Sanctification in Milton's Academy: Reassessing the Purposes in "Of Education" and the

Pedagogy of "Paradise Lost"

Author(s): Stephen J. Schuler
Source: Milton Quarterly , MARCH 2009, Vol. 43, No. 1 (MARCH 2009), pp. 39-56
Published by: Wiley

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Milton Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 1, 2009

Sanctification in Milton's Academy:

Reassessing the Purposes in Of Education and the
Pedagogy of Paradise Lost

Stephen J. Schuler

By the time John Milton published Of Education in 1644, many educational

theorists had already suggested varying goals for education,1 but few had suggested
such an explicitly theological purpose. Early in the tract, Milton states "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 neerest by possessing our souls of true vertue, which being united to
the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection" (2: 366-67). Educa
tion's central purpose is the reapprehension of the knowledge of God, which was
lost through the Fall. However, after discussing second-language acquisition, Milton
announces another, quite different, purpose: "I call therefore a compleate and
generous Education that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnani
mously all the offices both private and publike of peace and war" (2: 377-79).
Milton's two stated purposes have generated a wide variety of explanations over
the years. Some readers have argued his theological purpose is ancillary to his civil
purpose, while others view the two purpose statements as fundamentally incompat
ible. As early as 1922, Murray Bundy described Milton's spiritual purpose as
postlapsarian and his civic purpose as prelapsarian, thus making the two goals
impossible to achieve at the same time (128-29). In 1944 Tyrus Hillway argued
Milton's spiritual purpose was the means by which to achieve his civic purpose
(377). A decade later, M. G. Mason contended that " 'to know God aright' is the
spiritual call, which, in an interesting passage reminiscent of Plato, [Milton] then
translated into more concrete terms. One way to Godliness was, he stated, through an
education 'which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the
offices both private and publike of peace and war'" (214; emphasis added). Mason
believed, as would others later, that Of Education sees spiritual development as a result
of intellectual development. In contrast, John E Huntley argued in 1964 that Milton's
spiritual purpose, unlike his civic goal, is not achievable through education (45).
More recently, Martin Dzelzainis's brief discussion of Milton's theory of education
does not even mention the first statement of purpose, but skips directly to the
second, claiming that Of Education "begins with a grandiloquent statement of his
ideal," one that appears almost a third of the way through the text. In another recent
assessment, Gauri Viswanathan asserts a fundamental conflict between the two and
privileges the civic over the spiritual purpose: "Having decided that the object of
education was to make good citizens of the state, Milton put his intellectual weight
behind national consolidation rather than individual salvation" (348, 351).
Still other critics have seen Milton's two purpose statements as complemen
tary. In 1928 Oliver M. Ainsworth pointed out that "some persons have been
39
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40 Stephen J. Schuler
confused by Milton's twofold definition of education, supposing its two parts to be
unrelated or even inconsistent" (15). But,

these aims, combining as they do the classical spirit with the Chris
tian, are of the essence of humanistic educational doctrine. They
look, indeed, respectively to the inner and the outer aspects of the
same individual, normally developed. Milton, like other genuine
humanists, cared little for virtue apart from practice, or for talent
without principle. (15)2

Likewise, in 1951 George Sabine maintained that the two purposes are
complementary:

The end of education is defined as equally "to know God aright"

and to fit men "to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously" all
the duties of public and private life; the essence of Milton's thought
lay in the presumptions that these purposes are identical. Hence
education must be comprehensive, addressed to the physical, intel
lectual, aesthetic, moral, and religious faculties, (vii)

While Sabine did not elaborate on the relationship between the two statements,
Michael Lieb, in a 1985 essay, developed a detailed argument in which he showed
that bodily fitness and the practice of virtue—the moral "fitness" necessary to lead
a household or a nation—are inextricably linked to repairing the ruins ol the Fall:
"Implicit in this postlapsarian view is a process of transformation by which ruins
are repaired and knowledge regained as the soul, possessed of true virtue and
heavenly grace, achieves a fully spiritualized form" (247). For Lieb, as for Ainsworth
and Sabine, Milton's two statements of purpose are complementary. Most recently,
Margaret Olofson Thickstun has argued that Milton's educational philosophy, as
articulated in Paradise Lost, has what she calls "moral adulthood" as its aim, although
she does rely on the implicit assumption that Milton's ultimate pedagogical pur
pose is " 'to repair the ruins of our first parents' " (2).
While some critics see Milton's two purpose statements as unrelated or even
antithetical, I follow Ainsworth, Sabine, Lieb, and Thickstun in arguing that
Milton's first, theological statement of purpose is indeed his ultimate purpose of
education, and I argue further that his second, civic statement of purpose is an
observable consequence of the fulfillment of that initial spiritual goal. Because
many critics have misunderstood this sequential relationship, they have tended to
misapply the principles and curriculum in Of Education to Paradise Lost. Actually, the
two works help to elucidate each other, Of Education setting out the goals that drive
the teaching scenes in Paradise Lost, and Paradise Lost providing working examples
of Milton's educational plan as outlined in the brief prose tract.

