FORERUNNERS OF COMENIUS
Traces of the intellectual development of Comenius.
Vives a realist—His early training in Spain
and France—Educational activity in Belgium and
England—Views on the education of women—Theory of
education—Comparison of Vives and Comenius. Bacon
the founder of modern realism—Views on the education
of his day—Attacks mediævalism—Study of nature
and the inductive method—Individual differences
among children. Ratke—Studies at Hamburg and
Rostock—Visits England and becomes acquainted with
the philosophy of Bacon—His plan of education—Its
reception by the universities at Jena and
Giessen—Organization of the schools at Gotha—Call
to Sweden—Summary of Ratke’s views—Harmony of his
teachings with those of Comenius. Campanella,
Andreæ, and Bateus—Their influence on the life and
teachings of Comenius.
Every educational reformer owes much, in the way of inspiration and
suggestion, to his predecessors, and of none is this more true than of
John Amos Comenius. Everywhere in his writings are to be found traces
of the movement he championed, in the writings of Vives, Bacon, Ratke,
Bateus, Campanella, and others. As Professor Nicholas Murray Butler
remarks: “From Ratke he learned something of the way in which language
teaching, the whole curriculum of the time, might be reformed; and
from Bateus he derived both the title and the plan of his _Janua_.
Campanella suggested to him the necessity of the direct interrogation
of nature if knowledge was to progress, and Vives emphasized for
him from the same point of view the defects of contemporary school
practice. But it was Bacon’s _Instauratio Magna_ that opened his eyes
to the possibilities of our knowledge of nature and its place in the
educational scheme.”[13] This obligation to his predecessors Comenius
was the first to recognize. And he recognized it often and specifically
by his willing tributes to the help received by him from Vives, Bacon,
Ratke, and others.
_Vives_
“Comenius received his first impulse as a sense-realist,” says Raumer,
“from the well-known Spanish pedagogue John Lewis Vives, who had come
out against Aristotle and disputation in favor of a Christian mode of
philosophizing and the silent contemplation of nature.” “It is better
for the pupils to ask, to investigate, than to be forever disputing
with one another,” said Vives. “Yet,” adds Comenius, “Vives understood
better where the fault was than what was the remedy.” In the preface
to the _Janua_, Comenius quotes Vives among others as opposed to the
current methods of language teaching.
The Spanish educator was born a hundred years before Comenius, of poor,
but noble parentage. When fifteen years old he was considered the most
brilliant pupil in the academy at Valencia. Two years later he was
matriculated in the University of Paris, where, as his biographers tell
us, he was surrounded by the Dialecticians, whose theology was the most
abstruse and whose Latin was the most barbarous. This condition of
affairs turned the young Spaniard’s thoughts toward educational reform.
He realized in Paris, as he had not before, the uselessness of the
empty disputations which occupied so much time in the schools.
Three years were spent in study at Paris, after which Vives travelled
through portions of Spain and France, and, in 1517, he settled with
the Valdura family in Bruges and married the daughter of his host.
Here he wrote his allegory _Christi triumphus_, in which he holds up
to ridicule the methods of teaching in the University of Paris. A year
later he was installed in the University of Louvain as the instructor
of the young Cardinal de Croy. While here he wrote a history of
philosophy; made the acquaintance of Erasmus; and opened correspondence
with Thomas More and other reformers.
In 1519 he visited Paris with Cardinal de Croy; and, in spite of his
late criticisms, he was cordially received by the university, his
scholarship and ability now being recorded facts. Two years later De
Croy died without having made any provision for the support of his
tutor. Vives began at once a commentary on St. Augustine; but his
health giving way, he returned to Bruges, where, in July, he had a
personal interview with Thomas More, Wolsey, and others, who were in
favor with Henry VIII of England. He taught at Louvain during the
winter semester of 1522–1523, after which, through the influence of the
English dignitaries already mentioned, he was called to England.
In what capacity he went to England is hardly known. Some say as the
tutor of King Henry’s daughter Mary; others as a lecturer in the
University of Oxford. Certain it is that he gave two lectures at
Oxford, which were attended by the king and queen, and that he received
the honorary degree of D.C.L., in 1523. In 1526 appeared his treatise
on the care of the poor, which he dedicated to the municipal council
of Bruges. It was one of the first scientific treatments of pauperism.
