PREFACE For Milton's Tractate Of Education, my text is based upon a rotograph facsimile of a copy of the first edition in the British Museum, supplemented by a copy of the second edition in the Cornell University Library. I have normalized the punctuation, and in general made the orthography conform to present usage. My essential departures from the first edition in favor of the second are recorded in the Notes. A distinctive feature, I hope, of the present volume is the body of Supplementary Extracts. As compared with the brief Tractate, this appendix may seem to be disproportionately large; yet so frequently do the writings of Milton reveal his interest in the growth and training of the human spirit that many of those who know him best may wish for passages which I have not included. Of the passages that have here been listed, an arrangement by topics has been adopted; nevertheless certain excerpts, though their content falls under more than one topic, have, on account of their narrative interest, been kept intact. The topical divisions, therefore, are not quite mutually exclusive. My indebtedness to publishers of copyright material is elsewhere acknowledged in detail. In addition, I wish to express a sincere gratitude to my colleagues, Professor Robert K. Richardson and Professor Floyd McGranahan, of Beloit College, for their kindness in reading portions of the manuscript; to Dr. Walter MacKellar, Instructor in English in New York University, for permission to quote from his forthcoming translation of Milton's Latin poems; and to my teachers, Professor Lane Cooper and Professor Joseph Q. Adams, of Cornell University, for their encouragement and assistance throughout. This work was begun about twelve years ago at the suggestion of Professor Cooper, and was submitted in the year 1920 as a ix doctoral dissertation. Since then, the manuscript has been thoroughly revised; and the volume is now published in the hope that Milton's little treatise, freed from various misconceptions, partly traditional, that often attend the reading of it, and reinforced by other utterances of his, may help to solve the educational problems of to-day. BELOIT, WISCONSIN |