The General Goal and the Observable Objective

Milton's statements of purpose are very similar to a standard lesson plan

format used by many professional teachers today. A typical lesson plan uses two
purpose statements, one concerned with a general goal, the other with a concrete
objective. The goal states what the student is to know or understand when the

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 Milton Quarterly 41
lesson is finished, and aims for a change in the student's thinking, feeling,
or knowledge. The objective, on the other hand, states what observable action
the student will perform in order to demonstrate that the goal has been met.
Robert F. Mager, an educational theorist who popularized the use of objectives
in curriculum development, defines an objective as "a description of a pattern of
behavior (performance) we want the learner to be able to demonstrate" (3).3 The
objective provides criteria with which the teacher can evaluate student behavior in
order to determine whether goals have been met. Therefore, a good lesson plan
states both what students should know and what they should be able to do after the
lesson. Two purpose statements, a goal and an objective, must be listed because the
fulfillment of a goal, unlike the fulfillment of an objective, is not directly observable
or measurable.4 This is something like what Milton is doing when he proposes two
distinct purposes for education. Milton states a goal, knowing God; he also states an
objective, producing competent leaders for the home and the state. The objective
of becoming a competent leader is observable evidence that a student has met the
goal of knowing God.
In fact, the language in which Milton originally casts each purpose statement
suggests such a relationship between the two. In the spiritual goal, Milton explicitly
uses the language of ultimate purpose when he refers to "The end then of
learning" (2: 366). Then, when he states his practical objective, he uses not the
language of ultimate purpose but of consequence and effect: "I call therefore a
compleate and generous Education that which . . . , suggesting that the fitting of
men for public office has resulted from meeting the spiritual goal (377-78; emphasis
added). Thus, Milton believes education facilitates the accomplishment of both
spirituals goals and practical objectives. Today's teachers are often encouraged to
combine their goal and objective in a single sentence, and a similar single-sentence
purpose statement for Milton's Of Education can easily be constructed: students will
regain correct knowledge of God, so that they will perform justly, skillfully, and
magnanimously all the private and public offices of peace and war. Thus, I will refer
to Milton's first stated purpose, "to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining
to know God aright," as his spiritual goal, and I will refer to the second stated
purpose, "that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all
the offices both private and publike of peace and war," as his practical objective.
While it would certainly be anachronistic to project contemporary educational
practice on Milton's work, the comparison is useful because it provides a familiar,
modern example of an educational procedure that uses two connected purpose
statements.5 If a modern lesson plan can use two distinct but interrelated purpose
statements, the fact that Milton's work also has two purpose statements should not
automatically lead to the assumption that the two statements are incompatible or
antithetical.
The difference between a goal and an objective is complicated by the fact that
while the goal is the primary purpose of any educational program, the objective is
achieved after the goal has been obtained so there is always the possibility that the
objective will be taken to be more important than the goal. This is the mistake that
Tyrus Hillway makes when he constructs this single-sentence purpose statement
for Milton's work: "In order to fit a man for the performance justly, skilfully,
and magnanimously of all the offices both private and public of peace and war,
education must help him to repair the ruins of our first parents by teaching him to
know God aright. . ." (377; emphasis added). Hillway makes Milton's spiritual goal

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42 Stephen J. Schuler
a means to achieve his practical objective, suggesting that educators must repair the
ruins of the Fall for the purpose of fitting a person for public service. Hillway
makes the same mistake that many teachers today make of "teaching to the test,"
thinking that fulfilling the behavioral objective is the one true aim of the educa
tional process and forgetting that the real educational goal is knowledge, under
standing, and character formation, not specific behavioral outcomes. Part of this
confusion comes from thinking that reaching an educational goal insures the
achievement of an educational objective, a sequence Milton does not have in mind.
For him, obtaining an objective is tangible evidence that the more important
goal has been met. To put it another way: the fact that a student becomes fit for
public office is evidence that the student is learning to know God rightly, but the
knowledge of God is not a mere means to being fit for public service.
It may strike a reader as odd that, while Milton's stated goal is spiritual
formation, the program outlined in Of Education does not seem to emphasize
spiritual studies. Indeed, G. F. Sensabaugh observes that the tract "dismisses religious
studies chiefly to times after the evening repast and to Sundays, when the mind is
ripe for moral instruction, and is devoted almost entirely to describing the materials
and methods by which gentlemen's sons might secure a 'compleat and generous
Education'" (263). Indeed, a cursory survey of Milton's curriculum reveals less
study of Scriptures and theology than his spiritual goal might suggest it should.
Early on in the curriculum, students study subjects such as arithmetic and geometry
during the day, but "After evening repast, till bed time their thoughts will be best
taken up in the easie grounds of Religion, and the story of Scripture," specifically
studying the ethical principles to be found in "David, or Salomon, or the Evangels
and Apostolic scriptures" (2: 387, 397). Religious studies, at least at first, are
relegated to collateral reading; the study of classical literature and natural sciences
apparently receives the students' freshest attention in the morning. When Milton
next mentions religious studies, the students have progressed from hard sciences to
ethics and political science, and at this point, he recommends that they study "law,
and legal justice; delivered first, and with best warrant by Moses; and as farre as
humane prudence can be trusted, in those extoll'd remains of Grecian Law
givers . . ." (398). Students should study the Torah as a divinely-inspired legal code
and compare it to the less-perfect classical legal writers. For the most part, the study
of Scriptures and theology occurs on weekends and evenings: "Sundayes also and
every evening may be now understandingly spent in the highest matters of
Theology, and Church History, ancient and modern" (399-400). These passages are
essentially the only explicit mention of strictly religious studies in a curriculum
supposedly driven by the goal of knowing God.
It seems strange that such a spiritually minded goal would produce a curricu
lum that appears to push explicitly religious studies to the margins of the program.
Sensabaugh concludes that "Milton apparently had not, in 1644, thought through
the implications of repairing the ruins of our first parents" (262) and proceeds to
argue that Milton must have undergone a radical change of mind between the
1640s and the 1670s, since Of Education, published in 1644, proposes a liberal arts
education grounded in the classics, while Milton's later poetry, especially Paradise
Lost and Paradise Regained, includes stern warnings against the dangers of speculative
science and classical learning. By overlooking the fact that Milton republished Of
Education in 1673, Sensabaugh leaves himself vulnerable to Irene Samuel's thorough
refutation of his argument. Samuel analyzes the rhetorical context of each passage

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 Milton Quarterly 43
from Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained that he cites, showing that in each instance,
Milton is merely warning against pursuing knowledge as its own end (722). Milton
had always valued education, but only insofar as it produced virtuous people who
behaved ethically (713-15). Thickstun has recently confirmed Samuel's position:

