The American Journal of Education (Volume 2) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: V. MILTON ON EDUCATION. To make this Journal the repository of the History and Literature of the great subject to which it is exclusively devoted, we shall enrich our pages from time to time with some of the most valuable contributions which have been made in past years by eminent scholars and educators, either in independent treatises, or occasional suggestions, for the improvement of systems, institutions or methods of education. With this view, and because of its large scope and generous spirit, and not because its details are of immediate use, we republish the Tractate of John Milton, the most resplendent name for genius and culture, in prose and poetry, in English literature, on the reforming of education, which he deemed " one of the greatest and noblest designs that can be thought on "?" the only genuine source of political and individual liberty, the only true safeguard of states, the bulwark of their prosperity and renown." The design of this essay?first published amid the revolutionary upbreak of English society, in the year 1644?was not to unfold a scheme of general education, necessarily limited and superficial in its course of study, but to map out the vast domain of literature and science, which pupils of ample leisure and fortune, and of the highest industry, and emulative ardor, with teachers of the best learning and genius, could successfully traverse and master. Its aim was far beyond anything attained at that day by the university scholars of England, and its details anticipates reforms in the direction of practical science, which after the lapse of two hundred years, are now likely to be generally introduced into the educational schemes of that country. Its diligent perusal can not but inflame any ingenuous mind " with a love of study and the admiration of v...