FIG. 52. Péculans,o.3 muthwillig A SCHOOL IN COMENIUS'S TIME Facsimile of a page in the Orbis Pictus. Reproduced from a copy of the Nuremberg Latin-German edition of 1740, now in the Hildebrand Library at Stanford University Schola, 1. est Officina, in quâ distinguitur in Classes. Quidam sedent ad Mensam, & scribunt, 7. ipse corrigit Mendas, 8. Quidam stant, & reci tant mandata memoriae, 9. Quidam confabulantur, IO. ac gerunt se petulantes, & negligentes; hi castigantur Ferula (baculô), 11. & Virga, 12. FIG. 53. AN AMERICAN "ORBIS PICTUS" Facsimile of a page from the first American edition of the Orbis Pictus, printed in New York in 1810. This was an American reprint of the twelfth English edition. The illustrations were redrawn in New York, and in the process of redrawing were very much modernized. 222. The Place of Comenius in the History of Education (Butler, N. M., An Address; Proc. N.E.A., 1892, pp. 723-28) The year 1892 marked the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Comenius, and at the meeting of the National Education Association of that year Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler gave a very able address on his place in history. From this address the following concluding paragraphs have been selected. The robust and practical character of the proposals of Comenius is most apparent when they are contrasted with the educational doctrines of those who have come after him, particularly Locke, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel. Frail as the psychology of Comenius was, it was truer than that of Locke. He knew that the human mind was an organism, an activity, a seed with wonderful potency of growth and development, and not a mere sheet of wax, as the Englishman taught, on whose passive surface the environment merely leaves certain impressions or traces. Locke's thought was of the education of the gentleman; Comenius proclaimed that education was for the race. The single point in which Locke corrected Comenius was in exalting character rather than knowledge as the chief aim in education. Of Rousseau one may say with Mr. Quick, "His writings and the results produced by them are among the strangest things in history; and especially in matters of education it is more than doubtful if the wise man of the world Montaigne, the Christian philanthropist Comenius, or that 'slave of truth and reason' Locke, had half as much influence as this depraved serving-man." Rousseau's enthusiasm took the form of theory run mad, and the practical impossibility of his educational plans was only exceeded by their philosophical unsoundness. Comenius had been himself a teacher and an organizer of schools. He knew the practical limitations under which any theory is put when reduced to practice. He asked of the school and the pupil nothing that was impossible. He accepted society as he found it and would teach it to reform itself. Rousseau would blow it into a million atoms and deify each. There is nothing in the history of education so touching as the story of the life of Pestalozzi. His own immortal words, "I lived like a beggar to teach beggars to live like men," only half reveal the story of his unwearied patience, his intense suffering, his self-sacrifices for child His life gave reality to his half-mystical principle that "the essential principle of education is not teaching; it is love." Yet his thought is relatively unimportant. Pestalozzi gave himself to education, but few new principles. His theory of the value of intuition needs to be carefully supplemented, and his insistence on the fact that education is development, a drawing-out and not a putting in, merely re peats the thought on which all the work of Comenius was based. Without that principle, which Comenius had made familiar more than a century before, the work of Pestalozzi would have been of little importance in the history of education. Indeed, it would have been philanthropy merely, not education. Nor does it detract from the estimate to be put upon Froebel's teachings to say that in almost every important particular they were built upon the foundations laid by the Moravian bishop. Froebel himself was strangely deficient in masculinity and in practical capacity. His exaggerated and absurd symbolism and his unbalanced religiosity, give a certain curious interest and stimulus to his doctrines, but add nothing to their force or their permanent value. His seed-thought is again that of Comenius- Educate by developing the pupil's own activity. Out of it and its corollaries the new education has grown. The place of Comenius in the history of education, therefore, is one of commanding importance. He introduces and dominates the whole modern movement in the field of elementary and secondary education. His relation to our present teaching is similar to that held by Copernicus and Newton toward modern science, and Bacon and Descartes toward modern philosophy. Yet he was not, in a high sense, an original mind. But his spirit was essentially modern and remarkably receptive. He assimilated the ideas that were inspiring the new civilization and applied them to the school. 223. The Need for Realschulen for the New Classes to be educated (Gesner, J. M., Minor German Works, p. 355) The following extract from a pamphlet entitled Thoughts on the Organization of a Gymnasium, published in 1756, by Johann Matthias Gesner (1691-1761), a famous professor of the classics at the new University of Göttingen, is illustrative of the feeling of need which had at that time come to be felt in German lands for a separate type of education for those boys not destined for a scholarly career. It is a common fault of most of our schools, that in them provision is made only for such as intend to become what are called learned men by profession; and thus a complete acquaintance with Latin is required of all young people, without any distinction. On the contrary, those things are for the most part neglected, which would be indispensable, or at least useful, in common civil life, in the arts and professions, at court and in war. . . . A well-organized gymnasium should, on the contrary, be so arranged that youth, of every extraction, age, character, and distinction, may find their account there, and be taught in them for the common good. Youth may be, with reference to their future life, divided into three classes. I. Those who are to learn trades, arts, or to be merchants; 2. Those who are to seek their fortune at court or in war; and, 3. Those who are to remain students, and to go to the university. 224. A Cambridge Scheme of Study of 1707 (Wordsworth, Chr., Schola Academica, Appendix IV. Cambridge, 1877) In 1707, one Robert Green, a fellow of Clare College (B.A., 1699; M.A., 1703), printed A Scheme of Study, which contained advice as to what and when and how to study. In addition to the study of Latin, Greek, Ancient History, the Gospels, Sermons, Religious History, and Christian Evidences, with practice in writing and disputing in Latin, he also advised a very liberal program of mathematics and scientific study, which is given below. The program is very interesting as revealing the hold the new scientific learning had obtained at Cambridge by 1707. In few universities at that time could so liberal an offering be found. The mathematical and scientific studies recommended were as follows: Second half. FIRST YEAR 1. Chronology and Geography, with study of maps. First half. SECOND YEAR 1. Logick Burgerdicius, Locke. 2. Geometry, Elements of Euclid, Sturmius. Second half. 1. Arithmetic. 2. Algebra. 3. Corpuscular Philosophy - Cartes, Varenius, Boyle. First half. THIRD YEAR 1. Experimental Philosophy, and Chemistry of Minerals, Plants, and Animals Philosophical Transactions, Boyle. 2. Anatomy of (a) Animals Keil, Gibson, Harvey, etc. (b) Plants and Vegetables — Grew, Philosophical Transactions. (c) Minerals - Hook's Micrograph, Lowenhock. |