332 Milton considered as a Schoolmaster. [Jan. 30, 



Varro, and Columella. These books will make them in time 

 masters of any ordinary Latin prose, and will be at the same time 

 " occasions of inciting and enabling them hereafter to improve the 

 tillage of their country." The use of maps and globes is to be 

 learnt from modern authors ; but Greek is to be studied, as soon 

 as the grammar is learnt, in the " historical physiology of Aristotle 

 and Theophrastus." Latin and Greek authors together are to teach 

 the principles of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and geography. 

 Instruction in architecture, fortification, and engineering, follows. 

 In natural philosophy we ascend through the history of meteors, 

 minerals, plants, and living creatures to anatomy. Anatomy leads 

 on to the study of medicine. 



The objections to some of these plans are too obvious to need 

 any notice. No one will suppose that natural philosophy is to be 

 learnt from Seneca, or agriculture from Columella. Every one 

 will admit readily that his own amazing powers of acquisition led 

 Milton to overrate the powers of ordinary boys. But it would 

 seem a poor reason for not availing ourselves of the hints that he 

 gives us, that we have means of following them out which he had 

 not : a poorer reason still for not profiting by the warnings which 

 he gives us against filling our pupils' heads with a mere multitude 

 of words, that he perhaps asked them to take in more both of words 

 and things than they would be able comfortably to carry. If he is 

 an idealist, he is certainly also a stern realist. He would have us 

 always conversant with facts rather than with names. He aims at 

 the useful as directly as the most professed utilitarian. The pupils 

 are to have " the helpful experiences of hunters, fowlers, fishermen, 

 shepherds, gardeners, and apothecaries," to assist them in their 

 natural studies. These studies are to increase their interest in 

 Ilesiod, in Lucretius, and in the Georgics of Virgil. The incentive 

 for studying medicine is, that they may perhaps " save armies by 

 frugal and expenseless means, and not let the healthy and stout 

 bodies of young men under them rot away for want of this (medi- 

 cal) discipline." 



Two other objections have been raised by Dr. Johnson against 

 this scheme of education. The first will, probably, not have great 

 weight with the members of the Royal Institution, for it turns upon 

 the comparative worthlessness of the physical sciences. The other 

 is expressed in some very elegant sentences, maintaining that the 

 formation of a noble and useful character is the true end of educa- 

 tion. One cannot help deploring that maxims so good and well- 

 delivered should be so utterly thrown away. They are absurdly 

 inapplicable to Milton's letter. It is throughout a complaint that 

 the existing education was not sufficiently directed to the purpose of 

 forming brave men and good citizens. It is throughout an assertion 

 that that is the only purpose which any education ought to aim at. 

 The classics are not resorted to for the purpose of forming a style, 

 but of instilling manly thoughts, which a higher wisdom may purify 



