lectual and a thing moral. And further in these days, when language extends itself into the science of comparative philology, it is also a thing scientific.

I shall not dwell on this however, because I wish rather to expound Milton's views than to criticize them. It is enough that I emphasize the above aspect of Milton's doctrine, as it is with him fundamental and explains much that follows.

Too much time, he says, is spent in acquiring a knowledge of Greek and Latin. We spend seven or eight years in acquiring what might be acquired in one-especially if we would stop the absurd practice of the "forcing the empty wits of children to write Theams, Verses and Orations, which are the acts of ripest judgment and the final work of a head fill'd by long reading and observing." Another objection to the practice is that the boys are under the necessity of "using such language as they have, thus barbarizing against the Latin and Greek Idiom with their untutored Anglicisms odious to be read."

We may now pass from the general aim of education to the detail of Milton's scheme, merely premising that he had in view boys from 12 to 21 years of age, that is to say, the secondary and university periods of instruction.

THE MATERIALS AND ORDER OF EDUCATION.

Secondary School Stage.

Milton's opinion is that after the boys have acquired the accidence and the "chief and necessary rules" they should have "some chosen short book lessoned thoroughly to them," with a view to praxis of the accidence and syntax. Arithmetic and Geometry are to be learned at "some other hour of the day, even playing as the old manner was.”

The pupils, now we may presume thirteen years old, were next immediately to proceed to the study of things in Latin and

Greek authors, and they would thus "bring the whole language quickly into their power." This he considered to be "the most rational and most profitable way of learning languages and whereby we may best hope to give account to God of our youth spent herein."

The things to be studied first and for long are sensible things and not abstractions. We learn from Phillips, who was a pupil of Milton's at Aldersgate Street, the names of the books which Milton made use of in teaching with a view to give instruction at once in language through things, and things through language:

The work of Cato Major, De Re Rustica—the only work of Cato's which has come down to us.

Columella's 12 books on the same subject.

Varro [of course De Re Rustica].

Palladius, also an agricultural writer very popular in the Middle Ages. His treatise is in 14 books, mostly in the form of a farmer's calendar.

Celsus on Medicine.

Pliny's Natural History.

Vitruvius on Architecture.

Frontinus on Strategy. (4 books.)

Lucretius's philosophical poem De Rerum Natura.

Manilius, a writer of a poem on Astrology and Astronomy. (Astronomica, 5 books.)

In Greek:

Aratus, who wrote two astronomical poems very popular among the ancients.

Dionysius, commonly called Periegetes, who wrote a description of the earth in hexameters.

Oppian, who wrote on fishing and hunting.

Apollonius Rhodius, whose Argonautica gives a description of the adventures of the Argonauts.

Quintus Calaber, author of a Greek epic poem on the Trojan war.

Plutarch (apparently some of the Moral writings?).
Geminus, who wrote on Astronomy.

Aelian on Tactics.

Xenophon's Anabasis and Cyropaedia.

The substantial correctness of the record made by Phillips is guaranteed by the list of books which Milton himself recommends in his treatise, though he omits some of the above books, and adds others. Among those named by Milton and omitted by Phillips are the rural parts of Virgil, Hesiod, Theocritus also Seneca's Quaestiones Naturales. : Milton also names for ethical, philosophical, and political teaching, the moral works of Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Cicero and the Greek poets.

Now, if we attempt to arrange the course of study, following such slight indications as are given by Milton, we find that after the initiatory year's work already adverted to (substantially grammatical), the books first to be studied are the writers on agriculture, Cato, Columella, and Varro. These will give the pupils command of all ordinary prose. After reading these books they should study in some modern author "the use of the globes and all the maps." Concurrently with this, Greek would be begun after the same fashion as Latin, and the pupil be introduced to Aristotle's physical works and the history of plants by Theophrastus. To help in these studies in so far as they were of a practical kind, all sorts of mechanical teachers might be employed-such as hunters, fowlers, fishermen, architects, engineers, etc.—in a subordinate capacity, either giving their services gratuitously or for a salary. This course of study would bring the pupil to the age of about 17 I should say.

The pupils would now proceed to Latin and Greek authors on Astronomy and Geometry, and proceed to the study of Trigonometry, Engineering, Fortification, Navigation. A compendium of Physics would be here introduced, and Natural

History, and even Anatomy and Medicine (within certain limits) studied. Milton's scheme of secondary education (in so far as it has reference to the intellect) is thus at once realistic, encyclopaedic and technical.

University Stage.

The above studies could not possibly be completed until the pupils were at least 18 years of age-the university age, as we may call it. It is at this age that the purely literary, political, theological, and philosophical course would, according to Milton's scheme, begin. The literary, by the reading of the moral parts of Plato, Cicero, Xenophon, some Greek, Latin or Italian comedies, and those tragedies which "treat of household matters, as the Trachiniae, Alcestis and the like." Then would come the study of Politics, "that they might know the beginning, end and reasons of Political Societies; that they may not in a dangerous fit of the Commonwealth be such poor, shaken, uncertain Reeds, of such a tottering Conscience as many of our great Counsellors have lately shown themselves, but stedfast pillars of the State." Next they would study Law in its grounds and practice, including Roman Law, and the Common and Statutory Law of England, and concurrently with this, on Sundays and in the evening of each day, the high matters of theology and Church History, ancient and modern, "the Hebrew tongue having been already acquired at a set hour" so that the Scriptures might be read "in their own original."

It is only after these "employments are well conquered," and consequently not sooner than the 20th year (I presume), that the youth is admitted to a purely literary course. This is to consist of choice histories, heroic poems, Attic tragedies and all the famous political orations, "which, if they were not only read but some of them got by memory and solemnly pronounc't with right accent and grace (as might be taught), would

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endue them ever with the spirit and vigour of Demosthenes or Cicero, Euripides or Sophocles."

Last of all-that is to say in the 21st year-might be studied the "organic Arts," viz. Logic, Rhetoric, Poetry, as these are to be found treated by Aristotle, Plato and others. "This," he says, "would make them soon perceive what despicable creatures our common Rimers and play-writers be; and show them what religious, what glorious and magnificent use might be made of poetry, both in divine and humane things."

This large curriculum would be concluded by literary compositions "in every excellent matter." "When fraught with an universal insight into things" will be the right season, Milton says, to form them into able writers. "Then,” he goes on, "whether they be to speak in Parliament or counsel, honour and attention would be waiting on their lips. There would then also appear in pulpits other visages, other gestures and stuff otherwise wrought, than what we now sit under, ofttimes to as great a trial of our patience as any other that they preach to us." "These," he cries out, "be the studies in which our noble and our gentle youth ought to bestow their time in a disciplinary way from twelve to one and twenty unless they rely more on their ancestors dead than on themselves living."

Milton's University curriculum is, be it noted, a curriculum of Literature, Rhetoric, History, ethical Philosophy, and Law; Science is omitted. The curriculum is Humanistic, but it, the real-Humanistic, that is to say, has regard to the substance of what is studied rather than to the formal and linguistic.