He criticised the schools of his time and sought to make them more practical. Like the earlier Innovators, and in harmony with the spirit that was rapidly growing, he thought that too much time was given to the study of Latin, and urged that science, music, physical culture, and language as a means of acquiring a knowledge of useful things, should receive more attention in the schools. Quick says, "A protest against a purely literary education comes with tremendous force from the student who sacrificed his sight to his reading, the accomplished scholar whose Latin works were known throughout Europe, and the author of 'Paradise Lost.'"[107]
Milton's experience in teaching was confined to a small boarding school, such as those usually resorted to for educating the sons of the better classes in England at that time. For pupils he began with two nephews, to whom were soon added a few other boys. These were sons of Milton's friends, and some of them came as boarders, others as day students. Milton seemed to like the work of teaching, and it was during this period that his "Tractate" was written. He probably taught school in this way for eight or nine years, and then was appointed to a small office under the government, which secured his living. The rest of his life was devoted chiefly to literary work.
=Milton's "Tractate."=--The principal lessons from this educational work are embodied in the following quotation: "The end then of Learning is to repair the ruines of our first Parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, and to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection."[108] This rather cumbersome definition shows how fully Milton was possessed of the Puritan spirit, which then controlled England, and which magnified religious zeal.
Milton's scheme of education may be briefly summed up as follows:--
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.