Comenius and the Beginnings of Educational ReformMonroe, W. S. (Will Seymour)
History
Comenius and the Beginnings of Educational Reform
Monroe, W. S. (Will Seymour)
Comenius, Johann Amos, 1592-1670; Education -- History; Educational change -- History
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.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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