7. Let everything that is useless be eliminated from teaching.
8. Learn to do by doing.
9. Each language should be learned separately, have a definite time assigned to it, be learned by use rather than precept,—that is, the practice in learning should be with familiar things,—and all tongues should be learned by one and the same method.
10. The example of well-ordered life of parents, nurses, teachers, and schoolfellows is very important for children; but precepts and rules of life must be added to example.
11. As knowledge of God is the highest of all knowledge, the Holy Scriptures must be the alpha and omega of the Christian schools.
Comenius gives explicit directions as to methods of instruction, class management, discipline, courses of study, including a discussion of each branch, and moral and religious teaching. He presents these directions in the most remarkable and complete series of precepts and principles to be found in educational literature.[106]
MILTON (1608-1674)
John Milton was "the most notable man who ever kept school or published a schoolbook." While his fame rests on "Paradise Lost" and other great literary works, he deserves a place among educators for his "Tractate on Education," and for his sympathy with educational reform. He anticipated Herbert Spencer's celebrated definition,—"To prepare us for complete living is the function which education has to discharge,"—in the following words: "I call, therefore, a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war."
He criticised the schools of his time and sought to make them more practical. Like the earlier Innovators, and in harmony with the spirit that was rapidly growing, he thought that too much time was given to the study of Latin, and urged that science, music, physical culture, and language as a means of acquiring a knowledge of useful things, should receive more attention in the schools. Quick says, "A protest against a purely literary education comes with tremendous force from the student who sacrificed his sight to his reading, the accomplished scholar whose Latin works were known throughout Europe, and the author of 'Paradise Lost.'"[107]
Milton's experience in teaching was confined to a small boarding school, such as those usually resorted to for educating the sons of the better classes in England at that time. For pupils he began with two nephews, to whom were soon added a few other boys. These were sons of Milton's friends, and some of them came as boarders, others as day students. Milton seemed to like the work of teaching, and it was during this period that his "Tractate" was written. He probably taught school in this way for eight or nine years, and then was appointed to a small office under the government, which secured his living. The rest of his life was devoted chiefly to literary work.