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Humanism, realism, and naturalism characterized--Devotion of the sixteenth century to the humanistic ideal--Study of Latin eloquence--Style the chief aim--Neglect of the mother-tongue--Views of John Sturm and the Jesuits--Devotion to Cicero--Decadence of the later humanists--Erasmus and Melanchthon on the enrichment of the course of study--Satires of Rabelais directed against the humanists--Protests of Montaigne--Attitude of Ascham and Mulcaster--Transition from humanism to realism 1

FORERUNNERS OF COMENIUS

Traces of the intellectual development of Comenius. Vives a realist--His early training in Spain and France--Educational activity in Belgium and England--Views on the education of women--Theory of education--Comparison of Comenius and Vives. Bacon the founder of modern realism--Views on the education of his day--Attacks mediaevalism--Study of nature and the inductive method--Individual differences among children. Ratke--Studies at Hamburg and Rostock--Visits England and becomes acquainted with the philosophy of Bacon--His plan of education--Its reception by the universities at Jena and Giessen--Organization of the schools at Gotha--Call to Sweden--Summary of Ratke's views--Harmony of his teachings with those of Comenius. Campanella, Andreae, and Bateus--Their influence on the life and teachings of Comenius 15

BOYHOOD AND EARLY LIFE OF COMENIUS: 1592-1628

Ancestry of Comenius--Attends the village school at Strasnitz--Studies Latin in the gymnasium at Prerau--Character of the Latin schools of his day--Enters the college at Herborn--Studies theology and philosophy--Inspired by the teachings of Alsted--Makes the acquaintance of the writings of Ratke--Continues his studies at Heidelberg--Begins his career as a teacher at Prerau--Ordained as a clergyman--Installed as pastor and school superintendent at Fulneck--Persecution 38

CAREER AS AN EDUCATIONAL REFORMER: 1628-1656

Flight to Poland--Appointed director of the gymnasium at Lissa--Reforms introduced--Literary projects--Need of a patron--Call to England--Friendship with Hartlib--Interest of the English Parliament--Discontent with existing educational institutions--Lewis de Geer, his Dutch patron--Call to Sweden--Interview with Oxenstiern--Located at Elbing--Reform of the Swedish schools--Return to Poland--Consecration as senior bishop--Consequences of the treaty of Westphalia--Ecclesiastical ministrations--Call to Hungary--Reform of the schools at Saros-Patak--Plan of a pansophic school--Return to Lissa--The city burned--Flight of Comenius from Poland 47

CLOSING YEARS: 1656-1670

Flight to Amsterdam--Reception by Lawrence de Geer--Religious freedom in Holland--Publication of the complete edition of his writings--Other educational activities--The "one thing needful"--Death at Amsterdam and burial at Na?rden--Family history of Comenius--Alleged call to the presidency of Harvard College--Portraits--Personal characteristics 71

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

EARLIEST EDUCATION OF THE CHILD

STUDY OF LANGUAGE

INFLUENCE OF COMENIUS ON MODERN EDUCATORS

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 Comenian pedagogical library at Leipzig--The Comenius Society--Reviews published for the dissemination of the doctrines of Comenius--Conquest of his ideas 165

APPENDICES

INDEX 181

COMENIUS

Humanism, realism, and naturalism characterized--Devotion of the sixteenth century to the humanistic ideal--Study of Latin eloquence--Style the chief aim--Neglect of the mother-tongue--Views of John Sturm and the Jesuits--Devotion to Cicero--Decadence of the later humanists--Erasmus and Melanchthon on the enrichment of the course of study--Satires of Rabelais directed against the humanists--Protests of Montaigne--Attitude of Ascham and Mulcaster--Transition from humanism to realism.

"Education in Europe," says Oscar Browning, "has passed through three phases, which may conveniently be called humanism, realism, and naturalism. The first is grounded upon the study of language, and especially of the two dead languages, Greek and Latin. The second is based upon the study of things instead of words, the education of the mind through the eye and the hand. Closely connected with this is the study of those things which may be of direct influence upon and direct importance to life. The third is not in the first instance study at all. It is an attempt to build up the whole nature of man,--to educate first his body, then his character, and lastly his mind."

