Chapter X Permanent Influence of Comenius
General neglect of Comenius during the eighteenth century—Causes—Intrenchment of humanism—Summary of the permanent reforms of Comenius—Revived interest in his teachings—National Comenius pedagogical library at Leipzig—The Comenius Society—Reviews published for the dissemination of the educational doctrines of Comenius—Conquest of his ideas.
The permanent influence of Comenius remains to be noted. Famous in his own day; enjoying the friendship of great scholars and the confidence of royal personages; the founder of numerous school systems; the author of more than a hundred books and treatises, which were translated into most of the languages of Europe and Asia,—the name of the great Moravian reformer was quite if not entirely forgotten, and his writings practically unknown, for more than a century after his death. Professor Nicholas Murray Butler,54 in likening him unto the stream that loses itself in the arid desert and then reappears with gathered force and volume to lend its fertilizing power to the surrounding country, says: “Human history is rich in analogies to this natural phenomenon; but in Comenius the history of education furnishes its example. The great educational revival of our century, and particularly of our generation, has shed the bright light of scholarly investigation into all the dark places, and to-day, at the three hundredth anniversary of his birth, the fine old Moravian bishop is being honored wherever teachers gather together and wherever education is the theme.”
The world, which usually takes pause for a moment, when a great man dies, to seriously consider what there was in the dead that lifted him above the ordinary level, took no such inventory when the remains of Comenius were laid at rest in a quiet little town in Holland. “The man whom we unhesitatingly affirm,” says Mr. Keatinge, “to be the broadest-minded, the most far-seeing, the most comprehensive, and withal the most practical of all writers who have put pen to paper on the subject of education; the man whose theories have been put into practice in every school that is conducted on rational principles; who embodies the materialistic tendencies of our ‘modern side’ instructors, while avoiding the narrowness of their reforming zeal; who lays stress on the spiritual aspect of true education, while he realizes the necessity of equipping his pupils for the rude struggle with nature and with fellow-men—Comenius, we say, the prince of schoolmasters, produced, practically, no effect on the school organization and educational development of the following century.”
The causes of this universal neglect are not easily explained. That he lived most of his days in exile; that he belonged to a religious community which was numerically insignificant and which suffered all those bitter persecutions following in the train of the Thirty Years’ War; that indiscretion entangled him in certain alleged prophetic revelations, which subsequently turned out the baldest impostures; and, more important than all, as Professor Laurie points out, that schoolmasters did not wish to be disturbed by a man with new ideas,—these facts help to explain the universal neglect into which his name and writings fell. In a personal letter, Oscar Browning expresses the belief that if the teachings of Comenius had been dated a century earlier, that the realistic type of education might have been generally followed—at least in the countries that had broken with the Church of Rome. As it was, however, Melanchthon, the schoolmaster of the Reformation, adopted, with slight modifications, the humanistic type of education. For the time being, at least, the ideas held by Comenius were pushed into the background, and humanism, already deeply intrenched, dominated educational practices. Reformers were not wanting, however, to champion the reforms of Comenius, men like Francke, Rousseau, Basedow, Pestalozzi, Fröbel, and Herbart. But it remained for the nineteenth century to realize, in considerable measure, the aims and aspirations of the far-reaching reforms of the Moravian bishop.
“There is nothing startling about the educational reforms of Comenius to-day,” says Professor Earl Barnes. “They are the commonplace talk of all school conventions. But to see them when no one else has formulated them, to enunciate them before an audience often hostile, and to devote a life to teaching them and working them out—this requires a broad mind and something of the spirit of the martyr, and both these elements were strong in Comenius.”
In spite of the neglect into which the reforms of Comenius fell, his influence has been lasting because his work was constructive and his reforms were far reaching. Among the reforms which he advocated (and since incorporated in the modern educational movement), the following may be named:—
1. That the purpose of education is to fit for complete living, in consequence of which its benefits must be extended to all classes of society.
2. That education should follow the course and order of nature, and be adapted to the stages of mental development of the child.
3. That intellectual progress is conditioned at every step by bodily vigor, and that to attain the best results, physical exercises must accompany and condition mental training.
4. That children must first be trained in the mother-tongue, and that all the elementary knowledge should be acquired through that medium.
5. That nature study must be made the basis of all primary instruction, so that the child may exercise his senses and be trained to acquire knowledge at first hand.
6. That the child must be wisely trained during its earliest years, for which purpose mothers must be trained for the high and holy mission of instructing little children, and women generally be given more extended educational opportunities.
7. That the school course must be enriched by the addition of such useful studies as geography and history.
8. That the subjects of study must be so correlated and coördinated that they may form a common unit of thought.
9. That teachers must be specially trained.
10. That schools must be more rationally graded and better supervised.
11. That languages must be taught as “living organic wholes fitted for the purposes of life, and not as the lifeless tabulations of the grammarians.”
