With a view to promote the universal and ready acquisition of Latin, Comenius again suggests, as part of his method, the institution of schools which would be 'Roman cities,' and where nothing but Latin should be spoken or heard.

He further points out how, by the adoption of his method, the learning of many languages would be facilitated, for not only would the same method be followed, but the same sequence of initiatory books in a parallel series. The Grammars of the various languages also would be constructed on the same lines as the Latin grammar in so far as the languages were common.

After showing that the method of studying language is applicable, mutatis mutandis, to all arts and sciences, and recommending the construction of systematic compendiums of all things on the ascending scale of his Latin text-books (e.g. in Philosophy a Vestibulum, then a Janua, and then an Atrium), Comenius proceeds to show the influence which his method would exercise in improving the internal condition of schools, in promoting learning and a genuine, thorough, and widespread acquisition of the Latin tongue, in attracting the learned to the study of things instead of words, and concludes with an appeal to theologians and to the secular powers.

PART III:

PART III.

COMENIUS'S TEXT-BOOKS AND THE WAY OF

USING THEM.

In the writing of text-books Comenius had his predecessors. The method of Lubinus, which I have briefly explained on page 162, approximates very closely to that of Comenius, while the Janua of the Jesuit father must have supplied a valuable repertory of words and phrases.

It is to mistake Comenius's plan to say that his object was to arrange all the more common words of the Latin tongue in a series of sentences, with a view to exhaust all the ordinary vocabulary. He wishes to attain this end certainly, but through things. He considers that if he can conceive a course of elementary lessons on things in general, he will necessarily call into requisition all the usual vocabulary of Latin, and so teach Latin through things. This is in accordance with his great pansophic idea.

1. THE VESTIBULUM.

First Edition.

This Latin Primer, though published subsequently to the Janua, comes first in order. It is an introduction

to the Janua, and, for this reason, Comenius departed from his first intention of making it a series of simple colloquies. Upwards of 1000 Latin words were selected and reduced to short sentences, all of them dealing with things and their properties. These were thrown into seven chapters comprising 427 sentences. The chapters are thus entitled :—

1. Concerning the accidents or qualities of things; no verbs being used save the substantive verb, e.g. 'Deus est aeternus; mundus temporarius. Color est multiplex: creta alba, tabula nigra, cinnabaris rubra. Mel est dulce, sal salsum. Ossa dura, caro mollis, glacies lubrica,' and so forth over sixty-two propositions.

2. Concerning the actions and passions of things—e.g. 'Sol lucet, luna splendet, stellae micant. Ignis ardet, flamma flagrat. Herba crescit, folium viret, flos floret.' In this way he runs through the most obvious facts concerning things in the heavens; the elements; man's body (eg. caput repletur cerebro, tegiturque capillis, excepto vultu); the mind, diseased conditions, the different trades, etc.

3. The third chapter treats of the circumstances of things, and this enables the author to introduce adverbs, prepositions, and numerals. For example: 'Ubi fuisti? unde redis? Ex oppido. Cum nobis ducimus, ante nos pellimus, a nobis trudimus.'

4. The fourth chapter treats of things in the school. For example: 'Atramentum est in atramentario: calami in calamario; quibus scribimus in charta,' etc. 5. The fifth chapter treats of things at home.

6. Concerning things in the city.

7. Concerning the Virtues.

The rule followed is the opposite of that now almost universal in elementary books; words are never repeated if it be possible to avoid repetition.

The German is given in parallel columns, and the pupil is required to read the German first, and then the Latin. The lesson said in the morning is always to be written in the afternoon. After going several times through the book, the pupil learns it off by heart, so many sentences each day. Along with the reading, the declension and conjugation of the words proceeds: first, nouns by themselves, then nouns with adjectives. Tables of the declensions and conjugations are appended, to which reference is constantly to be made. In declining, the terminations of the cases are not to be said by heart, but to be first learned by practice, the teacher giving the vernacular first, e.g. nubes-what is of a cloud? what is to or for a cloud? and so on, the boy referring to his tables. After this has been done several times, the tables are quickly and easily committed to memory. Thus the boy who has properly mastered this Latin Primer will have acquired 1000 vocables, and a knowledge of the regular declensions and conjugations.

In the Dissertatio de sermonis Latini studio he enters even more into detail; the Vestibulum, he says, is first to be read and written out for the sake of the Latin words only, without translation. The pupil is then to begin it over again and translate, first, the vernacular into the Latin, and thereafter the Latin into the vernacular.

Some knowledge of the parts of speech is to be obtained, but parsing is not to be pressed. The chief things are the easy reading and writing, and the thorough acquisition of the words. The vernacular version is to be prefixed to each separate sentence (later the author was content with a vernacular version printed by itself, but as one book with the Latin). In all cases the vernacular is to be first learned. The index at the end of the Vestibulum is to be used in this way; a word is to be given, and the sentence, or series of words in the text where it is found, is then to be given by the pupil from memory. The writing of the morning's lessons at the afternoon meetings is constantly insisted on by Comenius, because this exercise, by engaging the senses, fixes the exercise in the minds of the pupils. The learning of the tables of declensions is to be begun only at the fourth reading of the text-book. Comenius assumes that the text-book will be perused ten times, and in this way thoroughly got by heart. Before leaving it, exercises were to be given in translating into Latin fresh sentences more or less connected, composed of the words in the Vestibulum and its index.

Second Edition.

I have been thus particular in describing the first edition of the Vestibulum, and the mode of using it, because all the principles of Comenius's method of procedure are exemplified in it, in so far as these can be embodied in a text-book, and because it exhibits the plan of his other books.

M