CLOSING YEARS: 1656–1670
Flight to Amsterdam—Reception by Lawrence de
Geer—Religious freedom in Holland—Publication of the
complete edition of his writings—Other educational
activities—The “One thing needful”—Death at
Amsterdam and burial at Naärden—Family history of
Comenius—Alleged call to the presidency of Harvard
College—Portraits—Personal characteristics.
During his last year’s residence at Saros-Patak, Comenius had sustained
a great loss in the death of his friend and former patron, Lewis de
Geer. In a funeral oration which he composed, he characterized his
benefactor as “a man pious toward God, just toward men, merciful to the
distressed, and meritoriously great and illustrious among all men.” The
rich Dutch merchant bequeathed his estates to his son, Lawrence de Geer
of Amsterdam; and not only his estates, but also his deep interest in
the welfare of the Moravian reformer.
Learning of the severe illness of Comenius, Lawrence de Geer wrote
him to leave Hamburg and come directly to Amsterdam, where all the
needs of his closing years would be provided. The younger de Geer, it
would seem, had not only a real and profound affection for the aged
Comenius, but also a keen and intelligent interest in all his schemes
for educational reform.
Amsterdam proved, indeed, a haven of rest to the weary wanderer. At
this time the city enjoyed greater religious freedom than perhaps any
other city in Europe. Says Benham: “Comenius found himself in the midst
of a community then enjoying the largest amount of religious toleration
to be found anywhere in Europe, and with it a great diversity of
religious opinions. Unitarians expelled from their own countries here
united themselves to the friends of speculative philosophy among the
Remonstrants and Arminians; and the philosophy of Descartes here found
admirers even among the members of the Reformed Church. The truly
evangelical Comenius had become known to many through his writings,
which, together with the influence of his patron’s son, Lawrence de
Geer, who continued his father’s benevolence, induced rich merchants
to intrust him with the education of their sons; so that, with the
additions accruing from his literary labors, Comenius found a supply of
food and raiment, and was thereby content.”
In spite of his advanced age, these closing years of his life at
Amsterdam were busy ones; for besides ministering to the needs of the
scattered and disheartened ecclesiastics of the Moravian Brethren,
he engaged somewhat in private teaching, and saw through the press a
complete edition of his educational writings. It was a magnificent
volume of more than a thousand pages, and was printed by Christopher
Cunard and Gabriel à Roy under the title _All the didactical works of
J. A. Comenius_.
The publication of this handsome folio, containing all his educational
writings, was made possible by the generosity of Lawrence de Geer.
The first part of the folio, written between 1627 and 1642, contains
(1) a brief narration of the circumstances which led the author to
write these studies; (2) the _Great didactic_, showing the method of
teaching all things; (3) the _School of infancy_, being an essay on
the education of youth during the first six years; (4) an account of
a six-class vernacular school; (5) the _Janua_; (6) the _Vestibulum_;
(7) David Vechner’s _Model of a temple of Latinity_; (8) a didactic
dissertation on the quadripartite study of the Latin language; (9) the
circle of all the sciences; (10) various criticisms on the same; (11)
explanations of attempts at pansophy.
The second part of the folio, written between 1642 and 1650, contains
(1) new reasons for continuing to devote attention to didactic studies;
(2) new methods of studying languages, built upon didactic foundations;
(3) vestibule of the Latin language adapted to the laws of the most
recent methods of language teaching; (4) new gate of the Latin language
exhibiting the structure of things and words in their natural order;
(5) a Latin and German introductory lexicon explaining a multitude of
derived words; (6) a grammar of the Latin and vernacular, with short
commentaries; (7) treatise on the Latin language of the _Atrium_; (8)
certain opinions of the learned on these new views of language teaching.
The third part of the work, written between 1650 and 1654, contains (1)
a brief account of his call to Hungary; (2) a sketch of the seven-class
pansophic school; (3) an oration on the culture of innate capacities;
(4) an oration on books as the primary instruments in the cultivation
of innate capacities; (5) on the obstacles to the acquisition of
encyclopædic culture and some means of removing these obstacles; (6) a
short and pleasant way of learning to read and understand the Latin
authors; (7) on scholastic erudition; (8) on driving idleness from the
schools; (9) laws for a well-regulated school; (10) the _Orbis pictus_;
(11) on scholastic play; (12) valedictory oration delivered on the
occasion of the completion of his labors at Saros-Patak; (13) funeral
oration on the life and character of Lewis de Geer.
The fourth part of the work represents the years from 1654 to 1657. It
contains (1) an account of the author’s didactic studies; (2) a little
boy to little boys, or all things to all; (3) apology for the Latinity
of Comenius; (4) the art of wisely reviewing one’s own opinions;
(5) exits from scholastic labyrinths into the open plain; (6) the
formation of a Latin college; (7) the living printing-press, or the
art of impressing wisdom compendiously, copiously, and elegantly, not
on paper, but on the mind; (8) the best condition of the mind; (9) a
devout commendation of the study of wisdom.