This conception of education was almost universally held in the sixteenth century, by Protestants like Trotzendorf and Sturm, as well as by Catholics like Aquaviva and the members of the Society of Jesus. Nor was it confined to elementary and secondary education; for, as Professor Paulsen has shown, the conquest of European universities by the humanists was complete by the second decade of the sixteenth century. The statutes of most of the universities at this time make the speaking of the Latin compulsory. That at Ingolstadt reads: "A master in a bursary shall induce to the continual use of Latin by verbal exhortations and by his own example; and shall also appoint those who shall mark such as speak the vulgar tongue and shall receive from them an irremissible penalty." Again: "That the students in their academical exercises may learn by the habit of speaking Latin to speak and express themselves better, the faculty ordains that no person placed by the faculty upon a common or other bursary shall dare to speak German. Any one heard by one of the overseers to speak German shall pay one kreutzer." There grew out of this prohibition a widespread system of spying. The spies reported to the university authorities on such students who persisted in speaking in the mother-tongue. In spite, however, of statutes, spies, fines, and floggings, the boys in the sixteenth century spoke little Latin when they were alone by themselves. Cordier, writing in 1530, says, "Our boys always chatter French with their companions; or if they try to talk Latin, cannot keep it up."

The old ecclesiastical Latin of the Middle Ages had been superseded by the classical Latin of the Roman poets, and all the energies of the educational institutions were thrown into the acquisition and practice of Latin eloquence. The classics were read for the phrases that might be culled for use in the construction of Latin sentences; these, with disputations, declamations, and Latin plays, were the order of the century. Since education consisted in the acquisition of a graceful and elegant style, the young learner, from the first, applied himself to the grammatical study of Latin authors, regarding solely the language of the classics, and taking subject-matter into account only when this was necessary to understand the words.

There was no study of the mother-tongue preliminary to the study of the classics. Children began at once the study of the Latin grammar, and they had to write Latin verses before they had been exercised in compositions, in the vernacular, or, for that matter, before they had been trained to express their thoughts in Latin prose. And still more remarkable, as Oscar Browning points out, "the Latin taught was not the masculine language of Lucretius and Caesar, but the ornate and artificial diction of Horace and Virgil, and, above all, of Cicero." "There is no doubt," he adds, "that narrow and faulty as it was, it gave a good education so long as people believed in it. To know Horace and Virgil by heart became the first duty of the scholar. Speeches in Parliament were considered incomplete if they did not contain at least one Latin quotation. A false quantity was held to be a greater crime than a slip in logical argument. Cicero not only influenced the education of English statesmen, but had no inconsiderable effect on their conduct."

They were themselves deceived in assuming that they could call to life the ancient culture of Rome and Greece. Indeed, they believed that they had discovered ways of training which would develop scholars capable of producing Latin works equal to the masterpieces that they had studied in their schools. John Sturm, one of the most ardent of the humanists, said: "The Romans had two advantages over us; the one consisted in learning Latin without going to school, and the other in frequently seeing Latin comedies and tragedies acted, and in hearing Latin orators speak. Could we recall these advantages in our schools, why could we not, by persevering diligence, gain what they possessed by accident and habit--namely, the power of speaking Latin to perfection? I hope to see the men of the present age, in their writing and speaking, not merely followers of the old masters, but equal to those who flourished in the noblest age of Athens and Rome." But how misguided and mistaken!

Not only did Latin monopolize the curriculum of the sixteenth-century school, but the study was primarily philological, for grammatical structure, and only secondarily for the content of the literature, for a correct understanding of the author. As a matter of fact, the method of study was such as to make intelligent comprehension of the author's thought next to impossible, since the humanists simply culled out phrases which might be imitated and used in the exercises of style. Raumer says of this kind of teaching: "The author was not an end, but only a means to an end--the cultivation of deified Roman eloquence in boys. And why? Precisely as the peacock was used by the jackdaw. They borrowed the author's words and phrases, grouped them together, and learned them by heart, in order subsequently to apply them in speech or writing. Borrow is too feeble an expression; for the jackdaw designed not merely to borrow the peacock's feathers, but to represent them as his own. The doctrine of imitation, as set forth by Sturm and the others, was, after all, a mere jackdaw theory. The pupil was taught how, by a slight alteration, to disguise phrases from Cicero, and then to use them in writing or speech, exactly as if they were his own productions, so adroitly smuggling them in that the readers or hearers might not suspect from whence they were taken. Says Sturm: 'When the teacher gives out themes for composition, he should draw attention to those points where imitation is desirable, and show how similarity may be concealed by a superadded variation.' Again: 'We must, in the first place, take care that the similarity shall not be manifest. Its concealment may be accomplished in three ways--by adding, by taking away, and by alteration.'"

