W. S. Monroe

“ We are truly learned from knowing the present, not from knowing the past any more than the future.... Yet we toil only to stuff the memory and leave the conscience and understanding void. And like birds abroad to forage for grain, bring it home in their beak, without tasting it themselves, to feed their young, so our pedants go picking knowledge here and there out of several authors, and hold it at their tongue’s end, only to spit it out and distribute it among their pupils. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Girls should be educated as well as boys. No satisfactory reason can be given why women should be excluded from the pursuits of knowledge, whether in the Latin or in the mother-tongue. They are formed in the image of God as well as men; and they are endowed with equal sharpness of mind and capacity for learning, often, indeed, with more than the opposite sex. Why, then, should we admit them to the alphabet, and afterwards drive them away from books? Comenius takes issue with most writers on education that study will make women blue-stockings and chatterboxes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The purpose of the Great didactic, as announced by Comenius in the preface, is to seek and find a method of instruction by which teachers may teach less, but learners may learn more; schools may be the scene of less noise, aversion, and useless labor, but of more leisure, enjoyment, and solid progress; the Christian community have less darkness, perplexity, and dissension, but more light, peace, and rest. He promises in his “greeting” an “art of teaching all things to all men, and of teaching them with certainty, so that the result cannot fail.” ”

“ What beyond that which they obtain there—the tinkling of human eloquence, the love of disputation, and the knowledge that puffeth up instead of the charity that buildeth up. Moreover, some acquire corrupt morals; some, a desire to make themselves agreeable by a show of external civility; some, habits of intemperance and a distaste or hatred of firm discipline. And yet these very men were trained for the lights of the Church and the pillars of the State. O that, instead of such an education, we had retained the simplicity of childhood. ”

“ Nothing is produced by nature the practical application of which is not evident; therefore those things only should be taught whose application can be easily demonstrated.
Nature is uniform in all her operations; hence the same method of instruction should be adapted to all subjects of study, and the text-books in each subject should, as far as possible, be of the same editions.
Comenius observes that there is a very general complaint that few leave school with a thorough education, and that most of the instruction retained in after life is little more than a mere shadow of true knowledge. ”

“ It must be borne in mind, however, that to properly train children requires clear insight and assiduous labor. It is to be regretted that so many parents are too incompetent to instruct their children and that others, by reason of the performance of family and social duties, are unable to discharge this high and holy mission. All such, of course, must hand their children over to some one else to instruct. But they should intrust their little ones to the care and training of such instructors only who will make the act of learning pleasing and agreeable—a mere amusement and mental delight. ”

“ Comenius, Rousseau, and, in fact, all the realists from Bacon to Herbert Spencer, have emphasized the thought that education should follow the order and method of nature; though, as Professor Payne suggests, it is not always easy to form a clear notion of what they mean by nature, when they say that education should be natural, and that teachers should follow the method of nature. The key-note of Rousseau’s theory, as expressed in the opening paragraph of the Émile, is that “everything is good as it comes from the hands of the author of nature, but everything degenerates in the hands of man.” ”

“ The beginning of wisdom in the sciences consists, not in the mere learning of the names of things, but in the actual perception of the things themselves. It is after the thing has been grasped by the senses that language should fulfil its function of still further explaining it. The senses are the trusty servants of the memory, leading to the permanent retention of the knowledge that has been acquired. Reasoning, also, is conditioned and mediated by the experience gained through sense-perception. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ We should remember that schools are the workshops of humanity; and that they should work their pupils into the right and skilful use of their reason, speech, and talents—into wisdom, eloquence, readiness, and shrewdness. Thus will the teachers shape these little141 images of God, or, rather, fill up the outlines of goodness, power, and wisdom impressed upon them by divine power. The art of teaching is no shallow affair, but one of the deepest mysteries of nature and salvation. ”

“ While residing at Elbing, Comenius wrote the Methodus novissima for the use of the teachers of Sweden. This he intended as a plan of studies, and it contains the principles which must lie at the basis of every rational course of study. The three principles of his method are the parallelism of things and words, proper stages of succession, and easy natural progress. In God are the ideas, the original types which he impresses upon things; things, again, impress their representation upon the senses, the senses impart them to the mind, the mind to the tongue, and the tongue to the ears of others ”

