§ 1. one of the most hopeful signs of the improvement of education is the rapid advance in the last thirty years of the fame of comenius, and the growth of a large literature about the man and his ideas. twenty-three years ago, when i first became interested in him, his name was hardly known beyond germany. in english there was indeed an excellent life of him prefixed to a translation of his school of infancy; but this work, by daniel benham (london, 1858), had not then, and has not now, anything like the circulation it deserves. a much more successful book has been professor s. s. laurie’s john amos comenius (cambridge university press), and this is known to most, and should be to all, english students of education. by the germans and french comenius is now recognised as the man who first treated education in a scientific spirit, and who bequeathed the rudiments of a science to later ages. on this account the great library of pedagogy at leipzig has been named in his honour the “comenius stiftung.”
§ 2. john amos komensky or comenius, the son of a miller, who belonged to the moravian brethren, was born,[120] at the moravian village of niwnic, in 1592. of his early life we know nothing but what he himself tells us in the following passage:—“losing both my parents while i was yet a child, i began, through the neglect of my guardians, but at sixteen years of age to taste of the latin tongue. yet by the goodness of god, that taste bred such a thirst in me, that i ceased not from that time, by all means and endeavours, to labour for the repairing of my lost years; and now not only for myself, but for the good of others also. for i could not but pity others also in this respect, especially in my own nation, which is too slothful and careless in matter of learning. thereupon i was continually full of thoughts for the finding out of some means whereby more might be inflamed with the love of learning, and whereby learning itself might be made more compendious, both in matter of the charge and cost, and of the labour belonging thereto, that so the youth might be brought by a more easy method, unto some notable proficiency in learning.”[63] with these thoughts in his head, he pursued his studies in several german towns, especially at herborn in nassau. here he saw the report on ratke’s method published in 1612 for the universities of jena and giessen; and we find him shortly afterwards writing his first book, grammatic? facilioris pr?cepta, which was published at prag in 1616. on his return to moravia, he was appointed to the brethren’s school at prerau, but (to use his own words) “being shortly after at the age of twenty-four called to the service of the church, because that divine function challenged all my endeavours (divinumque hoc age pr?[121] oculis erat) these scholastic cares were laid aside.”[64] his pastoral charge was at fulneck, the headquarters of the brethren. as such it soon felt the effects of the battle of prag, being in the following year (1621) taken and plundered by the spaniards. on this occasion comenius lost his mss. and almost everything he possessed. the year after his wife died, and then his only child. in 1624 all protestant ministers were banished, and in 1627 a new decree extended the banishment to protestants of every description. comenius bore up against wave after wave of calamity with christian courage and resignation, and his writings at this period were of great value to his fellow-sufferers.
§ 3. for a time he found a hiding-place in the family of a bohemian nobleman, baron sadowsky, at slaupna, in the bohemian mountains, and in this retirement, his attention was again directed to the science of teaching. the baron had engaged stadius, one of the proscribed, to educate his three sons, and, at stadius’ request, comenius wrote “some canons of a better method,” for his use. we find him, too, endeavouring to enrich the literature of his mother-tongue, making a metrical translation of the psalms of david, and even writing imitations of virgil, ovid, and cato’s distichs.
in 1627, however, the persecution waxed so hot, that comenius, with most of the brethren, had to flee their country, never to return. on crossing the border, comenius and the exiles who accompanied him knelt down, and[122] prayed that god would not suffer his truth to fail out of their native land.
§ 4. comenius had now, as michelet says, lost his country and found his country, which was the world. many of the banished, and comenius among them, settled at the polish town of leszna, or, as the germans call it, lissa, near the silesian frontier. here there was an old-established school of the brethren, in which comenius found employment. once more engaged in education, he earnestly set about improving the traditional methods. as he himself says,[65] “being by god’s permission banished my country with divers others, and forced for my sustenance to apply myself to the instruction of youth, i gave my mind to the perusal of divers authors, and lighted upon many which in this age have made a beginning in reforming the method of studies, as ratichius, helvicus, rhenius, ritterus, glaumius, c?cilius, and who indeed should have had the first place, joannes valentinus andre?, a man of a nimble and clear brain; as also campanella and the lord verulam, those famous restorers of philosophy;—by reading of whom i was raised in good hope, that at last those so many various sparks would conspire into a flame; yet observing here and there some defects and gaps as it were, i could not contain myself from attempting something that might rest upon an immovable foundation, and which, if it could be once found out, should not be subject to any ruin. therefore, after many workings and tossings of my thoughts, by reducing everything to the immovable laws of nature, i lighted upon[123] my didactica magna, which shows the art of readily and solidly teaching all men all things.”
§ 5. this work did not immediately see the light, but in 1631 comenius published a book which made him and the little polish town where he lived known throughout europe and beyond it. this was the janua linguarum reserata, or “gate of tongues unlocked.” writing about it many years afterwards he says that he never could have imagined that that little work, fitted only for children (puerile istud opusculum), would have been received with applause by all the learned world. letters of congratulation came to him from every quarter; and the work was translated not only into greek, bohemian, polish, swedish, belgian, english, french, spanish, italian, hungarian, but also into turkish, arabic, persian, and even “mongolian, which is familiar to all the east indies.” (dedication of schola ludus in vol. i. of collected works.)
§ 6. incited by the applause of the learned, comenius now planned a scheme of universal knowledge, to impart which a series of works would have to be written, far exceeding what the resources and industry of one man, however great a scholar, could produce. he therefore looked about for a patron to supply money for the support of himself and his assistants, whilst these works were in progress. “the vastness of the labours i contemplate,” he writes to a polish nobleman, “demands that i should have a wealthy patron, whether we look at their extent, or at the necessity of securing assistants, or at the expenses generally.”
