Understanding which has not been previously in the Sense; and consequently, to exercise the senses carefully in discriminating the differences of natural objects is to lay the foundation of all wisdom, all eloquence, and all good and prudent action.' It is the absence from the school of the object about which we may be speaking that makes learning and teaching alike so troublesome and fruitless.

The cuts were done by Michael Endter of Nuremberg, to whom he felt most grateful for his labours, and for enabling him to complete his design of an elementary book. This work,' he writes, 'belongs to you; it is entirely new in your profession. You have given a correct and clear edition of the Orbis Pictus, and furnished figures and cuts, by the help of which the attention will be awakened and the imagination pleased. This will, it is true, increase the expense of the publication, but it will be certainly returned to you.'

It was consistent with the plan of the book, that it should contain the vernacular only, or the Latin only, or both. Comenius suggests that the vernacular itself would be best learned from the Orbis. 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 school-book in Europe, and deservedly so.

N

2. The Schola Ludus.

Comenius frequently states in his writings that the element of sport should be introduced into schools, and with this view constructs a school drama, in which the Janua (and a good deal of the language of the Atrium) is introduced. The title is, Schola Ludus seu Encyclopaedia Viva, Hoc est, Januae Linguarum praxis Scenica: res omnes nomenclaturâ Vestitas et Vestiendas, sensibus ad vivum repraesentandi artificium exhi bens amoenum. In this singular production there are five acts, twenty-one scenes, and fifty-two dramatis personae. The object of the author is to give a theatric praxis of the Janua, and partially of the Atrium, by bringing the facts of the natural world into a scenic representation. The characters represent the various departments of knowledge, eg. the geographer, the metallurgist, the chemist, and so forth. For example, in the fifth scene of the second act, Water is the subject, and there enter on the stage the following personages :-Aquinus (representing water in general), Marius (representing the sea) Nubianus (representing the clouds), and Stillico (representing rain-drops, ice, foam, etc.). These interesting characters give a great deal of valuable information. Anything more dreary than this sportive Janua it is impossible to conceive; yet he assures us, in his dedicatory epistle, written at Amsterdam in 1657, that it was most popular and successful with boys and masters! and elsewhere he says that it was performed with great applause before the Princess and all her Court in

Hungary. He believed that all school-exercises might be converted into games.

Comenius was of opinion that every stage of schoolwork during the Pansophic septennium might have its dramatic exhibition. This dramatic sport in intellectual work he connects mystically with the words of Wisdom (the Son), in the 8th chapter of Proverbs: 'I was by Him as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him; rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and my delights were with the sons of men !'

The signification of Ludus as the Latin for school had also its influence in suggesting these dramatic exhibitions.1

3. Text-Book of Greek.

He gives a specimen of what he would propose for boys learning Greek in his Ventilabrum Sapientiae published in 1657. It is, as might be expected, LatinGreek. He proposes that Vocabularies should be taught to begin with-1. The words that are alike in Latin and Greek, eg. Abyssus, äßvoσos. 2. Those which differ very little, e.g. fama, þýμn, forma, μoppǹ. 3. The more common words not alike, e.g. frater, adeλpòs. Then a few brief Greek rules should be given, and an outline of Greek accidence appended to the body of the book. As his chief object was to introduce to the Greek Testament, the text-book, he

1 For the Palatium, see end of next chapter.

says, ought to consist of 100 select sentences of a moral kind (the Latin and Greek in parallel columns), to be thoroughly learned, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. This would constitute a Vestibulum, to be followed by a Janua, consisting of the Greek Testament in Latin and Greek, or it might be a summary of Testament narrative and of the Christian faith.

So with Hebrew.

In concluding this account of the text-books, it has to be stated that Comenius himself in his old age admitted that he had departed from one of his own leading principles in attempting to teach too much within a limited space and time, and had burdened the mind of boys with what was suitable only for adults.1

1 A knowledge of the Text-Books is best to be obtained from the books themselves, but in connection with them the prefaces should be read, and the letters addressed to the teachers of the new Patak School, an account of which is contained in the next chapter.

PART IV.

PART IV.

THE INNER ORGANISATION OF A PANSOPHIC
SCHOOL, AND THE INSTRUCTION-PLAN.

THE external organisation of a school-system has been exhibited in the Great Didactic. The Mother School, the Vernacular School, the Latin School or Gymnasium, and the University, constituted together Comenius's school-system for a State. The existing school-systems of modern Europe, and especially that of Germany, are a tribute to Comenius's sound judgment. The organisation of instruction is certainly not in accordance with Comenius's pansophic or encyclopædic aspirations, but the attention which is now given to real studies, and to the cultivation of the senses, substantially give effect to his views.

The inner character and life of a school-a Latin school or Gymnasium being kept specially in view—is to be gathered from the 25th chapter of the Novissima Methodus, and from the numerous writings of the period from 1650-54, when Comenius was engaged in organising a model school at Patak, in the north-east of Hungary, about twenty miles from Tokay.1 These

1 On the Theiss, known as the entrepôt of the Tokay wine.