His plan eventually embraced a graded series of five books, as follows:
1. The Orbis Sensualium Pictus, or the World of Sense Objects Pictured. This was an illustrated primer and first reader, which appeared in 1658, and was the first illustrated book ever written for children (R. 221).
2. The Vestibulum (Vestibule, or gate). An easy first reader, consisting of but a few hundred of the most commonly used Latin words and sentences, with a translation into the vernacular in parallel columns. This book required about a half-year for its completion.
3. The Janua Linguarum Reserata, or Gate of Languages Unlocked. This was the first of the series printed (1631), the Vestibulum being an easy introduction to it, and the Orbis Pictus being the Janua simplified and illustrated. The Janua contained some eight thousand Latin words, arranged in simple sentences, with the vernacular equivalent in parallel columns; included information on a variety of subjects; [7] and was a regular Noah's Ark for vocabulary purposes. It embraced sufficient reading material and grammar for a year.
4. The Atrium. This was an expansion of the Janua, and treated the same topics more in detail. It was intended to be an advanced reader, based, as was the Janua, on studies about the real things of life. The vocabulary now was Latin-Latin, instead of Latin-vernacular.
5. The Thesaurus, which was never completed, but was planned to be a collection of graded extracts from easy Latin authors—Cornelius Nepos, Caesar, Cicero, Sallust, Vergil, Horace, Pliny—to furnish the needed reading material for the three upper years of the Latin School.
THE TEXTBOOKS ILLUSTRATED. Beginning in the Janua, and afterwards in the Vestibulum and Orbis Pictus as well, Comenius not only simplified the teaching of Latin by producing the best textbooks for instruction in the subject the world had ever known, but he also shifted the whole emphasis in instruction from words to things, and made the teaching of scientific knowledge and useful world information the keynote of his work. The hundred different chapters of the Janua, and the hundred and fifty-one chapters of the Orbis Pictus, were devoted to imparting information as to all kinds of useful subjects. The following selections from the chapter titles of the Orbis Pictus illustrate how large a place the new scientific studies occupied in his conception of the school:
The World Birds Weaving Philosophy
The Heavens Cattle Tailor Prudence
Fire Fish Barber Diligence
Wind Parts of Man Schoolmaster Temperance
Water Flesh and Bowels Shoemaker Fortitude
Clouds Chanels and Bones Carpenter Humanity
Earth Senses Potter Justice
Fruits Deformities Printing Consanguinity
Metals Husbandry Geometry A City
Trees Bees and Honey The Planets Merchandizing
Herbs Butchery Eclipses A Burial
Flowers Cookery Europe Religious Forms
The accompanying illustrations (Figs. 126, 127) reveal the nature of the text-books he prepared. (See also R. 221 for four additional pages of illustrations from the Orbis Pictus.)
[Illustration: FIG. 126. A SAMPLE PAGE FROM THE "ORBIS PICTUS"
The illustration and Latin text is from the first edition of 1658; the
English translation from the English edition of 1727.]