IV.

JOHN AMOS COMENIUS.

JOHN AMOS COMENIUS, the son of a miller, who belonged to the Moravian Brethren, was born at the Moravian village of Comna, 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 endeavors, to labor 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 labor belonging thereto, that so the youth might be brought by a more easy method unto some notable proficiency in learning."* With these thoughts in head, he pursued his studies in several Ger

*Preface to the Prodromus.

man towns, especially at Herborn in Nassau. Here he saw the Report on Ratich's method, published in 1612 for the Universities of Jena and Giessen; and we find him shortly afterward writing his first book,* "Grammatica facilioris Præcepta," which was published at Prague 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 endeavors, these scholastic cares were laid aside." His pastoral charge was at Fulneck, the headquarters of the Brethren. As such, it soon felt the effects of the Battle of Prague, being in the following year (1621) taken and plundered by the Spaniards. On this occasion, Comenius lost 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.

For a time he found a hiding-place in the family of a Bohemian nobleman, Baron Sadowsky, at Sloupna, 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 66 some canons of a better method," for his We find him, too, endeavoring to enrich the liter

use.

* [For bibliography of Comenius, see Payne's "Short History of Education."]

ature 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 prayed that God would not suffer his truth to fail out of their native land.

Many of the banished, and Comenius among them, settled at the Polish town of Leszno, 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,* "Being, by God's permission, banished my country, with divers others, and forced, for 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, Cæcilius, and who indeed should have had the first place, Joannes Valentinus Andræ, 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,

Preface to the Prodromus.

JANUA LINGUARUM.

59

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 my Didactica Magna, which shows the art of readily and solidly teaching all men all things."

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 afterward 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 "Mogolic, which is familiar in the East Indies." (Dedication of Schola Ludus in Vol. I. of collected works.)*

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, farexceeding what the resources and industry of one man, however great a scholar, could produce. He therefore

* Bayle, speaking of the Janua in his article on Comenius (Dict. sub.. v.), says: Quand Coménius n'aurait publié que ce livre là, il se serait immortalisé," [Had Comenius published no other book than this he would have immortalized himself]. He published a more celebrated book than this (viz., Orbis Pictus), and yet his "immortality" seems already of the feeblest.

in progress.

looked about for a patron to supply money for his support, and that of his assistants, whilst these works were "The vastness of the labors 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."

At Leszno 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 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, an enthusiastic admirer of Comenius, to attempt some reforms. Hartlib procured an order summoning Comenius, who gives the following account of his journey:

"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 Pansophie 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 Pansophiæ Prodromus in England, labored earnestly in this matter, and endeavored, by every possible means, to bring together for this purpose a number of men of intellectual activity.