page_title: Of Education
section_title: The Medieval curriculum
hierarchical_section_title: Of Education / Milton's educational views / The Medieval curriculum
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Comput digital, copié sur le De Numeris de Raban Maur English: Numerical finger codes
context_page_description: The tractate Of Education was published in 1644, first appearing anonymously as a single eight-page quarto sheet. Presented as a letter written in response to a request from the Puritan educational reformer Samuel Hartlib, it represents John Milton's most comprehensive statement on educational reform, and gives voice to his views "concerning the best and noblest way of education". As outlined in the tractate, education carried for Milton a dual objective: one public, to “fit a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war”; and the other private, to “repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love Him, to be like Him, as we may the nearest by possessing our soul of true virtue”.
context_section_description: The medieval curriculum was characterised throughout by a preoccupation with the speculative. It began with the trivium, which included the study of grammar, rhetoric and dialectic. Grammar instruction dominated the early years of a student's education, where the focus, as Witt explains, was exclusively linguistic:  “…in a school program where the student aimed at perfecting a prose style largely divorced from classical precedents, the emphasis in teaching grammar fell on providing instruction more in the mechanics of the language than in ancient literature” (26). The trivium laid the groundwork for the quadrivium, which turned its attention to the theoretical in the world of number, including the study of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. These two foundational programmes prepared the medieval university student for the study of philosophy and theology with its heavy emphasis on dialectical reasoning.
caption: Numerical finger codes, from the De Numeris by Raban Maur, thirteenth century.
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