Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Bulletin of Randolph-Macon Woman's College: Milton's Views on Education, Their Present Significance and Value; Volume IV, July-September, 1917; Volume V, October-December, 1917
To Master Samuel Hartlib, a German gentleman of Polish extraction who resided in England during the Revolution, the people of his adopted land were deeply indebted, not only for his efforts to advance piety, learning and morality in the schools, but also for his practical contributions in the field of agricul tural and industrial reform. His friendship was sought after and appreciated by some of the most illustrious of his contem poraries, both at home and abroad, and it was due to him that the writings of the Moravian reformer Comenius were intro duced into England. The variety of his interests and the gen erosity of his nature, the latter illustrated by the liberality of his gifts to the poor scholars of the day, which sometimes re duced him to actual want, would have saved his name from oh livion, but later generations have cherished his memory mainly because it was thru his in?uence that John Milton in 1644 was persuaded'to write out his views on education which, published in the same year as the Areopagitica, might very well serve as a sort of preface to the better-known essay. Thru them both runs the same compelling purpose. The tractate on education of hardly a dozen pages expresses no less than his splendid Speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing, his unswerving faith in the efficacy of free thought and free speech. In them both he pleads for the liberty to know, to utter and to argue freely according to conscience. In them both he makes freedom based upon willing obedience to the moral law the undergirding prin ciple of individual rectitude and national integrity.
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