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INTRODUCTION.
“May the guiding star and rudder of our didactic[1] be this: to search out and discover a rule in accordance with which teachers teach less and learners learn more; the school contain less noise and confusion, but more enjoyment and solid progress; the Christian state suffer less from an all pervading gloom, discord, and derangement, but find more order, light, peace, and tranquillity,” thus wrote John Amos Comenius, the evangelist of modern pedagogy, nearly three hundred years ago.
Comenius believed that education would regenerate the race; accordingly all children, rich and poor, high and low, boys and girls, were to be educated. Instruction must begin in early youth and follow the course of nature. For this purpose, he outlined an ideal scheme which extended from the birth of the child to the age of twenty-four years. This system of education provides for four grades of schools: 1. The Mother school, which shall cover the first six years of the child’s life, laying the foundation for all that he is to learn in the later life. He is to be given simple lessons in objects, taught to know stones, plants, and animals; the names and uses of the members of his body; to distinguish light and darkness and colors; the geography of the cradle, the room, the farm, the street, and the field; trained in mod-
- ↑ The Great Didactic was Comenius’ most considerable work on the philosophy of education. An English translation by Professor Hanus will shortly appear in the international educational series edited by Dr. Harris.
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