CHAPTER VIII

STUDY OF LANGUAGE

Dominance of Latin in the seventeenth century—Methods of study characterized by Comenius. The _Janua_—Purpose and plan—Its success. _Atrium_ and _Vestibulum_—Their relation to the _Janua_. The _Orbis pictus_—How conceived—Its popularity—Use of pictures. _Methodus novissima_—Principles of language teaching—Function of examples—Place of oral and written language in education.

Recalling that Latin occupied such an exalted place in the schools of Comenius’ day, it is not at all surprising that he gave so much attention to the study of language. Latin absorbed practically all the energies of the pupils, and with results that were far from satisfactory. A historian of the period says, “Boys and teachers were alike unhappy; great severity of discipline was practised, and after all was done, and all the years of youth had been spent in the study mainly of the Latin, the results were contemptible.”

The study of Latin is thus characterized by Comenius:

1. The Latin language is taught abstractly without a knowledge of the things which the words denote. Words should be learned in connection with things already known; it is false to conclude that, because children know how to utter words, they therefore understand them.

2. The second evil in the study of language is driving children into the manifold intricacies of grammar from the very first. It is a blunder to plunge them into the formal statements of grammar on their first beginning Latin. To make matters worse, the Latin grammar is written in Latin. How should we adults like it, if, in the study of Arabic, we had a grammar written in the Arabic first put into our hands?

3. The third evil in the study of language is the practice of compelling children to make impossible leaps instead of carrying them forward step by step. We introduce them from the grammar into Virgil and Cicero. The sublimity of poetic style is beyond the conception of boys, and the subject-matter of Cicero’s epistles not easy for grown men. It will be said that the object is to place before children a perfect model to which they may attain. It is right to aim at a perfect model, when the aim is practicable, and if we proceed gradually to the highest. But larger things are with advantage postponed to lesser things; and lesser things, if accommodated to the age of the learners, yield greater fruits than large things. If Cicero himself were to enter our schools and find boys engaged with his works, Comenius believes that he would be either amused or indignant.

Professor Laurie remarks that “when we bear in mind the construction of the Latin grammars then in use,—that of Alvarus, for example, having five hundred rules and as many exceptions,—we cannot be surprised at the unanimous condemnation of the then current methods of teaching, and the almost universal lamentation over the wasted years of youth.”

_The Janua_

We are now to see how Comenius proposed to reform these evils. “I planned a book,” he says, “in which all things, the properties of things, and the actions and passions of things should be presented, and to each should be assigned its proper work, believing that in one and the same book the whole connected series of things might be surveyed historically, and the whole fabric of things and words reduced to one continuous context. On mentioning my purpose to some friends, one of them directed my attention to the Jesuit father’s _Janua linguarum_, and gave me a copy. I leaped for joy; but on examination, I found that it did not fulfil my plan.”

The _Janua_ referred to by Comenius was that written by William Bateus, an Irish Jesuit, who was spiritual father at Salamanca, Spain. His _Janua_ appeared in Spain prior to 1605. It contained twelve hundred short Latin sentences with accompanying Spanish translations. The sentences were made up of common Latin root-words, and no word was repeated. In 1615 an English-Latin edition appeared; and subsequently editions in French, German, and Italian. The object of Bateus in the publication of his _Janua_ was to promote the spread of Christianity by enabling the heathen the more easily to learn to read the Latin.

It will thus appear that the plan of the _Janua linguarum reserata_ of Comenius, the book that was destined to make his name known throughout the world, was not wholly original with the Moravian reformer. The name and to some extent the plan of the book had been suggested by the publication of the Jesuit.

