P. 6, 1. 9. obvious to the sence. This is an anticipa-
tion of the doctrines of Pestalozzi and Froebel, who insist
on the importance of beginning education with the train-
ing of the senses.

1. 10. un matriculated, " even before their matricula-
tion," or perhaps generally "immature."

1. n. intellective, "intellectual."

Logick. This is the same as Dialectic, and stands,
as we have seen, second in the Trivium, immediately
after Grammar. This is explained more in detail imme-
diately below.

1. 1 8. f adorn/ess, fathom is fadom in middle English.

1. 2r. ragged, "rugged."

1. 22. babblements, "prattling."

1. 24. youthful years, the impatience of youth.
sway, " pressure " or " influence."
mercenary... Divinity. Such divines are treated
with scathing scorn in Lycidas, where S. Peter says :

How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain,

Anow of such as for their bellies' sake,

Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold ?

Of other care they little reck'ning make,

Then how to scramble at the shearers' feast,

And shove away the worthy bidden guest ;

Blind mouthes ! that scarce themselves know how to hold

A sheep-hook, or have learn'd ought els the least

That to the faithfull Herdman's art belongs !

What recks it them ? What need they ? They are sped.

P. 7, 1. i. prudent and heavenly contemplation. Pru-
dent, provident, foreseeing. Milton here sketches the
idea of what a University law school ought to be, con-
cerned with the theory and not with the practice of law.

1. 6. State affairs. Milton suggests the conception

30 NOTES.

of a University training for public and political life such
as has never been found in England, but such as was
contemplated by the creation of King's Scholars to be
recommended for the service of the State, when the Re-
gius Professorships of Modern History and Modern
Languages were first founded by George I. at Oxford
and Cambridge.

1. ii. conscientious slavery. They veil slavery under
the form of conscientious subjection, but in this only
deceive themselves.

1. 12. delicious, "delicate."

1. 13. airie spirit, a mind subject to spiritual in-
fluences.

1. 1 6. wisest and the safest course, compare Lycidas :

" Were it not better done as others use
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair."

1. 19. prime youth, either our early youth or the best
part of our youth.

1. 21. meer words. Milton returns here to the key-
note of his argument, that the main fault of the present
humanistic education is that it teaches words only.

P. 8, 1. 2. Harp of Orpheus. Compare Shakespere,
Henry VIII, Act in. sc. i, " Orpheus with his lute made
trees, And the mountain tops which freeze, Bow them-
selves when he did sing." Also Merchant of Venice,
Act v. sc. i, " therefore the poet Did feign that Orpheus
drew trees, stones and floods, Since naught so stockish,
hard and full of rage, But music for the time doth change
his nature."

1. 5. stocks and stubbs. Stock is a log or post, the
emblem of a senseless person. So Taming of the Shrew,

NOTES. 31

Act i. sc. i, 1. 31, "Let's be no stoics nor no stocks I
pray." A stubb is the stock of a tree left when the rest
is cut off. Spenser joins the two words together, "all
about old stocks and stubbs of trees."

1. 7. hale = \iau\.

1. 1 1 . docible = docile.

1. 1 8. sophistry. This would especially refer to Logic,
the second of the seven Arts, following after Grammar.

P. 9, 1. 2. practitioners. The school and university
are to give the theoretical, not the practical and profes-
sional training ; these in law and medicine are to be kept
distinct.

1. 4. Lilly, as we should now say the Latin Primer.
William Lilly (not to be confounded with John Lilly, the
author of Euphues, who was born 30 years after this Wil-
liam Lilly's death) lived from about 1468 to 1523, and
was an eminent scholar and first master of St Paul's
School. He published in 1513, Brevissima Institutio sen
Ratio Grammatices cognoscendi, generally known as Lillys
Latin Grammar. In this he was assisted by Colet, Car-
dinal Wolsey, and Erasmus.

commencing. The Great Commencement at Cam-
bridge, the Comitia Magna, was the time at which the
higher degrees were conferred.

1. 8. every City. It is important to notice that these
Colleges were to be in towns, not in the country.

1. 10. Civility, what we should now call "culture."

1. 1 9. their speech is to be fashioned. The first care
in Greek education was to train the tender mouth and
ear to express and distinguish between the delicate Greek
vowels and the variety of accent. The teacher for this
purpose was called the ^xovaor/cos.