He maintained that it was incumbent upon State, and not upon the
Church to care for the poor. Buisson says of it, “Its suggestions are
as attractive as they are wise; and even to-day they continue in full
force.”
In 1528 he published his pedagogic classic on the Christian education
of women. The mother, says Vives, like Cornelia, should regard her
children as her most precious jewels. She should nurse her own children
because of possible physical influences on the child. The mother should
instruct her girl in all that pertains to the household; and early
teach her to read. She should relate to her stories, not empty fables,
but such as will instruct and edify her and teach her to love virtue
and hate vice. The mother should teach her daughter that riches, power,
praise, titles, and beauty are vain and empty things; and that piety,
virtue, bravery, meekness, and culture are imperishable virtues. Strong
discipline in the home is urged. Lax discipline, says Vives, makes a
man bad, but it makes a woman a criminal. Dolls should be banished from
the nursery because they encourage vanity and love of dress. Boys and
girls should not be instructed together, not even during the earliest
years of childhood. But women require to be educated as well as men.
This work, which presented in stronger terms than hitherto the claims
of the education of women, was dedicated to Catherine of Aragon. It
was widely republished and had large influence.
For five years Vives had been a distinguished figure at the court of
Henry VIII, but with the king’s application for divorce, in 1528, came
a rupture of these pleasant relations. In a letter to a friend he says:
“You must have heard of the troubles between the king and the queen,
as it is now talked of everywhere. I have taken the side of the queen,
whose cause has seemed to me just, and have defended her by word and
pen. This offended his Majesty to such degree that I was imprisoned
for six weeks, and only released upon condition that I would never
appear in the palace again. I then concluded it safest to return home
[to Bruges]; and, indeed, the queen advised me to in a secret letter.
Shortly after Cardinal Campeggio was sent to Britain to judge the
cause. The king was very solicitous that the queen appoint counsel to
defend her side before Campeggio and Wolsey. She, therefore, called
me to her aid; but I told her plainly that any defence before such a
court was useless, and that it would be much better to be condemned
unheard, than with the _appearance_ of defence. The king sought only
to save appearances with his people, that the queen might not appear
to have been unjustly treated; but he had little regard for the rest.
At this the queen was incensed that I did not obey her call instead
of following my own good judgment, which is worth more to me than all
the princes of the world together. So it has come about that the king
regards me as his adversary, and the queen regards me as disobedient
and opinionated; and both of them have withdrawn my pension.”
His closing years were passed at Bruges with his wife’s family; at
Breda with the Duchess of Nassau, a Spanish lady who had formerly been
his pupil; and at Paris, where he gave some courses of lectures. He
had struggled against a weak constitution all his life, and after his
return from England other diseases developed. He died on May 6, 1540,
in his forty-eighth year, and was buried in the Church of St. Donat at
Bruges.
His most considerable contribution to the philosophy of education
appeared after his return from England. It was entitled _De
disciplinis_; was published in three parts, in 1531; and was dedicated
to the King of Portugal. As Dr. Lange remarks, this work alone entitles
Vives to large consideration as an educational reformer.
Vives justifies, in the introduction, the position he assumes in regard
to Aristotle; while he regards the Greek as a great philosopher, he
declares that the world has gained in experience since Aristotle
wrote, and he sees no reason why his teachings should not be set aside
if found to be incorrect. He has no doubt but that later generations
will find theories better adapted to their ends than those he himself
advocates, but he greets as a friend the one who shall point out his
errors.
In the first part he treats of the decline of the sciences. The causes
of this decline he considers twofold: (1) Moral; and here he notes
an unwillingness to search for truth for truth’s sake. Pride is the
root of this evil. A student in the University of Paris had remarked
to him, “Sooner than not distinguish myself by founding some new
doctrine, I would defend one of whose falsity I was convinced.” This
moral weakness he thought altogether inconsistent with the advancement
of the sciences. (2) Historical and material, including as causes the
migration of nations by which existing orders of civilization have been
annihilated; the obscurity of ancient manuscripts, requiring more time
to decipher their meaning than it would take to discover from nature
their meaning; the ever increasing use of commentaries in the study
of originals, in which the diverse opinions of the commentators lead
farther from the original sense; the practice of scholastic disputation
which is taught the pupils before they know what they are disputing
about; and the practice of regarding teaching as a trade rather than a
profession, thus causing many bright minds to select other vocations,
and to bring to the work incompetent and coarse minds.