The first edition of Comenius’ _Janua_ appeared in 1631.[36] In the numerous subsequent editions the author made important changes and additions. In subject-matter, the _Janua_ comprehends the elements of all the sciences and arts. There are a hundred chapter headings with a thousand Latin sentences and their German equivalents arranged in parallel columns. The subjects treated cover a wide range—from the origin of the world to the mind and its faculties. The first chapter is an introduction, in which the reader is saluted, and informed that learning consists in this: to know distinctions and names of things. He is assured that he will find explained in this little book the whole world and the Latin language. If he should learn four pages of it by rote, he would find his eyes opened to all the liberal arts.

The second chapter treats of the creation of the world, the third of the elements, and the fourth of the firmament. In chapters five to thirteen inclusive, fire, meteors, water, earth, stones, metals, trees, fruits, herbs, and shrubs are treated. Animals occupy the next five chapters; and man—his body, external members, internal members, qualities and accidents of the body, ulcers and wounds, external and internal senses, the intellect, affections, and the will—the eleven following chapters. Nineteen chapters are given to the mechanic arts. Twenty-one chapters deal with the house and its parts, marriage, the family, civic and state economy. Twelve chapters are assigned to grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, and the other branches of knowledge, describing briefly what they are; and ethics gets twelve chapters, a chapter being devoted to each of the twelve virtues. In the four succeeding chapters, games, death, burial, and the providence of God and the angels are treated. Chapter ninety-nine treats of the end of the world; and in the one-hundredth chapter Comenius gives some farewell advice, and takes leave of his reader.

Each chapter of the _Janua_ is to be read ten times. In the first reading there is to be an accurate translation into the vernacular; at the second reading the whole is to be written out, Latin and vernacular, and the teacher is to begin conversation in the Latin tongue. At the third reading the teacher is to read the Latin aloud, and the pupils are to translate into the vernacular without seeing the printed page. At the fourth reading the grammar is to be written out and the words parsed. Special attention is to be given to the derivation of words at the fifth reading; the synonyms to be explained at the sixth; and the grammatical rules applied at the seventh. At the eighth reading the pupils are to learn the text by heart. The ninth reading is to be devoted to a logical analysis of the subject-matter; and the tenth and last reading is to be conducted by the pupils themselves. They are to challenge one another to repeat portions of the text.

In this ingenious manner Comenius applies his long-cherished pansophic theories to language teaching, the _Janua_ being an application of ideas formulated in the _Great didactic_. It is, however, more than an application of pansophic notions—it is an attempt to realize his oft-enunciated educational maxim that words and things should never be divorced, that knowledge of the language should go hand in hand with the knowledge of the things explained.

The success of the _Janua_ was most unexpected, and no one was more surprised at its sudden popularity than Comenius himself. “That happened,” he writes, “which I could not have imagined, namely, that this childish book was received with universal approbation by the learned world. This was shown me by the number of men who wished me hearty success with my new discovery; and by the number of translations into foreign languages. For, not only was the book translated into twelve European languages, since I myself have seen these translations (Latin, Greek, Bohemian, Polish, German, Swedish, Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hungarian), but also into the Asiatic languages—Arabic, Turkish, and Persian—and even into the Mongolian, which is understood by all the East Indies.”

The _Janua_, more than any other book that he wrote, made Comenius’ name familiar to scholars throughout the world, and for more than a century it was the most popular secondary-school text-book in use. How came this book to confer on its author such world-wide fame? “Partly,” answers Raumer, “from the pleasure found in the survey of the whole world, adapted both to young and old, and at a day when no great scientific requirements were made. Many were amused by the motley variety of the imaginations and investigations of the book; by its old-fashioned grammatical, didactic, and rhetorical discussions, and its spiritual extravagances. The greatest influence was, however, exerted by the fundamental maxim of the book—that the knowledge of a language, and especially of the Latin, should go hand in hand with a knowledge of the things explained in it.”[37]

_Atrium and Vestibulum_

The _Janua_ was followed in 1633 by the _Atrium_. It contains 427 short sentences somewhat more amplified than in the _Janua_. In the introduction the teacher promises to initiate the pupil into the mysteries of wisdom, the knowledge of all things, the ability to do right always, and to speak correctly of everything, especially in Latin, which, as a common language to all nations, is indispensable to a complete education. The foundation of things is laid in the _Vestibulum_ (subsequently published); the _Janua_ furnishes the materials for the building; and the _Atrium_ provides the decorations. With the completion of these, pupils may confer with the wisest authors through their books, and through this reading they may become learned, wise, and eloquent.

