ly at home on the main ideas and the leading propositions of
Geometry, he is safe in dipping into other manuals, in comparing the
differences of treatment, and in widening his knowledge by additional
theorems, and by various modes of demonstration.

In principle, the maxim is generally allowed. Nevertheless, it is often
departed from in practice. This happens in several ways.

[MILTON'S PLAN WITH HIS PUPILS.]

[KEEPING TO A SINGLE LINE OF THOUGHT.]

One way is exemplified in Milton's Tractate, already referred to. His
method of teaching any subject would appear to have been to take, the
received authors, and to read them one after another, probably according
to date; the reading pace, and degree of concentration, being apparently
equal all through. His six authors on Rhetoric were--Plato (select
Dialogues, of course), Aristotle, Phalereus, Cicero, Hermogenes,
Longinus. To read their several treatises through in the order named,
with equal attention, would undoubtedly leave in the mind a good many
thoughts on Rhetoric, but in a somewhat chaotic state. Much better would
it have been to have adopted a Text-book-in-chief, the choice lying
between Aristotle and Ouintilian (who comes in at a prior stage of the
Miltonic curriculum). The book so chosen would be read, and re-read; or
rather each chapter would be gone over several times, with appropriate
testing exercises and examinations. The other works might then be
overtaken and compared with the principal text-book; the judgment of
the pupil being so far matured, as to see what in them was already
superseded, and what might be adopted as additions to his already
acquired stock of ideas. Milton's views of education embraced the useful
to a remarkable degree; he was no pamperer of imagination and the
ornamental. His list of subjects might be said to be utility run
wild:--comprising the chief parts of Mathematics, together with
Engineering, Navigation, Architecture, and Fortification; Natural
Philosophy; Natural History; Anatomy, and Practice of Physic; Ethics,
Politics, Economics, Jurisprudence, Theology; a full course of the
Orators and Poets; Logic, Rhetoric, and Poetics. He tumbles out a whole
library of reading: but only in Ethics, does he indicate a leading or
preferential work; the half-dozen of classical books on the subject are
to be perused, "under the determinate sentence" of the scripture
authorities. With all this voracity for the useful, Milton had no
concepti