§ 7. at leszna there seemed no prospect of his obtaining the aid he required; but his fame now procured him invitations from distant countries. first he received a call[124] to improve the schools of sweden. after declining this he was induced by his english friends to undertake a journey to london, where parliament had shown its interest in the matter of education, and had employed hartlib,[66] an enthusiastic admirer of comenius, to attempt a reform. probably through his family connections, hartlib was on intimate terms with comenius, and he had much influence[125] on his career. it would seem that comenius, though never tired of forming magnificent schemes, hung back from putting anything into a definite shape. after the appearance of the janua linguarum reserata, he planned a janua rerum, and even allowed that title to appear in “the list of new books to come forth at the next mart at frankford.”[67] but again he hesitated, and withdrew the announcement. here hartlib came in, and forced him into print without his intending or even knowing it (“pr?ter meam spem et me inconsulto”; preface to conatuum pansophicorum dilucidatio, 1638). hartlib begged of comenius a sketch of his great scheme, and with apologies to the author for not awaiting his consent, he published it at oxford in 1637, under the title of conatuum comenianorum pr?ludia. comenius accepted the fait accompli with the best grace he could—pleased at the stir the book made in the learned world, but galled by criticisms, especially by doubts of his orthodoxy. to refute the cavillers, he wrote a tract called conatuum pansophicorum dilucidatio which was published in 1638. in 1639 hartlib issued in london a new duodecimo edition of the pr?ludia (or as he then called it, prodromus) and the dilucidatio, adding a dissertation by comenius on the study of latin. now, when everything seemed ripe for a change in education, and comenius himself was on his way to england, hartlib translated the prodromus, and when comenius had come he published it with the title, a reformation of schools, 1642.[68]
§ 8. it was no doubt by hartlib’s influence that[126] parliament had been led to summon comenius, and at any other time the visit might have been “the occasion of great good to this island,” but inter arma silent magistri, and comenius went away again. this is the account he himself has left us:—
“when seriously proposing to abandon the thorny studies of didactics, and pass on to the pleasing studies of philosophical truth, i find myself again among the same thorns.... after the pansophi? prodromus had been published and dispersed through various kingdoms of europe, many of the learned approved of the object and plan of the work, but despaired of its ever being accomplished by one man alone, and therefore advised that a college of learned men should be instituted to carry it into effect. mr. s. hartlib, who had forwarded the publication of the pansophi? prodromus in england, laboured earnestly in this matter, and endeavoured, by every possible means, to bring together for this purpose a number of men of intellectual activity. and at length, having found one or two, he invited me also, with many very strong entreaties. my people having consented to the journey, i came to london on the very day of the autumnal equinox (september 22, 1641), and there at last learnt that i had been invited by the order of the parliament. but as the parliament, the king having then gone to scotland [august 10], was dismissed for a three months’ recess [not quite three months, but from september 9 to october 20], i was detained there through the winter, my friends mustering what pansophic apparatus they could, though it was but slender.... the parliament meanwhile, having re assembled, and our presence being known, i had orders to wait until they should have sufficient leisure from other business to appoint a commission of[127] learned and wise men from their body for hearing us and considering the grounds of our design. they communicated also beforehand their thoughts of assigning to us some college with its revenues, whereby a certain number of learned and industrious men called from all nations might be honourably maintained, either for a term of years or in perpetuity. there was even named for the purpose the savoy in london; winchester college out of london was named; and again nearer the city, chelsea college, inventories of which and of its revenues were communicated to us, so that nothing seemed more certain than that the design of the great verulam, concerning the opening somewhere of a universal college, devoted to the advancement of the sciences could be carried out. but the rumour of the insurrection in ireland, and of the massacre in one night of more than 200,000 english [october, november], and the sudden departure of the king from london [january 10, 1641-2], and the plentiful signs of the bloody war about to break out disturbed these plans, and obliged me to hasten my return to my own people.”[69]
§ 9. while comenius was in england, where he stayed till august, 1642, he received an invitation to france. this invitation, which he did not accept, came perhaps through his correspondent mersenne, a man of great learning, who is said to have been highly esteemed and often consulted by descartes. it is characteristic of the state of opinion in such matters in those days, that mersenne tells comenius of a certain le maire, by whose method a boy of six years old, might, with nine months’ instruction, acquire a perfect knowledge of three languages. mersenne[128] also had dreams of a universal alphabet, and even of a universal language.
§ 10. comenius’ hopes of assistance in england being at an end, he thought of returning to leszna; but a letter now reached him from a rich dutch merchant, lewis de geer, who offered him a home and means for carrying out his plans. this lewis de geer, “the grand almoner of europe,” as comenius calls him, displayed a princely munificence in the assistance he gave the exiled protestants. at this time he was living at nordcoping in sweden. comenius having now found such a patron as he was seeking, set out from england and joined him there.
§ 11. soon after the arrival of comenius in sweden, the great oxenstiern sent for him to stockholm, and with john skyte, the chancellor of upsal university, examined him and his system. “these two,” as comenius says, “exercised me in colloquy for four days, and chiefly the most illustrious oxenstiern, that eagle of the north (aquila aquilonius). he inquired into the foundations of both my schemes, the didactic and the pansophic, so searchingly, that it was unlike anything that had been done before by any of my learned critics. in the first two days he examined the didactics, and finally said: ‘from an early age i perceived that our method of studies generally in use is a harsh and crude one (violentum quiddam), but where the thing stuck i could not find out. at length, having been sent by my king of glorious memory [i.e., by gustavus adolphus], as ambassador into germany, i conversed on the subject with various learned men. and when i had heard that wolfgang ratichius was toiling at an amended method i had no rest of mind till i had him before me, but instead of talking on the subject, he put[129] into my hands a big quarto volume. i swallowed this trouble, and having turned over the whole book, i saw that he had detected well enough the maladies of our schools but the remedies he proposed did not seem to me sufficient. yours, mr. comenius, rest on firmer foundations. go on with the work.’ i answered that i had done all i could in those matters, and must now go on to others. ‘i know,’ said he, ‘that you are toiling at greater affairs, for i have read your prodromus pansophi?. that we will discuss to-morrow, i must now to public business.’ next day he began on my pansophic attempts, and examined them with still greater severity. ‘are you a man,’ he asked, ‘who can bear contradiction?’ ‘i can,’ said i, ‘and for that reason my prodromus or preliminary sketch was sent out first (not indeed that i sent it out myself, this was done by friends), that it might meet with criticism. and if we seek the criticism of all and sundry, how much more from men of mature wisdom and heroic reason?’ he began accordingly to discourse against the hope of a better state of things arising from a rightly instituted study of pansophia; first, objecting political reasons, then what was said in scripture about ‘the last times.’ all which objections i so answered that he ended with these words: ‘into no one’s mind do i think such things have come before. stand upon these grounds of yours; so shall we some time come to agreement, or there will be no way left. my advice, however,’ added he, ‘is that you first do something for the schools, and bring the study of the latin tongue to a greater facility; thus you will prepare the way for those greater matters.’” as skyte and afterwards de geer gave the same advice, comenius felt himself constrained to follow it; so he agreed to settle at elbing, in prussia, and there write a work[130] on teaching, in which the principles of the didactica magna should be worked out with especial reference to teaching languages. notwithstanding the remonstrances of his english friends, to which comenius would gladly have listened, he was kept by oxenstiern and de geer strictly to his agreement, and thus, much against his will, he was held fast for eight years in what he calls the “miry entanglements of logomachy.”
§ 12. elbing, where, after a journey to leszna to fetch his family (for he had married again), comenius now settled, is in west prussia, thirty-six miles south-east of dantzic. from 1577 to 1660 an english trading company was settled here, with which the family of hartlib was connected. this perhaps was one reason why comenius chose this town for his residence. but although he had a grant of ￡300 a year from parliament, hartlib, instead of assisting with money, seems at this time to have himself needed assistance, for in october, 1642, comenius writes to de geer that he fears fundanius and hartlib are suffering from want, and that he intends for them ￡200 promised by the london booksellers; he suggests that de geer shall give them ￡30 each meanwhile. (benham, p. 63.)