In this mad race for Latin eloquence, the sixteenth-century humanists became more and more circumscribed in the choice of authors. Sturm, for example, placed Cicero at the head of the list, because of the faultless models of his eloquence. The Jesuits likewise held Cicero in high esteem. Said one of their writers, "Style should be drawn almost exclusively from Cicero, although the most approved of the historians need not on that account be overlooked." Again: "The pattern we should follow in style is comprehended in the words of the rule, 'imitate Cicero.' As in the study of theology we follow the divine Thomas Aquinas, and in philosophy Aristotle, so in the humanities Cicero must be regarded as our peculiar and pre?minent leader. For he has been crowned by the palm of superior praise by the common consent of the world. But some, misguided by a wilful and self-formed taste, have gone astray, preferring a style totally different from that of Cicero; such an erratic course is quite at variance with the genius of our institutions and hostile to the spirit of prompt obedience."

This use of the classics as instruments in grammatical drill and vehicles of communication had become well-nigh universal by the middle of the sixteenth century. Erasmus, himself one of the most ardent advocates of classical learning, perceived apparently the narrowing tendencies of humanistic training, and urged that students be taught to know many things besides Latin and Greek in order that they might the better comprehend the classics. He recommended the addition of geography, arithmetic, and natural science to the school course.

And Melanchthon, with all his enthusiasm for classical learning, thought the humanities insufficient to satisfy all the needs of culture. He advised the incorporation of physics, mathematics, and astronomy into the curriculum. "Although the nature of things cannot be absolutely known, nor the marvellous works of God traced to their original, until, in the future life, we shall listen to the eternal counsel of the Father," he writes, "nevertheless, even amid this our present darkness, every gleam and every hint of harmony of this fair creation forms a step toward the knowledge of God and toward virtue, whereby we ourselves shall also learn to love and maintain order and moderation in all our acts. Since it is evident that men are endowed by their Creator with faculties fitted for the contemplation of nature, they must, of necessity, take delight in investigating the elements, the laws, the qualities, and the forces of the various bodies by which they are surrounded."

As has already been shown, however, the humanists took little interest in the study of subjects not discussed by classical authors. Absorbed in a world of books, as Mr. Quick suggests, they overlooked the world of nature. Galileo had in vain tried to persuade them to look through his telescope, but they held that truth could not be discovered by any such contrivances--that it could be arrived at only by the comparison of manuscripts. "No wonder," remarks Mr. Quick, "that they had so little sympathy with children, and did not know how to teach them."

Montaigne, also, in France, was equally severe in his criticisms on the humanists. He denounced in no uncertain terms the methods of introducing Latin to beginners and the harsh and severe discipline so common in the schools of Europe during the sixteenth century. "Education ought to be carried on with a severe sweetness," he wrote, "quite contrary to the practice of our pedants, who, instead of tempting and alluring children to a study of language by apt and gentle ways, do, in truth, present nothing before them but rods and ferules, horror and cruelty. Away with this violence! Away with this compulsion! There is nothing which more completely dulls and degenerates the nature of a bright child." Again: "Our schools are houses of correction for imprisoned youths; and children are made incorrigible by punishment. Visit them when the children are getting their lessons, and you will hear nothing but the outcries of boys under execution and the thundering noises of their teachers, drunk with fury. It is a pernicious way to tempt young and timorous souls to love their books while wearing a ferocious countenance and with a rod in hand."

Montaigne was equally convinced of the pedagogic error of the humanists in regarding classical knowledge as synonymous with wisdom. "We may become learned from the learning of others," he said, "but we never become wise except by our own wisdom.... We are truly learned from knowing the present, not from knowing the past any more than the future.... Yet we toil only to stuff the memory and leave the conscience and understanding void. And like birds abroad to forage for grain, bring it home in their beak, without tasting it themselves, to feed their young, so our pedants go picking knowledge here and there out of several authors, and hold it at their tongue's end, only to spit it out and distribute it among their pupils."

