Comenius and the Beginnings of Educational Reform

by W. S. Monroe

Children should also during their first six years be taught to know the heavens, and to distinguish between sun, moon, and stars; to understand that the sun and moon rise and set; to recognize that the days are shortest in winter and longest in summer; to distinguish time—morning, noonday, evening, and when to eat, sleep, and pray.

The study of geography should be begun at the cradle, and the location, distance, and direction of the nursery, kitchen, bed-chamber, and orchard should early be learned. They should have out-door lessons in geography, and be taught to find their way through the streets, to the market-place, and to the homes of their friends and relatives. In the fifth year they should study a city, field, orchard, forest, hill, and river, and fix what they learn about these things in the memory.

The early historic instruction should begin with a development of the sense of time—the working days and the Sabbath days, when to attend and engage in divine services, the occurrence of such solemn festivals as Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, and the significance of these holy occasions. The child may also be trained to recall where he was and what he did yesterday, the day before, a week ago.

Household economy should receive important instruction during the first six years of the child’s life. He must be trained to know the relation which he is to sustain to his father and mother, and to obey each; where to place and how to care for his clothes; the use of toys and playthings; the economy of the home, and his place in that economy.

Comenius also commends stories and fables, particularly those about animals which contain some moral principle. “Stories,” says Comenius, “greatly sharpen the innate capacity of children.” Ingeniously constructed stories serve a twofold purpose in the early development of the child: they occupy their minds, and they instil knowledge which will afterward be of use.

The greatest service which parents can render their children during these early years is to encourage play. This must not be left to chance, but must be provided for; and children need, most of all, to play with other children near their own age. In such social plays with their companions there is neither the assumption of authority nor the dread of fear, but the free intercourse which calls forth all their powers of invention, sharpens their wits, and cultivates their manners and habits.

In his discussion of the form studies, such as drawing, writing, and language, Comenius remarks that nothing delights children more than to be doing something. Youthful vigor will not long permit them to be at rest; and this spontaneous activity requires wise regulation, in order that children may acquire the habit of doing things that they will be required to do later.[35] This is the time when children are most imaginative and imitative; they delight in doing the things that they have seen done by their elders. All these imitative exercises give health to their bodies, agility to their movements, and vigor to their muscles.

At this period children delight in construction; supply them with material with which they may exercise whatever architectural genius they may have—clay, wood, blocks, and stones, with which to construct houses, walls, etc. They should also have toy carriages, houses, mills, plows, swords, and knives. Children delight in activity, and parents should realize that restraint is alike harmful to the development of the mind and the body.

After children have been taught to walk, run, jump, roll hoop, throw balls, and to construct with blocks and clay, supply them with chalk or charcoal, and allow them to draw according as their inclination may be excited. In arithmetic Comenius recognizes the difficulty in leading children to see quantitative relations. By the fourth year, however, he thinks that they may be taught to count to ten and to note resemblances and differences in quantity. To proceed further than this would be unprofitable, nay, hurtful, he says, since nothing is so difficult to fix in the mind of the young child as numbers. Comenius, it would seem, valued the study of arithmetic much less highly than modern educators. He thought that some geometry might be taught during these early years; children may easily be trained to perceive the common geometric forms; and the measurements and comparisons involved in the perception of such forms train the understanding of the child.

Music is instinctive and natural to the child. Complaints and wailings are his first lessons in music. It is impossible to restrain such complaints and wails; and even if it were possible, it would not be expedient, since all such vocalizations exercise the muscles involved in the production of speech, develop the chest, and contribute to the child’s general health. Children should hear music in their earliest infancy, that their ears and minds may be soothed by concord and harmony. He even countenances the banging and rattling noises which children are fond of making, on the ground that such noises represent legitimate steps in the development of the child’s musical sense. Give them horns, whistles, drums, and rattles, and allow them to acquire perceptions of rhythm and melody.