The second part treats of the decline of grammar, and the third part
of the art of teaching, in which he gives some most sane directions.
Schools should be located in the most healthy part of the community.
They should not be too near commercial centres; at the same time,
they should not be too distant from the centre of population. As to
teachers, they should have good academic training; they should be
skilled in the art of imparting knowledge; and their morals should
be such as would furnish examples to their pupils. Covetousness and
ambition, above all things, should be unknown to them. Teachers who
have ambition and reputation in their minds are thereby unfitted
for the work of teaching. On this account, the state should fix the
salaries, and the compensation should be the wage of honest men.
There should be a school in every community. Before pupils should be
assigned tasks, teachers should ascertain their mental capacities and
characteristics. They should also be privately tested four times a
year; and when children are found who possess no taste for study they
should be dismissed from the school. Corporal punishment should seldom
be applied, and never to such a degree as to humiliate the pupils.
Children should be given plenty of play time; and hearty, romping games
are especially recommended. In the matter of method, Vives heartily
commends the inductive,—from particulars to generals,—and he urges such
a grouping of studies that each new subject studied may naturally grow
out of the preceding lesson. While he strongly advises the study of the
natural sciences, he is less enthusiastic here than Bacon, fearing, as
he admits, that a contemplation of nature may prove dangerous to those
not deeply grounded in faith.
But Vives was essentially a realist in his doctrines of education;
and when his views are compared with those of Comenius, community of
ideas is at once apparent. Both would begin education in the home and
make the mother the first teacher. Both realized the need of better
organization and classification of the schools. Both urged reforms
in the matter of language teaching. Both considered education a
matter of state concern, and urged pedagogical training for teachers.
Both presented the claims of science and urged the coördination and
correlation of the different subjects of study. Both emphasized the
value of play and the need of physical training. Both advocated
education for all classes of both sexes, and both exaggerated the need
and importance of the religious training of the child.
_Bacon_
“Though there were many before Bacon, and especially artists and
craftsmen,” says Raumer, “who lived in communion with nature, and who,
in manifold ways, transfigured and idealized her, and unveiled her
glory; and, though their sense for nature was so highly cultivated
that they attained to a practical understanding of her ways, yet this
understanding was at best merely instinctive: for it led them to no
scientific deductions and yielded them no thoughtful and legitimate
dominion over her.”
The founder of modern realism was born in London on the 22d of January
in the year 1561. When sixteen years of age he entered Trinity College,
Cambridge, where he studied under Dr. John Whitgift, a noted professor
of theology, and afterward archbishop of Canterbury. He studied
diligently the writings of Aristotle, but was convinced of their
inadequacy. Writing of this period he says: “Amid men of sharp and
strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading,
their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors, chiefly
Aristotle, their dictator, as their persons are shut up in the cells
of monasteries and colleges; and who knowing little history, either of
nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter, and infinite
agitation of wit, spin cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness
of the thread and work, but of no substance or profit.”
The checkered career of Bacon is extraneous to his writings and may be
passed over in silence. As noted in the first chapter, the educational
institutions of the sixteenth century concerned themselves wholly with
the acquisition and display of Latin eloquence. Grammar was studied
with infinite labor and sorrow for years that students might acquire
correct forms of speech; logic that they might express themselves with
precision; and a minimum of history was taught that ancient records
might furnish ornate illustrations in speaking and writing.
