Through Hartlib’s influence the English Parliament invited Comenius to England. This was in the summer of 1641. Comenius himself may be permitted to tell how all this came about: “After my _Pansophia_ had been published and dispersed through the various countries of Europe, many learned men approved of the object and plan of the work, but despaired of its ever being accomplished by one man alone, and therefore advised that a college of learned men should be instituted to carry it into effect. Mr. Samuel Hartlib, who had forwarded its publication in England, labored earnestly in this matter, and endeavored by every possible means to bring together for this purpose a number of intellectual men. And at length, having found one or two, he invited me with many strong entreaties. As my friends consented to my departure, I proceeded to London, and arrived there on the autumnal equinox (September the 22d) in the year 1641, and then learned that I had been called thither by an order of the Parliament. But, in consequence of the king having gone to Scotland, the Parliament had been dismissed for three months, and, consequently, I had to winter in London.” His friends meanwhile examined with more detail his educational views and encouraged him to elaborate his views in a tract, which he named _Via lucis_, or the way of light. This, as he himself says, was “a national disquisition as to the manner in which wisdom—the intellectual law of minds—may at length toward the evening of the world be felicitously diffused through all minds in all nations.” Around Comenius Hartlib soon collected a group of thoughtful men interested in the Moravian reformer’s views; and together we may suppose they discussed at length the larger educational problems already formulated by Comenius in his published writings. The group included, besides Hartlib, Mr. John Pell, a mathematician of acknowledged repute; John Milton, the poet and educational writer; Theodor Haak, the expositor of philosophic systems; John Wilkins, the agricultural enthusiast; John Durie, the advocate of evangelical unity; Thomas Farnaby, the schoolmaster at Sevenoaks and one of the English editors of Comenius’ _Janua_; and probably the American Winthrop, later governor of Connecticut, who was wintering in London. He was delighted with London and the people he met. Writing to friends in Lissa, he says: “I live as a friend among friends; though not so many visit me as would if they knew that I could speak English, or if they had more confidence in their own Latin.”