This last fact, which we learn hazily from Durie's letters and Roe's, we should have known, abundantly and distinctly, otherwise. There are two publications of Hartlib's, of the years 1637 and 1638 respectively, the first of a long and varied series that were to come from his pen. Now, both of these are on the subject of Education. "Conatuum Comenianorum Præludia, ex Bibliothecâ S. H.: Oxoniæ, Excudebat Gulielmus Turnerus, Academia Typographus, 1637" ("Preludes of the Endeavours of Comenius, from the Library of S. H.: Oxford, Printed by William Turner, University Printer, 1637")—such is the general title of the first of these publications. It is a small quarto, and consists first of a Preface "Ad Lectorem" (to the Reader), signed "Samuel Hartlibius," and then of a foreign treatise which it is the object of the publication to introduce to the attention of Oxford and of the English nation; which treatise has this separate title:—"Porta Sapientiæ Reserata; sive Pansophiæ Christianæ Seminarium: hoc est, Nova, Compendiosa et Solida omnes Scientias et Artes, et quicquid manifesti vel occulti est quod ingenio humano penetrare, solertiæ imitari, linguae eloqui, datur, brevius, verius, melius, quam hactenus, Addiscendi Methodus: Auctore Reverendo Clarissimoque viro Domino Johanne Amoso Comenio" ("The Gate of Wisdom Opened; or the Seminary of all Christian Knowledge: being a New, Compendious, and Solid Method of Learning, more briefly, more truly, and better than hitherto, all Sciences and Arts, and whatever there is, manifest or occult, that it is given to the genius of man to penetrate, his craft to imitate, or his tongue to speak: The author that Reverend and most distinguished man, Mr. John Amos Comenius"). So far as I have been able to trace, this is the first publication bearing the name of Hartlib. Copies of it must be scarce, but there is at least one in the British Museum. There also is a copy of what, on the faith of an entry in the Registers of the Stationers' Company, I have to record as his second publication. "Oct. 17, 1638: Samuel Gillebrand entered for his copy, under the hands of Mr. Baker and Mr. Rothwell, warden, a Book called Comenii Pansophiæ Prodromus et Didactica Dissertatio (Comenius's Harbinger of Universal Knowledge and Treatise on Education), published by Sam. Hartlib." [Footnote: My notes from Stationers' Registers.] When the thing actually appeared, in small duodecimo, it had the date "1639" on the title-page.
The canvas becomes rather crowded; but I am bound to introduce here to the reader "that reverend and most distinguished man, Mr. John Amos Comenius," who had been winning on Hartlib's heart by his theories of Education and Pansophia, prepossessed though that heart was by Durie and his scheme of Pan-Protestantism.
He was an Austro-Slav, born in 1592, at Comnia in Moravia, whence his name Jan Amos Komensky, Latinized into Joannes Amosius Comenius. His parents were Protestants of the sect known as the Bohemian or Moravian Brethren, who traced their origin to the followers of Huss. Left an orphan in early life, he was poorly looked after, and was in his sixteenth year before he began to learn Latin. Afterwards he studied in various places, and particularly at Herborn in the Duchy of Nassau; whence he returned to his native Moravia in 1614, to become Rector of a school at Prerau. Here it was that he first began to study and practise new methods of teaching, and especially of grammatical teaching, induced, as he himself tells us, by the fame of certain speculations on that subject which had recently been put forth by Wolfgang Ratich, an Educational Reformer then very active in Germany. From Prerau Comenius removed in 1618 to Fulneck, to be pastor to a congregation of Moravian Brethren there; but, as he conjoined the charge of a new school with his pastorate, he continued his interest in new methods of education. Manuscripts of schoolbooks which he was preparing on his new methods perished, with his library, in a sack of Fulneck in 1621 by the Spaniards; and in 1624, on an edict proscribing all the Protestant ministers of the Austrian States, Comenius lost his living, and took refuge in the Bohemian mountains with a certain Baron Sadowski of Slaupna. In this retreat he wrote, in 1627, a short educational Directory for the use of the tutor of the baron's sons. But, the persecution waxing furious, and 30,000 families being driven out of Bohemia for their Protestantism, Comenius had to migrate to Poland It was with a heavy heart that lie did so: and, as he and his fellow-exiles crossed the mountain-boundary on their way, they looked back on Moravia and Bohemia, and, falling on their knees, prayed