It was the opinion of Mr. Quick that the most hopeful sign of the improvement of education was the rapid advance in the last thirty years of the fame of Comenius, and the growth of a large literature about the man and his ideas. The revival of Comenian ideas really dates from the beginning of the present century, when Germany, crushed and dismembered, looked to her schools as the surest means of regaining fallen glory; so that the battle of Jena may be given as the date of this awakened interest in the reforms of the Moravian educator. This interest culminated in the foundation of the great national Comenius pedagogical library (Comenius-Stiftung) at Leipzig, in 1871. It was founded by a band of enthusiastic disciples of Comenius, of whom Julius Beeger was the foremost; and, although it numbered but 2642 volumes at the end of the first year, the interest in the movement has been so great that it now numbers over 70,000 volumes, and constitutes the largest single collection of pedagogical books in the world. The books are classified in 56 departments, the most important of which are: encyclopædias of pedagogy, complete collections of the writings of standard educational writers, sources of history of education, general works on the history of education, histories of special periods in education, histories of education in different countries, histories of individual educational institutions, educational biographies, works on systematic pedagogy, physical education, etc. The library covers every department of educational thought, and is especially strong in the literature relating to the elementary schools of Germany. The privileges of the library are freely open to all students of education. The library is under the control of the Leipzig teachers’ association, and is sustained in part by the association and in part by appropriations from the city of Leipzig and the kingdom of Saxony.55 What more appropriate memorial to the long and devoted life of Comenius to the cause of education could be desired, and what stronger evidence of the permanent influence of his work and worth.
A second recent manifestation of the permanency of the Moravian educator’s influence is the Comenius Society (Comenius-Gesellschaft), with headquarters in Germany, and numbering among its members most of the leaders in educational thought in the world. It was organized in 1891. The objects of the society are (1) to spread the living influence of the spirit of Comenius and the men who have represented cognate reforms; (2) to work toward an increased knowledge of the past and a healthy development of the future on the principle of mutual union and forbearance, by means of the cultivation of the literature which has grown out of that spirit; and (3) to prepare the way for a reform of education and instruction on the lines laid down by Comenius. In order to realize these objects, the society further proposes (1) the publication of the more important writings and letters of Comenius and his associates; (2) inquiry into the history and dogmas of the old evangelical congregations (Waldenses, Bohemian Brethren, Swiss Brethren, etc.), chiefly by publishing the original sources from their history; and (3) the collection of books, manuscripts, and documents which are important for the history of the above objects.
The membership of the society, while overwhelmingly German, includes a considerable number from Austria-Hungary, Holland, Great Britain, the United States, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Switzerland, France, Greece, Belgium, and Denmark. The society inspired the numerous celebrations in commemoration of the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Comenius (March 28, 1892). These celebrations, held at most of the educational centres in the Old World, and at a number of places in the New, revived the memory of Comenius, and brought his teachings to thousands of teachers who had known him before only as a name.
The society began in 1892 the publication of a high-grade review,—Monatshefte der Comenius-Gesellschaft,—which is published bi-monthly at Berlin, and is edited by the distinguished Comenius scholar, Dr. Ludwig Keller. This review has most creditably carried out the purposes of the society in publishing a wealth of original material on Comenius and his contemporaries, that hitherto has been altogether inaccessible to the student of the history of education. The society also publishes a bi-monthly educational journal for the use of teachers in the elementary schools of Germany especially interested in the doctrines of Comenius. It is entitled Comenius-Blätter für Völkserziehung, and is also published at Berlin and edited by Dr. Keller. The propaganda of the Comenius Society has done much to restore this worthy to the place he so justly merits—the foremost educational reformer of modern times.
These are some of the agencies employed by the Comenius Society in opening up an appreciation of this great man, who, “born in Moravia, working amongst Czechs, Germans, English, Dutch, Swedes, and Hungarians, with friends in France and Italy, has won by his thought, as well as by his life, a universal significance. As philosopher and divine, in union with Andreæ, Dury, Milton, and others, he devoted his life to a work of peace. He placed the weal of man, as he termed it, above the respect for languages, persons, and sects; thus his energies were directed toward restraining the wrangling people, churches, and classes from the violent utterance of their differences, and leading them on the ground of early Christian views to mutual peace and forbearance. As educationalist, inspired by Bacon, he successfully asserted the claims of experimental science in the elementary schools of his time, placed the mother-tongue on the list of subjects of instruction, and included in the conception of the school the idea of physical culture. By his demand for education of all children, including girls, who till then had been neglected, he became one of the fathers of modern elementary education.”