The Age of Milton and the Scientific Revolution

FIVE. The Standard Academic Subjects and Their Function

FIVE The Standard Academic Subjects and Their Function Unlike the almost complete representational refashioning of the teacher-scientist, dilation rather than deletion governed the changes in curricular subjects in England for most of the seventeenth century . Curricular dilation was responsive to the ongoing recovery of ancient and classical texts, explorations of the known world, and new observations of the cosmos and its microscopic elements through new observations and technologies. Such an information explosion created great pressures within a closed system of time and human capacity, pressures that educators today face in making decisions about textbook selection, degree requirements, classroom syllabi, and more. Discussions that ignore the emotional, social, and practical elements that shaped curricular developments in early modern England fail to tell us much about how and why English intellectuals went about making curricular changes and, by extension, understanding, working within, and representing the world around them. More specifically, they fail to help us understand the human forces that helped shape Milton’s powerful poetic lines and why his readers — his contemporaries and thereafter — have responded to them as they have. Areopagitica clearly indicates that Milton appreciated the anxiety that scholars felt about the possibility that their endeavors would 113 114 The Age of Milton and the Scientific Revolution prove fruitless in the important but at times repellent work of “gathering up [the virgin Truth] limb by limb . . . into an immortall feature of lovelines and perfection” (YP 2:549). One response to the textual and conceptual explosion of the period was to gaze at only one limited feature of Truth, that is, to categorize, specialize, and limit. In Areopagitica and elsewhere, Milton and others seek to reconcile the frustrations and fears spurred by the copious increase in books, discoveries, and knowledge with heartfelt hopes for a collaborative , Baconian project that would join virtually every field of learning for the “good of men and mankind.”1 This chapter seeks to give a coherent account of some of the features of curricular changes in seventeenth century England and Milton’s role in them. The small but important modifications that we find in his texts reflect the historical moment in which humanism was converting through scientific revolution into modernity. Scientific subjects greatly increased in prestige during Milton’s lifetime. By 1690, John Locke could recommend omitting Latin as a curricular component.2 Of course, few of Locke’s contemporaries would go that far. Indeed, for most of the century, even progressive reformists rallied around the timeworn curricular subjects. Nonetheless, Locke’s recommendation strongly indicates the subordination of the trivium to the quadrivium that occurred during Milton’s lifetime.3 As can be expected, early modern English scientists placed more emphasis on the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music than humanists had. But they did not champion scientific specialization for academic training. They embraced the trivium of grammar, rhetoric, and logic and the three philosophies of metaphysics, natural philosophy, and moral philosophy along with the quadrivium. Moreover, contrary to recommending reducing curricular subjects in order to dedicate more time and energy to mathematical and scientific subjects, many sought to legitimize additional subjects formerly studied through private instruction or travel abroad, and to subsume subjects like engineering into familiar disciplines. With the belief that universal knowledge was needed for responsible specialized study, progressive intellectuals of seventeenth century England demanded deep- and broad-based curricular training, still ready to say with Francis Bacon, “I have taken all knowledge to be my province.”4 In 1663, famed astronomer John Hevelius, who at the time was also senator of Danzig and temporary magistrate, wrote in support of the newly created Royal Society of London, “I have never desired anything more than that the arts and science should be cultivated and advance from day to day. And so I heartily rejoice, and think it splendid for literature, that nowadays kings and princes take an interest in literary matters.”5 He praises the “King of England, a prince worthy of every high praise” for assembling those who directly investigate nature and those who can imagine and express how the results of those investigations can be brought to bear on the polity of which the king of England and the senator of Danzig were so keenly aware.6 While Hevelius did not publish a grammar book, as Milton did not publish a botanical textbook, he commended the advancement of every branch...