These were some of the voices raised against the bookish classical learning of the sixteenth century; but it remained for Vives, Bacon, and Ratke to convince Europe of the insufficiency of the humanistic ideal, and for Comenius, the evangelist of modern pedagogy, to bring about the necessary reforms. The part played by each in the transition from humanism to realism, from classical learning and philology to modern thought and the natural sciences, will be briefly traced in the succeeding chapters of this work.

FORERUNNERS OF COMENIUS

Traces of the intellectual development of Comenius. Vives a realist--His early training in Spain and France--Educational activity in Belgium and England--Views on the education of women--Theory of education--Comparison of Vives and Comenius. Bacon the founder of modern realism--Views on the education of his day--Attacks mediaevalism--Study of nature and the inductive method--Individual differences among children. Ratke--Studies at Hamburg and Rostock--Visits England and becomes acquainted with the philosophy of Bacon--His plan of education--Its reception by the universities at Jena and Giessen--Organization of the schools at Gotha--Call to Sweden--Summary of Ratke's views--Harmony of his teachings with those of Comenius. Campanella, Andreae, and Bateus--Their influence on the life and teachings of Comenius.

The Spanish educator was born a hundred years before Comenius, of poor, but noble parentage. When fifteen years old he was considered the most brilliant pupil in the academy at Valencia. Two years later he was matriculated in the University of Paris, where, as his biographers tell us, he was surrounded by the Dialecticians, whose theology was the most abstruse and whose Latin was the most barbarous. This condition of affairs turned the young Spaniard's thoughts toward educational reform. He realized in Paris, as he had not before, the uselessness of the empty disputations which occupied so much time in the schools.

In what capacity he went to England is hardly known. Some say as the tutor of King Henry's daughter Mary; others as a lecturer in the University of Oxford. Certain it is that he gave two lectures at Oxford, which were attended by the king and queen, and that he received the honorary degree of D.C.L., in 1523. In 1526 appeared his treatise on the care of the poor, which he dedicated to the municipal council of Bruges. It was one of the first scientific treatments of pauperism. He maintained that it was incumbent upon State, and not upon the Church to care for the poor. Buisson says of it, "Its suggestions are as attractive as they are wise; and even to-day they continue in full force."

In 1528 he published his pedagogic classic on the Christian education of women. The mother, says Vives, like Cornelia, should regard her children as her most precious jewels. She should nurse her own children because of possible physical influences on the child. The mother should instruct her girl in all that pertains to the household; and early teach her to read. She should relate to her stories, not empty fables, but such as will instruct and edify her and teach her to love virtue and hate vice. The mother should teach her daughter that riches, power, praise, titles, and beauty are vain and empty things; and that piety, virtue, bravery, meekness, and culture are imperishable virtues. Strong discipline in the home is urged. Lax discipline, says Vives, makes a man bad, but it makes a woman a criminal. Dolls should be banished from the nursery because they encourage vanity and love of dress. Boys and girls should not be instructed together, not even during the earliest years of childhood. But women require to be educated as well as men. This work, which presented in stronger terms than hitherto the claims of the education of women, was dedicated to Catherine of Aragon. It was widely republished and had large influence.

His closing years were passed at Bruges with his wife's family; at Breda with the Duchess of Nassau, a Spanish lady who had formerly been his pupil; and at Paris, where he gave some courses of lectures. He had struggled against a weak constitution all his life, and after his return from England other diseases developed. He died on May 6, 1540, in his forty-eighth year, and was buried in the Church of St. Donat at Bruges.

Vives justifies, in the introduction, the position he assumes in regard to Aristotle; while he regards the Greek as a great philosopher, he declares that the world has gained in experience since Aristotle wrote, and he sees no reason why his teachings should not be set aside if found to be incorrect. He has no doubt but that later generations will find theories better adapted to their ends than those he himself advocates, but he greets as a friend the one who shall point out his errors.

In the first part he treats of the decline of the sciences. The causes of this decline he considers twofold: Moral; and here he notes an unwillingness to search for truth for truth's sake. Pride is the root of this evil. A student in the University of Paris had remarked to him, "Sooner than not distinguish myself by founding some new doctrine, I would defend one of whose falsity I was convinced." This moral weakness he thought altogether inconsistent with the advancement of the sciences. Historical and material, including as causes the migration of nations by which existing orders of civilization have been annihilated; the obscurity of ancient manuscripts, requiring more time to decipher their meaning than it would take to discover from nature their meaning; the ever increasing use of commentaries in the study of originals, in which the diverse opinions of the commentators lead farther from the original sense; the practice of scholastic disputation which is taught the pupils before they know what they are disputing about; and the practice of regarding teaching as a trade rather than a profession, thus causing many bright minds to select other vocations, and to bring to the work incompetent and coarse minds.