§ 13. the relation between comenius and his patron naturally proved a difficult one. the dutchman thought that as he supported comenius, and contributed something more for the assistants, he might expect of comenius that he would devote all his time to the scholastic treatise he had undertaken. comenius, however, was a man of immense energy and of widely extended sympathies and connections. he was a “bishop” of the religious body to which he belonged, and in this capacity he engaged in controversy, and attended some religious conferences. then[131] again, pupils were pressed upon him, and as money to pay five writers whom he kept at work was always running short, he did not decline them. de geer complained of this, and supplies were not furnished with wonted regularity. in 1647 comenius writes to hartlib that he is almost overwhelmed with cares, and sick to death of writing begging-letters. yet in this year he found means to publish a book on the causes of this (i.e., the thirty years) war, in which the roman catholics are attacked with great bitterness—a bitterness for which the position of the writer affords too good an excuse.
§ 14. the year 1648 brought with it the downfall of all comenius’ hopes of returning to his native land. the peace of westphalia was concluded without any provision being made for the restoration of the exiles. but though thus doomed to pass the remaining years of his life in banishment, comenius, in this year, seemed to have found an escape from all his pecuniary difficulties. the senior bishop, the head of the moravian brethren, died, and comenius was chosen to succeed him. in consequence of this, comenius returned to leszna, where due provision was made for him by the brethren. before he left elbing, however, the fruit of his residence there, the methodus linguarum novissima, had been submitted to a commission of learned swedes, and approved of by them. the ms. went with him to leszna, where it was published.
§ 15. as head of the moravian church, there now devolved upon comenius the care of all the exiles, and his widespread reputation enabled him to get situations for many of them in all protestant countries. but he was now so much connected with the science of education, that even his post at leszna did not prevent his receiving and[132] accepting a call to reform the schools in transylvania. a model school was formed at saros-patak, where there was a settlement of the banished brethren, and in this school comenius laboured from 1650 till 1654. at this time he wrote his most celebrated book, which is indeed only an abridgment of his janua with the important addition of pictures, and sent it to nürnberg, where it appeared three years later (1657). this was the famous orbis pictus.
§ 16. full of trouble as comenius’ life had hitherto been, its greatest calamity was still before him. after he was again settled at leszna, poland was invaded by the swedes, on which occasion the sympathies of the brethren were with their fellow-protestants, and comenius was imprudent enough to write a congratulatory address to the swedish king. a peace followed, by the terms of which, several towns, and leszna among them, were made over to sweden; but when the king withdrew, the poles took up arms again, and leszna, the headquarters of the protestants, the town in which the chief of the moravian brethren had written his address welcoming the enemy, was taken and plundered.
comenius and his family escaped, but his house was marked for special violence, and nothing was preserved. his sole remaining possessions were the clothes in which he and his family travelled. all his books and manuscripts were burnt, among them his valued work on pansophia, and a latin-bohemian and bohemian-latin dictionary, giving words, phrases, idioms, adages, and aphorisms—a book on which he had been labouring for forty years. “this loss,” he writes, “i shall cease to lament only when i cease to breathe.”
§ 17. after wandering for some time about germany,[133] and being prostrated by fever at hamburg, he at length came to amsterdam, where lawrence de geer, the son of his deceased patron, gave him an asylum. here were spent the remaining years of his life in ease and dignity. compassion for his misfortunes was united with veneration for his learning and piety. he earned a sufficient income by giving instruction in the families of the wealthy; and by the liberality of de geer he was enabled to publish a fine folio edition of all his writings on education (1657). his political works, however, were to the last a source of trouble to him. his hostility to the pope and the house of hapsburg made him the dupe of certain “prophets” whose soothsayings he published as lux in tenebris. one of these prophets, who had announced that the turk was to take vienna, was executed at pressburg, and the lux in tenebris at the same time burnt by the hangman. before the news of this disgrace reached amsterdam, comenius was no more. he died in the year 1671, at the advanced age of eighty, and with him terminated the office of chief bishop among the moravian brethren.
§ 18. his long life had been full of trouble, and he saw little of the improvements he so earnestly desired and laboured after, but he continued the struggle hopefully to the end. in his seventy-seventh year he wrote these memorable words: “i thank god that i have all my life been a man of aspirations.... for the longing after good, however it spring up in the heart, is always a rill flowing from the fountain of all good—from god.”[70] labouring in[134] this spirit he did not toil in vain, and the historians of education have agreed in ranking him among the most influential as well as the most noble-minded of the reformers.
§ 19. before comenius, no one had brought the mind of a philosopher to bear practically on the subject of education. montaigne and bacon had advanced principles, leaving others to see to their application. a few able schoolmasters, ascham, e.g., had investigated new methods, but had made success in teaching the test to which they appealed, rather than any abstract principle. comenius was at once a philosopher who had learnt of bacon, and a schoolmaster who had earned his livelihood by teaching the rudiments. dissatisfied with the state of education as he found it, he sought for a better system by an examination of the laws of nature. whatever is thus established is indeed on an immovable foundation, and, as comenius himself says, “not liable to any ruin.” it will hardly be disputed, when broadly stated, that there are laws of nature which must be obeyed in dealing with the mind, as with the body. no doubt these laws are not so easily established in the first case as in the second, nor can we find them without much “groping” and some mistakes; but whoever in any way assists or even tries to assist in the discovery, deserves our gratitude; and greatly are[135] we indebted to him who first boldly set about the task, and devoted to it years of patient labour.
§ 20. comenius has left voluminous latin writings. professor laurie gives us the titles of the books connected with education, and they are in number forty-two: so there must be much repetition and indeed retractation; for comenius was always learning, and one of his last books was ventilabrum sapienti?, sive sapienter sua retractandi ars—i.e., “wisdom’s winnowing-machine, or the art of wisely withdrawing one’s own assertions.” we owe much to professor laurie, who has served as a ventilabrum and left us a succinct and clear account of the reformer’s teaching. i have read little of the writings of comenius except the german translation of the “great didactic,” from which the following is taken.
§ 21. we live, says comenius, a threefold life—a vegetative, an animal, and an intellectual or spiritual. of these, the first is perfect in the womb, the last in heaven. he is happy who comes with healthy body into the world, much more he who goes with healthy spirit out of it. according to the heavenly idea, man should (1) know all things; (2) should be master of all things, and of himself; (3) should refer everything to god. so that within us nature has implanted the seeds of (1) learning, (2) virtue, and (3) piety. to bring these seeds to maturity is the object of education. all men require education, and god has made children unfit for other employments that they may have leisure to learn.
§ 22. but schools have failed, and instead of keeping to the true object of education, and teaching the foundations, relations, and intentions of all the most important things, they have neglected even the mother tongue, and confined the teaching to latin; and yet that has been so badly[136] taught, and so much time has been wasted over grammar rules and dictionaries, that from ten to twenty years are spent in acquiring as much knowledge of latin as is speedily acquired of any modern tongue.
§ 23. the cause of this want of success is that the system does not follow nature. everything natural goes smoothly and easily. there must therefore be no pressure. learning should come to children as swimming to fish, flying to birds, running to animals. as aristotle says, the desire of knowledge is implanted in man: and the mind grows as the body does—by taking proper nourishment, not by being stretched on the rack.
