1857.] Milton considered as a Schoolmetster, 331 



reading of good books as the best, and only means of obtaining a 

 knowledge of language. He protests, therefore, against " the pre- 

 posterous exaction of forcing the empty wits of children to compose 

 themes, verses, and orations," as a way to obtain a knowledge of 

 the language. But the author of a host of Latin elegiacs, the Latin 

 correspondent of foreign courts, is not so inconsistent with himself 

 as to despise such exercises. He regards them as " the acts of ripest 

 judgment, and the final work of a head filled by long reading and 

 observing, with elegant maxims, and copious invention." This is 

 not the language of a rebel against scholarship, but of a severe and 

 fastidious scholar. His compassion for boys is combined with horror 

 for their solecisms. 



Milton's idea of education is strictly Baconian : not in this 

 sense, that he had Bacon's preference for physical studies to humane . 

 or moral studies ; but in this, that he protests against that method 

 which starts from abstractions and conclusions of the intellect, and 

 maintains that all true method must begin from the objects of sense. 

 He may not have been well read in the " Novum Organum ; '* 

 but he could not have applied its maxims more strictly in a new 

 direction than he has done. Possibly his protests against making 

 logic and metaphysics the introduction to knowledge in the Univer- 

 sities, when they ought to be the climax of knowledge, were more 

 suitable to his own day, when boys went to Cambridge or Oxford 

 at fifteen or twelve, than to ours. But if it be so, we ought to be 

 very careful that our youths do acquire the early experimental 

 training that he recommends, before they venture upon the higher 

 and more abstract lore : otherwise we may have to complain, as he 

 had, that " they grow into a hatred and contempt of learning," and 

 that when " poverty or youthful years call them importunately their 

 several ways, they hasten to an ambitious and mercenary, or igno- 

 rantly zealous divinity," or to the mere " trade of law," or to " state 

 affairs, with souls so unprincipled in virtue and generous breeding, 

 that court shifts and tyrannous aphorisms appear to them the highest 

 points of wisdom," while " some of a more airy spirit live out their 

 days in feasts and jollity." 



Passing from his principles to his application of them, we may 

 find abundant excuses for criticism, and, if we covet the reputation 

 of wits, for ridicule. He wished liis college to be both school and 

 university ; the studies therefore proceed in an ascending scale, 

 from the elements of grammar to the highest science, as well as to 

 the most practical pursuits. The younger boys are to be especially 

 trained to a clear and distinct pronunciation, " as like as may be to 

 the Italian." Books are to be given them like Cebes or Plutarch, 

 which will " win them early to the love of virtue and true labour." 

 In some hour of the day they are to be taught the rules of arith- 

 metic and the elements of geometry. The evenings are to be taken 

 up " with the easy grounds of religion, and the story of scripture." 

 In the next stage they begin to study books on agriculture, Cato, 

 Vol. II. 2 a 



