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.