Read Ebook: The Orbis Pictus by Comenius Johann Amos Bardeen C W Charles William Editor Hoole Charles Translator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 308 lines and 78949 words, and 7 pages

Editor: Charles William Bardeen

Translator: Charles Hoole

? ? ? ...

If any of these characters do not display properly, or if the apostrophes and quotation marks in this paragraph appear as garbage, make sure your text reader's "character set" or "file encoding" is set to Unicode . You may also need to change the default font.

The two sections numbered CIV use astrological symbols. Most are accompanied by a definition, so the meaning will be plain even if your text reader cannot display them. When a symbol is used in place of a word, an alternative text is shown after the affected paragraph.

The

ORBIS PICTUS

JOHN AMOS COMENIUS.

This work is, indeed, the first children's picture book. --ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 9TH EDITION, vi. 182.

SYRACUSE, N.Y.: C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER, 1887.

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 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."

This was on the resignation of President Dunster, in 1654--Note of Prof. PAYNE, Compayre's History of Education, Boston, 1886, p. 125.

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

In this edition the cuts are unusually clear copies of the copper-plates of the first edition of 1658, from which we have also taken the Latin text. The text for the English translation is from the English edition of 1727, in which for the first time the English words were so arranged as to stand opposite their Latin equivalents.

The cuts have been reproduced with great care by the photographic process. I thought best not to permit them to be retouched, preferring occasional indistinctness to modern tampering with the originals that would make them less authentic.

The English text is unchanged from that of the 1727 edition, except in rare instances where substitutions have been made for single words not now permissible. The typography suggests rather than imitates the quaintness of the original, and the paper was carefully selected to produce so far as practicable the impression of the old hand-presses.

C. W. BARDEEN.

COMMENTS UPON THE ORBIS PICTUS.

During four years he here prosecuted his efforts in behalf of education with commendable success, and wrote, among other works, his celebrated Orbis Pictus, which has passed through a great many editions, and survived a multitude of imitations. --SMITH'S HISTORY OF EDUCATION, N.Y., 1842, p. 129.

The "Janua" would, therefore, have had but a short-lived popularity with teachers, and a still shorter with learners, if Comenius had not carried out his principle of appealing to the senses, and called in the artist. The result was the "Orbis Pictus," a book which proved a favorite with young and old, and maintained its ground in many a school for more than a century.... I am sorry I cannot give a specimen of this celebrated book with its quaint pictures. The artist, of course, was wanting in the technical skill which is now commonly displayed even in the cheapest publications, but this renders his delineations none the less entertaining. As a picture of the life and manners of the seventeenthcentury, the work has great historical interest, which will, I hope, secure for it another English edition. --QUICK'S EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS, 1868; Syracuse edition, p. 79.

But the principle on which he most insisted is that the teaching of words and things must go together, hand in hand. When we consider how much time is spent over new languages, what waste of energy is lavished on mere preparation, how it takes so long to lay a foundation that there is no time to lay a building upon it, we must conclude that it is in the acceptance and development of this principle that the improvement of education will in the future consist. Any one who attempts to inculcate this great reform will find that its first principles are contained in the writings of Comenius. --ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 9th edition, vii. 674.

The first edition of this celebrated book was published at Nuremberg in 1657; soon after a translation was made into English by Charles Hoole. The last English edition appeared in 1777, and this was reprinted in America in 1812. This was the first illustrated school-book, and was the first attempt at what now passes under the name of "object lessons." --SHORT HISTORY OF EDUCATION, W. H. PAYNE, Syracuse, 1881, p. 103.

Of these, the "Janua" and the "Orbis" were translated into most European and some of the Oriental languages. It is evident that these practices of Comenius contain the germs of things afterwards connected with the names of Pestalozzi and Stow. It also may be safely assumed that many methods that are now in practical use, were then not unknown to earliest teachers. --GILL'S SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION, London, 1876, p. 13.

The more we reflect on the method of Comenius, the more we shall see it is replete with suggestiveness, and we shall feel surprised that so much wisdom can have lain in the path of schoolmasters for two hundred and fifty years, and that they have never stooped to avail themselves of its treasures. --BROWNING'S INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF EDUCATIONAL THEORIES, 1882, New York edition, p. 67.