The second part treats of the decline of grammar, and the third part of the art of teaching, in which he gives some most sane directions. Schools should be located in the most healthy part of the community. They should not be too near commercial centres; at the same time, they should not be too distant from the centre of population. As to teachers, they should have good academic training; they should be skilled in the art of imparting knowledge; and their morals should be such as would furnish examples to their pupils. Covetousness and ambition, above all things, should be unknown to them. Teachers who have ambition and reputation in their minds are thereby unfitted for the work of teaching. On this account, the state should fix the salaries, and the compensation should be the wage of honest men. There should be a school in every community. Before pupils should be assigned tasks, teachers should ascertain their mental capacities and characteristics. They should also be privately tested four times a year; and when children are found who possess no taste for study they should be dismissed from the school. Corporal punishment should seldom be applied, and never to such a degree as to humiliate the pupils. Children should be given plenty of play time; and hearty, romping games are especially recommended. In the matter of method, Vives heartily commends the inductive,--from particulars to generals,--and he urges such a grouping of studies that each new subject studied may naturally grow out of the preceding lesson. While he strongly advises the study of the natural sciences, he is less enthusiastic here than Bacon, fearing, as he admits, that a contemplation of nature may prove dangerous to those not deeply grounded in faith.

But Vives was essentially a realist in his doctrines of education; and when his views are compared with those of Comenius, community of ideas is at once apparent. Both would begin education in the home and make the mother the first teacher. Both realized the need of better organization and classification of the schools. Both urged reforms in the matter of language teaching. Both considered education a matter of state concern, and urged pedagogical training for teachers. Both presented the claims of science and urged the co?rdination and correlation of the different subjects of study. Both emphasized the value of play and the need of physical training. Both advocated education for all classes of both sexes, and both exaggerated the need and importance of the religious training of the child.

"Though there were many before Bacon, and especially artists and craftsmen," says Raumer, "who lived in communion with nature, and who, in manifold ways, transfigured and idealized her, and unveiled her glory; and, though their sense for nature was so highly cultivated that they attained to a practical understanding of her ways, yet this understanding was at best merely instinctive: for it led them to no scientific deductions and yielded them no thoughtful and legitimate dominion over her."

The founder of modern realism was born in London on the 22d of January in the year 1561. When sixteen years of age he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied under Dr. John Whitgift, a noted professor of theology, and afterward archbishop of Canterbury. He studied diligently the writings of Aristotle, but was convinced of their inadequacy. Writing of this period he says: "Amid men of sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading, their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors, chiefly Aristotle, their dictator, as their persons are shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges; and who knowing little history, either of nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter, and infinite agitation of wit, spin cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of the thread and work, but of no substance or profit."

Erasmus and Melanchthon had disputed this ideal of culture, but it remained for Bacon to demolish this idol of mediaevalism. "Forsooth," he says, "we suffer the penalty of our first parents' sin, and yet follow in their footsteps. They desired to be like God, and we, their posterity, would be so in a higher degree. For we create worlds, direct and control nature, and, in short, square all things by the measure of our own folly, not by the plummet of divine wisdom, nor as we find them in reality. I know not whether, for this result we are forced to do violence to nature or to our own intelligence the most; but it nevertheless remains true, that we stamp the seal of our own image upon the creatures and works of God, instead of carefully searching for, and acknowledging, the seal of the Creator manifest in them. Therefore have we lost, the second time, and that deservedly, our empire over the creatures, yea, when after and notwithstanding the fall, there was left to us some title to dominion over the unwilling creatures, so that they could be subjected and controlled, even this we have lost, in great part through our pride, in that we have desired to be like God, and to follow the dictates of our own reason alone. Now then, if there be any humility in the presence of the Creator, if there be any reverence for and exaltation of his handiwork, if there be any charity toward men, any desires to relieve the woes and sufferings of humanity, any love for the light of truth, and hatred toward the darkness of error,--I would beseech men again and again, to dismiss altogether, or at least for a moment to put away their absurd and intractable theories, which give to assumptions the dignity of hypotheses, dispense with experiment, and turn them away from the works of God. Let them with a teachable spirit approach the great volume of creation, patiently decipher its secret characters, and converse with its lofty truths; so shall they leave behind the delusive echoes of prejudice, and dwell within the perpetual outgoings of divine wisdom. This is that speech and language whose lines have gone out into all the earth, and no confusion of tongues has ever befallen it. This language we should all strive to understand, first condescending, like little children, to master its alphabet."

