he
fruit of an impulse from without. "Though it be one of the greatest and
noblest designs that can be thought on, and for want of which this
nation perishes, I had not at this time been induced but by your earnest
entreaties and serious conjurements." The efficient cause thus referred
to existed in the person of Samuel Hartlib, philanthropist and
polypragmatist, precursor of the Franklins and Rumfords of the
succeeding century. The son of a Polish exile of German extraction,
Hartlib had settled in England about 1627. He found the country
behindhand both economically and socially, and with benign fervour
applied himself to its regeneration. Agriculture was his principal
hobby, and he effected much towards its improvement in England, rather
however by editing the unpublished treatises of Weston and Child than by
any direct contributions of his own. Next among the undertakings to
which he devoted himself were two of no less moment than the union of
British and foreign Protestants, and the reform of English education by
the introduction of the methods of Comenius. This Moravian pastor, the
Pestalozzi of his age, had first of men grasped the idea that the
ordinary school methods were better adapted to instil a knowledge of
words than a knowledge of things. He was, in a word, the inventor of
object lessons. He also strove to organize education as a connected
whole from the infant school to the last touch of polish from foreign
travel. Milton alludes almost scornfully to Comenius in his preface to
Hartlib, but his tract is nevertheless imbued with the Moravian's
principles. His aim, like Comenius's, is to provide for the instruction
of all, "before the years of puberty, in all things belonging to the
present and future life." His view is as strictly utilitarian as
Comenius's. "Language is but the instrument conveying to us things
useful to be known." Of the study of language as intellectual discipline
he says nothing, and his whole course of instruction is governed by the
desire of imparting useful knowledge. Whatever we may think of the
system of teaching which in our day allows a youth to leave school
disgracefully ignorant of physical and political geography, of history
and foreign languages, it cannot be denied that Milton goes into the
opposite extreme, and would overload the young mind with more
information than it could possibly digest. His scheme is further
vitiated by a fault which we should not have looked for in him