God not to let His truth fail utterly out of those hinds, but to preserve a remnant in them for himself. Leszno in Poland was Comenius's new refuge. Here again he employed himself in teaching; and here, in a more systematic manner than before, he pursued his speculations on the science of teaching and on improved methods for the acquisition of universal knowledge. He read, he tells us, all the works he could find on the subject of Didactics by predecessors or contemporaries, such as Ratich, Ritter, Glaumius, Wolfstirn, Cæcilius, and Joannes Valentinus Andreæ, and also the philosophical works of Campanella and Lord Bacon; but he combined the information so obtained with his own ideas and experience. The results he seems mainly to have jotted down, for future use, in various manuscript papers in his Slavic vernacular, or in German, or in Latin; but in 1631 he was induced by the curators of the school at Leszno to send to the press in Latin one book of a practical and particular nature. This was a so-called "Janua Linguarum Reserata," or "Gate of Languages Opened," propounding a method which he had devised, and had employed at Leszno, for rapidly teaching Latin, or any other tongue, and at the same time communicating the rudiments of useful knowledge. The little book, though he thought it a trifle, made him famous. "It happened, as I could not have imagined possible," he himself writes, "that that puerile little work was received with a sort of universal applause by the learned world. This was testified by very many persons of different countries, both by letters to myself congratulating me earnestly on the new invention, and also by translations into the various popular tongues, undertaken as if in rivalry with each other. Not only did editions which we have ourselves seen appear in all the European tongues, twelve in number—viz. Latin, Greek, Bohemian, Polish, German. Swedish, Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hungarian; but it was translated, as we have learnt, into such Asiatic tongues as the Arabic, the Turkish, the Persian, and even the Mongolian."
The process which Comenius thus describes must have extended over several years. There are traces of knowledge of him, and of his Janua Linguarum Reserata, in England as early as 1633. In that year a Thomas Home, M.A., then a schoolmaster in London, but afterwards Master of Eton, put forth a "Janua Linguarum" which is said by Anthony Wood to have been taken, "all or most," from Comenius. An actual English translation or expansion of Comenius's book, by a John Anchoran, licentiate in Divinity, under the title of "The Gate of Tongues Unlocked and Opened: or else A Summary or Seed-Plot of all Tongues and Sciences," reached its "fourth edition much enlarged" in 1639, and may be presumed to have been in circulation, in other forms, some years before. But the great herald of Comenius and his ideas among the English was Samuel Hartlib. Not only may he have had to do with the importation of Comenius's Janua Linguarum and the recommendation of that book to such pedagogues as Home and Anchoran; but he was instrumental in extracting from Comenius, while that book and certain appendices to it were in the flush of their first European popularity, a summary of his reserved and more general theories and intentions in the field of Didactics. The story is told very minutely by Comenius himself.
The Janua Linguarum Reserata was only a proposed improvement in the art of teaching Language or Words; and ought not a true system of education to range beyond that, and provide for a knowledge of Things? This was what Comenius was thinking: he was meditating a sequel to his popular little book, to be called "_Janua Rerum Reserata" or "Gate of Things Opened," and to contain an epitome or encyclopædia of all essential knowledge, under the three heads of Nature, Scripture, and the Mind of Man. Nay, borrowing a word which had appeared as the title of a somewhat meagre Encyclopædia of the Arts by a Peter Laurenbergius, Comenius had resolved on Pansophia, or Pansophia Christiana ("Universal Wisdom," or "Universal Christian Wisdom"), as a fit alternative name for this intended Janua Rerum. But he was keeping the work back, as one requiring leisure, and could only be persuaded to let the announcement of its title appear in the Leipsic catalogue of forthcoming books. By that time, however, Hartlib of London had become so dear a friend to Comenius that he could refuse him nothing. Whether there had been any prior personal acquaintance between Hartlib and Comenius, by reason of their German and Slavic connexions, I cannot say. But, since the publication of the Janua Linguarum, Hartlib