Instead of training children to interrogate nature for themselves, and to interpret the answers to these interrogations, instead of going straight to nature herself, the schools are forever teaching what others have thought and written on the subject. This procedure, according to Bacon, not only displays lack of pedagogic sense, but gives evidence of ignorance and self-conceit, and inflicts the greatest injury on philosophy and learning. Such methods of instruction, moreover, tend to stifle and interrupt all inquiry. We must, says Bacon, "come as new-born children, with open and fresh minds, to the observation of nature. For it is no less true in this human kingdom of knowledge than in God's kingdom of heaven, that no man shall enter into it except as he becomes first as a little child."

Bacon's notion, as summarized by Raumer, was that "man must put himself again in direct, close, and personal contact with nature, and no longer trust to the confused, uncertain, and arbitrary accounts and descriptions of her historians and would-be interpreters. From a clear and correct observation and perception of objects, their qualities, powers, etc., the investigator must proceed, step by step, till he arrives at laws, and to that degree of insight that will enable him to interpret the laws and to analyze the processes of nature. To this end Bacon proffers to us his new method--the method of induction. With the aid of this method we attain to an insight into the connection and natural relation of the laws of matter, and thus, according to him, we are enabled through this knowledge to make nature subservient to our will."

This was, according to Comenius, the true key to the human intellect. But he laments that Bacon should have given us the key and failed to unlock the door to the treasure-house. But Bacon did more than formulate the laws of scientific induction for pedagogic purposes: he made possible the enrichment of the courses of study by the addition of a wide range of school studies. His thrusts at the Latin and Greek, as the sole exponents of culture, were telling in their effect and made possible the recognition of the vernacular themes in Comenius' day. "The wisdom of the Greeks," he says, "was rhetorical; it expended itself upon words, and it had little to do with the search after truth." Speaking again of classical culture, he says: "These older generations fell short of many of our present knowledges; they know but a small part of the world, and but a brief period of history. We, on the contrary, are acquainted with a far greater extent of the world, besides having discovered a new hemisphere, and we look back and survey long periods of history."

Bacon recognized great individual differences in the mental capacities of children, and he urged that these differences and special tastes be taken into account by the teachers. He says: "The natural bent of the individual minds should be so far encouraged that a student who shall learn all that is required of him may be allowed time in which to pursue a favorite study. And, furthermore, it is worth while to consider, and I think this point has not hitherto received the attention which its importance demands, that there are two distinct modes of training the mind to a free and appropriate use of its faculties. The one begins with the easiest, and so proceeds to the more difficult; the other, at the outset, presses the pupil with the more difficult tasks, and, after he has mastered these, turns him to pleasanter and easier ones: for it is one method to practise swimming with bladders, and another to practise dancing with heavy shoes. It is beyond all estimate how a judicious blending of these two methods will profit both the mental and the bodily powers. And so to select and assign topics of instruction as to adapt them to the individual capabilities of the pupils,--this, too, requires a special experience and judgment. A close observation and an accurate knowledge of the different natures of the pupils are due from teachers to the parents of these pupils, that they may choose an occupation in life for their sons accordingly. And note further, that not only does every one make more rapid progress in those studies to which his nature inclines him, but, again, that a natural disinclination, in whatever direction, may be overcome by the help of special studies. For instance, if a boy has a light, inattentive, inconstant spirit, so that he is easily diverted, and his attention cannot be readily fixed, he will find advantage in the mathematics, in which a demonstration must be commenced anew whenever the thought wanders even for a moment."

These citations will suggest parallels in the aims of the two great reformers. Both sought to introduce the student to nature at first hand. Both aimed to reorganize the sciences into one great body of co?rdinated knowledge. Both emphasized the value of the inductive method in the development of subjects of study. Bacon said: "A good method will solve all problems. A cripple on the right path will beat a racer on the wrong path." Said Comenius: "The secret of education lies in method." Again: "There is no difficulty in learning Latin: what we want is a good method."

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