During four years he here prosecuted his efforts in behalf of education
with commendable success, and wrote, among other works, his celebrated
Orbis Pictus, which has passed through a great many editions, and
survived a multitude of imitations. --SMITH’S HISTORY OF EDUCATION,
N.Y., 1842, p. 129.
The most eminent educator of the seventeenth century, however, was John
Amos Comenius...... His Orbis Sensualium Pictus, published in 1657,
enjoyed a still higher renown. The text was much the same with the
Janua, being intended as a kind of elementary encyclopædia; but _it
differed from all previous text-books_, in being illustrated with
pictures, on copper and wood, of the various topics discussed in it.
This book was universally popular. In those portions of Germany where
the schools had been broken up by the “Thirty years’ war,” mothers
taught their children from its pages. Corrected and amended by later
editors, it continued for nearly two hundred years, to be a text-book of
the German schools. --HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF EDUCATION, BY
PHILOBIBLIUS, N.Y., 1860, p. 210.
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 called in the artist.
The result was the “Orbis Pictus,” a book which proved a favorite with
young and old, and maintained its ground in many a school for more than
a century.... I am sorry I cannot give a specimen of this celebrated
book with its quaint pictures. The artist, of course, was wanting in the
technical skill which is now commonly displayed even in the cheapest
publications, but this renders his delineations none the less
entertaining. As a picture of the life and manners of the
seventeenthcentury, the work has great historical interest, which will,
I hope, secure for it another English edition. --QUICK’S EDUCATIONAL
REFORMERS, 1868; Syracuse edition, p. 79.
But the principle on which he most insisted is that the teaching of
words and things must go together, hand in hand. When we consider how
much time is spent over new languages, what waste of energy is lavished
on mere preparation, how it takes so long to lay a foundation that there
is no time to lay a building upon it, we must conclude that it is in the
acceptance and development of this principle that the improvement of
education will in the future consist. Any one who attempts to inculcate
this great reform will find that its first principles are contained in
the writings of Comenius. --ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 9th edition, vii.
674.
The first edition of this celebrated book was published at Nuremberg in
1657; soon after a translation was made into English by Charles Hoole.
The last English edition appeared in 1777, and this was reprinted in
America in 1812. This was the first illustrated school-book, and was the
first attempt at what now passes under the name of “object lessons.”
--SHORT HISTORY OF EDUCATION, W. H. PAYNE, Syracuse, 1881, p. 103.
Of these, the “Janua” and the “Orbis” were translated into most European
and some of the Oriental languages. It is evident that these practices
of Comenius contain the germs of things afterwards connected with the
names of Pestalozzi and Stow. It also may be safely assumed that many
methods that are now in practical use, were then not unknown to earliest
teachers. --GILL’S SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION, London, 1876, p. 13.
The more we reflect on the method of Comenius, the more we shall see it
is replete with suggestiveness, and we shall feel surprised that so much
wisdom can have lain in the path of schoolmasters for two hundred and
fifty years, and that they have never stooped to avail themselves of its
treasures. --BROWNING’S INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF EDUCATIONAL
THEORIES, 1882, New York edition, p. 67.
The “Orbis Pictus,” the first practical application of the intuitive
method, had an extraordinary success, and has served as a model for the
innumerable illustrated books which for three centuries have invaded the
schools. --COMPAYRE’S HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY, Payne’s translation, Boston,
1886, p. 127.
He remained at Patak four years, which were characterized by surprising
literary activity. During this short period he produced no less than
fifteen different works, among them his “World Illustrated” (_Orbis
Pictus_), the most famous of all his writings. It admirably applied the
principle that words and things should be learned together.... The
“World Illustrated” had an enormous circulation, and remained for a long
time the most popular text-book in Europe. --PAINTER’S HISTORY OF
EDUCATION, N.Y., 1886, p. 206.
Or, si ce livre n’est qu’un équivalent se la véritable intuition; si,
ensuite, le contenu du tout paraît fort défectueux, au point de vue de
la science de nos jours; si, enfin, un effort exagéré pour l’intégrité
de la conception de l’enfant a créé, pour les choses modernes, trop de
dénominations latines qui paraissent douteuses, l’Orbis pictus était
pourtant, pour son temps, une oeuvre très originale et très spirituelle,
qui fit faire un grand progrès à la pédagogie et servit longtemps de
livre d’école utile et de modèle à d’innombrables livres d’images,
souvent pires. --HISTOIRE D’ ÉDUCATION, FREDERICK DITTES, Redolfi’s
French translation, Paris, 1880, p. 178.
Here Comenius wrote, among others, his second celebrated work the “Orbis
Pictus.” He was not, however, able to finish it in Hungary for want of a
skilful engraver on copper. For such a one he carried it to Michael
Endter, the bookseller at Nuremberg, but the engraving delayed the
publication of the book for three years more. In 1657 Comenius expressed
the hope that it would appear during the next autumn. With what great
approbation the work was received at its first appearance, is shown by
the fact that within two years, in 1659, Endter had published a second
enlarged edition. --KARL VON RAUMER, translated in Barnard’s Journal of
Education, v. 260.
The “Janua” had an enormous sale, and was published in many languages,
but the editions and sale of the “Orbis Pictus” far exceeded those of
the “Janua,” and, indeed, for some time it was the most popular
text-book in Europe, and deservedly so. --LAURIE’S JOHN AMOS COMENIUS,
Boston edition, p. 185.