Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/345

 Martin Bucer on Education 341 tion, Chapters 15-47 of the Second Book of Bucer's work; this part immediately precedes the section on education, which naturally follows a discussion of the family. Milton used the work as printed in the volume of Bucer's writings called Scripta Anglicana, and hence had before him most of Bucer's other remarks on education to which I have alluded. The poet expressed the highest admiration for the Reformer's writings on divorce, and for his whole character. Now at the very time when Milton was engjj^ed on his translation of Bucer, he was probably also composing his tractate Of Education, for the tractate appeared in June, 1644, and The Judgment of Martin Bucer in the following month. It is, then, not impossible that some of the similarities between Milton and Bucer are the result of direct influence. Milton was as fully convinced as was Bucer of the impor- tance of education in the state; he declared that nothing had greater power than the education of the young to imbue the minds of men with virtue, the source of true and inward liberty, and to secure the proper direction and long endurance of the state. 63 And such sentiments so often appear in his writings that he evidently fully accepted Bucer's similar opinions as he translated them. Like his predecessor, he took a serious view of the importance of education in fitting men for life, as appears in his well-known words: I call, therefore, a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war. 64 This would have been acceptable to Bucer, with his Platonic belief that children should be trained to serve the general good, and to Sturm, who began his enquiry into the end of education by asking what knowledge is necessary to man as an individual and as a member of society. 65 Milton also believed in making education religious. He was, indeed, much less of a believer in the catechism than was Bucer, but his plan includes constant instruction in the Scriptures and in Christian doctrine. . 63 Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio, Milton's Works, Pickering ed., vol. 6, p. 291. 64 Of Education. 66 Scholae Lauinganae (Vormbaum, p. 726).