ORBIS PICTUS
OF
John Amos Comenius.
This work is, indeed, the first children’s picture book.
—Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th Edition, vi. 182.
SYRACUSE, N. Y.:
C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER,
1887.
Copyright, 1887, by C. W. Bardeen.
It may not be generally known that Comenius was once solicited to become President of Harvard College. The following is a quotation from Vol. II, p. 14, of Cotton Mather’s Magnalia:
“That brave old man, Johannes Amos Commenius, the fame of whose worth has been TRUMPETTED as far as more than three languages (whereof everyone is indebted unto his Janua) could carry it, was indeed agreed withal, by one Mr. Winthrop in his travels through the LOW COUNTRIES, to come over to New England, and illuminate their Colledge and COUNTRY, in the quality of a President, which was now become vacant. But the solicitations of the Swedish Ambassador diverting him another way, that incomparable Moravian became not an American.”