Erasmus and Melanchthon had disputed this ideal of culture, but it
remained for Bacon to demolish this idol of mediævalism. “Forsooth,”
he says, “we suffer the penalty of our first parents’ sin, and yet
follow in their footsteps. They desired to be like God, and we, their
posterity, would be so in a higher degree. For we create worlds, direct
and control nature, and, in short, square all things by the measure
of our own folly, not by the plummet of divine wisdom, nor as we find
them in reality. I know not whether, for this result we are forced
to do violence to nature or to our own intelligence the most; but it
nevertheless remains true, that we stamp the seal of our own image upon
the creatures and works of God, instead of carefully searching for,
and acknowledging, the seal of the Creator manifest in them. Therefore
have we lost, the second time, and that deservedly, our empire over the
creatures, yea, when after and notwithstanding the fall, there was left
to us some title to dominion over the unwilling creatures, so that they
could be subjected and controlled, even this we have lost, in great
part through our pride, in that we have desired to be like God, and
to follow the dictates of our own reason alone. Now then, if there be
any humility in the presence of the Creator, if there be any reverence
for and exaltation of his handiwork, if there be any charity toward
men, any desires to relieve the woes and sufferings of humanity, any
love for the light of truth, and hatred toward the darkness of error,—I
would beseech men again and again, to dismiss altogether, or at least
for a moment to put away their absurd and intractable theories,
which give to assumptions the dignity of hypotheses, dispense with
experiment, and turn them away from the works of God. Let them with
a teachable spirit approach the great volume of creation, patiently
decipher its secret characters, and converse with its lofty truths; so
shall they leave behind the delusive echoes of prejudice, and dwell
within the perpetual outgoings of divine wisdom. This is that speech
and language whose lines have gone out into all the earth, and no
confusion of tongues has ever befallen it. This language we should all
strive to understand, first condescending, like little children, to
master its alphabet.”
Instead of training children to interrogate nature for themselves,
and to interpret the answers to these interrogations, instead of
going straight to nature herself, the schools are forever teaching
what others have thought and written on the subject. This procedure,
according to Bacon, not only displays lack of pedagogic sense, but
gives evidence of ignorance and self-conceit, and inflicts the greatest
injury on philosophy and learning. Such methods of instruction,
moreover, tend to stifle and interrupt all inquiry. We must, says
Bacon, “come as new-born children, with open and fresh minds, to the
observation of nature. For it is no less true in this human kingdom of
knowledge than in God’s kingdom of heaven, that no man shall enter into
it except as he becomes first as a little child.”
Bacon’s notion, as summarized by Raumer, was that “man must put himself
again in direct, close, and personal contact with nature, and no
longer trust to the confused, uncertain, and arbitrary accounts and
descriptions of her historians and would-be interpreters. From a clear
and correct observation and perception of objects, their qualities,
powers, etc., the investigator must proceed, step by step, till he
arrives at laws, and to that degree of insight that will enable him
to interpret the laws and to analyze the processes of nature. To this
end Bacon proffers to us his new method—the method of induction. With
the aid of this method we attain to an insight into the connection and
natural relation of the laws of matter, and thus, according to him, we
are enabled through this knowledge to make nature subservient to our
will.”
This was, according to Comenius, the true key to the human intellect.
But he laments that Bacon should have given us the key and failed
to unlock the door to the treasure-house. But Bacon did more than
formulate the laws of scientific induction for pedagogic purposes: he
made possible the enrichment of the courses of study by the addition
of a wide range of school studies. His thrusts at the Latin and Greek,
as the sole exponents of culture, were telling in their effect and
made possible the recognition of the vernacular themes in Comenius’
day. “The wisdom of the Greeks,” he says, “was rhetorical; it expended
itself upon words, and it had little to do with the search after
truth.” Speaking again of classical culture, he says: “These older
generations fell short of many of our present knowledges; they know but
a small part of the world, and but a brief period of history. We, on
the contrary, are acquainted with a far greater extent of the world,
besides having discovered a new hemisphere, and we look back and survey
long periods of history.”
Bacon recognized great individual differences in the mental capacities
of children, and he urged that these differences and special tastes
be taken into account by the teachers. He says: “The natural bent
of the individual minds should be so far encouraged that a student
who shall learn all that is required of him may be allowed time in
which to pursue a favorite study. And, furthermore, it is worth while
to consider, and I think this point has not hitherto received the
attention which its importance demands, that there are two distinct
modes of training the mind to a free and appropriate use of its
faculties. The one begins with the easiest, and so proceeds to the
more difficult; the other, at the outset, presses the pupil with the
more difficult tasks, and, after he has mastered these, turns him to
pleasanter and easier ones: for it is one method to practise swimming
with bladders, and another to practise dancing with heavy shoes. It
is beyond all estimate how a judicious blending of these two methods
will profit both the mental and the bodily powers. And so to select
and assign topics of instruction as to adapt them to the individual
capabilities of the pupils,—this, too, requires a special experience
and judgment. A close observation and an accurate knowledge of the
different natures of the pupils are due from teachers to the parents
of these pupils, that they may choose an occupation in life for their
sons accordingly. And note further, that not only does every one make
more rapid progress in those studies to which his nature inclines him,
but, again, that a natural disinclination, in whatever direction, may
be overcome by the help of special studies. For instance, if a boy has
a light, inattentive, inconstant spirit, so that he is easily diverted,
and his attention cannot be readily fixed, he will find advantage
in the mathematics, in which a demonstration must be commenced anew
whenever the thought wanders even for a moment.”