§ 24. if we would ascertain how teaching and learning are to have good results, we must look to the known processes of nature and art. a man sows seed, and it comes up he knows not how, but in sowing it he must attend to the requirements of nature. let us then look to nature to find out how knowledge takes root in young minds. we find that nature waits for the fit time. then, too, she has prepared the material before she gives it form. in our teaching we constantly run counter to these principles of hers. we give instruction before the young minds are ready to receive it. we give the form before the material. words are taught before the things to which they refer. when a foreign tongue is to be taught, we commonly give the form, i.e., the grammatical rules, before we give the material, i.e., the language, to which the rules apply. we should begin with an author, or properly prepared translation-book, and abstract rules should never come before the examples.
§ 25. again, nature begins each of her works with its inmost part. moreover, the crude form comes first, then[137] the elaboration of the parts. the architect, acting on this principle, first makes a rough plan or model, and then by degrees designs the details; last of all he attends to the ornamentation. in teaching, then, let the inmost part, i.e., the understanding of the subject, come first; then let the thing understood be used to exercise the memory, the speech, and the hands; and let every language, science, and art be taught first in its rudimentary outline; then more completely with examples and rules; finally, with exceptions and anomalies. instead of this, some teachers are foolish enough to require beginners to get up all the anomalies in latin grammar, and the dialects in greek.
§ 26. again, as nature does nothing per saltum, nor halts when she has begun, the whole course of studies should be arranged in strict order, so that the earlier studies prepare the way for the later. every year, every month, every day and hour even, should have its task marked out beforehand, and the plan should be rigidly carried out. much loss is occasioned by absence of boys from school, and by changes in the instruction. iron that might be wrought with one heating should not be allowed to get cold, and be heated over and over again.
§ 27. nature protects her work from injurious influences, so boys should be kept from injurious companionships and books.
§ 28. in a chapter devoted to the principles of easy teaching, comenius lays down, among rules similar to the foregoing, that children will learn if they are taught only what they have a desire to learn, with due regard to their age and the method of instruction, and especially when everything is first taught by means of the senses. on this point comenius laid great stress, and he was the first who[138] did so. education should proceed, he said, in the following order: first, educate the senses, then the memory, then the intellect; last of all the critical faculty. this is the order of nature. the child first perceives through the senses. “nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu. everything in the intellect must have come through the senses.” these perceptions are stored in the memory, and called up by the imagination.[71] by comparing one with another, the understanding forms general ideas, and at length the judgment decides between the false and the true. by keeping to this order, comenius believed it would be possible to make learning entirely pleasant to the pupils, however young. here comenius went even further than the jesuits. they wished to make learning pleasant, but despaired of doing this except by external influences, emulation and the like. comenius did not neglect external means to make the road to learning agreeable. like the jesuits, he would have short school-hours, and would make great use of praise and blame, but he did not depend, as they did almost exclusively, on emulation. he would have the desire of learning fostered in every possible way—by parents, by teachers, by school buildings and apparatus, by the subjects themselves, by the method of teaching them, and lastly, by the public authorities. (1) the parents must praise learning and learned men, must show children beautiful books, &c., must treat the teachers with great respect. (2) the teacher must be kind and fatherly, he must distribute praise and reward, and must always, where it is possible, give the children something to look at. (3) the school buildings must be light, airy, and cheerful, and[139] well furnished with apparatus, as pictures, maps, models, collections of specimens. (4) the subjects taught must not be too hard for the learner’s comprehension, and the more entertaining parts of them must be especially dwelt upon. (5) the method must be natural, and everything that is not essential to the subject or is beyond the pupil must be omitted. fables and allegories should be introduced, and enigmas given for the pupils to guess. (6) the authorities must appoint public examinations and reward merit.
§ 29. nature helps herself in various ways, so the pupils should have every assistance given them. it should especially be made clear what the pupils are to learn, and how they should learn it.
§ 30. the pupils should be punished for offences against morals only. if they do not learn, the fault is with the teacher.
§ 31. one of comenius’s most distinctive principles was that there should no longer be “infelix divortium rerum et verborum, the wretched divorce of words from things” (the phrase, i think, is campanella’s), but that knowledge of things and words should go together. this, together with his desire of submitting everything to the pupil’s senses, would have introduced a great change into the course of instruction, which was then, as it has for the most part continued, purely literary. we should learn, says comenius, as much as possible, not from books, but from the great book of nature, from heaven and earth, from oaks and beeches.
§ 32. when languages are to be learnt, he would have them taught separately. till the pupil is from eight to ten years old, he should be instructed only in the mother-tongue,[140] and about things. then other languages can be acquired in about a year each; latin (which is to be studied more thoroughly) in about two years. every language must be learnt by use rather than by rules, i.e., it must be learnt by hearing, reading and re-reading, transcribing, attempting imitations in writing and orally, and by using the language in conversation. rules assist and confirm practice, but they must come after, not before it. the first exercises in a language should take for their subject something of which the sense is already known, so that the mind may be fixed on the words and their connections.[72] the catechism and bible history may be used for this purpose.
§ 33. considering the classical authors not suited to boys’ understanding, and not fit for the education of christians, comenius proposed writing a set of latin manuals for the different stages between childhood and manhood: these were to be called “vestibulum,” “janua,” “palatium” or “atrium,” “thesaurus.” the “vestibulum,” “janua,” and “atrium” were really carried out.
§ 34. in comenius’s scheme there were to be four kinds of schools for a perfect educational course:—1st, the mother’s breast for infancy; 2nd, the public vernacular school for children, to which all should be sent from six years old till twelve; 3rd, the latin school or gymnasium; 4th, residence at a university and travelling, to complete the course. the public schools were to be for all classes alike, and for girls[73] as well as boys.
[141]
§ 35. most boys and girls in every community would stop at the vernacular school; and as this school is a very distinctive feature in comenius’s plan, it may be worth while to give his programme of studies. in this school the children should learn—1st, to read and write the mother-tongue well, both with writing and printing letters; 2nd, to compose grammatically; 3rd, to cipher; 4th, to measure and weigh; 5th, to sing, at first popular airs, then from music; 6th, to say by heart, sacred psalms and hymns; 7th, catechism, bible history, and texts; 8th, moral rules, with examples; 9th, economics and politics, as far as they could be understood; 10th, general history of the world; 11th,[142] figure of the earth and motion of stars, &c., physics and geography, especially of native land; 12th, general knowledge of arts and handicrafts.
§ 36. each school was to be divided into six classes, corresponding to the six years the pupil should spend in it. the hours of work were to be, in school, two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon, with nearly the same amount of private study. in the morning the mind and memory were to be exercised, in the afternoon the hands and voice. each class was to have its proper lesson-book written expressly for it, so as to contain everything that class had to learn. when a lesson was to be got by heart from the book, the teacher was first to read it to the class, explain it, and re-read it; the boys then to read it aloud by turns till one of them offered to repeat it without book; the others were to do the same as soon as they were able, till all had repeated it. this lesson was then to be worked over again as a writing lesson, &c. in the higher forms of the vernacular school a modern language was to be taught and duly practised.