For Milton, the purpose of language study—of all education—is a

knowledge that embraces and fosters greater appreciation of God
and the Creation. Although the tone of the pronouncements may
modulate in light of the audience and context of their utterances, his
position doesn't change much from his exhortation in the seventh
Prolusion to Raphael's advice in Paradise Lost. ... (110)

Education for Milton was always a purely instrumental good, never something to
be sought for its own sake, but only for the sake of becoming a virtuous and
knowledgeable Christian.
Milton's spiritual goal does suggest that religious studies should be a priority
in his academy, and if Of Education appears to marginalize religious subjects, in
reality the curriculum prioritizes them. First, if students spend most nights and
weekends studying the Bible and theology they will spend almost as much time
studying specifically religious matters as they will spend studying all other subjects
combined. Furthermore, it is anachronistic to presume a clear distinction between
religious and secular course materials in Milton's proposed school. If Milton
believes that his entire curriculum is designed to ultimately fulfill a spiritual goal,
he probably assumes that studying things other than Scriptures and theology will
help students attain that goal. Viswanathan claims that in connecting the study of
the natural world with spiritual formation," [Milton] makes the inexplicable leap of
arguing that mastering these subjects better equips one to contemplate moral good
and evil" (2: 358). But Milton's connection is neither a leap nor inexplicable. For
Milton, not only the Bible, but natural science, mathematics, classical literature,
political philosophy, and rhetoric can lead to "possessing our souls of true vertue"
by teaching truth. Just after he states his spiritual goal for education, Milton says
that "because our understanding cannot in this body found it selfe but on sensible
things, nor arrive so clearly to the knowledge of God and things invisible, as by
orderly conning over the visible and inferior creature, the same method is necessary
to be follow'd in all discreet teaching" (367-69). Thus, a student learns to know
God not just from studying Scriptures and theology, but from studying the physical
world of sensate objects.6 There is no strict division between "secular" and "sacred"
knowledge; in education the most important difference is between what is true and
what is false. Milton relies implicitly on St. Augustine's maxim that "every good and
true Christian should understand that wherever he may find truth, it is his Lord's"
(2.28). If all truth belongs to God, then increasing one's knowledge of any truth,
whether of concrete objects or of ethical principles, will increase one's knowledge
of God.'
Flowever well this process works in theory, putting it into practice involves
certain logistical difficulties. Students might very well increase personal knowledge
of God and thus begin to repair the ruins of the Fall, but it is difficult to
demonstrate that this goal is being achieved in every person in a student body of
130 young men. The problem inherent in any educational goal, and in Milton's
spiritual goal especially, is the difficulty of empirically verifying its fulfillment. An

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44 Stephen J. Schuler
algebra teacher can devise a test to measure how much algebra students have
learned, but it is much harder to measure the extent to which students are
"[repairing] the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright." The
fulfillment of such a goal can be measured only indirectly by observing how the
students eventually perform at a concrete task, in this case the effective execution
of public offices or estate management. Thus, if Milton's graduates fulfill the duties
of certain offices justly, skillfully, and magnanimously, that is evidence, though not
entirely conclusive evidence, that they have also progressed in their knowledge of
God, just as students' passing of an algebra exam is evidence, though not conclusive
evidence, that they have met the course goal of learning algebra. Apart from
students' behavior in the physical world, there is no way for someone else to tell
what those students know or have learned. As Ainsworth argues, Milton's spiritual
goal and practical objective "look, indeed, respectively to the inner and the outer
aspects of the same individual, normally developed" (15). Thus Milton must rely on
the observable outcome, the practical objective of good public service, to demon
strate that his students are meeting his spiritual goal. As Milton himself points out,
"our understanding cannot in this body found it selfe but on sensible things" (2:
367-68). This principle is true for both the student and the teacher; the student
learns only through experience, and the teacher also knows only through experi
ence that the student has learned.
Another potential source of confusion in relating Milton's spiritual goal to his
practical objective is the different sequence of events in the formation of an
individual student and the formation of the state. As the individual achieves
Milton's spiritual goal, he also begins to reach the practical objective as a conse
quence, and while the spiritual cause retains its primary importance, only the
practical effect is observable. However, the state develops by a different process.
Once Milton's students have met their practical objective and become leaders in a
just state, the process would almost reverse itself. Their having met the practical
objective should create a political environment that is conducive to other people
attaining the spiritual goal because Milton's students-turned-leaders will be cham
pions of justice and intellectual liberty. This ideal is articulated in Areopagitica, in
which Milton commends the English Parliament for providing greater intellectual
freedom than have other European states, freedom he wishes to preserve:

it is the liberty, Lords and Commons, which your own valorous and
happy counsels have purchast us, liberty which is the nurse of all
great wits; this is that which hath rarify'd and enlightn'd our spirits
like the influence of heav'n; this is that which hath enfranchis'd,
enlarg'd and lifted up our apprehensions degrees above themselves.
(3: 559)

Later he exclaims, "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely
according to conscience, above all liberties" (3: 560). For Milton, then, part of the
purpose of the state is to provide a safe haven for intellectual liberties, the exercise
of which may gain a person greater knowledge of God, "and out of that knowledge
to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the neerest by possessing
our souls of true vertue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith
makes up the highest perfection" (Of Education 2: 367). Thus, the fulfillment
of Milton's practical objective in individual students leads to a political state that