had been in correspondence with Comenius in his Polish home; and, by 1636, his interest in the designs of Comenius, and willingness to forward them, had become so well known in the circle of the admirers of Comenius that he had been named as one of the five chief Comenians in Europe, the other four being Zacharias Schneider of Leipsic, Sigismund Evenius of Weimar, John Mochinger of Dantzic, and John Docemius of Hamburg. Now, Hartlib, having heard of the intended Janua Rerum or Pansophia of Comenius, not only in the Leipsic catalogue of forthcoming works, but also, more particularly, from some Moravian students passing through London, had written to Comenius, requesting some sketch of it. "Being thus asked," says Comenius, "by the most intimate of my friends, a man piously eager for the public good, to communicate some idea of my future work, I did communicate to him in writing, in a chance way, what I had a thought of prefixing some time or other to the work in the form of a Preface; and this, beyond my hope, and without my knowledge, was printed at Oxford, under the title of Conatuum Comenianorum Præludia." Here we have the whole secret of that publication from the Oxford University press, in 1637, which was edited by Hartlib and announced as being from his Library. It was not a reprint of anything that had already appeared abroad, but was in fact a new treatise by the great Comenius which Hartlib had persuaded the author to send him from Poland and had published on his own responsibility. He had apologized to Comenius for so doing, on the ground that the publication would "serve a good purpose by feeling the way and ascertaining the opinions of learned and wise men in a matter of such unusual consequence." Comenius was a little nettled, he says, especially as criticisms of the Pansophic sketch began to come in, which would have been obviated, he thought, if he had been allowed quietly to develop the thing farther before publication. Nevertheless, there the book was, and the world now knew of Comenius not only as the author of the little Janua Linguarum, but also as contemplating a vast Janua Rerum, or organization of universal knowledge on a new basis.—In fact, the fame of Comenius was increased by Hartlib's little indiscretion. In Sweden especially there was an anxiety to have the benefit of the counsels of so eminent a theorist in the business of education. In 1638 the Swedish Government, at the head of which, during the minority of Queen Christina, was the Chancellor Oxenstiern, invited Comenius to Sweden, that he might preside over a Commission for the revision and reform of the schools there. Comenius, however, declined the invitation, recommending that the work should be entrusted to some native Swede, but promising to give his advice; and, at the same time (1638), he began to translate into Latin, for the behoof of Sweden and of other countries, a certain Didactica Magna, or treatise on Didactics at large, which he had written in his Bohemian Slavic vernacular nine years before. Hartlib had an early abstract of this book, and this abstract is part of the Comenii Pansophiæ Prodromus et Didactica Dissertatio which he edited in London in the same year, and published in duodecimo in 1639. [Footnote: Bayle's Dictionary: Art. Coménius (Jean-Amos); "Geshichte der Pädagogik," by Karl von Raumer (Stuttgart, 1843), Zweither Theil, pp. 46-49; "Essays on Educational Reformers," by Robert Hebert Quick (1868), pp. 43-47; Wood's Ath. III. 366, and II. 677. The general sketch of Comenius in Bayle, and those by Raumer and Mr. Quick, are very good; but details in the text, and especially the particulars of Hartlib's early connexion with Comenius, have had to be culled by me from the curious autobiographical passages prefixed to or inserted in Comenius's various writings as far as 1642. These form Part I. of his large Folio, Opera Didactica Omnia, published by him at Amsterdam in 1657; and the passages in that Part which have supplied particulars for the text will be found at columns 3-4, 318, 326,403,442—444,454-459. Comenius, like most such theoretic reformers, had a vein of egotism, and a strong memory for details respecting the history of his own ideas and their reception.]
What, after all, were the new notions propounded from Poland, with such universal European effort, by this Protestant Austro-Slav, Comenius, and sponsored in England by the Prussian Hartlib? We shall try to give them in epitome. Be it understood, however, that the epitome takes account only of those works of Comenius which were written before 1639, without including the mass of his later writings, some of which were to be even more celebrated.