These citations will suggest parallels in the aims of the two great
reformers. Both sought to introduce the student to nature at first
hand. Both aimed to reorganize the sciences into one great body of
coördinated knowledge. Both emphasized the value of the inductive
method in the development of subjects of study. Bacon said: “A good
method will solve all problems. A cripple on the right path will beat a
racer on the wrong path.” Said Comenius: “The secret of education lies
in method.” Again: “There is no difficulty in learning Latin: what we
want is a good method.”
_Ratke_
Although but little more than twenty years the senior of Comenius,
Ratke’s mental development was less tardy, so that when the Moravian
was a young collegian at Herborn, Ratke was enjoying the full flush
of popularity as an educational reformer. Born at Wilster in Holstein
(Germany), in 1571, he trained in the gymnasium at Hamburg, and
later studied philosophy at Rostock. Later he travelled in England
and Holland; studied Hebrew and Arabic, and formulated the plan of
education which made him famous as a reformer. He attached great value
to his plan and expressed great unwillingness to divulge it without
adequate remuneration. He made known his contemplated reforms at a
diet of the German Empire, held at Frankfort on the 12th of May, 1612.
They were threefold: (1) To teach Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, or any
other language, to young or old in a very short time; (2) to establish
schools in which the arts and sciences should be taught and extended;
(3) to introduce a uniform speech throughout the empire, and, at the
same time, uniform government and religion. He proposed to follow the
order and course of nature, and teach first the mother-tongue, after
this Hebrew and Greek, as being the tongues of the original text of the
Bible, and, lastly, Latin.
Through the influence of the princes (and more especially by the
encouragement of the Duchess Dorothea of Weimar), the plans of Ratke
were submitted to a commission selected from the faculties of the
universities at Jena and Giessen,—Professors Grawer, Brendel, Walther,
and Wolf representing Jena and Professors Helwig and Jung, Giessen.
The report was favorable to Ratke. Professor Helwig, who was one of
the best linguists of his day, was the spokesman for Giessen, and he
accepted Ratke’s views with great enthusiasm. “By diligent reflection
and long practice,” he says, “Ratke has discovered a valuable method by
which good arts and languages can be taught and studied more easily,
quickly, and correctly than has been usual in the schools. Ratke’s
method is more practicable in the arts than in the sciences, since
arts and sciences are by their nature consistent with themselves,
while the languages, on the contrary, by long use have acquired many
inaccuracies.”
Professor Helwig commends especially the methodology in Ratke’s plan,
and urges that we must consider not only the knowledge to be imparted,
but as well the method of imparting knowledge. He says: “Nature does
much, it is true, but when art assists her, her work is much more
certain and complete. Therefore it is necessary that there should be
an especial art to which any one who desires to teach can adhere,
so that he shall not teach by mere opinion and guess, nor by native
instinct alone, but by the rules of his art; just as he who would speak
correctly by the rules of grammar, and he who would sing correctly
by the rules of music. This art of teaching, like the art of logic,
applies to all languages, arts, and sciences. It discusses among other
things how to distinguish among minds and gifts, so that the quicker
may not be delayed, and that, on the contrary, those who are by nature
not so quick may not remain behind; how and in what order to arrange
the exercises; how to assist the understanding; how to strengthen
the memory; how to sharpen the intellect without violence and after
the true course of nature. This art of teaching, no less than other
arts, has its fixed laws and rules, founded not only upon the nature
and understanding of man, but upon the peculiarities of languages,
arts, and sciences; and it admits of no ways of teaching which are not
deduced from sure grounds and founded upon proof.” The Jena professors
were no less favorable with regard to this new art of teaching.
The influence of this report on the fame of Ratke was far-reaching.