The "Orbis Pictus," the first practical application of the intuitive method, had an extraordinary success, and has served as a model for the innumerable illustrated books which for three centuries have invaded the schools. --COMPAYRE'S HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY, Payne's translation, Boston, 1886, p. 127.

He remained at Patak four years, which were characterized by surprising literary activity. During this short period he produced no less than fifteen different works, among them his "World Illustrated" , the most famous of all his writings. It admirably applied the principle that words and things should be learned together.... The "World Illustrated" had an enormous circulation, and remained for a long time the most popular text-book in Europe. --PAINTER'S HISTORY OF EDUCATION, N.Y., 1886, p. 206.

Or, si ce livre n'est qu'un ?quivalent se la v?ritable intuition; si, ensuite, le contenu du tout para?t fort d?fectueux, au point de vue de la science de nos jours; si, enfin, un effort exag?r? pour l'int?grit? de la conception de l'enfant a cr??, pour les choses modernes, trop de d?nominations latines qui paraissent douteuses, l'Orbis pictus ?tait pourtant, pour son temps, une oeuvre tr?s originale et tr?s spirituelle, qui fit faire un grand progr?s ? la p?dagogie et servit longtemps de livre d'?cole utile et de mod?le ? d'innombrables livres d'images, souvent pires. --HISTOIRE D' ?DUCATION, FREDERICK DITTES, Redolfi's French translation, Paris, 1880, p. 178.

Here Comenius wrote, among others, his second celebrated work the "Orbis Pictus." He was not, however, able to finish it in Hungary for want of a skilful engraver on copper. For such a one he carried it to Michael Endter, the bookseller at Nuremberg, but the engraving delayed the publication of the book for three years more. In 1657 Comenius expressed the hope that it would appear during the next autumn. With what great approbation the work was received at its first appearance, is shown by the fact that within two years, in 1659, Endter had published a second enlarged edition. --KARL VON RAUMER, translated in Barnard's Journal of Education, v. 260.

The "Janua" had an enormous sale, and was published in many languages, but the editions and sale of the "Orbis Pictus" far exceeded those of the "Janua," and, indeed, for some time it was the most popular text-book in Europe, and deservedly so. --LAURIE'S JOHN AMOS COMENIUS, Boston edition, p. 185.

Joh. Amos Comenii

ORBIS SENSUALIUM PICTUS:

hoc est

Omnium principalium in Mundo Rerum, & in Vita Actionum,

PICTURA & NOMENCLATURA.

Joh. Amos Comenius's

VISIBLE WORLD:

or, a

NOMENCLATURE, AND PICTURES

of all the

CHIEF THINGS that are in the WORLD, and of MENS EMPLOYMENTS therein;

In above 150 COPPER CUTS.

Written

The ELEVENTH EDITION Corrected, and the English made to answer Word for Word to the Latin.

Gen. ii. 19, 20.

Didacticae nostrae prora & puppis esto: Investigare, & invenire modum, quo Docentes minus doceant, Discentes vero plus discant: Scholae minus habeant Strepitus, nauseae, vani laboris; plus autem otii, deliciarum, solidique profectus: Respublica Christiana minus tenebrarum confusionis dissidiorum; plus lucis, ordinis, pacis & tranquilitatis.

The ground of this business, is, that sensual objects may be rightly presented to the senses, for fear they may not be received. I say, and say it again aloud, that this last is the foundation of all the rest: because we can neither act nor speak wisely, unless we first rightly understand all the things which are to be done, and whereof we are to speak. Now there is nothing in the understanding, which was not before in the sense. And therefore to exercise the senses well about the right perceiving the differences of things, will be to lay the grounds for all wisdom, and all wise discourse, and all discreet actions in ones course of life. Which, because it is commonly neglected in schools, and the things which are to be learned are offered to scholars, without being understood or being rightly presented to the senses, it cometh to pass, that the work of teaching and learning goeth heavily onward, and affordeth little benefit.

See here then a new help for schools, A Picture and Nomenclature of all the chief things in the world, and of men's actions in their way of living: Which, that you, good Masters, may not be loath to run over with your scholars, I will tell you, in short, what good you may expect from it.

Which such Book, and in such a dress may serve,

Thus at last this school would indeed become a school of things obvious to the senses, and an entrance to the school intellectual. But enough: Let us come to the thing it self.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet