At the age of twenty-
four Petty took out a patent for the invention of a copying machine.
It was described in a folio pamphlet "On Double Writing." That was
in 1647, in Civil War time, and although Petty followed Hobbes in
his studies, he did not share the philosopher's political opinions,
but held with the Parliament. In 1648 he added to his former
pamphlet a "Declaration concerning the newly invented Art of Double
Writing."
Samuel Hartlib, the large-hearted Pole, who in those days spent his
worldly means in England for the advancement of agriculture and of
education, and other aids to the well-being of a nation, had caused
Milton to write his letter on education, as has been shown in the
Introduction to the hundred and twenty-first volume of this Library,
which contains that Letter together with Milton's Areopagitica.
Young Petty's first published writing was a Letter to Hartlib on
Education, entitled "The Advice of W. P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib for
the Advancement of some Particular Parts of Learning." This
appeared in 1648, when Petty's age was twenty-five, and its aim was
to suggest a wider view of the whole field of education than had
been possible in the Middle Ages, of which schools and colleges were
then preserving the traditions, as they do still here and there to
some extent. This pamphlet has been reprinted in the sixth volume
of the "Harleian Miscellany." William Petty wished the training of
the young to be in several respects more practical.
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