“ He gave no bad definition, remarks Comenius, who said that man was a “teachable animal.” But he must be taught, since he is born only with aptitudes. Before he can sit, stand, walk, or use his hands, he requires instruction. It is the law of all created things that they develop gradually and ultimately reach a state of perfection. Plato was right when he said, “If properly educated, man is the gentlest and most divine of created beings; but if left uneducated or subjected to a false training, he is the most intractable thing in the world.”
Education is necessary for all classes of society ”

“ The purpose in the education of the child is threefold: (1) faith and piety, (2) uprightness in respect to morals, and (3) knowledge of languages and arts; and this order must not be inverted. Parents, therefore, do not fully perform their duty when they merely teach their offspring to eat, drink, walk, and talk. These things are merely subservient to the body, which is not the man, but his tabernacle only; the rational soul dwells within, and rightly claims greater care than its outward tenement. ”

“ Studies, if they are properly taught, form in themselves a sufficient attraction. When this is not the case, the fault lies not with the pupil, but with the teacher; if his skill is unable to make an impression on the understanding, his blows will have no effect.107 Indeed, he is more likely to produce a distaste for letters than a love for them by the application of force.
Whenever, therefore, we see a mind that is diseased or dislikes study, we should try to remove its disposition by gentle remedies; but on no account should we employ violent ones. ”

“ There is nothing which more completely dulls and degenerates12 the nature of a bright child.” Again: “Our schools are houses of correction for imprisoned youths; and children are made incorrigible by punishment. Visit them when the children are getting their lessons, and you will hear nothing but the outcries of boys under execution and the thundering noises of their teachers, drunk with fury. It is a pernicious way to tempt young and timorous souls to love their books while wearing a ferocious countenance and with a rod in hand.” ”

“ Instruction in piety must be of such a character as to lead children to follow God, by giving themselves completely up to His will, by acquiescing in His love, and by singing His praises. The child’s heart may thus be joined to His in love through meditation, prayer, and examination. Children should early be habituated to the outward works which He commands, that they may be trained to express their faith by works. At first they will not understand the true nature of what they are doing, since their intelligence is not yet sufficiently developed ”

“ Schools should be retreats of ease, places of literary amusement, and not houses of torture. A musician does not dash his instrument against the wall, or give it blows and cuffs because he cannot draw music from it, but continues to apply his skill until he is able to extract a melody. So by your skill you should bring the mind of the young child into harmony with his studies.
The first step in the education of the child is the most important. ”

“ 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 consistent30 with themselves, while the languages, on the contrary, by long use have acquired many inaccuracies.” ”

“ The present volume is an effort to trace the reform movement in education from Vives, Bacon, and Ratke to Comenius, who gave the movement its most significant force and direction; and from him to the later reformers,—Francke, Rousseau, Basedow, Pestalozzi, Fröbel, and Herbart. A variety of ideas, interests, and adaptations, all distinctly modern, are represented in the life-creeds of these reformers; and, in the absence of a more satisfactory term, the progressive movement which they represent has been styled realism,—sometimes called the “new education.” ”

“ How is it possible to teach everything according to one and the same method? That there is only one natural method has already been satisfactorily demonstrated (to the mind of Comenius) , and the universal adoption of this natural method will be as great a boon to pupils as a plain and undeviating road is to travellers.
5. How can many things be explained in a few words? The purpose of education is not to fill the mind with a dreary waste of words from books. ”

“ Nature makes no leaps, neither does art, since art imitates nature.
Each language should be learned separately. First of all, the mother-tongue should be learned; then a modern language—that of a neighboring nation; after this, Latin; and, lastly, Greek and Hebrew. The mother-tongue, because of its intimate connection with the gradual unfolding of the objective world to the senses, will require from eight to ten years; a modern language may be mastered in one year; Latin in two years; Greek in one year; and Hebrew in six months.
There are four stages in the study of a language. ”