Comenius and the Beginnings of Educational Reform

by W. S. Monroe

Great care must be exercised with reference to the methods adopted with children so young. The instruction need not be apportioned to the same degree that it is apportioned in schools, since at this early age all children are not endowed with equal ability, some beginning to speak in the first year, some in the second, and some not until the third year.

Physical Training

The first care of the mother must be for the health of her child, since bodily vigor so largely conditions normal mental development. “A certain author,” says Comenius, “advises that parents ought ‘to pray for a sound mind in a sound body,’ but they ought to labor as well as pray.” Since the early care of the child devolves largely on the mother, Comenius counsels women with reference to the hygiene of childhood. Prenatal conditions are no less important than postnatal; and prospective mothers should observe temperance in diet, avoid violent movements, control the emotions, and indulge in no excessive sleep or indolence.

For good and sufficient reasons the mother should nurse her own child. “How grievous, how hurtful, how reprehensible,” he exclaims, “is the conduct of some mothers, especially among the upper classes, who, feeling it irksome to nourish their own offspring, delegate the duty to other women.” This cruel alienation of mothers from their children, he maintains, is the greatest obstacle to the early training of the child. Such conduct is clearly opposed to nature: the wolf and bear, the lion and panther, nourish their offspring with their own milk; and shall the mothers of the human race be less affectionate than the wild beasts? Moreover, it contributes to the health of the child to be nourished by its natural mother.

Comenius has some sound advice for mothers on the kinds of food for young children. At the first it must as nearly as possible approximate to their natural aliment; it must be soft, sweet, and easily digestible. Milk is an excellent food; and after milk, bread, butter, and vegetables. All highly seasoned foods are to be avoided; and Comenius urges mothers to regard medicines as they would poisons, and avoid them altogether. Children accustomed to medicine from their earliest years are certain to become “feeble, sickly, infirm, pale-faced, imbecile, cancerous.”

Children during the earliest years require an abundance of sleep, fresh air, and exercise. They need not only to be exercised, but their exercises should be in the nature of amusements. “A joyful mind,” he remarks, “is half health, and the joy of the heart is the very life-spring of the child.” These exercises for the amusement of the child may provide for the pleasure of its eyes, ears, and other senses, as well as contribute to the vigor of its body and mind. Play not only conduces to the health of the child, but it lays the basis for later development.[34]

Mental Training

For the mental training of the child during its first six years Comenius has outlined two classes of studies: (1) those which furnish the materials of thought, such as nature study, geography, and household economy, and (2) those which furnish the symbols of thought, such as drawing, writing, and language. This grouping of form and content studies, it should be noted, has been followed by the disciples of Herbart in their schemes of classification.

The first and second years of the child’s life must be entirely given over to the development of organic functions; but, by the beginning of the third year, the child has acquired a vocabulary, and he should be taught to comprehend the meaning of the words he uses. This early knowledge should be of natural things—plants, flowers, trees, sand, clay, the cow, horse, and dog. He may be taught to comprehend some of the more important observable characters of these objects and to know their uses.

Special exercises should be provided for the training of the eye; excessive lights must be avoided, and also overstraining. Children may be moderately introduced to objects of color, and thus taught to enjoy the beauty of the heavens, trees, flowers, and running water. In the fourth and following years they should be taken into fields and along the rivers, and trained to observe plants, animals, running water, and the turning of windmills. In both nature study and geography Comenius anticipated the Heimatskunde of Pestalozzi.