The second part treats of substantives, as the classification of things; the third part of adjectives, as the modification of things; the fourth part explains pronouns; in the fifth part verbs are introduced; the sixth part discusses adverbs, the seventh part prepositions, the eighth part conjunctions, and the ninth part interjections. The tenth part contains examples of the derivation of words. The _Atrium_ was intended as a simplified Latin grammar to be used with the graded system of language teaching outlined by Comenius.

The _Vestibulum_, although written and published after the _Janua_ and _Atrium_, was intended as a first book or Latin primer. The _Janua_ was found to be too difficult for the younger learners, and so this simple book was composed during his sojourn at Saros-Patak. The sentences were abbreviated, and they deal with simple things. The following are the chapter headings: (1) Concerning the accidents or qualities of things; (2) Concerning the actions and passions of things; (3) The circumstances of things; (4) Things in the school; (5) Things at home; (6) Things in the city; (7) Concerning the virtues. He expresses regret that he is unable to illustrate the text of the _Vestibulum_ with cuts to amuse the pupils and enable them the better to remember, but says that he could find no artists competent to do the required illustrative work. He urges the teachers to supply the want of such cuts by explanations of the things, or by showing the things themselves. Without some such devices, the instruction must necessarily be lifeless. “The parallelism of the knowledge of words and things is the deepest secret of the method.”

_Orbis Pictus_

The idea of the use of pictures in elementary school work was suggested to Comenius by Professor Lubinus, of Rostock, who edited in 1614 a Greek testament in three languages. He suggested reforms in the simplification of language instruction, and advised the construction of a book containing pictures of things, with a certain number of brief sentences attached to each, until all the words and phrases of Latin were exhausted.

While at Saros-Patak, he carried into effect the desires set forth in the _Vestibulum_ with reference to an illustrated child’s first Latin reader, although the book was not printed until some years later, because of unexpected difficulty in finding a skilful engraver in copper. In a letter to Michel Endter, of Nuremberg, who subsequently published the _Orbis pictus_, Comenius wrote in 1655: “It may be observed that many of our children grow weary of their books, because they are overfilled with things which have to be explained by the help of words. The pupils, and often the teachers themselves, know next to nothing about the things.”

The _Orbis pictus_ was first published at Nuremberg in 1657; and, although the _Janua_ had been received with well-nigh universal favor, its popularity was surpassed by the illustrated book. I have no means of knowing how many editions of the _Orbis pictus_ have appeared during the last two hundred and fifty years. I have myself seen twelve different editions in the British Museum, Comenius-Stiftung, library of Harvard University, and elsewhere. These are: Nuremberg, 1657, Latin-German; London, 1658, Latin-English; Amsterdam, 1673, Latin-Dutch-German; Nuremberg, 1679, Latin-German-Italian-French; London, 1727, Latin-English; Nuremberg, 1746, Latin-German; London, 1777, Latin-German; St. Petersburg, 1808, Latin-Russian-German; New York, 1810, Latin-English; Wroctawin, 1818, Latin-Polish-French-German; Königsgratz, 1883, Latin-Bohemian-German-French; Syracuse, 1887, Latin-English.

The purpose of the _Orbis pictus_, as indicated by Comenius in the preface, was:

1. To entice witty children to learn; for it is apparent that children, even from their infancy, are delighted with pictures and willingly please their eyes with them. And it will be very well worth the pains to have once brought it to pass that scarecrows may be taken away out of wisdom’s gardens.