§ 37. here we see a regular school course projected which differed essentially from the only complete school course still earlier, that of the jesuits. in education comenius was immeasurably in advance of loyola and aquaviva. like the great thinkers, pestalozzi and froebel, who most resemble him, he thought of the development of the child from its birth; and in a singularly wise little book, called schola materni gremii, or “school of the mother’s breast,” he has given advice for bringing up children to the age of six.[74]
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§ 38. very interesting are the hints here given, in which we get the first approaches to kindergarten training. comenius saw that, much as their elders might do to develop children’s powers of thought and expression, “yet children of the same age and the same manners and habits are of greater service still. when they talk or play together, they sharpen each other more effectually; for the one does not surpass the other in depth of invention, and there is among them no assumption of superiority of the one over the other, only love, candour, free questionings and answers” (school of infancy, vi, 12, p. 38).[75] the constant activity of children must be provided for. “it is better to play than to be idle, for during play the mind is intent on some object which often sharpens the abilities. in this way children may be early exercised to an active life without any difficulty, since nature herself stirs them up to be doing something” (ib. ix, 15, p. 55). “in the second, third, fourth years, &c., let their spirits be stirred up by means of agreeable play with them or their playing among themselves.... nay, if some little occupation can be conveniently provided for the child’s eyes, ears, or other senses, these will contribute to its vigour of mind and body” (ib. vi, 21, p. 31).
§ 39. we have the usual cautions against forcing.[144] “early fruit is useful for the day, but will not keep; whereas late fruit may be kept all the year. as some natural capacities would fly, as it were, before the sixth, the fifth, or even the fourth year, yet it will be beneficial rather to restrain than permit this; but very much worse to enforce it.” “it is safer that the brain be rightly consolidated before it begin to sustain labours: in a little child the whole bregma is scarcely closed and the brain consolidated within the fifth or sixth year. it is sufficient, therefore, for this age to comprehend spontaneously, imperceptibly and as it were in play, so much as is employed in the domestic circle” (ib. chap. xi).
§ 40. one disastrous tendency has always shown itself in the schoolroom—the tendency to sever all connection between studies in the schoolroom and life outside. the young pack away their knowledge as it were in water-tight compartments, where it may lie conveniently till the scholastic voyage is over and it can be again unshipped.[76] against this tendency many great teachers have striven, and none more vigorously than comenius. like pestalozzi he sought to resolve everything into its simplest elements, and he finds the commencements before the school age. in the school of infancy he says (speaking of rhetoric), “my aim is to shew, although this is not generally attended to, that the roots of all sciences and arts in every instance[145] arise as early as in the tender age, and that on these foundations it is neither impossible nor difficult for the whole superstructure to be laid; provided always that we act reasonably with a reasonable creature” (viij, 6, p. 46). this principle he applies in his chapter, “how children ought to be accustomed to an active life and perpetual employment” (chap. vij). in the fourth and fifth year their powers are to be drawn out in mechanical or architectural efforts, in drawing and writing, in music, in arithmetic, geometry, and dialectics. for arithmetic in the fourth, fifth, or sixth year, it will be sufficient if they count up to twenty; and they may be taught to play at “odd and even.” in geometry they may learn in the fourth year what are lines, what are squares, what are circles; also the usual measures—foot, pint, quart, &c., and soon they should try to measure and weigh for themselves. similar beginnings are found for other sciences such as physics, astronomy, geography, history, economics, and politics. “the elements of geography will be during the course of the first year and thenceforward, when children begin to distinguish between their cradles and their mother’s bosom” (vj, 6, p. 34). as this geographical knowledge extends, they discover “what a field is, what a mountain, forest, meadow, river” (iv, 9, p. 17). “the beginning of history will be, to be able to remember what was done yesterday, what recently, what a year ago.”[77] (ib.)
§ 41. in this book comenius is careful to provide[146] children with occupation for “mind and hand” (iv, 10, p. 18). drawing is to be practised by all. “it matters not,” says comenius, “whether the objects be correctly drawn or otherwise provided that they afford delight to the mind.”[78]
§ 42. we see then that this restless thinker considered the entire course of a child’s bringing-up from the cradle to maturity; and we cannot doubt that raumer is right in saying, “the influence of comenius on subsequent thinkers and workers in education, especially on the methodizers, is incalculable.” (gesch. d. p., ij, “comenius,” § 10.)
before we think of his methods and school books, let us inquire what he did for education that has proved to be on a solid foundation and “not liable to any ruin.”
§ 43. he was the first to reach a standpoint which was and perhaps always will be above the heads of “the practical men,” and demand education for all. “we design for all who have been born human beings, general instruction to fit them for everything human. they must, therefore, as far as possible be taught together, so that they may mutually draw each other out, enliven and stimulate. of the ‘mother-tongue school’ the end and aim will be, that all the youth of both sexes between the sixth and the twelfth or thirteenth years be taught those things which will be useful to them all their life long.”[79]
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in these days we often hear controversies between the men of science and the ministers of religion. it is as far beyond my intention as it is beyond my abilities to discuss how far the antithesis between religion and science is a true one; but our subject sometimes forces us to observe that religion and science often bring thinkers by different paths to the same result; e.g., they both refuse to recognise class distinctions and make us see an essential unity underlying superficial variations. in comenius we have an earnest christian minister who was also an enthusiast for science. moreover he was without social and virtually without national restrictions, and he was thus in a good position for expressing freely and without bias what both his science and his religion taught him. “not only are the children of the rich and noble to be drawn to the school, but all alike, gentle and simple, rich and poor, boys and girls, in great towns and small, down to the country villages. and for this reason. every one who is born a human being is born with this intent—that he should be a human being, that is, a reasonable creature ruling over the other creatures and bearing the likeness of his maker.” (didactica m. ix, § 1.) this sounds to me nobler than the utterances of rousseau and the french revolutionists, not to mention locke who fell back on considering merely “the gentleman’s calling.” even bishop butler a century after comenius hardly takes so firm a ground, though he lays it down that “children[148] have as much right to some proper education as to have their lives preserved.”[80]
§ 44. the first man who demanded training for every human being because he or she was a human being must always be thought of with respect and gratitude by all who care either for science or religion. it has taken us 250 years to reach the standpoint of comenius; but we have reached it, or almost reached it at last, and when we have once got hold of the idea we are not likely to lose it again. the only question is whether we shall not go on and in the end agree with comenius that the primary school shall be for rich and poor alike. at present the practical men, in england especially, have things all their own way; but their horizon is and must be very limited. they have already had[149] to adjust themselves to many things which their predecessors declared to be “quite impracticable—indeed impossible.” may not their successors in like manner get accustomed to other “impossible” things, this scheme of comenius among them?