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 Milton Quarterly 45
encourages the fulfillment of his spiritual goal in other people. The process is ideally
cyclical. A student learns to know God, which fits him for public service. As a
public servant, he encourages intellectual liberty, which leads other people to learn
to know God better. Perhaps these people also become fit for public service, and
the cycle continues. But as the cycle turns, it can become difficult to remember
which part of the cycle is the real goal for education. That is why Milton insists
early in Of Education that the true end of education is learning to know God
aright.
The project of relating Milton's spiritual goal to his practical objective might
be easier if we took neither the goal nor the objective as Milton's thesis in Of
Education, but rather looked for his main idea in his first sentence: "I am
long since perswaded, that to say, or doe ought worth memory, and imitation, no
purpose or respect should sooner move us, then simply the love of God, and of
mankinde" (2: 362). The utterance bears some resemblance to a modern mission
statement, in which an institution briefly articulates in the broadest possible terms
its purpose for existing. Milton's mission statement locates his goal and objective in
a sentiment that lies at the heart of Christianity. To know God is to learn to love
God, which fulfills the greatest commandment, and to act responsibly as a public
officer or a domestic leader is to love one's neighbor, which fulfills the second
greatest commandment (see Matt. 22.36-40). These two loves, first of God and
secondly of one's neighbor, unite in a comparable way Milton's spiritual goal
and practical objective. Loving God is the most important thing a person can do,
and that love of God produces love of neighbor, a love that remains inferior to the
love of God, although it is often the more visible of the two. Similarly, education's
most important goal is to learn to know God, and while that knowledge produces
effective leaders, the political product remains inferior to the ultimate, spiritual
purpose of education—to know God, to repair the ruins of the Fall, and to sanctify
the student in the process. Such inextricable unity becomes apparent only when we
distinguish between sequence and priority.

Of Education and Paradise Lost

Two important implications follow from reassessing the relationship between

Milton's two statements of purpose. The first is that both the goal and the objective
refer to the Christian doctrine of sanctification, the lifelong process by which the
Christian learns to live virtuously. Given Milton's vocabulary of "repairing the
ruins" caused by the Fall, it is tempting to view his educational goal as describing
the Christian doctrine of justification, the instantaneous forgiveness of sins and
reconciliation with God that result from a person's reception of God's grace by
faith. It would then be easy to assume that Milton believed education to be a
necessary prerequisite to salvation. Such a reading has led Thomas Corns to suggest
that salvation "is not to be available to men without property or to women of any
class, for Milton's academy, in this event, is a masculine institution . . ." (62-63). If
Milton's educational goal concerns justification, then Corns would have reason to
doubt whether Milton believes salvation is possible for the uneducated. But his
reading fails to recognize that Milton's general goal and practical objective involve

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46 Stephen J. Schuler
different aspects of sanctification, and he gives priority to Milton's "repair the
ruins" over phrases such as "regaining to know God aright," "possessing our souls
of true vertue," and "highest perfection." All suggest that Milton is describing the
long process of sanctification rather than the instantaneous moment of justification.
While Milton's syntax does emphasize the phrase "repair the ruins," if isolated from
its context in the rest of the sentence, its relationship to sanctification is missed.
Actually, the phrase "repair the ruins" has little to do with justification for the
ruin of paradise in the Fall is not restored by it. Paradise Lost, for example,
prominently features educational situations in which humans are instructed in
virtuous living, and as Phillip Donnelly has argued, such situations indicate how
paradise can be regained through the process of sanctification. For example, Adam
and Eve are justified by their repentance and faith at the end of Book 10 when
they exhibit "sorrow unfeign'd, and humiliation meek" (1104) so that Michael can
tell Adam at the end of Book 12 that he can "possess / A paradise within . . ."
(586-87), a process accomplished by sanctification (Donnelly 180). Had the ruins of
the Fall been repaired by Adam's justification, Michael would speak of the posses
sion of a paradise within as a past event, not as a future possibility. This regaining
of paradise within, moreover, is the result of Christ's victory over temptation in
Milton's brief epic: "Thus, if the spiritual 'Eden' that Christ establishes in Paradise
Regained is comparable to the 'paradise within' of the earlier epic, then the 'Paradise'
that is restored by Christ in the brief epic is the authentic practice of charity
(sanctification) rather than the forgiveness of sins (justification) per se" (Donnelly
184). Paradise Regained is an example of a "reparation of the ruins" through
sanctification, as Of Education describes it. In the tract, Milton assumes that his
students are Christians who have already been justified, but as for all Christians,
Milton's students need to undergo a lifelong process of sanctification as they learn
to live a life of faith and virtue. According to Ephesians 4.8-9, a favorite passage of
the Reformation, justification is accomplished by grace through faith and cannot
be accomplished by works. Thus, education cannot produce justification, though a
good education will contribute to the process of sanctification.
Uniting Milton's educational goal and objective also implies a corresponding
unity among the principal educational scenes in Paradise Lost. There are three such
scenes: first, Raphael instructs Adam and Eve; then Adam recounts the Father's
instruction just after Adam is created; and finally, Michael instructs Adam after
the Fall. Applying principles from Of Education to these scenes in Paradise Lost,
Murray Bundy and Michael Allen focus on the differences between Adam and
Eve's prelapsarian and postlapsarian education but overlook similarities in structure,
method, and purpose. Because Milton's conception of education consistently deals
with sanctification, education before and after the Fall is not radically different.
Distinctions exist between gaining and regaining knowledge of God, between
retaining and regaining paradise. Both situations assume that students have the
capacity to learn and grow. The focus in all of Adam and Eve's lessons is the
knowledge of God, which in a postlapsarian world will begin to remedy the effects
of the Fall. But even in Eden, they must learn to know God rightly and come to
understand such knowledge is not intuitive or automatic but learned. Since God is
infinite, learning to know him becomes an eternal task. In prelapsarian and
postlapsarian worlds, students learn with different degrees of speed and ease, while
pedagogical methods remain the same. Education after the Fall is more difficult
because students are susceptible to error though still capable of learning; education

