1. The school premises should consist of a spacious house with large
school grounds, intended for about one hundred and thirty students from
twelve to twenty-one years of age, who should receive their complete
secondary and university education in the same school. This scheme, so
unique in Milton's time, is practically carried out in France and the
United States, where the connection between the lower and higher schools
is direct. In England, the land of its inception, and in Germany, there
is no such direct articulation between the lower and the higher schools.
2. The course of study embraces, first, the Latin grammar, arithmetic,
geometry, religion, and Greek authors to be read in translation; second,
Latin authors, geography, natural philosophy; third, Greek,
trigonometry,--intended to prepare for fortification,--architecture,
engineering, and navigation, anatomy, and medicine.
This course is supposed to be completed at about the age of sixteen. The
harder topics now follow, together with the study of those subjects
intended to teach ethical judgment. Milton says, "As they begin to
acquire character, and to reason on the difference between good and
evil, there will be required a constant and sound indoctrinating to set
them right and firm, instructing them more amply in the knowledge of
virtue and the hatred of vice." Then come Greek authors, Holy Writ,
poetry, and "at any odd hour, the Italian tongue," ethics, and politics.
He is consistent with his definition of education,--"that which fits a
man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices,
both public and private, of peace and war," when he would train men to
be "steadfast pillars of the State." He adds in his course also the
study of law, including Roman edicts and English common law, a knowledge
of Hebrew, and possibly Syrian and Chaldaic.
Nor were physical exercises omitted. Sword exercises, wrestling,
military tactics, riding, etc., were to be daily practiced, each in its
proper time. Finally, the young man, when about twenty-three years of
age, should travel abroad, and thus, when mature enough to comprehend
them, become acquainted with the geography, history, and politics of
other countries. This was to be the final preparation for citizenship
and service of country. Mr. Browning pronounces this a "magnificent and
comprehensive scheme." The most serious criticism of it is, that it
marks out much more than the average young man can accomplish.
LOCKE[109] (1632-1704)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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