Education

Abstract

In the preceding chapter it was determined that Milton wrote for two types of audience. The elitism which is implicit in his historical thought is quite explicit in his tractate Of Education. The true nature of Milton’s thought is reflected in this brief and succinct tract. Education can be said to serve the same twofold purpose as history. However, as in the story-telling aspects of history, Milton was purposely elliptical in the secondary nature of education. While history served a functional purpose with respect to the unlearned by suggesting a mode of behaviour, education concerned itself only with those who possessed the potential to achieve a proper degree of virtue and grace. Its secondary characteristics were only implied. Of Education is typical of all his works in general; it was addressed to a select few. His opening remark in the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce was typical of this:

I seek not to seduce the simple and illiterate; my errand is to find out the choicest and leamedst, who have this high gift of wisdom to answer solidly, or to be convinced.¹

Milton, as a political writer, deemed all experience in life as a didactic part of civil deportment. Obviously, when he went seeking precedents for his thought he reverted to the classical authors whose authority was not in doubt. This type of academic stare decisis led Milton to a typically classical ethical conclusion; pleasure is not an end in itself but only a subordinate part of a greater whole, the common good. All of his writings in some respect reflect this trend. His pamphlets and parliamentary tracts all have one common end, praise of the commonwealth. But since the state was only as virtuous as its members, Milton directed his protean literary abilities at the nurture of these ideals. The tract on education is central to this and basic to all of his other political writings.