1. 27. smatter. Skeat says in his Dictionary, "smut

32 NOTES.

ter (or snatter) is a frequentative verb from a base SMAK,
SNAK denoting a smacking noise with the lips, hence a
gabbling prating."

P. 10, 1. 3. season them, imbue: so Jeremy Taylor,
" secure their religion, season their younger years with
prudent and pious principles."

1. 7. read to them. Mark this. In what language?
Certainly not in Greek, perhaps not even in Latin.
Masson says, " there were in Milton's time Latin trans-
lations of Cebes and at least one in English." Ratich,
the forerunner of Comenius, advises the teacher of Latin
to begin by translating the Latin author to the scholars
first

1. 8. Cebes was a disciple of Socrates, he is one of
the speakers in the Phcedo and was present at the death
of Socrates. It is therefore rather remarkable that the
7riva£ (pinax) of this author should have been so little
studied in recent times. During the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries it was extremely popular. The genuine-
ness of the treatise is, however, positively denied by
Zeller who places it in a later age. The Pinax is a
philosophical explanation of a table on which the whole
of human life with its dangers and temptations were
symbolically represented; "the author introduces some
youths contemplating the table, and an old man who
steps among them agrees to explain its meaning. The
whole drift of the little book is to shew that only the
proper development of our mind and the possession of
real virtues can make us truly happy."

Plutarch flourished about A.D. TOO. His moral works
are here referred to which treat of education and domestic
morality. They were translated into French by Amyot as
early as 1565.

NOTES. 33

1. 9. other Socratic discourses. Milton of course
believed the iriva£ of Cebes to be Socratic.

1. n. Quintilian, for an account of his views on
education see Browning's Educational Theories, p. 26.
He was born A.D. 42 and was therefore a contemporary
of Plutarch.

1. 13. temper them, to apportion or regulate for them,
to suit the lessons to the occasion.

P. n, 1. 6. arithmetick and geometry were two of
the seven liberal Arts coming in the Quadrivium after
music and before astronomy.

1. 7. playing, as the old manner was. I have said
elsewhere of Roman education (Ed. Theor. p. 21), "Next
to reading and writing came reckoning, the fingers were
made great use of, each joint and bend of the finger was
made to signify a certain value, and the pupil was
expected to follow the twinkling motion of the teacher's
hands as he represented number after number. The
modern Italian game of mora is a survival of this capacity."
Plato more than once represents Socrates as giving
lessons in geometry to young Greeks in the palaestra.

1. 9. easie- elementary.

1. ii. after authors 'of should be inserted.

1. 12. Cato the censor (234 — I49A.D.). The work
de Re Rustica which bears his name is probably
substantially his, but is not now in the form in which he
left it. Varro wrote the three books de Re Rustica
which we possess at the age of eighty, B.C. 36. He was
an intimate friend of Cicero.

Columella who flourished a generation later wrote
12 books in agriculture. Milton mentions them in
chronological order. The works of these three authors
were first printed at Venice in 1472.

34 NOTES.

1. 14. it is not a difficulty above their years. Milton
is quite right in assuming that children have little
difficulty in learning a copious vocabulary. In these
works the subject-matter and the construction are both
of them easy.

1. 21. plying, "working steadily."

1. 22. chuse but be, "help being."

1. 23. ordinary prose. Latin prose is of course
meant.

1. 24. modern author, probably in Latin.

P. 12, 1. 5. Historical is probably used in the sense
of " narrative." The title of Theophrastus' Greek work
is TI Trepl ^UTojf icrropia.

1. 6. Aristotle lived 384 — 322 B.C. Theophrastus
was his pupil; of his numerous works we only possess
two on botany.

1. 8. Vitruvius lived in the time of Julius Caesar and
Augustus and wrote about architecture.

Seneca died A.D. 65, aged nearly 70. His Qiiestionum
Naturalium libri septem "is one of the few Roman
works in which physical matters are treated of." It is
a collection of natural facts from various writers, Greek
and Roman. Mela was the author of the first formal
treatise on Geography in Latin. He may have been
the brother of Seneca and the father of Lucan the
poet, but this is uncertain. His work was translated
into English by Arthur Golding, 1585.