§ 45. the champions of realism have always recognised comenius as one of their earliest leaders. bacon had just given voice to the scientific spirit which had at length rebelled against the literary spirit dominant at the renascence, and had begun to turn from all that had been thought and said about nature, straight to nature herself. comenius was the professed disciple of “the noble verulam, who,” said he, “has given us the true key of nature.” furnished with this key, comenius would unlock the door of the treasure-house for himself. “it grieved me,” he says, “that i saw most noble verulam present us indeed with a true key of nature, but not to open the secrets of nature, only shewing us by a few examples how they were to be opened, and leave [i.e., leaving] the rest to depend on observations and inductions continued for several ages.” comenius thought that by the light of the senses, of reason, and of the bible, he might advance faster. “for what? are not we as well as the old philosophers placed in nature’s garden? why then do we not cast about our eyes, nostrils, and ears as well as they? why should we learn the works of nature of any other master rather than of these our senses? why do we not, i say, turn over the living book of the world instead of dead papers? in it we may contemplate more things and with greater delight and profit than any one can tell us. if we have anywhere need of an interpreter, the maker of nature is the best interpreter himself.” (preface to naturall philosophie reformed. english trans., 1651.)
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§ 46. several things are involved in this so-called “realism.” first, comenius would fix the mind of learners on material objects. secondly, he would have them acquire their notions of these for themselves through the senses. from these two principles he drew the corollary that the vast accumulation of traditional learning and literature must be thrown overboard.
§ 47. the demand for the study of things has been best formulated by one of the greatest masters of words, by milton. “because our understanding cannot in the body found itself but on sensible things, nor arrive so clearly to the knowledge of god and things invisible, as by orderly conning over the visible and inferior creature, the same method is necessarily to be followed in all discreet teaching.” (to hartlib.) its material surroundings then are to be the subjects on which the mind of the child must be fixed. this being settled, comenius demands that the child’s knowledge shall not be verbal but real realism, knowledge derived at first hand through the senses.[81]
§ 48. on this subject comenius may speak for himself: “the ground of this business is, that sensual objects [we now say sensible: why not sensuous?] be rightly presented to the senses, for fear they may not be received. i say, and say it again aloud, that this last is the foundation of all the rest: because we can neither act nor speak wisely, unless[151] we first rightly understand all the things which are to be done and whereof we have to speak. now there is nothing in the understanding which was not before in the sense. and therefore to exercise the senses well about the right perceiving the differences of things will be to lay the grounds for all wisdom and all wise discourse and all discreet actions in one’s course of life. which, because it is commonly neglected in schools, and the things that are to be learned are offered to scholars without their being understood or being rightly presented to the senses, it cometh to pass that the work of teaching and learning goeth heavily onward and affordeth little benefit.” (preface to orbis pictus, hoole’s trans. a.d. 1658.)
§ 49. without going into any metaphysical discussion, we must all agree that a vast amount of impressions come to children through the senses, and that it is by the exercise of the senses that they learn most readily. as comenius says: “the senses (being the main guides of childhood, because therein the mind doth not as yet raise up it self to an abstracted contemplation of things) evermore seek their own objects; and if these be away, they grow dull, and wry themselves hither and thither out of a weariness of themselves: but when their objects are present, they grow merry, wax lively, and willingly suffer themselves to be fastened upon them till the thing be sufficiently discerned.” (p. to orbis.) this truth lay at the root of most of the methods of pestalozzi; and though it has had little effect on teaching in england (where for the word anschaulich there is no equivalent), everything that goes on in a german folkschool has reference to it.
§ 50. for children then comenius gave good counsel when he would have their senses exercised on the world[152] about them. but after all, whatever may be thought of the proposition that all knowledge comes through the senses, we must not ignore what is bequeathed to us, both in science and in literature. comenius says: “and now i beseech you let this be our business that the schools may cease to persuade and begin to demonstrate; cease to dispute and begin to look; cease lastly to believe and begin to know. for that aristotellical maxim ‘discentem oportet credere, a learner must believe,’ is as tyrannical as it is dangerous; so also is that same pythagorean ‘ipse dixit, the master has said it.’ let no man be compelled to swear to his masters words, but let the things themselves constrain the intellect.” (p. to nat. phil. r.) but the things themselves will not take us far. even in natural science we need teachers, for science is not reached through the senses but through the intellectual grasp of knowledge which has been accumulating for centuries. if the education of times past has neglected the senses, we must not demand that the education of the future should care for the senses only. there is as yet little danger of our thinking too much of physical education; but we sometimes hear reformers talking as if the true ideal were sketched in “locksley hall:”
“iron-jointed, supple-sinew’d, they shall dive, and they shall run,
catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun,
whistle back the parrot’s call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks;
not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books.”
there seems, however, still some reason for counting “the gray barbarian lower than the christian child.” and the reason is that we are “the heirs of all the ages.” our education must enable every child to enter in some measure on his inheritance; and not a few of our most precious heirlooms[153] will be found not only in scientific discoveries but also in those great works of literature which the votaries of science are apt to despise as “miserable books.” this truth was not duly appreciated by comenius. as professor laurie well says, “he accepted only in a half-hearted way the products of the genius of past ages.” (laurie’s c., p. 22.) in his day there was a violent reaction from the renascence passion for literature, and comenius would entirely banish from education the only literatures which were then important, the “heathen” literatures of greece and rome. “our most learned men,” says he, “even among the theologians take from christ only the mask: the blood and life they draw from aristotle and a crowd of other heathens.” (see paulsen’s gesch., pp. 312, ff.) so for cicero and virgil he would substitute, and his contemporaries at first seemed willing to accept, the janua linguarum. but though there may be much more “real” knowledge in the janua, the classics have survived it.[82][154] in these days there is a passion for the study of things which in its intensity resembles the renascence passion for literature. there is a craving for knowledge, and we know only the truths we can verify; so this craving must be satisfied, not by words, but things. and yet that domain which the physicists contemptuously describe as the study of words must not be lost sight of, indeed cannot be, either by young or old. as matthew arnold has said, “those who are for giving to natural knowledge the chief place in the education of the majority of mankind leave one important thing out of their account—the constitution of human nature.”
“we live by admiration, hope, and love,
and e’en as these are well and wisely fixed,
in dignity of being we ascend.”
so says wordsworth, and if this assertion cannot be verified, no more can it be disproved; that the words have become almost proverbial shows that it commends itself to the general consciousness. whatever knowledge we may acquire, it will have little effect on our lives unless we can “relate it” (again to use matthew arnold’s words), “to our sense of conduct and our sense of beauty.” (discourses in america. “literature and science.”) so long as we retain our sense for these, “the humanities” are safe. like milton we may have no inclination to study “modern januas,” but we shall not cease to value many of the works which the janua of comenius was supposed to have supplanted.[83]
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§ 51. “analogies are good for illustration, not for proof.” if comenius had accepted this caution, he would have escaped much useless labour, and might have had a better foundation for his rules than fanciful applications of[156] what he observed in the external world. “comenius” as august vogel has said, “is unquestionably right in wishing to draw his principles of education from nature; but instead of examining the proper constitution and nature of man, and[157] taking that as the basis of his theory, he watches the life of birds, the growth of trees, or the quiet influence of the sun, and thus substitutes for the nature of man nature without man (die objective natur). and yet by nature he understands that first and primordial state to which as to our original [idea] we should be restored, and by the voice of nature he understands the universal providence of god or the ceaseless influence of the divine goodness working all in all, that is, leading every creature to the state ordained for it. the vegetative and animal life in nature is according to comenius himself not life at all in its highest sense, but the only true life is the intellectual or spiritual life of man. no doubt in the two lower kinds of life certain analogies may be found for the higher; but nothing can be less worthy of reliance and less scientific than a method which draws its principles for the higher life from what has been observed in the lower.” (a. vogel’s gesch. d. p?dagogik als wissenschaft, p. 94.)
