UNIV. OF INTRODUCTION THE PLACE OF THE TRACTATE IN MILTON'S LIFE AND WORK Of Education is one of Milton's earlier pamphlets on reform in Church and State. It belongs, therefore, to the second great epoch in his life, which extended from the day in 1638 when his Continental tour was interrupted by the news of civil disturbance in England to his retirement from public service at the Restoration. During these years the poet was obliged by his sense of patriotic duty mostly to defer his chosen work of epic or dramatic composition, and to expend his talents in the defence of liberty, both religious and civil. The bulk of Milton's writings throughout this period is in prose. Some critics have lamented that he so long devoted himself to a species of composition in which, as he says, he had but the use of his left hand;1 but Verity not long since maintained that Milton improved as a poet by the experience of public life. The prose works alone, although at times they have suffered detraction, nevertheless contain so much of idealism and eloquence as to give to their author a very high place among English writers. Of all Milton's pamphlets, the Tractate Of Education perhaps least owes its occasion to the urgency of political events, and most spontaneously grows out of his natural tastes and pursuits. In the Second Defence, to be sure, he enumerates it among his earlier writings as if it had been a part of a systematic plan. After speaking of his tracts on episcopacy, he says: When the bishops could no longer resist the multitude of their assailants, I had leisure to turn my thoughts to other subjects: to the promotion of real and substantial liberty, which is rather to be sought from within than from without, and whose existence depends, not so much on the terror of the sword, as on sobriety of conduct and integrity of life. When, therefore, I perceived that there were three species of liberty which are essential to the happiness of social life-religious, domestic, and civil; and as I had already written concerning the first, and the magistrates were strenuously active in obtaining the third; I determined to turn my attention to the second or the domestic species. As this seemed to involve three material questions-the conditions of the conjugal tie, the education of the children, and the free publication of the thoughts-I made them objects of distinct consideration. I explained my sentiments, not only concerning the solemnization of the marriage, but the dissolution, if circumstances rendered it necessary. . . . I then discussed the principles of education in a summary manner, but sufficiently copious for those who attend seriously to the subject; than which nothing can be more necessary to principle the minds of men in virtue-the only genuine source of political and individual liberty, the only true safeguard of states, the bulwark of their prosperity and renown.1 This account, however, does not necessarily imply that Milton composed his pamphlets in a fixed and definite order. If he had done so, the Tractate, of course, would occupy the position of a chapter in a treatise on personal liberty. But nowhere else does he mention a definite plan; and the list that he gives is not chronologically exact. We probably may assume that Milton classified his works as he did, in order the better to defend himself against calumny by making clear the public spirit of all his writings. The Tractate, then, is not a minor part of a formal treatise, but an individual structure, brief though it be. Nor was it directly instigated, like The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, by 'the tumults of those unhappy days'; nor yet, like the first treatise on divorce, as some suppose, by domestic affliction. It is the 'voluntary idea of a better education' that had 'long, in silence, presented itself' to the poet and scholar; the 'few observations' 1 The Second Defence of the People of England, Prose Works 1. 258. See below, P. 102-3. that had 'flowered off'-'the burnishing of many studious and a contemplative years, altogether spent in the search of religious and civil knowledge.' It therefore, no doubt, more fully than some other of Milton's prose works, reflects the deeper elements of his nature. Some plan of educational reform he probably had intended to publish in the course of his writing on practical affairs. The need of it seems to have been deeply impressed upon his mind, for in two of his last political treatises there are included educational projects, less detailed than the plan of the Tractate, but more definitely related to his two ideal systems of government, ecclesiastical and civil. These two schemes were in fact called forth by political exigency. Both look to immediate practical ends-one, indeed, seems frankly vocational; and to either, therefore, the Tractate Of Education, in breadth of outlook and clarity of ideal, is far superior. Milton's chief account of his views on education was published at the earnest solicitation of a friend. Samuel Hartlib, to whom the Tractate is addressed, singularly merits our esteem. So much engrossed was he in bringing to notice the hidden talents of other men, and so little did he seek fame or honor for himself, that his own true worth has sometimes been lost to view. Hartlib was born in Prussia, of Polish-English parentage, and came to London probably about 1628. He was ostensibly a merchant, but his real interest lay in the promotion of human welfare, both physical and intellectual. In his active encouragement of every scheme for the public good, he reminds one of Benjamin Franklin; but in Hartlib's character the sagacity of 'Poor Richard' was tempered with the more spiritual outlook of the seventeenth century. His varied interests embraced not only the reform of education, and the improvement of agriculture and the mechanic arts, but also the uniting of the Protestant churches throughout all Europe. His sincerity in these projects was attested by 1 See below, pp. 222-3; 273-4. pecuniary generosity as well as by personal effort. His biographer, Henry Dircks, says of him: We are constrained to consider Samuel Hartlib's prevailing pious disposition as governing, guiding, and outweighing all other obligations. He advocated the acquirement of knowledge and the means of improving its attainment, and strenuously labored to extend every useful art and trade favoring industry and tending to strengthen the arms of the State; but these were accessories to brighter hopes-they were to be employed but as the means to a far nobler end, and were not esteemed by him as man's summum bonum in this life. That he was, therefore, rather out of his sphere, while occupied in the mercenary operations of ordinary business, we may surmise from the absence of all allusion to commercial gains in his correspondence; while his letters, on the contrary, are replete with learned allusions, theological matters, references to men of letters, and to subjects of a literary or philosophical bearing. Samuel Hartlib's life throughout excites our admiration. His piety and enthusiasm, his varied tastes and plastic genius, are conspicuous in all his multifarious labors. In whatever he was engaged, we observe the same earnestness, ardor, and sobriety of conduct. He is always solid and sincere, and begets in us, at a glance, a predisposition in his favor; we see in him the meek true Christian and the gentleman. His amiability is without affectation; he is obliging without sycophancy, and religious without intolerance. He never assumes mental superiority, or knowledge beyond his information, and, while directing oppressed talent into channels of enlarged usefulness, his judgment and experience rather suggest than dictate. Had it been his lot to be differently situated, and blessed with a superior education, he would have proved himself a sublime genius; for under great personal disadvantages, together with the adverse influence of distracted and dissolute times, he worked wonders to ameliorate the condition of society, with little other encouragement than the approval of his own conscience.1 The details of Hartlib's acquaintance with Milton, and the reason why he so earnestly besought him to write on education, 1 Dircks, Memoir of Samuel Hartlib, pp. 47-9. 2 See below, pp. 51-2. |