46 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts^ and Letters. 
purpose, and may be humanistic; the second, considered by itself, 
is almost certainly utilitarian. And yet it seems strange, in so 
brief a work, that Milton should have had two purposes in mind 
at all; and stranger still, that they should have been in conflict, 
or even unrelated. Such is probably not the case. The true har¬ 
mony of Milton’s definitions may perhaps be most clearly shown 
by the analogy of faith and works. ‘‘These two divisions,” says 
Milton in his Christian Doctrine, “though they are distinct in their 
own nature, and put asunder for the convenience of teaching, can¬ 
not be separated in practice.”^® Now, the basis of Milton’s edu¬ 
cational doctrine is character, both as an end in itself, and as the 
foundation of true service. These two values of character may be 
separately studied, but in practical life they are inseparable. 
Milton had no interest in a “fugitive and cloistered virtue” that 
never emerges in action. Furthermore, an education which does 
not produce character cannot, in Milton’s estimation, prepare a 
man for service. For instance, one might suppose that the most 
important part of a statesman’s education would be political 
science. But what does Milton say of the young men who leave 
college to enter politics? “Others,” he says, “betake them to 
state affairs, with souls so unprincipled in virtue and true generous 
breeding, that flattery and court-shifts and tyrannous aphorisms 
appear to them the highest points of wisdom. To be sure^ Mil- 
ton includes political science in his curriculum; but he sets no 
great value on science of any kind without right principles to 
guide and control it. 
We may once for all set aside the notion that the school was 
to be vocational, for Milton expressly states that it is a place of 
“general studies”^® in contrast to such special schools as those of 
law and medicine. The fact of its military organization is more 
important. Milton labored under no illusions on the subject of 
war; bul he realized the ethical value of military training, as 
well as its practical necessity. 
Let us now glance at one or two interesting features of Milton’s 
curriculum. 
The chief medium of instruction in that day was the Latin 
language; therefore the pupil’s first task was to acquire it. The 
customary method of learning Latin in Milton’s time was, first, 
the memorizing of many cumbrous rules of grammar, (often ar- 
4:13. 
3:466. 
^°Ibid., 3:467. 