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 Milton Quarterly 47
before the Fall is easier because the students tend toward true knowledge, although
they are still capable of error. In all three educational situations in the epic, the goal
and objective stated in Of Education operate simultaneously. In each scene, Adam
and Eve receive instruction about the knowledge of God and about their own
conduct on Earth. In each instance, the Father, Raphael, or Michael leads them in
the process of sanctification by revealing God's character and encouraging them to
live virtuously.
This process is at work when Raphael comes to warn Adam and Eve about
the coming temptation; he instructs them about God's nature as revealed in his
works and infers commands that logically follow from those works. Thus when
Adam asks for more information about how the earth was created, Raphael replies,

. . . such Commission from above

I have received, to answer thy desire
Of knowledge within bounds; beyond abstain
To ask, nor let thine own inventions hope
Things not reveal'd, which th'invisible King,
Onely Omniscient, hath supprest in Night,
To none communicable in Earth or Heaven
Anough is left besides to search and know.
(7.118-25)

Raphael teaches Adam that God is omniscient and that he has chosen to keep
certain facts inaccessible to human observation, and because of this attribute
Raphael advises Adam not to pry into the unknowable. Later, Raphael explains to
Adam that". . . Heav'n / Is as the Book of God before thee set, / Wherein to read
his wondrous Works, and learne / His Seasons, Hours, or Dayes, or Months, or
Yeares" (8.66-69).
Drawing upon St. Paul's statement in Romans that "ever since the creation of
the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been
understood and seen through the things he has made" (Rom. 1.20), Milton links
this notion with his statement in Of Education that "knowledge of God" can be
gained "by orderly conning over the visible and inferior creature . . (2: 368-69).
Each time Raphael explains a principle of the natural created order, an inference
about God's nature can be made, and a moral action may be deduced from that
inference.
In this case, the lesson Raphael draws out of Adam's uncertainty about
whether the sun orbits the earth or vice versa is that

. . . Heav'n is for thee too high

To know what passes there; be lowlie wise:
Think onely what concerns thee and thy being;
Dream not of other Worlds.
(8.172-74)

While Anna Nardo has argued that Raphael "redirects Adam's attention away from
factual knowledge toward an approach to knowledge more suited to human life
. . ." (230), the issue at stake involves a cosmological question beyond the realm of
empirical science.9 As Barbara Lewalski points out, Raphael

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48 Stephen J. Schuler
removes astronomy from the province of revelation and the usual
contemporary appeals to Genesis, placing it squarely in the realm of
human speculation. At the same time, by letting Adam discover the
limitations of human perspective he underscores the humility and
humanistic emphases that ought to govern scientific inquiry. (216)

Unlike Galileo, Adam has no instruments with which he can verify or falsify
cosmological hypotheses through empirical observation. Thus when Raphael dis
misses Adam's question, he is not denigrating science or knowledge as such, but
rather warning Adam not to indulge in mere hypothesizing. Direct observation
of the physical world may very well lead to knowledge of God, but unverifiable
and abstract speculations, which Raphael calls "Conjecture" and "quaint Opin
ions," are unprofitable for daily life in Eden because they tend to become
detached from direct consideration of the physical world (8.76, 78). Adam is
better off seeking concrete knowledge that directly benefits him in his day-to
day life in the garden. Raphael's admonition is not inconsistent with Milton's
assertion in Of Education that knowledge of God can be gained by examination
of the physical world.
Adam goes through a similar process when he first meets the Father in the
garden. The Father reveals himself to Adam and gives a command all at once:

. . . Whom thou soughtst I am,

Said mildely, Author of all this thou seest
Above, or round about thee or beneath.
This Paradise 1 give thee, count it thine
To till and keep, and of the Fruit to eate:
Of every Tree that in the Garden growes
Eate freely with glad heart; fear here no dearth:
But of the Tree whose operation brings
Knowledg of good and ill . . .

. . . shun to taste.
(8.316-24, 327)

In this case, God's claim as creator legitimizes his authority to bar Adam from
eating from one tree, so Adam's knowledge of the Father as creator should lead him
to obey the command, which he does for a time. Just as Raphael's instruction
reveals God's nature to Adam and infers an imperative from God's nature, so the
Father reveals his own nature to Adam and implicitly links a command with his
identity as creator.
Employing a similar pedagogical method and interacting with Adam before
the Fall, the Father and Raphael pique Adam's curiosity and lead him to moral
conclusions based on the divine nature. Both use a dialogic method to correct
Adam's erroneous assumptions and hypotheses. For example, when Adam drifts off
to sleep for the first time, he assumes that "1 then was passing to my former state
/ Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve," but when the Father appears to him, he
finds that he is not passing into oblivion but receiving new knowledge of his
surroundings through the Father's guided tour of Eden (8.291-92). Similarly,
Raphael uses Adam's misconception of Eve as the pinnacle of creation to remind
him of the created hierarchy of the sexes. When Adam says of Eve that "Authority