The following year (1614) he was invited to Augsburg to reform the
schools of that city. This invitation was the outgrowth of a study of
his plan by David Höschel, the principal of St. Anne’s School, and two
other teachers appointed by the city to accompany him to Frankfort
and aid him in the investigation. They reported that Ratke had so far
explained his method to them that they were satisfied and pleased
with it; and the invitation to Ratke promptly followed. Beyond a few
monographs by the Augsburg disciples, based on his method, and inspired
doubtless by his sojourn there, we are altogether without evidence of
the success or failure of the reforms at Augsburg.
Early in 1616, Prince Ludwig of Anhalt-Gotha yielded to the persuasions
of his sister, the Duchess Dorothea of Weimar, and invited Ratke to
Gotha to organize the schools there in accordance with his views. He
engaged to organize and supervise the schools and to instruct and train
the teachers, but he bound the prince to exact from each teacher a
promise not to divulge his method to any one.
A printing-office was established at Gotha to supply the books required
by the new order. Fonts of type in six languages were imported from
Holland, and four compositors and two pressmen were brought from
Rostock and Jena. The people of Gotha were required by the prince to
send their children to the schools organized by Ratke. Two hundred and
thirty-one boys and two hundred and two girls were enrolled.
The school was graded into six classes. The mother-tongue was taught
in the lowest classes; Latin was begun in the fourth, and Greek in the
sixth. He required that the teacher in the lowest class should be a
man of kind manners, and that he need know no language but the German.
This scandalized the whole German nation. A schoolmaster ignorant of
Latin! Critics appeared from the first with the most cogent reasons
for distrusting the “new methods.” But Ratke had the confidence of
the prince, and all went merrily for a time. The instruction was
simplified; and, besides the mother-tongue, arithmetic, singing, and
religion were taught.
But he encountered numerous obstacles at Gotha: the teachers of the
town, it would appear, did not fully share his views; the town adhered
to the Reformed Church and Ratke was a Lutheran,—a fact which caused no
end of trouble; and the prince was not altogether satisfied with the
fulfilment of Ratke’s promises of reform. The pastor of the Reformed
Church of Gotha preferred formal charges of heterodoxy against him, and
maintained, besides, that Ratke made too little provision for the study
of music and the catechism; that too much time was given to recreation;
that the discipline was altogether too mild; and that the children
were permitted to pass from one study to another too rapidly. Singular
charges, these! And the more singular when one recalls the long hours
and the harsh discipline of the seventeenth century.
The opposition was strong, and at the end of eighteen months the
Gotha experiment was brought to an abrupt close. Ratke was not only
dismissed, but was imprisoned on the charge that he “had claimed and
promised more than he knew that he could bring to pass.” After spending
the best of a year in prison, he signed a declaration in which he
assented to the charges. Then the prince released him. He went to
Magdeburg, where he was well received by the school authorities; but
the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the city were soon at war with him,
and he moved on to Rudolstadt, where he was cordially received by the
Princess Anna Sophia, wife of Prince Gunther of Swarzburg-Rudolstadt.
Subsequently Oxenstiern, the chancellor of Sweden, sought his services
in the reformation of the Swedish schools; but instead of the requested
interview, he sent the chancellor a thick quarto. “I accomplished this
wearisome labor,” says Oxenstiern; “and after I had read the whole
book through, I found that he had not ill displayed the faults of the
schools, but his remedies did not seem to me adequate.” Ratke died
shortly afterward at the age of sixty-four years.
Ratke’s contribution to education was chiefly in the matter of
methodology. His leading principles were: (1) In everything we should
follow the order of nature. There is a certain natural sequence along
which the human intelligence moves in the acquisition of knowledge.
This sequence must be studied, and instruction must be based on a
knowledge of it. (2) One thing at a time. Each subject of study should
be orderly developed and thoroughly dealt with before proceeding to
the next. (3) There should be frequent repetition. It is astonishing
what may be accomplished by the frequent repetition of one thing. (4)
Everything first in the mother-tongue. The first thinking should always
be in the vernacular. Whatever the vocation, the pupil should learn
to express himself in the mother-tongue. After the mother-tongue has
been mastered, the other languages may be studied. (5) Everything
without compulsion. Children cannot be whipped into learning or wishing
to learn; by compulsion and blows they are so disgusted with their
studies that study becomes hateful to them. Moreover, it is contrary
to nature to flog children for not remembering what has been taught
them. If they had been properly taught they would have remembered, and
blows would have been unnecessary. Children should be taught to love
and reverence—not to fear their teachers. (6) Nothing should be learned
by rote. Learning by heart weakens the understanding. If a subject has
been well developed, and has been impressed upon the mind by frequent
repetition, the memory of it will follow without any pains. Frequent
hours of recreation are advised; in fact, no two lessons should come
immediately together. (7) A definite method (and a uniform method) for
all studies. In the languages, arts, and sciences, there must be a
conformity in the methods of teaching, text-books used, and precepts
given. The German grammar, for instance, must agree with the Hebrew and
the Greek as far as the idioms of the language will permit. (8) The
thing itself should first be studied, and then whatever explains it.