2. This same little book will serve to stir up the attention, which is to be fastened upon things, and even to be sharpened more and more, which is also an important matter. For the senses being the main guides of childhood (because therein the mind does not as yet rise to an abstract contemplation of things), they must evermore seek their own objects; if the objects are not present, the senses grow dull and flit hither and thither out of weariness. But when the objects are present, they grow merry, wax lively, and willingly suffer themselves to be fastened upon them till the things be sufficiently discerned. This book, then, will do a good piece of service in taking flickering wits and preparing them for deeper studies.

3. Children being thus interested and the attention attracted, they may be furnished with the knowledge of the most important things by sport and merry pastime. In a word, this book will add pleasure to the use of the _Vestibulum_ and _Janua_, for which end it was at the first chiefly intended. The accounts of the things being given in the mother-tongue, the book promises three good things: (1) It will afford a device for learning to read more easily than hitherto, especially having a symbolical alphabet set before it, with pictures of the voices [creatures] to be imitated. The young ABC pupils will easily remember the force of every character by looking at the creatures, and the imagination will be strengthened. Having looked over a table of the chief syllables, the children may proceed to view the pictures and the inscriptions set under them. Simply looking upon the object pictured will suggest the name of the object and tell how the picture is to be read. Thus the whole book being gone over by the bare use of the pictures, reading cannot but be learned. (2) The book being used in the vernacular will serve for the perfect learning of the mother-tongue. (3) The learning of the vernacular words will serve as a pleasant introduction to the Latin tongue.

The _Orbis pictus_ was translated for use in English schools in 1658 by Charles Hoole, a London schoolmaster. He observes in his introduction: “There are few of you (I think) but have seen, and with great willingness have made use of (or at least pursued), many of the books of this well-deserving author, Mr. John Comenius, which, for their profitableness to the speedy attainment of a language, have been translated into several countries, out of Latin into their native tongue. Now the general verdict (after trial made) that hath passed, touching those formerly extant, is this, that they are indeed of singular use, and very advantageous to those of more discretion (especially of such as already have a smattering of Latin) to help their memories to retain what they have scatteringly gotten here and there, to furnish them with many words, which (perhaps) they have not formerly read, or so well observed; but to young children (whom we have chiefly to instruct), as to those that are ignorant altogether of things and words, and prove rather a mere toil and burden, than a delight and furtherance. For to pack up many words in memory of things not conceived in the mind, is to fill the head with empty imaginations, and to make the learner more to admire the multitude and variety (and thereby to become discouraged) than to care to treasure them up in hopes to gain more knowledge of what they mean.”

The first lesson in the _Orbis pictus_ is a dialogue between a teacher and a pupil. The former says, “Come, boy, learn to be wise.” Whereupon the latter asks, “What doth this mean?” The master makes reply, “To understand rightly, to do rightly, and to speak rightly all that are necessary.” The boy asks who will teach him these things, to which the master makes reply, “I, by God’s help, will guide thee through all. I will show thee all; I will name thee all.” To all this the boy makes eager response: “See, here I am. Lead me in the name of God.” The master concludes the dialogue with this injunction: “Before all things thou oughtest to learn the plain sounds of which man’s speech consisteth, which living creatures know how to make, and thy tongue knoweth how to imitate, and thy hand can picture out. Afterward we will go into the world, and we will view all things.” Mr. Maxwell[38] thus characterizes this introduction and the picture that illustrates it: “The boy, a plump but not a pleasing person, and the master, a man ‘severe’ and ‘stern to view,’ who has evidently all the frowns and none of the jokes of Goldsmith’s schoolmaster. They are conversing on a barren plain, the only other living thing in sight being a wild animal apparently of some extinct species. In the background are a village church, of the regulation pattern, the roofs of houses, and a couple of pyramids which are intended for mountains.”

