Samuel Hartlib - Baconian

Baconian

Hartlib was indebted to Francis Bacon for a general theory of education, and this formed common ground for him and Jan Comenius. Hartlib published two studies of Comenius's work: Conatuum Comenianorum praeludia (1637) and Comenii pansophiae prodromus et didactica dissertatio (1639). He also put much effort into getting Comenius, of the Protestant Moravian Brethren, to visit England. Hartlib's two closest correspondents were John Dury, and Comenius. The latter had the concept of a "tree of knowledge", continuously branching out and growing. He also put his own spin on Bacon's ideas. Shortly before the English Civil War broke out, John Gauden preached in 1640 to Parliament, recommending that Dury and Comenius be invited to England, and naming Hartlib as a likely contact.

Men like Hartlib and Comenius wanted to make the spread of knowledge easier, at a time when most knowledge was not categorised or standardised by any widespread conventions or academic disciplines, and libraries were mostly private. They wanted to enlighten and educate, and to improve society, as religious people who saw this as the work of God. Comenius arrived in England in 1641, bad timing considering that war was imminent. His presence failed to transform the position in education, though a substantial literature grew up, particularly on university reform, where Oliver Cromwell set up a new institution. Comenius left in 1642; under Cromwell elementary schooling was expanded from 1646, and Durham College was set up, with staff from Hartlib's associates.

Bacon had formulated a project for a research institute, under the title "Salomon's House" in his New Atlantis of 1624. This theoretical scheme was important for Hartlib, who angled during the 1640s for public funding for it. He was unsuccessful except for a small pension for himself, but gathered like-minded others: Dury, John Milton, Kenelm Digby, William Petty, Frederick Clod (Clodius).

Milton dedicated his 1644 Of Education to Hartlib, whom he had come to know the year before and who had pressed him to publish his educational ideas. But he gave the Comenian agenda short shrift in the work. Barbara Lewalski considers his dismissive attitude as disingenous, since he had probably used texts by Comenius in his own teaching. Hezekiah Woodward, linked at the time in the minds of Presbyterians and officialdom with Milton as a dangerous writer, was also significant as an educational follower of Comenius and Bacon, and friend of Hartlib.