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 Milton Quarterly 49
and Reason on her waite, / As one intended first, not after made / Occasionally;
and to consummate all," Raphael corrects Adam's comments "with contracted
brow," saying that Eve is "fair no doubt, and worthy well / Thy cherishing, thy
honouring, and thy love, / Not thy subjection: weigh her with thy self" (8.554-56,
560, 568-70).The fact that the Father and Raphael correct Adam's errors before he
falls suggests that a human can be mistaken about facts and yet remain unfallen. An
unintentional error in observation may momentarily hamper the process of prelap
sarian sanctification, but it is not a sin. A mere mistake does not make justification
necessary, so Adam remains just in God's sight despite such mistakes. Like Uriel,
who errs when he fails to recognize Satan and unwittingly directs him to earth,
Adam requires correction when he errs unwillingly, though he remains sinless until
he willfully and knowingly disobeys a command.
If such dialogic methods are effective before the Fall, they are just as useful
after Adam sins, and Michael capitalizes on Adam's propensity to err in judg
ment.1" Lewalski points out parallels between the instruction of each angel,
noting that each relies upon dialogue rather than monologue as the primary
pedagogical method (216-17). She suggests that "Milton's deepest conviction,
founded on this experience [as a student and a teacher], is that genuine educa
tion . . . must be largely self-motivated and self-directed. He has no faith in
perfect methods or systems, nor in epitomes and encyclopedias" (208). This, I
take it, is what Milton portrays before and after the Fall in Paradise Lost. Raphael
and Michael effectively engage Adam's desire to understand, although they do so
to different degrees. While Adam himself initiates his discourse with Raphael on
the nature of the cosmos, Michael initiates his discourse with Adam about the
future. Michael Allen asserts that the angel Michael fails to stimulate Adam's
inquiry (117), but the text does not entirely support this view. First, the Father
sends Michael in response to Adam and Eve's contrition, so in a way Michael's
instruction is humanly initiated. In fact, the Father makes the extent of Michael's
activity on earth contingent upon Adam and Eve's response to their expulsion.
The Father tells Michael, "If patiently thy bidding they obey, / Dismiss them not
disconsolate; reveale / To Adam what shall come in future dayes" (11.112-14).
Later, when Michael announces that Adam and Eve must leave Eden, Adam
responds appropriately by lamenting his fate and wondering aloud whether life
outside the garden will be bearable (268-333). Michael then follows the Father's
instructions and tells Adam that God's presence is everywhere, and he proceeds
to show Adam how God's grace will work against sin in order to restore Adam's
earlier condition (334-69). When the angel discusses the coming of Christ, Adam
inquires about the final battle that he imagines will take place between Christ
and Satan, but Michael corrects him and foretells the redemptive suffering of
Christ (12.382-435). In each of these examples, as in other parts of his discourse,
Michael employs the same pedagogical method that the Father and Raphael use,
working through Adam's innate curiosity and even his mistakes to teach him
about God and about the world. Michael is not the strict, oppressive schoolmas
ter that Allen supposes him to be. While Michael's tone is more authoritarian
and formal than Raphael's, it is not substantively different in pedagogical
method.

More importantly, like the Father and Raphael, Michael supplies Adam with
knowledge of the Father and uses that information to support a moral imperative.
For instance, when Michael shows Adam the weddings of his descendants, Adam is

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50 Stephen J. Schuler
seduced by the beauty of the women he sees (11.595-97). To correct this misplaced
admiration, Michael appeals to Adam's divinely-created nature:

. . . Judg not what is best

By pleasure, though to Nature seeming meet,
Created, as thou art, to nobler end
Holie and pure, conformitie divine.
(603-06)

By recognizing the divine purpose of his creation and its link to God's nature,
Adam comes to understand the moral imperative to judge all things by God's
criteria, not by a standard of vulgar hedonism. After Michael finishes his
summary of world history, Adam recites what he has learned from Michael. He
has had his

. . . fill

Of knowledge, what this Vessel can containe;

Beyond which was my folly to aspire.
Henceforth I learne, that to obey is best,
And love with fear the onely God, to walk
As in his presence, ever to observe
His providence, and on him sole depend,
Mercifull over all his works, with good
Still overcoming evil, and by small
Accomplishing great things. . . .
(12.558-67)

Thus, because he has learned about God's providence and mercy, as well as about
God's desire to use small and weak things to accomplish important purposes, Adam
understands his moral obligation to fear and obey God. He has begun to achieve
the spiritual goal of education and to regain a proper knowledge of God. Michael
commends Adam's understanding, saying

. . . onely add
Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add Faith,
Add Vertue, Patience, Temperance, add Love,
By name to come call'd Charitie, the soul
Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loath
To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess
A paradise within thee, happier farr.
(12.581-87)

Michael encourages Adam to continue his pursuit of his spiritual goal by being
sanctified, by developing a life of virtue. As Of Education suggests should happen
to all students, Adam is renewing his knowledge of God and thereby becoming
knowledge of God and a virtuous person, well equipped to fulfill education's
practical objective by effectively executing the office of a patriarch, over both a
house and a lineage.

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 Milton Quarterly 51
Envisioning Milton's Educational Program

Paradise Lost illustrates on a grand scale the educational goals and methods that
Milton briefly articulated in Of Education. As long as a student is justified, whether
by nature (Adam and Eve before the Fall) or by faith (Adam and Eve after the Fall),
the methods and purpose for education are the same. Milton imagines education as
a dialogue between a curious student and a wise teacher who is able to instruct the
former in the knowledge of God, knowledge that is found not only in Scriptures
and theological texts, but also in the natural world of sensate objects. Yet exactly
how this curriculum would be executed in seventeenth-century England is a
matter of speculation. Books play a central teaching role, and in as large a school
as Milton envisioned, dialogues between students and books are foundational to
learning. While Thomas Corns calls Milton's curriculum "repressive, prescriptive,
elitist, masculinist, militaristic, dustily pedantic, class-ridden, affectionless" (63),
not all of these epithets are deserved. Elitist, masculinist, and militaristic as it
is—Milton's academy is certainly designed to produce state leaders, though his aim
in producing an educated elite may or may not mandate that the school would
admit students only from the aristocracy. Yet it was natural to assume that the
nation's up-and-coming leaders should be the first to be trained for military and
civil service. In a time of civil war, the necessity of just, skillful, and magnanimous
civil and military leadership must have been acutely felt throughout the nation.
Milton also assumes that his students will be male, though this was a common
assumption in the seventeenth century." And if Paradise Lost reflects any of Milton's
ideas about education, as the majority of critics writing on the subject assume, then
it is clear that both men and women, represented by Adam and Eve respectively,
need an education of some kind. Eve sits in on Raphael's lesson, and even after she
leaves during the discourse on astronomy, she knows that Adam will eventually tell
her everything he has learned. While she will learn from Adam and not from
Raphael himself, the implied hierarchy of the sexes does not necessarily require that
she be deprived of an education that approximates Adam's. To be sure, while Milton
indicates that both Adam and Eve are made in the divine image, he also emphasizes
his superior authority derived from that divine likeness:

... in thir looks Divine

The image ot their glorious Maker shon,

Whence true autoritie in men; though both

Not equal, as thir sex not equal seemed . . .

