Comenius and the Beginnings of Educational Reform

by W. S. Monroe

The purpose of the Orbis pictus, as indicated by Comenius in the preface, was:

1. To entice witty children to learn; for it is apparent that children, even from their infancy, are delighted with pictures and willingly please their eyes with them. And it will be very well worth the pains to have once brought it to pass that scarecrows may be taken away out of wisdom’s gardens.

2. This same little book will serve to stir up the attention, which is to be fastened upon things, and even to be sharpened more and more, which is also an important matter. For the senses being the main guides of childhood (because therein the mind does not as yet rise to an abstract contemplation of things), they must evermore seek their own objects; if the objects are not present, the senses grow dull and flit hither and thither out of weariness. But when the objects are present, they grow merry, wax lively, and willingly suffer themselves to be fastened upon them till the things be sufficiently discerned. This book, then, will do a good piece of service in taking flickering wits and preparing them for deeper studies.

3. Children being thus interested and the attention attracted, they may be furnished with the knowledge of the most important things by sport and merry pastime. In a word, this book will add pleasure to the use of the Vestibulum and Janua, for which end it was at the first chiefly intended. The accounts of the things being given in the mother-tongue, the book promises three good things: (1) It will afford a device for learning to read more easily than hitherto, especially having a symbolical alphabet set before it, with pictures of the voices [creatures] to be imitated. The young ABC pupils will easily remember the force of every character by looking at the creatures, and the imagination will be strengthened. Having looked over a table of the chief syllables, the children may proceed to view the pictures and the inscriptions set under them. Simply looking upon the object pictured will suggest the name of the object and tell how the picture is to be read. Thus the whole book being gone over by the bare use of the pictures, reading cannot but be learned. (2) The book being used in the vernacular will serve for the perfect learning of the mother-tongue. (3) The learning of the vernacular words will serve as a pleasant introduction to the Latin tongue.

The Orbis pictus was translated for use in English schools in 1658 by Charles Hoole, a London schoolmaster. He observes in his introduction: “There are few of you (I think) but have seen, and with great willingness have made use of (or at least pursued), many of the books of this well-deserving author, Mr. John Comenius, which, for their profitableness to the speedy attainment of a language, have been translated into several countries, out of Latin into their native tongue. Now the general verdict (after trial made) that hath passed, touching those formerly extant, is this, that they are indeed of singular use, and very advantageous to those of more discretion (especially of such as already have a smattering of Latin) to help their memories to retain what they have scatteringly gotten here and there, to furnish them with many words, which (perhaps) they have not formerly read, or so well observed; but to young children (whom we have chiefly to instruct), as to those that are ignorant altogether of things and words, and prove rather a mere toil and burden, than a delight and furtherance. For to pack up many words in memory of things not conceived in the mind, is to fill the head with empty imaginations, and to make the learner more to admire the multitude and variety (and thereby to become discouraged) than to care to treasure them up in hopes to gain more knowledge of what they mean.”

The first lesson in the Orbis pictus is a dialogue between a teacher and a pupil. The former says, “Come, boy, learn to be wise.” Whereupon the latter asks, “What doth this mean?” The master makes reply, “To understand rightly, to do rightly, and to speak rightly all that are necessary.” The boy asks who will teach him these things, to which the master makes reply, “I, by God’s help, will guide thee through all. I will show thee all; I will name thee all.” To all this the boy makes eager response: “See, here I am. Lead me in the name of God.” The master concludes the dialogue with this injunction: “Before all things thou oughtest to learn the plain sounds of which man’s speech consisteth, which living creatures know how to make, and thy tongue knoweth how to imitate, and thy hand can picture out. Afterward we will go into the world, and we will view all things.” Mr. Maxwell[38] thus characterizes this introduction and the picture that illustrates it: “The boy, a plump but not a pleasing person, and the master, a man ‘severe’ and ‘stern to view,’ who has evidently all the frowns and none of the jokes of Goldsmith’s schoolmaster. They are conversing on a barren plain, the only other living thing in sight being a wild animal apparently of some extinct species. In the background are a village church, of the regulation pattern, the roofs of houses, and a couple of pyramids which are intended for mountains.”

The introduction is followed by an illustrated lesson on the sounds of the letters of the alphabet, with a picture and statement (in the vernacular and Latin) of the sounds made by animals. The crow illustrates the sound of a, the statement in the English being, “The crow crieth”; in the Latin, Cornix cornicatur. A lamb illustrates the sound of b, the statement being, “The lamb bleateth” (Latin, Agnus balat). And so on through the alphabet. This is what Comenius calls “a lively and vocal alphabet.”

Like the Janua, the subjects treated in the Orbis pictus cover a wide range of topics. Their character may be indicated by the following citations of chapter headings: God, the world, the heavens, fire, the air, the water, the clouds, the earth, the fruits of the earth, metals, stones, trees, fruits of trees, flowers, potherbs, corn, shrubs, birds, tame fowls, singing birds, birds that haunt the fields and woods, ravenous birds, waterfowls, ravenous vermin, animals about the house, herd-cattle, laboring beasts, wild cattle, wild beasts, serpents and creeping things, crawling vermin, creatures that live as well by water as by land, river-fish and pond-fish, sea-fish and shell-fish, man, the seven ages of man, the outward parts of man, the head and the hand, the flesh and bowels, the charnels and bones, the outward and inward senses, the soul of man, deformed and monstrous people, dressing of gardens, husbandry, grazing, grinding, bread-making, fishing, fowling, hunting, butchery, cookery, the vintage, brewing, a feast, and so on to the one hundred and fifty-first chapter, in which the first illustration is reproduced with this benediction by the master: “Thus thou hast seen in short all things that can be shewed, and hast learned the chief words of the Latin and mother-tongue. Go on now and read other good books diligently, and thou shalt become learned, wise and godly. Remember these things: Fear God and call upon him that he may bestow upon thee the spirit of wisdom. Farewell.”

Under the pictures illustrating each chapter follows the descriptions in the vernacular and the Latin. The following on the school may be taken as characteristic of the book:—

A school (1) is a shop in which young wits are fashioned to virtue, and it is distinguished into classes.	Schola (1) est officina in quâ novelli animi formantur ad virtutem & distinguitur in classes..
The master (2) sits in a chair (3) the scholars (4) in forms (5) he teaches, they learn.	Præceptor (2) sedet in cathedra (3) discipuli (4) in subsellüs (5) ille docet, hi discunt.
Some things are writ down before them with chalk on a table. (6)	Quædam præ scribuntur illis cretâ in tabella. (6)
Some sit at a table and write (7) he mendeth their faults (8).	Quidam sedent ad mensam & scribunt (7), pse corrigit mendas (8).
Some stand and rehearse things committed to memory (9).	Quidam stant & recitant mandata memoriæ (9).
Some talk together (10) and behave themselves wantonly and carelessly; these are chastised with a ferrula (11) and a rod (12).	Quidam confabulantur (10) ac gerunt se petulantes & negligentes; hi castigantur ferulâ (baculo) (11) & virgâ (12).