GYMNASTIC.

"I call a complete and generous education," he says, "that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices both private and public, of peace and war." The course of discipline which he has as yet sketched out, however, would prepare only for the offices of peace; and he accordingly now proceeds to deal with gymnastic-" the exercises and recreations" that best agree and become these studies. The day should be divided into three parts devoted respectively to studies, exercise and diet.

An hour and a half before they eat at noon is to be allowed the youths for exercise and due rest afterwards; the time for this being extended according as they rise early. Their exercises should be fencing and wrestling "to keep them healthy, nimble and strong and well in breath." "It is also the likeliest means to make them grow large and tall and to inspire them with a gallant and fearless courage”; which he adds "being tempered with seasonable lectures and precepts to them of true Fortitude and Patience will turn into a native and heroick valour and make them hate the cowardise of doing wrong."

With gymnastic should be combined military exercises. "About two hours before supper, they are by a sudden alarum or watch word, to be call'd out to their military motions, under skie or covert, according to the season, as was the Roman wont first on foot, then as their age permits, on Horseback, to all the Art of Cavalry; That having in sport, but with much exactness, and daily muster, serv'd out the rudiments of their Souldiership in all the skill of Embattelling, Marching, Encamping, Fortifying, Besieging and Battering, with all the helps of ancient and modern stratagems, Tacticks and warlike maxims, they may as it were out of a long War come forth renowned and perfect Commanders in the service of their Country."

In this way the "Institution of Breeding" " which he "delineates" shall "be equally good both for Peace and War."

As to relaxation from study and recreation, he would, after the grounds have been well laid in the first two or three years, give a holiday in Spring. He says beautifully, "In those vernal seasons of the year when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake of her rejoycing with Heaven and Earth." But even this holiday he would turn to educative uses. He would have the youths ride out in companies under proper superintendence, to all quarters of the land, learning all places of strength and studying the places most suitable for harbours, ports and industries. Sometimes he would have them take to sea, and visit the navy to learn there something of naval tactics. "These ways would try all their peculiar gifts of nature, and if there were any secret excellence among them would fetch it out and give it fair opportunities to advance itself by, which could not but mightily redound to the good of this nation and bring into fashion again those old admired vertues and excellencies, with far more advantage now in this purity of Christian Knowledge."

MORAL, RELIGIOUS AND AESTHETIC TRAINING.

The moral instruction should be direct as well as indirect. In addition to the study of Scripture prosecuted chiefly in the evening, Cebes' and Plutarch in Greek and Quintilian in Latin should be studied in connexion with this reading; but here "the main skill and groundwork will be to temper them such

1 Tabula (a board-hence picture) Cebetis: a philosophical explanation of a picture (said to be hung in the Temple of Cronus in Athens or Thebes) symbolically representing human life, written by Cebes (?), a pupil of Sokrates, very popular in ancient times. Sometimes it has been bound up with the Enchiridion of Epictetus.

lectures and explanations upon every opportunity as may lead and draw them in willing obedience, enflamed with the study of Learning and admiration of Vertue; stirr'd up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy Patriots, dear to God and famous to all ages......infusing into their young breasts such an ingenious and noble ardor as would not fail to make many of them renowned and matchless men."

Chiefly, however, the example of their master was to influence them.

At a more advanced stage when they have been prepared by "years and good general precepts" they will require "a special reinforcement of constant and sound endoctrinating to set them right and firm, instructing them more amply in the knowledge of Vertue and the hatred of Vice": "Their young and pliant affections" should with this view be led through all the moral works of Plato and Xenophon, Cicero, Plutarch etc., they will thus be perfected in the "knowledge of personal duty" and thereafter proceed to the study of Economics. Each day's work is to be closed with the study of the Bible.

Aesthetic. Milton attaches importance to music as an educational agency, but he would teach it as a relief from other studies and from gymnastic. "The interim," he says, "of unsweating themselves regularly, and convenient rest before meat may both with profit and delight be taken up in recreating and composing their travail'd spirits with the solemn and divine harmonies of Musick heard or learnt; either while the skilful Organist plies his grave and fancied descant, in lofty fugues, or the whole Symphony with artful and unimaginable touches adorn and grace the well studied chords of some choice Composer, sometimes the Lute, or soft Organ stop waiting on elegant Voices either to Religious, martial, or civil Ditties; which if wise men and Prophets be not extreamly out, have a great power over dispositions and manners, to smooth and make them gentle from rustick harshness and distemper'd passions. The like also would not be unexpedient

after Meat to assist and cherish Nature in her first concoction, and send their minds back to study in good tune and satisfaction."

Of Discipline in the vulgar school sense Milton says little. He believes evidently that the course of daily life which he delineates will be so attractive to boys as to make this superfluous: for, speaking of his own scheme he says, "I will strait conduct ye to a hill side, where I will point ye out the right path of a vertuous and noble Education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect, and melodious sounds on every side, that the Harp of Orpheus was not more charming. I doubt not but ye shall have more adoe to drive our dullest and laziest youth, our stocks and stubbs, from the infinite desire of such a happy nurture, then we have now to hale and drag our choicest and hopefullest Wits to that asinine feast of sowthistles and brambles which is commonly set before them, as all the food and entertainment of their tenderest and most docible age."

Elsewhere he suggests, but only in a remote and incidental way, coercion; for if "mild and effectual perswasions" and the teacher's own example fail to gain them (as he thinks they will) to an "incredible diligence," there may be "an intimation of some fear, if need be." One would like to know what Milton's own practice as a teacher was. We can imagine that sheer stupidity would not so much irritate him as make him indignant. If he vented his indignation in words the poor boy would be in a pitiable plight under the torrent of vigorous vituperation of which Milton was a master. It is not a violent supposition that a lexicon might sometimes hurtle through the air-the objective point being some crass skull. In any case we may be sure that the schoolroom 'scene' would be enacted after the grand manner of the demigods and would, doubtless, have its educative uses.

As to travel; Milton would postpone this till the youths were three or four and twenty. They would then go, “not to learn principles but to enlarge experience and make wise observation"; and, as being already cultivated men, they would be well received by foreigners of eminence.

School Buildings and Apparatus. To carry out his scheme of Education Milton proposes that a "spacious house and ground around it fit for an Academy and big enough to lodge 150 persons" should be secured and placed under the government of one Head. This place should be at once school and University, "not making a remove to any other House of Scholarship" except in the case of those who desired to continue their studies in the specific faculties of Law and Physic with a view to being practitioners. Several such institutions ought to be founded throughout the country.

The reader of the Tractate will notice that every recommendation made by Milton is accompanied with a fierce, but wonderfully eloquent, attack on the then existing school practice, or on the melancholy results of that defective practice in every department-Social Life, Letters, Preaching, Politics, Administration and the Military Art. There is much in these passages that recalls Carlyle. Some of them I have already quoted and I shall here conclude my exposition with his invective on Universities-" And for the usual method of teaching Arts, I deem it to be an old errour of Universities not yet well recover'd from the Scholastick grossness of barbarous ages, that in stead of beginning with Arts most easie, and those be such as are most obvious to the sence, they present their young unmatriculated Novices at first coming with the most intellective abstractions of Logick and Metaphysicks; So that they having but newly left those Grammatick flats and shallows where they stuck unreasonably to learn a few words with lamentable construction, and now on the sudden transported