Hee for God only, shee for God in him . . .

(4.291-92, 295-96, 299)

Eve is not Adam's equal, at least in authority and proximity to God. But Milton
never shows Adam instructing Eve at length, nor does Milton address the question
of women's education in his tractate, so it is unclear how this social inequality
between the sexes would atfect education in terms of curriculum and pedagogy. If
Milton did have any settled views on this question, they must remain open to
speculation.

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52 Stephen J. Schuler
To Corns's other accusations that Milton's curriculum is tedious and restric
tive, it can only be objected that Milton insists in Of Education that his students
should be "enflam'd with the study of learning, and the admiration of vertue;
stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men, and worthy patriots, dear to
God, and famous to all ages" (2: 385). Part of Milton's own objection to current
educational practices was that "we do amisse to spend seven or eight years meerly
in scraping together so much miserable Latin, and Greek, as might be learnt
otherwise easily and delightfully in one year" (370-71). He admits that "the right
path of a virtuous and noble Education [is] laborious indeed at the first ascent, but
else so smooth, so green, so full of godly prospect, and melodious sounds on every
side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming" (376). Hyperbolic as this
statement might be, Milton firmly believed that his curriculum should give stu
dents pleasure in learning by working through a challenging curriculum. However
much Milton's curriculum might disconcert modern educators, the education that
Adam and Eve receive in Paradise Lost is not stifling or even particularly prescrip
tive.12 Rather, the Father, Raphael, and Michael are sensitive to the needs of Adam
and Eve and adjust their lessons and methods appropriately.
Yet, because Milton's educational program was never fully implemented—
even in Paradise Lost the number of students is well short of the 130 that Milton
envisioned—it is impossible to say whether his curriculum would have been either
repressive or stimulating. Angelica Duran suggests that "While Milton's educational
recommendations in Of Education are reflective of his relatively consistent educa
tional aims, they do not reflect Milton's practice. ... Of Education should be
recognized for what it is, a description not of Milton's own homeschool practices
or of a universal and enduring curriculum but rather an outline for a national
school system. . . (153-54). But regardless of the educational circumstance,
pleasurable learning was part of Milton's design according to his pupil and early
biographer Cyriack Skinner. Skinner recalls the tutelage of his former teacher as
generally pleasurable and "an easy and delightful method for training up Gentry in
such a manner to all sorts of Literature, as that they might at the same time by like
degrees advance in Virtue, and Abilities to serve their Country; subjoyning direc
tions for their attayning other necessary, or Ornamental accomplishments: And it
seem'd hee design'd in some measure to put this in practice" (24). The program
was also strict if we are to believe Milton's first wife Mary who reported that her
husband sometimes beat his students, apparently with some severity (Parker 1: 230).
But in his reminiscences of Milton's little school, Skinner elected to emphasize
the pleasurable features of the education he received while also noting the varied
responses of other pupils: "But whether it were that the tempers of our Gentry
would not beare the strictness of his Discipline, or for what other reason, hee
continued that course but a while" (25). Apparently some of Milton's students
found his teaching repressive despite his efforts to delight through rigorous intel
lectual exercise.
Because Milton's program was never fully implemented, Paradise Lost is prob
ably the best available exemplar of his educational theories. Modern critics have
tended to use Of Education as a framework for understanding Paradise Lost, but
given the current critical confusion over the fundamental purposes of the tractate's
recommendations, it is certainly just as useful to use Paradise Lost to clarify our
understanding of Of Education. Ann Baynes Coiro, for example, shows how
Michael's instruction of Adam follows the sequence of Milton's curriculum as the

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 Milton Quarterly 53
angel describes the religion, agriculture, science, and politics of Earth's first civili
zation. Coiro frames her treatment as an explication of the epic, but her insightful
reading is even more useful as an explication of the tractate because she shows,
inadvertently at times, how Michael and Adam illustrate Milton's general sugges
tions for learning by enacting an instructional process in a model pedagogical
setting. All of the teaching scenes in Paradise Lost demonstrate Milton's principles
at work. Raphael's lessons illustrate the importance of dialogue to education, as the
student's own inquiry shapes the learning process. Raphael's lessons also emphasize
the importance Milton placed on privileging concrete, practical knowledge, over
speculative cosmology and metaphysics, the organizational principle of his tract.
The Father's teaching shows the close connections between the knowledge of God
and moral imperatives, a connection that helps to justify the unification of Milton's
spiritual goal for education and his practical objective. Michael's instruction reveals
the extent to which the Fall produces students who are prone to error and are thus
in need of particular guidance as they struggle through the process of sanctification
through renewed knowledge of God and of creation. The similarities between
Michael's instruction and Raphael's teaching should suggest that the Fall does not
drastically alter the educational process; rather, the Fall simply makes the process
more difficult. The difference is not in kind but in degree.
Each of these educational scenes is different, individualized in setting, tone, and
character, although the differences do not necessarily imply that one example is
superior to any other. Rather, in providing multiple educational scenes, Milton
demonstrates that each educational situation is unique and that a good teacher takes
advantage of students' spontaneous responses to the topic at hand. A good educa
tion may be realized through any number of methods, a lesson that Milton must
have learned early in his own teaching career. The fact that Adam eventually
disobeys both the Father's and Raphael's instructions is not an indication of
ineffective education, since a good teacher makes room for the student's exercise of
free will. The teacher knows that however good an educational program may be,
the student is always free to disregard what he or she has been taught. The
educational scenes of Paradise Lost help readers of Of Education realize that learning
is a process that allows for spontaneity and failure. The exact methods used will
vary from student to student and from situation to situation, but as long as the
knowledge of God remains the primary purpose of education, students are likely to
work out their sanctification in a virtuous life of service.

