Page:Comenius' School of Infancy.pdf/18

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xii
INTRODUCTION.

ing demand, and, at the same time, add to the awakened interest in educational classics. In the present edition, Benham’s translation has been to some extent followed, the editor, however, making frequent translations from the German editions (Leipzig, 1875 and 1891) by Julius Beeger and Albert Richter. The frontispiece portrait of Comenius is from an engraving by W. Hollar, the Bohemian artist, who doubtless took it from life.

The footnotes by the editor show to some extent the origin of Comenius’ educational ideals and the influence of his writings on later educators. Mr. Quick (67) is entirely right in declaring that Comenius was the first to treat education in a scientific spirit. Monsieur Compayré (127) says: “He determined, nearly three hundred years ago, with an exactness that leaves nothing to be desired, the division of the different grades of instruction. He exactly defined some of the laws of the art of teaching, and he applied to pedagogy, with remarkable insight, the principles of modern logic.”

There are in English so many excellent accounts of the life of Comenius that a biographical sketch in this connection seems unnecessary. The life by Laurie (48) and the sketches in Barnard’s American Journal of Education (2), Compayré’s History of Pedagogy (28), and Quick’s Educational Reformers (67) are commended to the reader. The editor has also appended a bibliography of the Comenian literature to which he has had access. Monatshefte der Comenius-Gesellschaft (54), a monthly magazine published at Leipzig, now on its fourth volume, will be found a mine of rich Comenian lore.

Famous in his own day; enjoying the friendship of the great scholars and the confidence of royal personages; the author of one hundred and thirty-five educational and religious books and treatises which were translated during his lifetime into all the languages of Europe and most of the