§ 52. this seems to me judicious criticism; but whatever mistakes he may have made, comenius, like froebel long after him, strove after a higher unity which should embrace knowledge of every kind. the connexion of knowledges (so constantly overlooked in the schoolroom) was always in his thoughts. “we see that the branches of a tree cannot live unless they all alike suck their juices from a common trunk with common roots. and can we hope that the branches of wisdom can be torn asunder with safety to their life, that is to truth? can one be a natural philosopher[158] who is not also a metaphysician? or an ethical thinker who does not know something of physical science? or a logician who has no knowledge of real matters? or a theologian, a jurisconsult, or a physician, who is not first a philosopher? or an orator or poet, who is not all these at once? he deprives himself of light, of hand, and of regulation, who pushes away from him any shred of the knowable.” (quoted in masson’s l. of milton vol. iij., p. 213 from the delineatio, [i.e., pansophi? prodromus]. conf. j. h. newman, idea of a university, disc. iij.)
§ 53. we see then that on the side of theory, comenius was truly great. but the practical man who has always been the tyrant of the schoolroom cared nothing for theory and held, with a modern english minister responsible for education, who proved his ignorance of theory by his “new code,” that there was, and could be no such thing. so the reputation of comenius became pretty much what our great authority hallam has recorded, that he was a person of some ingenuity and little judgment who invented a new way of learning latin. this estimate of him enables us to follow some windings in the stream of thought about education. comenius faced the whole problem in its double bearing, theory and practice: he asked, what is the educator’s task? how can he best accomplish it? but his contemporaries had not yet recovered from the idolatry of latin which had been bequeathed to them by their fathers from the renascence, and they too saw in comenius chiefly an inventor of a new way of learning latin. he sought to train up children for this world and the next; they supposed, as oxenstiern himself said, that the main thing to be remedied was the clumsy way of teaching latin. so comenius was little understood. his books were seized upon as affording[159] at once an introduction to the knowledge of things and a short way of learning latin. but in the long run they were found more tiresome than the old classics: so they went out of fashion, and their author was forgotten with them. now that schoolmasters are forming a more worthy conception of their office, they are beginning to do justice to comenius.
§ 54. as the jesuits kept to latin as the common language of the church, so comenius thought to use it as a means of inter-communication for the instructed of every nationality. but he was singularly free from over-estimating the value of latin, and he demanded that all nations should be taught in their own language wherein they were born. on this subject he expresses himself with great emphasis. “we desire and protest that studies of wisdom be no longer committed to latin alone, and kept shut up in the schools, as has hitherto been done, to the greatest contempt and injury of the people at large, and the popular tongues. let all things be delivered to each nation in its own speech.” (delineatio [prodromus] in masson ut supra.)
§ 55. comenius was then neither a verbalist nor a classicist, and yet his contemporaries were not entirely wrong in thinking of him as “a man who had invented a new way of learning latin.” his great principle was that instruction in words and things should go together.[84] the young were to learn about things, and at the same time were to acquire both in the vernacular and also in latin, the international tongue, the words which were connected with the things. having settled on this plan of concurrent instruction[160] in words and things, comenius determined to write a book for carrying it out. just then there fell into his hands a book which a less open-minded man might have thrown aside on account of its origin, for it was written by the bitter foes and persecutors of the bohemian protestants, by the jesuits. but comenius says truly, “i care not whether i teach or whether i learn,” and he gave a marvellous proof of this by adopting the linguistic method of the jesuits’ janua linguarum.[85][161] this “noah’s ark for words,” treated in a series of proverbs of all kinds of subjects, in such a way as to introduce in a natural connection every common word in the latin language. “the idea,” says comenius, “was better than the[162] execution. nevertheless, inasmuch as they (the jesuits) were the prime inventors, we thankfully acknowledge it, nor will we upbraid them with those errors they have committed.” (preface to anchoran’s trans. of janua.)
§ 56. the plan commended itself to comenius on various grounds. first, he had a notion of giving an outline of all knowledge before anything was taught in detail. next, he[163] could by such a book connect the teaching about simple things with instruction in the latin words which applied to them. and thirdly, he hoped by this means to give such a complete latin vocabulary as to render the use of latin easy for all requirements of modern society. he accordingly wrote a short account of things in general, which he put in the form of a dialogue, and this he published in latin and german at leszna in 1531. the success of this work, as we have already seen, was prodigious. no doubt the spirit which animated bacon was largely diffused among educated men in all countries, and they hailed the appearance of a book which called the youth from the study of old philosophical ideas to observe the facts around them.
§ 57. the countrymen of bacon were not backward in adopting the new work, as the following, from the title-page of a volume in the british museum, will show: “the gate of tongues unlocked and opened; or else, a seminary or seed-plot of all tongues and sciences. that is, a short way of teaching and thoroughly learning, within a yeare and a half at the furthest, the latine, english, french and any other tongue, with the ground and foundation of arts and sciences, comprised under a hundred titles and 1058 periods. in latin first, and now, as a token of thankfulness, brought to light in latine, english and french, in the behalfe of the most illustrious prince charles, and of british, french, and irish youth. the 4th edition, much enlarged, by the labour and industry of john anchoran, licentiate in divinity, london. printed by edward griffin for michael sparke, dwelling at the blew bible in green arbor, 1639.” the first edition must have been some years earlier, and the work[164] contains a letter to anchoran from comenius dated “lessiv? polonorum (leszna) 11th oct, 1632.” so we see that, however the connexion arose, it was anchoran not hartlib who first made comenius known in england.
§ 58. in the preface to the volume (signed by anchoran and comenius) we read of the complaints of “ascam, vives, erasmus, sturmius, frisclinus, dornavius and others.” the scaligers and lipsius did climb but left no track. “hence it is that the greater number of schools (howsoever some boast the happinesse of the age and the splendour of learning) have not as yet shaked off their ataxies. the youth was held off, nay distracted, and is yet in many places delayed with grammar precepts infinitely tedious, perplexed, obscure, and (for the most part) unprofitable, and that for many years.” the names of things were taught to those who were in total ignorance of the things themselves.