The Didactica Magna is perhaps the most pregnant of the early books of Comenius. The full title of this treatise is, in translation, as follows: "Didactics at Large: propounding a universal Scheme for teaching all Things to all persons; or a Certain and Perfect Mode of erecting such Schools through all the communities, towns, and villages of any Christian Kingdom, as that all the youth of both sexes, without the neglect of a single one, may be compendiously, pleasantly, and solidly educated in Learning, grounded in Morals, imbued with Piety, and so, before the years of puberty, instructed in all things belonging to the present and the future life." In the treatise itself there are first some chapters of preliminary generalities. Man, says Comenius, is the last and most perfect of creatures; his destiny is to a life beyond this; and the present life is but a preparation for that eternal one. This preparation involves three things—Knowledge by Man of himself and of all things about him (Learning), Rule of himself (Morals), and Direction of himself to God (Religion). The seeds of these three varieties of preparation are in us by Nature; nevertheless, if Man would come out complete Man, he must be formed or educated. Always the education must be threefold—in Knowledge, in Morals, and in Religion; and this combination must never be lost sight of. Such education, however, comes most fitly in early life. Parents may do much, but they cannot do all; there is need, therefore, in every country, of public schools for youth. Such schools should be for the children of all alike, the poor as well as the rich, the stupid and malicious as well as the clever and docile, and equally for girls as for boys; and the training in them ought to be absolutely universal or encyclopædic, in Letters, Arts, and Science, in Morals, and in Piety. [Footnote: For Miltonic reasons, as well as for others, I cannot resist the temptation to translate here, in a Note, the sub stance of Comenius's views on the Education of Women; as given in Chap. IX. (cols. 42-44) of his Didactica Magna:—"Nor, to say something particularly on this subject, can any sufficient reason be given why the weaker sex" [sequior sexus, literally "the later or following sex," is his phrase, borrowed from Apuleius, and, though the phrase is usually translated "the inferior sex," it seems to have been chosen by Comenius to avoid that implication], "should be wholly shut out from liberal studies, whether in the native tongue or in Latin. For equally are they God's image; equally are they partakers of grace and of the kingdom to come; equally are they furnished with minds agile and capable of wisdom, yea often beyond our sex; equally to them is there a possibility of attaining high distinction, inasmuch as they have often been employed by God himself for the government of peoples, the bestowing of the most wholesome counsels on kings and princes, the science of medicine and other things useful to the human race, nay even the prophetical office, and the rattling reprimand of Priests and Bishops" [etiam ad Propheticum munus, et incrependos Sacerdotes Episcoposque, are the words; and, as the treatise was prepared for the press in 1638, one detects a reference, by the Moravian Brother in Poland, to the recent fame of Jenny Geddes of Scotland]. "Why then should we admit them to the Alphabet, but afterwards debar them from Books? Do we fear their rashness? The more we occupy their thoughts, the less room will there be in them for rashness, which springs generally from vacuity of mind." Some slight limitations as to the reading proper for young women are appended, but with a hint that the same limitations would be good for youth of the other sex; and there is a bold quotation of the Scriptural text (1 Tim. ii. 12),"I suffer not a woman to teach," and of two well-known passages of Euripides and Juvenal against learned women or bluestockings, to show that he was quite aware of these passages, but saw nothing in them against his real meaning.] Here, at length, in the eleventh chapter, we arrive at the great question, Has such a system of schools been anywhere established? No, answers Comenius, and abundantly proves his negative. Schools of a kind there had been in the world from the days of the Pharaohs and Nebuchadnezzar, if not from those of Shem, but not yet were there schools everywhere; not yet, where schools did exist, were they for all classes; and, at best, where they did exist, of what sort were they? Places, for the most part, of nausea and torment for the poor creatures collected in them; narrow and imperfect in their aims, which were verbal rather than real; and not even succeeding in these aims! Latin, nothing but Latin! And how had they taught this precious and eternal Latin of theirs? "Good God! how intricate, laborious, and prolix this study of Latin has been! Do not scullions, shoeblacks, cobblers, among pots and pans, or in camp, or in any other sordid employment, learn a language different from their own, or