The introduction is followed by an illustrated lesson on the sounds of the letters of the alphabet, with a picture and statement (in the vernacular and Latin) of the sounds made by animals. The crow illustrates the sound of _a_, the statement in the English being, “The crow crieth”; in the Latin, _Cornix cornicatur_. A lamb illustrates the sound of _b_, the statement being, “The lamb bleateth” (Latin, _Agnus balat_). And so on through the alphabet. This is what Comenius calls “a lively and vocal alphabet.”

Like the _Janua_, the subjects treated in the _Orbis pictus_ cover a wide range of topics. Their character may be indicated by the following citations of chapter headings: God, the world, the heavens, fire, the air, the water, the clouds, the earth, the fruits of the earth, metals, stones, trees, fruits of trees, flowers, potherbs, corn, shrubs, birds, tame fowls, singing birds, birds that haunt the fields and woods, ravenous birds, waterfowls, ravenous vermin, animals about the house, herd-cattle, laboring beasts, wild cattle, wild beasts, serpents and creeping things, crawling vermin, creatures that live as well by water as by land, river-fish and pond-fish, sea-fish and shell-fish, man, the seven ages of man, the outward parts of man, the head and the hand, the flesh and bowels, the charnels and bones, the outward and inward senses, the soul of man, deformed and monstrous people, dressing of gardens, husbandry, grazing, grinding, bread-making, fishing, fowling, hunting, butchery, cookery, the vintage, brewing, a feast, and so on to the one hundred and fifty-first chapter, in which the first illustration is reproduced with this benediction by the master: “Thus thou hast seen in short all things that can be shewed, and hast learned the chief words of the Latin and mother-tongue. Go on now and read other good books diligently, and thou shalt become learned, wise and godly. Remember these things: Fear God and call upon him that he may bestow upon thee the spirit of wisdom. Farewell.”

Under the pictures illustrating each chapter follows the descriptions in the vernacular and the Latin. The following on the school may be taken as characteristic of the book:—

A school (1) Schola (1) is a shop in which young wits est officina in quâ novelli animi are fashioned to virtue, and it formantur ad virtutem is distinguished into classes. & distinguitur in classes.

The master (2) Præceptor (2) sits in a chair (3) sedet in cathedra (3) the scholars (4) discipuli (4) in forms (5) in subsellüs (5) he teaches, they learn. ille docet, hi discunt.

Some things are writ down Quædam præ scribuntur illis before them with chalk on a cretâ in tabella. (6) table. (6)

Some sit Quidam sedent at a table and write (7) ad mensam & scribunt (7), he mendeth their faults (8). ipse corrigit mendas (8).

Some stand and rehearse Quidam stant & recitant things committed to memory mandata memoriæ (9). (9).

Some talk together (10) and Quidam confabulantur (10) behave themselves wantonly ac gerunt se petulantes and carelessly; these are chastised & negligentes; hi castigantur with a ferrula (11) ferulâ (baculo) (11) and a rod (12). & virgâ (12).

The braced figures refer to the objects numbered in the cut; for example, a group of students conversing together in the illustration is marked 10 in the cut and in the text. The purpose of Comenius, it should be noted in passing, was primarily to teach the vernacular through things and the representation of things; although he had no objection to the learning of the Latin with the vernacular. His aim, as stated by himself, “That instruction may progress without hindrance, and neither learning nor teaching delay, since what is printed in words may be brought before the eyes by sight, and thus the mind may be instructed without error.”

“Primer though it be,” says G. Stanley Hall, “the _Orbis pictus_ sheds a broad light over the whole field of education.” Compayré remarks, “It was the first practical application of the intuitive method, and has served as a model for the innumerable illustrated books which for three centuries have invaded the schools.” And Raumer, who is little given to praise of Comenius and his schemes, adds, “The _Orbis pictus_ was the forerunner of future development, and had for its object, not merely the introduction of an indistinct painted world into the school, but, as much as possible, a knowledge of the original world itself, by actual intercourse with it.”

