The History of Pedagogy

by Gabriel Compayré

“The foundation of all knowledge consists in correctly representing sensible objects to our senses, so that they can be comprehended with facility. I hold that this is the basis of all our other activities, since we could neither act nor speak wisely unless we adequately comprehended what we were to do and say. Now it is certain that there is nothing in the understanding that was not first in the senses, and, consequently, it is to lay the foundation of all wisdom, of all eloquence, and of all good and prudent conduct, carefully to train the senses to note with accuracy the differences between natural objects; and as this point, important as it is, is ordinarily neglected in the schools of to-day, and as objects are proposed to scholars that they do not understand because they have not been properly represented to their senses or to their imagination, it is for this reason, on the one hand, that the toil of teaching, and on the other, that the pain of learning, have become so burdensome and so unfruitful....

“We must offer to the young, not the shadows of things, but the things themselves, which impress the senses and the imagination. Instruction should commence with a real observation of things, and not with a verbal description of them.”

We see that Comenius accepts the doctrine of Bacon, even to his absolute sensationalism. In his pre-occupation with the importance of instruction through the senses, he goes so far as to ignore that other source of knowledge and intuitions, the inner consciousness.

144. Simplification of Grammatical Study.—The first result of the experimental method applied to instruction, is to simplify grammar and to relieve it from the abuse of abstract rules. “Children,” says Comenius, “need examples and things which they can see, and not abstract rules.”

And in the Preface of the Janua linguarum, he dwells upon the faults of the old method employed for the study of languages.

“It is a thing self-evident, that the true and proper way of teaching languages has not been recognized in the schools up to the present time. The most of those who devoted themselves to the study of letters grew old in the study of words, and upwards of ten years was spent in the study of Latin alone; indeed, they even spent their whole life in the study, with a very slow and very trifling profit, which did not pay for the trouble devoted to it.”[106] It is by use and by reading that Comenius would abolish the abuse of rules. Rules ought to intervene only to aid use and give it surety. The pupil will thus learn language, either in speaking, or in reading a book like the Orbis Pictus, in which he will find at the same time all the words of which the language itself is composed, and examples of all the constructions of its syntax.

145. Necessity of Drill and Practice.—Another essential point in the new method, is the importance attributed by Comenius to practical exercises: “Artisans,” he said, “understand this matter perfectly well. Not one of them will give an apprentice a theoretical course on his trade. He is allowed to notice what is done by his master, and then the tool is put in his hands: it is in smiting that one becomes a smith.”[107]

It is no longer the thing to repeat mechanically a lesson learned by heart. There must be a gradual habituation to action, to productive work, to personal effort.

146. General Bearing of the Work of Comenius.—How many other new and judicious ideas we shall have to gather from Comenius! The methods which we would be tempted to consider as wholly recent, his imagination had already suggested to him. For example, preceding the Orbis Pictus, we find an alphabet, where to each letter corresponds the cry of an animal, or else a sound familiar to the child. Is not this already the very essence of the phononimic processes[108] brought into fashion in these last years? But what is of more consequence with Comenius than a few happy discoveries in practical pedagogy, is the general inspiration of his work. He gives to education a psychological basis in demanding that the faculties shall be developed in their natural order: first, the senses, the memory, the imagination, and lastly the judgment and the reason. He is mindful of physical exercises, of technical and practical instruction, without forgetting that in the primary schools, which he calls the “studios of humanity,” there must be trained, not only strong and skilful artisans, but virtuous and religious men, imbued with the principles of order and justice. If he has stepped from theology to pedagogy, and if he permits himself sometimes to be borne along by his artless bursts of mysticism, at least he does not forget the necessities of the real condition, and of the present life of men. “The child,” he says, “shall learn only what is to be useful to him in this life or in the other.” Finally, he does not allow himself to be absorbed in the minute details of school management. He has higher views,—he is working for the regeneration of humanity. Like Leibnitz, he would freely say: “Give me for a few years the direction of education, and I agree to transform the world!”