even two or three such, more readily than school students, with every leisure and appliance and all imaginable effort, learn their solitary Latin? And what a difference in the proficiency attained! The former, after a few months, are found gabbling away with ease; the latter, after fifteen or twenty years, can hardly, for the most part, unless when strapped up tight in their grammars and dictionaries, bring out a bit of Latin, and that not without hesitation and stammering." But all this might be remedied. There might be such a Reformation of Schools that not only Latin, but all other languages, and all the real Sciences and Arts of life to boot, might be taught in them expeditiously, pleasantly, and thoroughly. What was wanted was right methods and the consistent practical application of these. Nature must supply the principles of the Method of Education: as all Nature's processes go softly and spontaneously, so will all artificial processes that are in conformity with Nature's principles. And what are Nature's principles, as transferable into the Art of Education? Comenius enumerates a good many, laying stress on such as these: nothing out of season; matter before form; the general before the special, or the simple before the complex; all continuously, and nothing per saltum. He philosophizes a good deal, sometimes a little quaintly and mystically, on these principles of Nature, and on the hints she gives for facility, solidity, and celerity of learning, and then sums up his deductions as to the proper Method in each of the three departments of education, the Intellectual, the Moral, and the Religious. Things before words, or always along with words, to explain them; the concrete and sensible to prepare for the abstract; example and illustration rather than verbal definition, or to accompany verbal definition: such is his main maxim in the first department. Object-lessons, wherever possible: i.e. if boys are taught about the stars, let it be with the stars over their heads to look at; if about the structure of the human body, let it be with a skeleton before them; if about the action of a pump, or other machine, let it be with the machine actually at hand. "Always let the things which the words are to designate be shown; and again, whatever the pupils see, hear, touch, taste, let them be taught to express the same; so that tongue and intellect may go on together." Where the actual objects cannot be exhibited, there may be models, pictures, and the like; and every school ought to have a large apparatus of such, and a museum. Writing and drawing ought to be taught simultaneously with reading. All should be made pleasant to the pupils; they ought to relish their lessons, to be kept brisk, excited, wide-awake; and to this end there should be emulation, praise of the deserving, always something nice and rousing on the board, a mixture of the funny with the serious, and occasional puzzles, anecdotes, and conundrums. The school-houses ought to be airy and agreeable, and the school-hours not too long. In order that there may be time to teach all that really ought to be taught, there must be a wise neglect of heaps of things not essential: a great deal must be flung overboard, as far as School is concerned, and left to the chance inquisitiveness of individuals afterwards. And what sort of things may be thus wisely neglected? Why, in the first place, the non necessaria (things generally unprofitable), or things that contribute neither to piety nor to good morals, and without which there may be very sufficient erudition—as, for example, "the names of the Gentile gods, their love- histories, and their religious rites," all which may be got up in books at any time by any one that wants them; and, again, the aliena (things that do not fit the particular pupil)—mathematics, for example, for some, and music for those who have no ear; and, again, the particularissima, or those excessive minutenesses and distinctions into which one may go without end in any subject whatsoever. So, at large, with very competent learning, no small philosophical acumen, much logical formality and numeration of propositions and paragraphs, but a frequent liveliness of style, and every now and then a crashing shot of practical good sense, Comenius reasons and argues for a new System of Education, inspired by what would now be called Realism or enlightened Utilitarianism. Objections, as they might occur, are duly met and answered; and one notes throughout the practical schoolmaster, knowing what he is talking about, and having before his fancy all the while the spectacle of a hundred or two of lads ranged on benches, and to be managed gloriously from the desk, as a skilled metallurgist manages a mass of molten iron. He is a decided advocate for large classes, each of "some hundreds," under one head-master, because of the fervour which such classes generate in themselves and in the master; and he shows how they may be managed. Emulation, kindliness, and occasional rebuke, are chiefly