PRINCIPLES FROM THE STUDY OF NATURE.

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planted in man: and the mind grows as the body does by taking proper nourishment, not by being stretched on the rack.

If we would ascertain how teaching and learning are to have good results, we must look to the known processes of Nature and Art. A man sows seed, and it comes up he knows not how, but in sowing it he must attend to the requirements of Nature. Let us then look to Nature to find out how instruction is to be sown in young minds. We find that Nature waits for the fit time. Then, too, she has prepared the material before she gives it form. In our teaching we constantly run counter to these principles of hers. We give instruction before the young minds are ready to receive it. We give the form before the material. Words are taught before the things to which they refer. When a foreign tongue is to be taught, we commonly give the form, i. e., the grammatical rules, before we give the material, i. e., the language, to which the rules apply. We should begin with an author, or properly prepared translation-book, and abstract rules should never come before the examples.

Again, Nature begins each of her works with its inmost part. Moreover, the crude form comes first, then the elaboration of the parts. The architect, acting on this principle, first makes a rough plan or model, and then by degrees designs the details; last of all he attends to the ornamentation. In teaching, then, let the inmost part, i. e., the understanding of the subject, come first, then let the thing understood be used to exercise the memory, the speech, and the hands; and let every language, science, and art be

taught first in its rudimentary outline; then more completely with examples and rules; finally, with exceptions and anomalies. Instead of this, some teachers are foolish enough to require beginners to get up all the anomalies in Latin Grammar, and the dialects in Greek.

Again, as Nature does nothing per saltum, not halts when she has begun, the whole course of studies should be arranged in strict order, so that the earlier studies prepare the way for the latter. Every year, every month, every day and hour even, should have its task marked out beforehand, and the plan should be rigidly carried out. Much loss is occasioned by absence of boys from school, and by changes in the instruction. Iron that might be wrought with one heating should not be allowed to get cold, and be heated over and over again.

Nature protects her work from injurious influences, so boys should be kept from injurious companionships

and books.

In a chapter devoted to the principles of easy teaching, Comenius lays down, among rules similar to the foregoing, that children will learn if they are taught only what they have a desire to learn, with due regard to their age and the method of instruction, and especially when everything is first taught by means of the senses. On this point Comenius laid great stress, and he was, I believe, the first who did so. Education should proceed, he said, in the following order: first, educate the senses, then the memory, then the intellect; last of all, the critical faculty. This is the order of Nature. The child first perceives through the senses. Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius in

ORDER OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

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sensu. These perceptions are stored in the memory, and called up by the imagination. By comparing one with another, the understanding forms general ideas, and at length the judgment decides between the false and the true. By keeping to this order, Comenius believed it would be possible to make learning entirely pleasant to the pupils, however young. Here Comenius agreed with the Jesuits, and in part he would use the same means to make the road to learning agreeable. Like them, he would have short school-hours, and would make great use of praise. and blame, but he did not depend, as they did, almost exclusively on emulation. He would have the desire of learning fostered in every possible way-by parents, by teachers, by school buildings and apparatus, by the subjects themselves, by the method of teaching them, and lastly, by the public authorities. (1) The parents must praise learning and learned men, must show children beautiful books, etc., must treat the teachers with great respect. (2) The teacher must be kind and fatherly, he must distribute praise and reward, and must always, where it is possible, give the children something to look at. (3) The school buildings must be light, airy, and cheerful, and well furnished with apparatus, as pictures, maps, models, collections of specimens. (4) The subjects taught must not be too hard for the learner's comprehension, and the more entertaining parts of them must be especially dwelt upon. (5) The method must be natural, and everything that is not essential to the subject or is beyond the pupil must be omitted. Fables and allegories should be introduced, and enigmas

given for the pupils to guess. (6) The authorities must appoint public examinations and reward merit.

Nature helps herself in various ways, so the pupils should have every assistance given them. It should especially be made clear what the pupils are to learn, and how they should learn it.

The pupils should be punished for offenses against morals only. If they do not learn, the fault is with the teacher.

One of Comenius' most distinctive principles was, that the knowledge of things should be communicated together with the knowledge of words. This, together with his desire of submitting everything to the pupil's senses, would have introduced a great change into the course of instruction, which was then, as it has for the most part continued, purely literary. We should learn, says Comenius, as much as possible, not from books, but from the great book of Nature, from heaven and earth, from oaks and beeches.

When languages are to be learnt, he would have them taught separately. Till the pupil is from eight to ten years old, he should be instructed only in the mother-tongue, and about things. Then other languages can be acquired in about a year each; Latin (which is to be studied more thoroughly) in about two years. Every language must be learnt by use rather than by rules; i. e., it must be learnt by hearing, reading, and re-reading, transcribing, attempting imitations in writing, and verbally, and by using the language in conversation. Rules assist and confirm practice, but they must come after, not before it. The first exercises in a language should take for their subject something of which the sense is already known,

COURSE OF INSTRUCTION.

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so that the mind may be fixed on the words and their connections.* The Catechism and Bible History may be used for this purpose.

Considering the classical authors not suited to boys' understanding, and not fit for the education of Christians, Comenius proposed writing a set of Latin manuals for the different stages between childhood and manhood: these were to be called, "Vestibulum," "Janua," "Palatium," "Thesaurus." The "Vestibulum" and "Janua" were really carried out.

In Comenius' scheme there were to be four kinds of schools for a perfect educational course: Ist, the mother's breast for infancy; 2d, the public vernacular school for children, to which all should be sent from six years old till twelve; 3d, the Latín school or Gymnasium; 4th, residence at a University and traveling, to complete the course.

As the Ludus literarius seu schola vernacula was a very distinctive feature in Comenius' plan, it may be worth while to give his programme of studies. In this school the children should learn-1st, to read and write the mother-tongue well, both with writing and printing letters; 2d, to compose grammatically; 3d, to cipher; 4th, to measure and weigh; 5th, to sing, at first popular airs, then from music; 6th, to say by heart sacred psalms and hymns; 7th, Catechism, Bible History, and texts; 8th, moral rules, with examples; 9th, economy and politics, as far as they could be understood; 10th, general history of the world; 11th, figure of the earth and motion of stars,

*Comenius here follows Ratich, who, as I have mentioned above (p. 38), required beginners to study the translation before the orig