Study first the literature of a language and then its grammar. A basis
of material must first be laid in the mind before rules can be applied.
He admits that many of the grammars furnish examples with the rules;
but these examples “come together from all sorts of authors, like mixed
fodder in a manger.” (9) Everything must be learned by experience and
examination. Nothing is to be taken on authority. It will be recalled
that Ratke visited England after the completion of his studies at
Rostock; and it is altogether likely that while there he became a
convert to induction and the philosophy of Bacon.
In most particulars Ratke and Comenius were in harmony. Both urged
that the study of things should precede or be united with the study of
words; that knowledge should be communicated through appeals to the
senses; that all linguistic study should begin with the mother-tongue;
that methods of teaching should be in accordance with the laws of
nature; and that progress in studies should be based not on compulsion,
but on the interest aroused in the pupils.
_Campanella, Andreæ, and Bateus_
Comenius derived many of his philosophic concepts from the Dominican
reformer, Thomas Campanella, whose writings influenced him powerfully,
at least during his student years at Herborn and Heidelberg. The
writings of Campanella convinced him of the unwisdom of the study of
nature from the works of Aristotle. Books, Campanella had declared, are
but dead copies of life, and are full of error and deception. We must
ourselves explore nature and write down our own thoughts, the living
mirror which shows the reflection of God’s countenance. These protests
against scholasticism found a responsive chord in the thoughts of the
young Comenius.
In the preface to the _Prodromus_ Comenius is unreserved in his
expression of obligations to his predecessors. “Who, indeed, should
have the first place,” he says, “but John Valentine Andreæ, a man of
nimble and clear brain.” The court preacher of Stuttgart had strongly
impressed Comenius by his deep love for Christian ideals and his warm
enthusiasm for their realization in practical life, as well as by his
humorous polemics against the dead scholasticism of his day. Comenius
incorporates in his _Great didactic_ a brief by Andreæ on “the use of
the art of teaching,” in which he maintains (1) that parents up to this
time have been uncertain how much to expect from their children; (2)
that schoolmasters, the greater number of whom have been ignorant of
their art, have exhausted their energies and worn themselves out in
their efforts to fulfil their duty; (3) that students should master the
sciences without difficulty, tedium, or blows, as if in sport and in
merriment; (4) that schools should become places of amusement, houses
of delight and attraction, and the work so adjusted that students of
whatever capacity might attain a high standard of development; (5)
that states should exist for the development of the young; (6) that
schools should be so efficient that the Church may never lack learned
doctors, and the learned doctors lack suitable hearers; and (7) that
the schools may be so reformed that they may give a more exact and
universal culture of the intellect, and that Christian youths may
be more fervently stirred up to vigor of mind and love of heavenly
things. “Let none, therefore,” says Andreæ, “withdraw his thoughts,
desires, strength, and resources from such a sacred undertaking. It is
inglorious to despair of progress and wrong to despise the counsel of
others.”
The obligation of Comenius to William Bateus, the Irish Jesuit, was
not great, although he makes free acknowledgment of the same in the
_Janua_. Indeed, the plan of the _Janua_ was well formulated before
he knew of the existence of the Jesuit father’s book. He made known
the plan of his _Janua_ to some friends, who told him that Bateus had
already published a similar work. He was not content until he had
procured a copy of the book. “The idea,” says Comenius, “was better
than the execution. Nevertheless, as he was the prime inventor, I
thankfully acknowledge it, nor will I upbraid him for those errors he
has committed.” This willing recognition of his obligation to a wide
range of educational writers is proof of the declaration he often made,
“I care not whether I act the part of teacher or learner.”