Celsus of the Augustan age wrote eight books on
Medicine. Pliny, who perished A.D. 79 in the eruption
of Vesuvius which destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum,
wrote 37 books on Natural History. This work was
translated into English by Holland in 1601. Solinus
who lived in the third century A.D. wrote a kind of

NOTES. 35

abridgement of Pliny's Natural History. His work was
much studied in the middle ages and there is an early
translation into English — " the excellent and pleasant
worke of Julius Solinus Polyhistor containing the noble
actions of humaine creatures, the Secretes and Providence
of Nature, the description of Countries, the manners of
the People, &c., &c., translated out of Latin by Arthur
Golding Gent." Lond. 1587.

It will be seen that these authors are chosen not for
their style but for their matter, the Latin words are only
to be used as a means of arriving at things expressed by
them. Also the concrete knowledge contained in these
books is to precede the abstract study of the sciences to
which they refer.

P. 12, 1. 15. Enginry, "engineering."

1. 21. institutions, "rules and precepts," compare the
Institutes of Justinian, an elementary treatise on Roman
law.

1. 22. tempers, the four temperaments, melancholic,
sanguine, lymphatic, choleric, humours, the four humours
caused the four temperaments, compare Chaucer, "He
knew the cause of every maladie, and wher engendred
and of what humour." Seasons, the effect of the seasons
on the health of the body.

1. 23. crudity, "indigestion," "constipation."

1. 27. expenseless, compare Blackmore, "What health
promotes and gives unenvyed peace Is all expenseless and
procured with ease."

P. 13, 1. 3. commander, see below, note on page 20.

1. 4. proceedings, a university term : we say to proceed
in law or physic.

1. 12. natural knowledge, i.e. knowledge of nature.

1. 1 6. facil, "easy."

36 NOTES.

Orpheus, The works which have come down to us
under the name of Orphica are (i) Argonautica, an epic
poem in 1384 lines, giving an account of the expe-
dition of the Argonauts. (2) Eighty-seven or eighty-eight
hymns, of the Neo-Platonic school. (3) Lithica, a poem
treating of the properties of stones both precious and
common and their uses in divination. This last poem is
undoubtedly alluded to by Milton. Hesiod. The Works
and days is referred to, a poem concerned with the opera-
tions of agriculture. Theocritus wrote pastoral poems such
as Virgil imitated in his Eclogues. Aratus wrote two poems
on astronomical subjects. Of the writings of Nicander
two poems remain, Theriaca, treating of venomous animals
and the wounds inflicted by them., and Alexipharmaca of
poisons and their antidotes. Under the name of Oppian
Milton would include two poems, one on fishing Halieutica,
and the other on hunting Cynegetica. They are now
known not to be by the same author. Dionysius
Periegetes, the author of a Trcpofy^o-ts -ri?s yrjs, a general
survey of the world as known at that time. How few
professed scholars have read the works here enumerated
and what a wide grasp of ancient literature they
imply !

1. 1 8. Lucretius, the author of the great poem De
rerum natura. Manilius wrote an astrological poem
in five books entitled Astronomica. Virgil, the "rural
part " would be the Eclogues and the Georgics,

1. 20. By this time. Having spent three or four
years in learning the elements of Latin and Greek,
mathematics, physics and natural history with the ancient
literature that appertains to them, about the age of 15 or
1 6 they will approach studies which are to form their
moral nature.

NOTES. 37

1. 23. Proairesis is the deliberate choice between
good and evil in the affairs of life.

P. 14, 1. 3. Plutarch has been mentioned before,
p. 10. There he is to be read to the students in Latin
or English, here he is to be studied in the original
Greek.

Laertins, Diogenes Laertius the author of a history
of philosophy.

1. 4. those Locrian remnants. This refers to the trea-
tise ascribed to the Locrian Timaeus, irepi ^u^as /cooy-tov
Kai <£vo-tos. This was printed in a Latin translation by
Valla published at Venice in 1488 and 1498 together with
other similar treatises.

reduc't, "brought back."

1. 6. determinate, "certain," "authoritative."

1. 7. cvanges = evangels.

1. 10. Economics. They are first to learn their duty
to themselves and then their duty towards their neighbour.

1. 12. at any odd hour, as may easily be done by
willing learners, experto crede.

1. 15. comedies, pictures of social life are to be intro-
duced here, but only a selection, and then with antidote
to the possible poison they may contain.