to be trusted to for maintaining discipline; and punishments are to be for moral offences only. How Comenius would blend moral teaching and religious teaching with the acquisition of knowledge in schools is explained in two chapters, entitled "Method of Morals" and "Method of instilling Piety;" and this last leads him to a separate chapter, in which he maintains that, "if we would have schools thoroughly reformed according to the true rules of Christianity, the books of Heathen authors must be removed from them, or at least employed more cautiously than hitherto." He argues this at length, insisting on the necessity of the preparation of a graduated series of school-books that should supersede the ordinary classics, conserving perhaps the best bits of some of them. If any of the classics were to be kept bodily for school-use, they should be Seneca, Epictetus, Plato, and the like. And so at last he comes to describe the System of Schools he would have set up in every country, viz.: I. THE INFANT SCHOOL, or MOTHER'S OWN SCHOOL, for children under six; II. THE LUDUS LITERARIUS, Or VERNACULAR PUBLIC SCHOOL, for boys and girls up to the age of twelve; III. THE LATIN SCHOOL or GYMNASIUM, for higher teaching up to eighteen or so; and IV. THE UNIVERSITY (with TRAVEL), for the highest possible teaching on to the age of about five- and-twenty. From the little babble of the Infant School about Water, Air, Fire, Iron, Bird, Fish, Hill, Sun, Moon, &c., all on the plan of exercising the senses and making Things and Words go together, up to the most exquisite training of the University, he shows how there might be a progress and yet a continuity of encyclopædic aim. Most boys and girls in every community, he thinks, might stop at the Vernacular School, without going on to the Latin; and he has great faith in the capabilities of any vernacular and the culture that may be obtained within it. Still he would like to see as many as possible going on to the Latin School and the University, that there might never be wanting in a community spirits consummately educated, veritable [Greek: polumatheis] and [Greek: pansophoi]. In the Universities apparently he would allow the largest ranging among the classics of all sorts, though still on some principle for organizing that kind of reading. There is, in fact, a mass of details and suggestions about each of the four kinds of schools, all vital to Comenius, and all pervaded by his sanguine spirit, but which one can hardly now read through. [Footnote: A separate little treatise on the management of "The Infant School," containing advices to parents for home use, was written by Comenius in Bohemian Slavic, and translated thence into German in 1633. It appears in Latin among his Opera Didactica collected. He wrote also, he tells us, six little books for "The Vernacular School," under fancy-titles. These do not seem ever to have been published. His Janua Linguarum (1631), and one or two appendages to it, were contributions to the theory and practice of "The Latin School.">[ The final chapter is one of the most eloquent and interesting. It is entitled, "Of the Requisites necessary for beginning the practice of this Universal Method." Here he comes back upon his notion of a graduated series of school-books, or rather of an organization of books generally for the purposes of education. "One great requisite," he says, "the absence of which would make the whole machine useless, while its presence would put all in motion, is A SUFFICIENT APPARATUS OF PAMMETHODIC BOOKS." All, he repeats, hinges on the possibility of creating such an apparatus. "This is a work," he adds, "not for one man, especially if he is otherwise occupied, and not instructed in everything that ought to be reduced into the Universal Method; nor is it perhaps a work for one age, if we would have all brought to absolute perfection. There is need, therefore, of a COLLEGIAL SOCIETY (ergo Societate Collegiali est opus). For the convocation of such a Society there is need of the authority and liberality of some King, or Prince, or Republic, and also of some quiet place, away from crowds, with a Library and other appurtenances." There follows an earnest appeal to persons of all classes to forward such an association, and the good Moravian winds up with a prayer to God. [Footnote: There is a summary of Comenius's Didactica Magna in Von Reumer's "Geshichte der Pædgogis" (pp. 53-59). It is accurate so far as it goes; but I have gone to the book itself.]
