But in Latin we have none of classic authority extant, except the two or three first books of Quintilian, and some select pieces elsewhere. Paradise Lost: Book 04. This first-hand approach to learning connects with Milton’s belief that education should inspire as it challenges, “infusing into [students’] young breasts such an ingenuous and noble ardor, as would not fail to make many of them renowned and matchless men.” ” While yet we live, scarce one short hour perhaps, Between us two let there be peace, both joining, As joined in injuries, and enmity Against a foe by doom express assigned us, That cruel serpent.
But here the main skill and groundwork will be, to temper them such lectures and explanations upon every opportunity as may lead and draw them in willing obedience, inflamed with the study of learning, and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men, and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages. “Into this wild Abyss/ The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave--/ Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,/ But all these in their pregnant causes mixed/ Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,/ Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain/ His dark materials to create more worlds,--/ Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend/ Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,/ Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith/ He had to cross. "The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven." “Innocence, Once Lost, Can Never Be Regained.
Milton on Education, the Tractate of Education, Quotes Showing 1-1 of 1 “The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, 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.” “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..” “Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell. arts which enable men to discourse and write perspicuously, elegantly, and according to the fitted style of lofty, mean or lowly Logic therefore so much as is useful, is to be referred to this due place with all her well couched heads and topics, until to be time to open her contracted palm into a graceful and ornate rhetoric taught out of the rule of Plato, Aristotle, Phalereus, Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus. That they may despise and scorn all their childish, and ill-taught qualities, to delight in manly, and liberal exercises: which he who hath the art, and proper eloquence to catch them with, what with mild and effectual persuasions, and what with the intimation of some fear, if need be, but chiefly by his own example, might in a short space gain them to an incredible diligence and courage: infusing into their young breasts such an ingenuous and noble ardor, as would not fail to make many of them renowned and matchless men. - John Milton Milton’s chief polemical prose was written in the decades of the 1640s and 1650s, during the strife between... .