Professor Laurie is doubtless right when he says that Comenius knew little psychology—scarcely more than the generalizations of Plato and Aristotle, and these not strictly investigated by himself. Yet who can read these lines in the preface of the _Orbis pictus_, “This little book will serve to stir up the attention, which is to be fastened upon things, and ever to be sharpened more and more; for the senses ever more seek their own objects, and when the objects are present, they grow merry, wax lively, and willingly suffer themselves to be fastened upon them, until the things are sufficiently discerned”—who can read these lines, and reflect upon the manner in which volitional attention operates in the higher spheres of thought and emotion, and say that Comenius was altogether ignorant of the psychological law that the power of the will over the attention of little children is largely a matter of automatic fixation, depending upon the attractiveness of the objects that affect the senses.

_Methodus Novissima_

While residing at Elbing, Comenius wrote the _Methodus novissima_ for the use of the teachers of Sweden. This he intended as a plan of studies, and it contains the principles which must lie at the basis of every rational course of study. The three principles of his method are the parallelism of things and words, proper stages of succession, and easy natural progress. In God are the ideas, the original types which he impresses upon things; things, again, impress their representation upon the senses, the senses impart them to the mind, the mind to the tongue, and the tongue to the ears of others; for souls shut up in bodies cannot understand each other in a purely intellectual way.

Any language is complete in so far as it possesses a full nomenclature, has words for everything,—and these significant and consistent,—and is constructed in accordance with fixed grammatical laws. It is a source of error when things accommodate themselves to words, instead of words to things. The same classification prevails for words as for things; and whoever understands the relation of words among themselves will, the more easily, study the analogous relations among things.

Vives thought that the most complete language would be that in which the words express the nature of things, and Comenius believed that there could be composed a real language in which each word should be a definition.

To be able to represent a thing by the mind, hand, or tongue is to understand it. The mental process involved consists of representations and images of the pictures of things. If, says Comenius, I perceive a thing by the senses, its image is impressed upon my brain; if I represent a thing, I impress its image upon the material; but if I express in words the thing which I have thought of or represented, I impress it upon the atmosphere, and through it upon the ear, brain, and mind of another.

Things are learned by examples, rules, and practice. Before the understanding, truth must be held up as an example; before the will, the good; before the forming powers, the ideal; and to these must be added practice regulated by suitable rules. But rules should not be given before the examples. This is well understood by artisans; they do not begin by lecturing to their apprentices upon trades, but by showing them how masters work and then by putting tools in their hands and training them to imitate their masters. We learn to do by doing, to write by writing, and to paint by painting.

The second step must never be taken until the first is learned; and the first step should be repeated and assimilated with the second step. We should advance from the easy to the more difficult, from the near to the more distant, and from the simple to the complex. Proceed toward knowledge by the perception and understanding of objects present to the senses, and later to the information of others about the objects.

The attention should be fixed upon one object at a time; first upon the whole, then upon the parts. The understanding should compare the objects being perceived with similar objects previously observed. The memory has three offices: to receive impressions, to retain impressions, and to recall impressions. Retention will be made easier by repetition, and recollection by the association of perceived relations. The youngest children should be instructed by means of visible objects, and pictures impress themselves most firmly upon the memory.

Teachers who are themselves intellectually quick must avoid impatience. The pupils who learn the quickest are not always the best; and the dulness of the pupils must be supplemented by the teacher’s industry. Learning will be easy to pupils if teachers manage them in a friendly way and study the disposition of each child. Children must not only be made to look at their lessons, but to enter into the spirit of the subject under consideration.

We should remember that schools are the workshops of humanity; and that they should work their pupils into the right and skilful use of their reason, speech, and talents—into wisdom, eloquence, readiness, and shrewdness. Thus will the teachers shape these little images of God, or, rather, fill up the outlines of goodness, power, and wisdom impressed upon them by divine power. The art of teaching is no shallow affair, but one of the deepest mysteries of nature and salvation.