Ainsworth—Milton as a Writer on Education, 47 
ranged, for greater convenience, in rude verse); second, the prac¬ 
tice of Latin composition iu generous amounts, both in verse and 
in prose. Some Latin authors, of course, were read; but composi¬ 
tion predominated. The pupil began the process about the age 
of ten, or even younger. If he survived it, he entered the uni¬ 
versity at the age, perhaps, of sixteen, with a fairly good com¬ 
mand of Latin vocabulary, and the ability to understand lectures 
in the language, and to converse with his fellow-students in it. 
The process, however, was not always successful, and never very 
agreeable. Eoger Ascham^s treatise. The Scholemaster, nearly sev¬ 
enty-five years earlier than Milton ^s, was the outcome of a con¬ 
versation over the case of some boys who had run away from Eton 
School for fear of a beating.^® One of Comenius^ greatest achieve¬ 
ments was in simplifying the method of teaching Latin. The prob¬ 
lem was a close parallel to our modern one of how to teach the 
Freshman to write English. We are attacking it very much as 
Milton’s contemporaries did—^with unlimited quantities of theme¬ 
writing. 
However, Milton’s views on this subject were revolutionary. He 
insists on the principle that composition ought to be based on in¬ 
formation of some kind, and not painfully spun out of the student’s 
inner consciousness. He calls it a ‘‘preposterous exaction” to 
demand much writing of students until they have read widely in 
good authors, and acquired a moderate supply of information as 
well as a sense of style. Milton believed it possible to teach lan¬ 
guage chiefly through extensive reading—a belief shared by some 
good teachers to-day. Moreover, he regarded language, not as an 
end in itself, but merely as “the instrument conveying to us things 
useful to be known.” Therefore, after teaching his students the 
elements of Latin grammar, he led them rapidly through a con¬ 
siderable amount of reading, and deferred the composition until 
a later part of the course. He followed the same method with 
Greek, which, of course, as a humanist, Milton felt to be indis¬ 
pensable. 
Next to be considered is the subject-matter of the reading. 
It is chiefly to this that Dr. Johnson applies his criticism. The 
first authors to be studied are the Latin writers on agriculture; 
and between the ages, probably, of thirteen and sixteen, the pupils 
are to read treatises in Greek and Latin on such matters as ar¬ 
chitecture, astronomy, geography, medicine, and natural history. 
“Roger Ascham, English Works, ed. by Wright, Cambridge, 1904, p. 175. 