A special part of Comenius's system, better known perhaps at the time of which we write than his system as a whole, was his Method for Teaching Languages. This is explained in Chapter XXII. of his Didactica Magna, and more in detail in his Linguarum Janua Rescrata, and one or two writings added to that book:—Comenius, as we already know, did not overrate linguistic training in education. "Languages are acquired," he says, "not as a part of learning or wisdom, but as instrumental to the reception and communication of learning. Accordingly, it is not all languages that are to be learnt, for that is impossible, nor yet many, for that would be useless, as drawing away the time due to the study of Things; but only those that are necessary. The necessary tongues, however, are: first, the Vernacular, for home use; next, Neighbouring Tongues, for conversation with neighbours,—as, for example, the German for Poles of one frontier, and the Hungarian, the Wallachian, and the Turkish, for Poles of other parts; next, Latin, as the common language of the learned, admitting one to the wise use of books; and, finally, the Greek and Arabic for philosophers and medical men, and Greek and Hebrew for theologians." Not all the tongues that are learnt, either, are to be learnt to the same nicety of perfection, but only to the extent really needed. Each language should be learnt separately—first, the Vernacular, which ought to be perfectly learnt, and to which children ought to be kept for eight or ten years; then whatever neighbouring tongue might be desirable, for which a year would be long enough; next, Latin, which ought to be learnt well, and might be learnt in two years; and so to Greek, to which he would give one year, and Hebrew, which he would settle in six months. If people should be amazed at the shortness of the time in which he ventured to assert a language like the Latin might be learnt and learnt well, let them consider the principles of his method. Always Things along with Words, and Words associated with new groups of Things, from the most familiar objects to those rarer and farther off, so that the vocabulary might get bigger and bigger; and, all the while, the constant use of the vocabulary, such as it was, in actual talk, as well as in reading and writing. First, let the pupil stutter on anyhow, only using his stock of words; correctness would come afterwards, and in the end elegance and force. Always practice rather than rule, and leading to rule; also connexion of the tongue being learnt with that learnt last. A kind of common grammar may be supposed lying in the pupil's head, which he transfers instinctively to each new tongue, so that he has to be troubled only with variations and peculiarities. The reading-books necessary for thoroughly teaching a language by this method might be (besides Lexicons graduated to match) four in number—I. Vestibulum (The Porch), containing a vocabulary of some hundreds of simple words, fit for babbling with, grouped in little sentences, with annexed tables of declensions and conjugations; II. Janua (The Gate), containing all the common words in the language, say about 8,000, also compacted into interesting sentences, with farther grammatical aids; III. Palatium (The Palace), containing tit-bits of higher discourse about things, and elegant extracts from authors, with notes and grammatical comments; IV. Thesaurus (The Treasury), consisting of select authors themselves, duly illustrated, with a catalogue of other authors, so that the pupils might have some idea of the extent of the Literature of the language, and might know what authors to read on occasion afterwards.—Comenius himself actually wrote a Vestibulum for Latin, consisting of 427 short sentences, and directions for their use; and, as we know, his Janua Linguarum Reserata, which appeared in 1631, was the publication which made him famous. It is an application of his system to Latin. On the principle that Latin can never be acquired with ease while its vocabulary is allowed to lie alphabetically in dead Dictionaries, or in multitudinous variety of combination in Latin authors, about 8,000 Latin words of constant use are collected into a kind of Noah's Ark, representative of all Latinity. This is done in 1,000 short Latin sentences, arranged in 100 paragraphs of useful information about all things and sundry, under such headings as De Ortu Mundi (Of the Beginning of the World), De Elementis (Of the Elements), De Firmamento (Of the Firmament), De Igne (Of Fire), and so on through other physical and moral topics. Among these are De Metallis (Of Metals), De Herbis (Of Plants), De Insectis (Of Insects), De Ulceribus et Vulneribus (Of Sores and Wounds), De Agricultura (Of Agriculture), _De Vestituum Generibus (Of Articles of Dress), De Puerperio (Of Childbirth), De Pace et Bella (Of Peace and War), De Modestia (Of Modesty), De Morte et Sepultura (Of Death and Burial), De Providentia Dei (Of the Providence of God), De Angelis (Of Angels). Comenius was sure that due drill in this book would put a boy in effective possession of Latin for all purposes of reading, speaking, and writing. And, of course, by translation, the same manual would serve for any other language. For, the Noah's Ark of things being much the same for all peoples, in learning a new language you have but to fit on to the contents of that permanent Ark of realities a new set of vocables. [Footnote: Dialectica Magna Chap. XXII. first edition of Janua, as reprinted in Comenii Opera Didactica, 1657 (Part I, cols. 255-302).]