In addition to his literary labors, he gave much time to the
administration of church affairs; for Lissa had risen from her ashes
and was more prosperous than before the war. Here congregated again
many adherents of the Moravian brotherhood, and the college was
rebuilt and resumed its beneficent pedagogic influence. From this
centre the Moravian influence spread anew to many parts of Europe.
England, Prussia, and other Protestant countries were generous in their
contributions toward the restoration of Moravian churches. All this
money was sent to Comenius at Amsterdam, and by him apportioned to the
scattered brethren. He received thirty thousand dollars from England
alone during the years 1658 and 1659; the only stipulation made in the
disposition of the money was that a portion of it should be used for
the printing of Polish and Bohemian Bibles. The last years of his life
were occupied almost wholly in such ministrations.
He published in 1668 his swan song, the _One thing needful_. This is
his farewell address to the world. It delineates in a forceful yet
modest way his aspirations for educational reform, gives expression
of the deep faith which sustained him during the long years of his
weary pilgrimage, and burns with enthusiastic zeal for the welfare of
mankind—the burning passion of his life. He was well prepared at the
advanced age of seventy-six years to sum up the experience of a long
and afflicted life.
A few citations from this touching bit of reminiscence will hint at the
motives which actuated him in his life-work as an educational reformer.
“I thank God that I have been all my life a man of aspirations;
and although He has brought me into many labyrinths, yet He has so
protected me that either I have soon worked my way out of them, or He
has brought me by His own hand to the enjoyment of holy rest. For the
desire after good, if it is always in the heart, is a living stream
that flows from God, the fountain of all good. The blame is ours if we
do not follow the stream to its source or to its overflow into the sea,
where there is fulness and satiety of good.”
“One of my chief employments has been the improvement of schools, which
I undertook and continued for many years from the desire to deliver the
youth in the schools from the labyrinth in which they are entangled.
Some have held this business foreign to a theologian, as if Christ
had not connected together and given to his beloved disciple Peter at
the same time the two commands, ‘Feed my sheep’ and ‘Feed my lambs.’ I
thank Christ for inspiring me with such affection toward his lambs, and
for regulating my exertions in the form of educational works. I trust
that when the winter of indifference has passed that my endeavors will
bring forth some fruit.”
“My life here was not my native country, but a pilgrimage; my home
was ever changing, and I found nowhere an abiding resting place. But
now I see my heavenly country near at hand, to whose gates my Saviour
has gone before me to prepare the way. After years of wandering and
straying from the direction of my journey, delayed by a thousand
extraneous diversions, I am at last within the bounds of the promised
land.”
The rest and peace and glory which he so hopefully anticipated came
to him at Amsterdam on the 15th of November, in the year 1670. His
remains were conveyed to Naärden, a small town on the Zuyder Zee,
twelve miles east of Amsterdam, where they were interred in the
French Reformed Church, on the 22d of November. The figure 8 was the
only epitaph placed on his tomb. More than a century afterward the
church was transformed into a military barracks, and for many years
the date of his death, the church in which he was buried, and the
grave inclosing his remains were unknown. But in 1871 Mr. de Röper, a
lawyer residing in Naärden, found among his father’s papers the church
register, the sexton’s account book, and other documents relating to
the old French Reformed Church. After the figure 8, in the church
register, was this entry: “John Amos Comenius, the famous author of
the _Janua Linguarum_; interred the 22d of November, 1670.” A diligent
search was instituted, and the grave was found. An aged woman residing
in Naärden recalled the location of the French Reformed Church as the
present site of the barracks. By permission of the commanding officer,
an examination was made and the tombstone marked 8 was found. The
remains were subsequently removed to a little park in Naärden, where
there was erected to his memory, in 1892, by friends of education in
Europe and America, a handsome monument. This consists of a pyramid
of rough stones with two white marble slabs containing gold-furrowed
inscriptions in Latin, Dutch, and Czech (Bohemian): “A grateful
posterity to the memory of John Amos Comenius, born at Nivnitz on
the 28th of March, 1592; died at Amsterdam on the 15th of November,
1670; buried at Naärden on the 22d of November, 1670. He fought a
good fight.” A room in the town hall at Naärden has been set aside as
a permanent Comenius museum, where will be found a collection of his
portraits, sets of the different editions of his writings, and the old
stone slab containing the figure 8.
The present work being an educational rather than a personal life of
Comenius, no reference has thus far been made to his family life. It
may be noted briefly that he married, in 1624, Elizabeth Cyrrill, with
whom he had five children, a son (Daniel) and four daughters. Elizabeth
died in 1648 and he married again on the 17th of May, 1649, Elizabeth
Gainsowa, with whom he appears to have had no children. A third
marriage is mentioned by some of his biographers, but the statement
lacks corroboration. One daughter, Elizabeth, married Peter Figulus
Jablonsky, who was bishop of the Church from November, 1662, until his
death, January the 12th, 1670. Their son Daniel Ernst Jablonsky was
consecrated a bishop of the Polish branch of the Moravian Church at
Lissa March the 10th, 1699. He served the Church until his death, May
the 25th, 1741.
An account of the life of Comenius would be incomplete without some
reference to his alleged call to the presidency of Harvard College.
