Ratke's method of teaching a language was not original with him, being similar to, though not so effective as, that advocated by Roger Ascham, more than a hundred years before (see p. 191), and suggested first by Pliny, fifteen centuries earlier. Ratke required the pupil to go over the same matter many times, to learn the grammar in connection with translation, and finally to translate back into the original. He proposed to follow the same course with all languages, and have all grammars constructed on the same plan. The work which Ratke began was more successfully carried out by others who followed him, and thus fruit has been borne to these new and radical ideas. Quick sums up Ratke's pedagogy in a few words, as follows:[95]-- 1. Everything after the order and course of nature. 2. One thing at a time. 3. One thing again and again repeated. 4. Nothing shall be learned by heart. 5. Uniformity in all things. 6. Knowledge of the thing itself must be given before that which refers to the thing. 7. Everything by experiment and analysis. 8. Everything without coercion;[2] that is, by gentle means, and not by the use of the rod. Others have worked out these principles until they have become thoroughly incorporated into every system of modern pedagogy. COMENIUS[96] (1592-1670) By far the greatest educator of the seventeenth century, and one of the greatest in educational history, was Johann Amos Comenius. He was born in Moravia, and belonged to the Protestant body known as the Moravian Brethren. His early education was neglected, a fact that was not without its compensation, for, not beginning the study of Latin until sixteen years of age, he was mature enough to appreciate the defects in the prevalent method of instruction. One of his most valuable services to education grew out of his attempt to remedy the defects thus discovered. Of the schools he attended, he says, "They are the terror of boys, and the slaughterhouses of minds,--places where a hatred of books and literature is contracted, where ten or more years are spent in learning what might be acquired in one, where what ought to be poured in gently is violently forced in, and beaten in, where what ought to be put clearly and perspicuously is presented in a confused and intricate way, as if it were a collection of puzzles,--places where minds are fed on words."[97] In speaking of his own experience at school, he says, "I was continually full of thoughts for the finding out of some means whereby more might be inflamed with the love of learning, and whereby learning itself might be made more compendious, both in the matter of charge and cost, and of labor belonging thereto, that so the youth might be brought by a more easy method unto some notable proficiency in learning."[98]