Comenius rather smiled at the rush of all Europe upon his Janua Linguarum, or Method for Teaching Languages. That was a trifle in his estimation, compared with the bigger speculations of his Didactica Magna, and still more with his Pansophiæ Prodromus or Porta Sapientiæ Reserata. A word or two on this last little book:—Comenius appears in it as a would-be Lord Bacon, an Austro-Slavic Lord Bacon, a very Austro-Slavic Lord Bacon. He mentions Bacon several times, and always with profound respect ("illustrissimus Verulamius" and so on); but it appeared to him that more was wanted than Bacon's Novum Organum, or Instauratio Magna, with all its merits. A PANSOPHIA was wanted, nay, a PANSOPHIA CHRISTIANA, or consolidation of all human knowledge into true central Wisdom, one body of Real Truth. O Wisdom, Wisdom! O the knowledge of things in themselves, and in their universal harmony! What was mere knowledge of words, or all the fuss of pedagogy and literature, in view of that! Once attained, and made communicable, it would make the future of the world one Golden Age! Why had it not been attained? What had been the hindrances to its attainment? What were the remedies? In a kind of phrenzy, which does not prevent most logical precision of paragraphing and of numbering of propositions, Comenius discusses all this, becoming more and more like a Bacon bemuddled, as he eyes his PANSOPHIA through the mist. What it is he cannot make plain to us; but we see he has some notion of it himself, and we honour him accordingly. For there are gleams, and even flashes, through the mist. For example, there is a paragraph entitled Scientiarum Laceratio, lamenting the state of division, disconnectedness, and piece-meal distribution among many hands, into which the Sciences had fallen. Though there were books entitled Pansophias, Encyclopædias, and the like, he had seen none sufficiently justifying the name, or exhausting the universality of things. Much less had he seen the whole apparatus of human intelligence so constructed from its own certain and eternal principles that all things should appear mutually concatenated among themselves from first to last without any hiatus! "Metaphysicians hum to themselves only, Natural Philosophers chaunt their own praises, Astronomers lead on their dances for themselves, Ethical Thinkers set up laws for themselves, Politicians lay foundations for themselves, Mathematicians triumph for themselves, and for themselves Theologians reign." What is the consequence? Why, that, while each one attends only to himself and his own phantasy, there is no general accord, but only dissonance. "We see that the branches of a tree cannot live unless they all alike suck their juices from a common trunk with common roots. And can we hope that the branches of Wisdom can be torn asunder with safety to their life, that is to truth? Can one be a Natural Philosopher who is not also a Metaphysician? or an Ethical Thinker who does not know something of Physical Science? or a Logician who has no knowledge of real matters? or a Theologian, a Jurisconsult, or a Physician, who is not first a Philosopher? or an Orator or Poet who is not all things at once? He deprives himself of light, of hand, and of regulation, who pushes away from him any shred of the knowable." From such passages one has a glimmer of what Comenius did mean by his Pansophia. He hoped to do something himself towards furnishing the world with this grand desideratum. He had in contemplation a book which should at least show what a proper Encyclopædia or Consolidation of Universal Truth ought to be. But here again he invites co-operation. Many hands in many lands would have to labour at the building of the great Temple of Wisdom. He appeals to all, "of every rank, age, sex, and tongue," to do what they can. Especially let there be an end to the monopoly of Latin. "We desire and protest that studies of wisdom be no longer committed to Latin alone, and kept shut up in the schools, as has hitherto been done, to the greatest contempt and injury of the people at large and the popular tongues. Let all things be delivered to each nation in its own speech, so that occasion may be afforded to all who are men to occupy themselves with these liberal matters rather than fatigue themselves, as is constantly the case, with the cares of this life, or ambitions, or drinking-bouts, or other vanities, to the destruction of life and soul both. Languages themselves too would so be polished to perfection with the advancement of the Sciences and Arts. Wherefore we, for our part, have resolved, if God pleases, to divulge these things of ours both in the Latin and in the vernacular. For no one lights a candle and hides it under a bushel, but places it on a candlestick, that it may give light to all." [Footnote: Pansophici Libri Delineatio (i.e. the same treatise which Hartlib had printed at Oxford in 1637) in Comenii Opera Didactica, Part I. cols. 403-454.] Such were the varied Comenian views which the good Hartlib strove to bring into notice in England in 1637-9. Durie and Reconciliation of the Churches was still one of his enthusiasms, but Comenius and Reformed Education was another. But, indeed, nothing of a hopeful kind, with novelty in it, came amiss to Hartlib. He, as well as Comenius, had read Lord Bacon. He was a devoted admirer of the Baconian philosophy, and had imbibed, I think, more deeply than most of Bacon's own countrymen, the very spirit and mood of that philosophy. That' the world had got on so slowly hitherto because it had pursued wrong methods; that, if once right methods were adopted, the world would spin forward at a much faster rate in all things; that no one could tell what fine discoveries of new knowledge, what splendid inventions in art, what devices for saving labour, increasing wealth, preserving health, and promoting happiness, awaited the human race in the future: all this, which Bacon had taught, Hartlib had taken into his soul. His sympathy with Durie and Religious Compromise and his sympathy with Comenius and School Reform were but special exhibitions of his general passion for new lights. The cry of his soul, morning and night, in all things, was
Phosphore, redde diem! Quid gaudia nostra moraris?
Phosphore, redde diem!