§ 59. from this barren region the pupil was to escape to become acquainted with things. “come on,” says the teacher in the opening dialogue, “let us go forth into the open air. there you shall view whatsoever god produced from the beginning, and doth yet effect by nature. afterwards we will go into towns, shops, schools, where you shall see how men do both apply those divine works to their uses, and also instruct themselves in arts, manners, tongues. then we will enter into houses, courts, and palaces of princes, to see in what manner communities of men are governed. at last we will visit temples, where you shall observe how diversely mortals seek to worship their creator and to be spiritually united unto him, and how he by his almightiness disposeth all things.” (this is from the 1656 edition, by “w.d.”)
the book is still amusing, but only from the quaint[165] manner in which the mode of life two hundred years ago is described in it.[86]
§ 60. but though parts of the book may on first reading have gratified the youth of the seventeenth century, a great deal of it gave scanty information about difficult subjects, such as physiology, geometry, logic, rhetoric, and that too in the driest and dullest way. moreover, in his first version (much modified at saros-patak) comenius following the jesuit boasts that no important word occurs twice; so that the book, to attain the end of giving a perfect stock of latin words, would have to be read and re-read till it was almost known by heart; and however amusing boys might find an account of their toys written in latin the first time of reading, the interest would somewhat wear away by the fifth or sixth time. we cannot then feel much surprised on reading this “general verdict,” written some years later, touching those earlier works of comenius: “they are of singular use, and very advantageous to those of more discretion (especially to such as have already got a smattering in latin), to help their memories to retain what they have scatteringly gotten here and there, and to furnish them with many words which perhaps they had not formerly read or so well observed;[166] but to young children (whom we have chiefly to instruct, as those that are ignorant altogether of most things and words), they prove rather a mere toil and burden than a delight and furtherance.” (chas. hoole’s preface to his trans. of orbis pictus, dated “from my school in lothbury, london, jan. 25, 1658.”)
§ 61. the “janua” would, therefore, have had but a short-lived popularity with teachers, and a still shorter with learners, if comenius had not carried out his principle of appealing to the senses, and adopted a plan which had been suggested, nearly 50 years earlier, by a protestant divine, lubinus,[87] of rostock. the artist was called in, and with[167] endter at nürnberg in 1657 was published the first edition of a book which long outlived the janua. this was the famous orbis sensualium pictus, which was used for a century at least in many a schoolroom, and lives in imitations to the present day. comenius wrote this book on the same lines as the janua, but he goes into less detail, and every subject is illustrated by a small engraving. the text is mostly on the opposite page to the picture, and is connected with it by a series of corresponding numbers. everything named in the text is numbered as in the picture. the artist employed must have been a bold man, as he sticks at nothing; but in skill he was not the equal of many of his contemporaries;[168] witness the pictures in the schaffhausen janua (editio secunda, schaffhusi, 1658), in daniel’s edition of the janua, 1562, and the very small but beautiful illustrations in the vestibulum of “jacob redinger and j. s.” (amsterdam, 1673). however, the orbis pictus gives such a quaint delineation of life 200 years ago that copies with the original engravings keep rising in value, and an american publisher (bardeen of syracuse, new york), has lately reproduced the old book with the help of photography.
§ 62. and yet as instruments of teaching, these books, i.e. the vestibulum and the janua and even the orbis pictus which in a great measure superseded both, proved a failure. how shall we account for this?
comenius immensely over-estimated the importance of knowledge and the power of the human mind to acquire knowledge. he took it for the heavenly idea that man should know all things. this notion started him on the wrong road for forming a scheme of instruction, and it needed many years and much experience to show him his error. when he wrote the orbis pictus he said of it: “it is a little book, as you see, of no great bulk, yet a brief of the whole world and a whole language;” (hoole’s trans. preface); and he afterwards speaks of “this our little encyclop?dia of things subject to the senses.” but in his old age he saw that his text-books were too condensed and attempted too much (laurie, p. 59); and he admitted that after all seneca was right: “melius est scire pauca et iis recté uti quam scire multa, quorum ignores usum. it is better to know a few things and have the right use of them than to know many things which you cannot use at all.”
§ 63. the attempt to give “information” has been the ruin of a vast number of professing educators since comenius.[169] masters “of the old school” whom some of us can still remember made boys learn latin and greek grammar and nothing else. their successors seem to think that boys should not learn latin and greek grammar but everything else: and the last error i take to be much worse than the first. as ruskin has neatly said, education is not teaching people to know what they do not know, but to behave as they do not behave. it is to be judged not by the knowledge acquired, but the habits, powers, interests: knowledge must be thought of “last and least.”
§ 64. so the attempt to teach about everything was unwise. the means adopted were unwise also. it is a great mistake to suppose that a “general view” should come first; this is not the right way to give knowledge in any subject. “a child begins by seeing bits of everything—here a little and there a little; it makes up its wholes out of its own littles, and is long in reaching the fulness of a whole; and in this we are children all our lives in much.” (dr. john brown in hor? subseciv?, p. 5.) so nothing could have been much more unfortunate than an attempt to give the young “a brief of the whole world.” compendia, dispendia.
§ 65. corresponding to “a brief of the whole world,” comenius offers “a brief of a whole language.” the two mistakes were well matched. in “the whole world” there are a vast number of things of which we must, and a good number of which we very advantageously may be ignorant. in a language there are many words which we cannot know and many more which we do not want to know. the language lives for us in a small vocabulary of essential words, and our hold upon the language depends upon the power we have in receiving and expressing thought by means of those words. but the jesuit bath, and after him comenius,[170] made the tremendous mistake of treating all latin words as of equal value, and took credit for using each word once and once only! moreover, comenius wrote not simply to teach the latin language, but also to stretch the latin language till it covered the whole area of modern life. he aimed at two things and missed them both.
§ 66. we see then that comenius was not what hallam calls him, “a man who invented a new way of learning latin.” he did not do this, but he did much more than this. he saw that every human creature should be trained up to become a reasonable being, and that the training should be such as to draw out god-given faculties. thus he struck the key-note of the science of education.
the quantity and the diffuseness of the writings of comenius are truly bewildering. in these days eminent men, carlyle, e.g., sometimes find it difficult to get into print; but printing-presses all over europe seemed to be at the service of comenius. an account of the various editions of the janua would be an interesting piece of bibliography, but the task of making it would not be a light one. the earliest copy of which i can find a trace is entered in the catalogue of the bodleian: “comenius j. a. janua linguarum, 8vo, lips (leipzig) 1632.” i also find there another copy entered “per anchoranum, cum clave per w. saltonstall, london, 1633.”
the fame of comenius is increasing and many interesting works have now been written about him. i have already mentioned the english books of benham and laurie. in german i have the following books, but not the time to read them all:—
daniel, h. a. zerstreute bl?tter. halle, 1866.
free, h. p?dagogik d. comenius. bernburg, 1884.
hiller, r. latein methode d. j. a. comenius. zschopau, 1883. (v. g. and terse; only 46 pp.)
müller, walter. comenius ein systematiker in d. p?d. dresden, 1887.
pappenheim, e. amos comenius. berlin, 1871.
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seyffarth, l. w. j. a. comenius. leipzig, 2nd edition, 1871. (a careful and, as far as i can judge in haste, an excellent piece of work.)
zoubek, fr. j. j. a. comenius. eine quellenm?ssige lebensskizze, (prefixed to trans. of didac. m. in richter’s p?d. bibliothek.)
for a port-royalist’s criticism of the janua, see infra. (p. 185 note.)