University of Mobile

Notes

' For example, Roger Ascham had written earlier in The Schoolmaster that educated men would
"become in the end both most happy for themselves, and always best esteemed abroad in the world,
a statement of purpose that emphasizes social development (101). Johann Amos Comenius, to whom
Milton refers in Of Education, stated, "I aime at three Marks: Piety, Learning, and Civill Prudence" (1
The historical context of Milton's tractate Of Education has been ably traced by several critics, so ther
is no need to replicate it here. William Melczer identifies several sixteenth- and seventeenth-centur
educators who might be compared to Milton, and Donald Dorian's brief introduction to Of Education
in the Complete Prose Works lists several works on education by Milton's contemporaries. Oliver
Ainsworth's comparison of Milton with other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century educational theo

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54 Stephen J. Schuler
rists is still the most detailed treatment available (see especially 22-38). All quotations from Of
Education and Areopagitica are from the Yale edition of Milton's prose, cited in the text with volume
and page numbers in parentheses. Quotations from Paradise Lost are from the text appearing in the
Riverside Milton.

~ Ainsworth further argues that Milton's first stated purpose, "to repair the ruins of our first parents
by regaining to know God aright," is essentially Hebraic, as it presupposes human imperfection and
draws on New Testament theology (43). According to Ainsworth, Milton's second purpose, "that
which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices both private and
publike of peace and war," comes from the Greek sense of "practical piety," which is derived from
Isocrates (43). While this categorization may be helpful, it should not be maintained absolutely, as if
Hebraic or New Testament theology disregards justice, skill, and magnanimity or as if Greek
philosophy cares nothing for virtue or the knowledge of God. Attribution of Milton's general ideas
to specific cultural sources is not so easy.

3 Mager's contribution to educational objectives was anticipated by other, earlier theorists who had
recognized the need for clear objectives in achievement testing. For instance, in 1934 Ralph W.Tyler
had pointed out the need for a clear sense of purpose in testing student achievement (14-23). But
Mager's 1962 work established the writing of objectives as an integral part of curriculum develop
ment. Different theorists have used slightly different vocabulary for describing what I am calling
"goals" and "objectives," and some theorists occasionally conflate the two. Mager was one of the first
modern educational theorists to articulate a clear distinction between them.

For example, one popular modern textbook on educational assessment distinguishes between "goals,
long-term goals, or general instructional outcomes" and "specific instructional outcomes"; these
"outcomes" correspond to my term "objectives" (Gallagher 109).This text states that"Goals are global
statements of long-term outcomes, and their achievement is not assessed directly. . . . Thus goals do
not deal with definite skills, but related specific outcomes do" (110). Likewise, Milton's educational
goal deals in generalities and abstractions while his educational objective deals with activities that can
be observed and evaluated by an outside agent.

5 There was no standard vocabulary in the seventeenth century for distinguishing between goals and
objectives, though the distinction is related to the question of educational ends and means that can
surely be traced back at least to Plato's Republic, particularly Books 2, 3, and 7. In Of Education, Milton
makes an implicit distinction that educational theorists would not delineate explicitly and systemati
cally until the twentieth century.

6 Milton was not averse to teaching theology per se, but he was an adamant opponent of "the
Scholastick grosness of barbarous ages, that in stead of beginning with Arts most easie, and those be
such as are most obvious to the sence, they present their young unmatriculated novices at first coming
with the most intellective abstractions of Logick & metaphysicks" (Of Education 2: 374). In Milton's
scheme, theology would be taught, but not as a subject for exercises in disputation.

7 Certainly there are passages in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained that appear to question this
view—Raphael, Michael, and Jesus all warn against knowledge pursued for the sake of power or mere
curiosity. For a detailed account of how these warnings relate to Of Education, see Samuel.

S Milton suggests that the school grounds should be "big enough to lodge a hundred and fifty persons,
whereof twenty or thereabout may be attendants, all under the government of one" (2: 379-80).
9 Milton himself was in the same situation as Adam. In the 1660s and 1670s, Galileo's astronomical
theories were still new and tentative. Angelica Duran has recently noted that while Galileo was able
to make a functional telescope in the early seventeenth century, it was not until quite late in the
century that Isaac Newton developed a working telescope in England with which it was possible to
duplicate some of Galileo's observations (4). Although Milton was well aware of the new astronomy,
he may not have wanted to commit himself to a theory that might yet be disproved. If so, Milton is
not casting doubt on science as a whole, but is rather demonstrating caution by refusing to endorse
unverified theories in his epic.

10 The difference between Adam's mental capacity before and after the Fall is a topic too large to be
dealt with here, but it appears that while his reasoning, and especially his moral reasoning, is impaired
by his sinful state, he is still capable of some of the same rational inquiry that he was able to sustain
at greater length before his fall. Dayton Haskin makes a similar point when he argues that complexity

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 Milton Quarterly 55
and ambiguity in meaning arc not products of the Fall but qualities inherent in prelapsarian language
also (224-26).Thus, interpretation, as well as teaching and learning, are necessary both before and after
the Fall, though the Fall has made these processes slower and more difficult for Adam and Eve.

11 Comenius was one of Milton's few contemporaries who proposed universal education. At the time,
equal education, much less coeducation, was a radical idea. As educational practice and theory evolved
in the subsequent centuries, it gradually became clear that the educational schemes developed for
male students worked equally well for female students.

1-J. R. Brink argues that Milton values originality and creativity, citing his insistence that student
essays be written from an informed position (263-64). Brink's brief essay cites Milton as an early
example of an educational theorist who valued creativity in students.

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