1. 17. Household matters. "Euripides the human
With his droppings of warm tears, And his touches
of things common, Till they rose to touch the spheres."

1. 19. Politicks, from the ordering of the house, we
rise to ordering the state.

1. 24. Counselors. The statesmen of Milton's age
had a difficult task in making up their minds between
king and parliament.

P. 15, 1. 2. Licurgus was the lawgiver of Sparta;
Solon of Athens ; Zaleucus of the Epizephyrian Locrians,

38 NOTES.

that is, the Locrians in the South of Italy; and
Charandas of certain cities in Sicily.

1. 4. Edicts, the praetor's edict, the equity of Roman
law. Tables, the laws of the XII. tables. Justinian the
emperor was the great codifier of Roman law.

1. 10. at a set hour, not "at any odd hour" like
Italian.

1. 12. orginal - original.

1. 14. Chaldey, a Semitic language much resembling
Hebrew, learnt at Babylon by the Jews in the Captivity.
Syrian, Aramaic, the ordinary language of Palestine in
the time of Christ. We must observe that theological
speculation is to be taught concurrently with Politics, the
two loftiest subjects which according to Milton's view
can occupy the mind.

1. 1 6. Histories. Heroic poem, Tragedies, and Ora-
tions are an accompaniment to the study of Politics.
Here again are words made subservient to things.

1. 25. now lastly, style and composition is to be
taught last of all, the student is not to learn how to write
until his mind is stocked with subjects to write about.

1. 26. organic, concerned with the use of instruments,
"practical."

1. 28. mean = medium, the three Latin words would
be grande (or excelsum), medium and humile.

P. 1 6, 1. i. so much as is useful, only.

1. 2. withall, should be with all.

1. 3. coucht, "arranged." Promptorium Parvulorum,
p. 96, " cowchyn or leyne thinges togedyr, colloco."

Heads and Topics. Heads is a translation of Topics,
Topi, or the subjects treated of.

1. 4. contracted palm. Logic was compared by
Aristotle and others to a close fist, rhetoric to an open

NOTES. 39

palm. Cicero de Finibus, n. 6. " Zenonis est, inquam,
hoc Stoici; omnem vim loquendi, ut jam ante Aristo-
teles in duas tributam esse partes, rhetoricam palmae,
dialecticam pugni similem esse, dicebat, quod latius
loquerentur rhetores, dialectici autem compressius."

1. 6. Phalcreus Demetnus the last of the Attic
orators 345 — 283 B.C. Milton probably refers to the
work on elocution which has come down under his
name, but which is probably not by him. Hermogenes
lived about 180 A. D. and did all his work between the
ages of 17 and 25. Five works of his are extant which
form a complete system of rhetoric.

1. 7. Longinus (213 — 273 A.D.), the author of the
well-known treatise on the Sublime ; the only one of his
numerous works which remains to us.

1. 14. Horace, the ars poetica.

1.15. Castelvetro. Lu do vico Castelvetro wrote among
other works La Poetica di Aristotele vulgarizzata et
sposia, published at Vienna in 1570. See Hallam,
Lit. Europe, n. 303. 4. Tasso, the well-known Italian
poet, wrote among his prose works a discourse upon
epic poetry and a treatise on poetical composition, and
further a dialogue on Tuscan poetry. Mazzonfs work
Delia difesa della comedia di Dante distinta in sette
librivfas, published at Cesena in 1587 — 88. See Hallam,
n. 306.

1. 1 8. grand master-piece, the chief point.

1. 21. cowm, common, the on has dropped out, the
word perhaps having been written with an abbreviation.

Play-writers. We must not forget that this included
Shakespere and the writers of his age.

1. 24. humane = human.

1. 28. fraught, laden, freighted like a ship.

B. 5

40 NOTES.

universal, general. They are not to learn how to
compose until their minds are filled with the things which
they are to write about.

P. 17, 1. 2. Counsel = council.

1. 5. then — than, see above p. 26.

1. 13. s0...as, a Latin construction expressing a
limitation. They are to proceed onward in their studies
with this limitation that they are occasionally to go over
old ground.

1. 17. middle ward. Ward is the same word as
guard. We are familiar with vanguard and rearguard in
English ; a middle ward = middle guard, that is the central
body of troops between the van and the rear.

