oblivion. He has been saved from it by the fact that some of his educational works, written in Latin, have always been known to teachers. Thus his "Janua Linguarum" was in use as a school-book for nearly two centuries. An Anglo-Latin version of it was published at Oxford as late as in 1800. Some of Komensky's other educational works, such as the "Orbispictus," also became widely known. On the other hand, his later philosophical, or, as he called them, "pansophic" works have obtained but limited recognition. The power of condensing his thoughts and concentrating his mind that Komensky possessed when he wrote the "Labyrinth" failed him later in life, though the pansophic works for a short time attracted some attention, particularly in England.
To those who are not either professed pedagogues or students for whom long-past theories on natural history and natural philosophy—such as we find in the pansophic works—have an historical interest, Komensky's most valuable work will always be the "Labyrinth of the World." It is a work of the author's youth, though by no means his first work; and he who later in his life became somewhat diffuse has here concentrated his ideas, and given in a few pages an almost perfect picture of the life and thought of Bohemia and Germany as they appeared to one living in the early years of the seventeenth century.
The "Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart"—to give the book its full name—belongs to that large class of writings that are
