Comenius and the Beginnings of Educational Reform — John Shaqi
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
“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.”
The checkered career of Bacon is extraneous to his writings and may be
passed over in silence. As noted in the first chapter, the educational
institutions of the sixteenth century concerned themselves wholly with
the acquisition and display of Latin eloquence. Grammar was studied
with infinite labor and sorrow for years that students might acquire
correct forms of speech; logic that they might express themselves with
precision; and a minimum of history was taught that ancient records
might furnish ornate illustrations in speaking and writing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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