1. 20. embattelling, ranging in order of battle. So
Shakespere, Henry V., IY. 2, "The highest are em-
battelled."

P. 1 8, 1. i. ancient and famous Schools. We know
little about them.

1. 6. Studies, schools or universities. Cyrene. Hero-
dotus tells us of a school of physic at Cyrene. Carneades
the founder of the new academy came from this city.

1. 12. the Gown, the toga, the emblem of peace.

1. 20. use of their Weapon, fencing.

P. 19, 1. 4. Gripes. The verb gripe is to grasp,
hold fast; German greifen. Wrastling, the middle
English for wrestle was wraxlen, wrastlen, or wrasklen, or
else wrastle, wraskle, wraxle.

1. 8. single, in wrestling they would contend singly
one with another. This is in contrast to the combined
military exercises mentioned afterwards.

1. 9. unsweating, cooling themselves after exercise.

1. 12. travail 'd, "wearied."

NOTES. 4I

1. 15. fancied, full of imagination, descant is the
harmony which accompanies the plain song or ground
subject, fugues, compare Paradise Lost, xi. 556,

" He looked and saw a spacious plain, wherein
Were tents of various hue ; by some were herds
Of cattle grazing : others, -whence the sound
Of instrument that made melodious chime
Was heard, of harp and organ, and -who moved
Their stops and chords was seen: his volant touch
Instinct through all proportions low and high
Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue?

1. 1 6. Symphony ', a number of musical sounds har-
monized together either in the instruments of an orchestra
or the stops of an organ. In the English of Milton's
time a syrnphonist meant a chorister.

1. 21. Ditties, "songs."

1. 27. concoction, "digestion."

P. 20. 1. 2. /'/, i.e. study.

1. 17. They would not then... suffer. My friend
Mr S. R. Gardiner whom I consulted on this subject
tells me that this passage evidently refers to Essex.
"The constant diminution of his army through 1643
from sickness and desertion was a constant subject of
complaint, and there was information given to Parliament
in the end of that year of companies with only twenty
men in them near London amongst those serving under
Essex." He also kindly sends me an extract from a
despatch of Agostini (the Venetian Secretary) of July 4,
1643, which says that Essex's army was greatly diminished
"delle fughe et delle malattie" so that he cannot keep
the field without supply. There was talk of deposing
him but they feared to do it, "obbligatosi 1' Essex i prin-

42 NOTES.

cipali commandati suoi con la propria lautissima mensa."
This seems to justify " quaff out."

1. 23. unrecrutible appears to mean "not able to
obtain recruits."

1. 25. a delusive list, and a miserable remnant, of the
soldiers whose names were on the list only a miserable
remnant really existed.

P. 2i,l. 15. year- years. This was formerly unaltered
in the plural, representing a Saxon neuter the same in
singular and plural.

1. 19. commodities, "advantages."

P. 22, 1. 4. purity, old English martial prowess
coupled with the zeal of a reformed religion.

1. 7. slight, here = vile or bad just like its homologue
the German schlecht.

1. 9. Kicshoes is another spelling of Kickshaws which
means a delicacy or fantastical dish being derived from
the French quelque chose.

\. 10. three or four and twenty. The grand tour is
to be taken at this mature age not at 16 or 17. Locke
recommends travel at any early age or else deferred until
the education is complete. "The time I should think
fittest for a young gentleman to be sent abroad would be
either when he is younger under a tutor, whom he might
be the better for, or when he is some years older without
a governor, when he is of age to govern himself and
make observations of what he finds in other countries
worthy his notice, and that might be of use to him after
his return ; and when too being thoroughly acquainted
with the laws and fashions, the natural and moral ad-
vantages and defects of his own country, he has some-
thing to exchange with those abroad, from whose conver-
sation he hoped to reap any knowledge."

NOTES. 43

1. 1 8. other Nations. "Italians might come to
England for education as Englishmen now go to Italy."

1. 21. Diet. This is the third great division, and is
dismissed in a few lines.

P. 23, 1. 10. shoot in, we should say "shoot with."

1. 12. Homer gave Ulysses, when Ulysses returned
home after his wanderings. Penelope offered to give
her hand to any of her suitors who could bend the bow
of Ulysses. None could bend the bow except Ulysses
himself.

1. 14. assay — essay an attempt.

(Eambrtoge:

PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

u-15