This rests upon an unconfirmed statement by Cotton Mather. In his
_Magnalia_[23] he says: “Mr. Henry Dunster continued the Praesident
of Harvard-College until his unhappy Entanglement in the Snares of
Anabaptism fill’d the Overseers with uneasie Fears, lest the Students
by his means should come to be Ensnared: Which Uneasiness was at length
so signified unto him, that on October 24, 1654, he presented unto
the Overseers, an Instrument under his Hands, wherein he Resigned his
Presidentship and they accepted his Resignation. That brave Old Man
Johannes Amos Commenius, the Fame of whose Worth has been Trumpetted as
far as more than Three Languages (whereof every one is Endebted unto
his _Janua_) could carry it, was agreed withall, by our Mr. Winthrop
in his Travels through the Low Countries to come over into New England
and Illuminate this College and Country in the Quality of a President.
But the Solicitations of the Swedish Ambassador, diverting him another
way, that Incomparable Moravian became not an American.”
The following evidence makes improbable this call:—
1. Some years ago the writer asked Professor Paul H. Hanus to ascertain
for him if the records of Harvard College corroborated Mather’s
statement. After examining the proceedings of the overseers and all
other records of the college during its early history, he reported that
he could not find the slightest corroboration of Mather’s statement,
and that he seriously doubted its accuracy.
2. The historians of the college—Peirce, Quincy, and Eliot—do not
allude to the matter. And President Josiah Quincy,[24] in his complete
and standard history of the institution, refers to the “loose and
exaggerated terms in which Mather and Johnson, and other writers of
that period, speak of the early donations to the college, and the
obscurity, and not to say confusion, in which they appear in the first
records of the seminary.”
3. Careful examination has been made of the numerous lives of Comenius
printed in the German language, as well as those printed in the Czech;
and, although less noteworthy distinctions are recorded, there is no
mention of a call to Harvard College or America.
4. In the _Journals_ of Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts, there
are no allusions to Comenius. Governor Winthrop died in 1649; and
it was not until 1653 that President Dunster fell “into the briers
of Antpædo-baptism,” when he bore “public testimony in the church
at Cambridge against the administration of baptism to any infant
whatsoever.” And the historians of the college report that up to this
time (1653) Dunster’s administration had been singularly satisfactory,
so that there could have been no thought of providing his successor
before the death of Governor Winthrop. Mather is either in error or he
does not refer to Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts. He may refer to
Governor Winthrop of Connecticut, the eldest son of the Massachusetts
governor, although evidence is wanting to show that the Connecticut
governor had anything to do with the management of Harvard College.
Young Winthrop was in England from August the 3d, 1641, until the
early part of 1643. It will be recalled that Comenius spent the winter
of 1641–1642 in London, and the fact that both knew Hartlib most
intimately would suggest that they must have met. In a letter which
Hartlib wrote to Winthrop after the latter’s return to America, he
says, “Mr. Comenius is continually diverted by particular controversies
of Socinians and others from his main Pansophical Worke.”[25]
5. Mather is clearly in error in regard to the date of the call of
Comenius to Sweden. The negotiations were begun in 1641 and were
completed in August of the next year, so that the “solicitations of
the Swedish Ambassador diverting him another way” took place more than
twelve years before the beginning of the troubles at Cambridge which
led to the resignation of Dunster.
With so many flaws in Mather’s statement, and the absence of
corroborative evidence, it seems altogether improbable that Comenius
was ever called to the presidency of Harvard College.[26]
In closing, brief mention may be made of his most dominant physical
and personal characteristics. Several excellent portraits of Comenius
are in existence, the best perhaps being by Hollar and Glover. From
these it is apparent that he was a man of imposing figure, with high
forehead, long chin, and soft, pathetic eyes. It is not difficult to
read into his sad, expressive countenance the force of the expression
in his last published utterance, “My whole life was merely the visit of
a guest; I had no fatherland.”
There is no conflicting evidence on the personal life of the reformer;
but rather unanimous agreement on the sweetness and beauty of his
character. Says Palacky: “In his intercourse with others, Comenius was
in an extraordinary degree friendly, conciliatory, and humble; always
ready to serve his neighbor and sacrifice himself. His writings, as
well as his walk and conversation, show the depth of his feeling, his
goodness, his uprightness, and his fear of God. He never cast back
upon his opponents what they meted out to him. He never condemned, no
matter how great the injustice which he was made to suffer. At all
times, with fullest resignation, whether joy or sorrow was his portion,
he honored and praised the Lord.” Raumer says of him: “Comenius is
a grand and venerable figure of sorrow. Wandering, persecuted, and
homeless during the terrible and desolating Thirty Years’ War, he never
despaired, but, with enduring and faithful truth, labored unceasingly
to prepare youth by a better education for a better future. His
unfailing aspirations lifted up in a large part of Europe many good men
prostrated by the terrors of the times and inspired them with the hope
that by pious and wise systems of education there might be reared up a
race of men more pleasing to God.” Well might Herder say: “Comenius was
a noble priest of humanity, whose single end and aim in life was the
welfare of all mankind.”