been laboring for forty years. "This loss," he writes, "I shall cease to lament only when I cease to breathe."

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Returns to Amsterdam; His last years. After wandering for some time about Germany, and being prostrated by fever at Hamburg, he at length came to Amsterdam, where Lawrence De Geer, the son of his deceased patron, gave him an asylum. Here were spent the remaining years of his life in ease and dignity. Compassion for his misfortune was united with veneration for his learning and piety. He earned a sufficient income by giving instruction in the families of the wealthy, and by the liberality of De Geer he was enabled to publish a fine folio edition of all his writings on Education (1657). His political works, however, were to the last a source of trouble to him. His hostility to the Pope and the House of Hapsburg made him the dupe of certain "prophets" whose soothsayings he published as "Lux in Tenebris." One of these prophets, who had announced that the Turk was to take Vienna, was executed at Pressburg, and the "Lux in Tenebris" at the same time burnt by the hangman. Before the news of this disgrace reached Amsterdam, Comenius was no more. He died in the year 1671, at the advanced age of eighty, and with him terminated the office of Chief Bishop among the Moravian Brethren.

Comenius both a Philosopher and a School-master. Before Comenius, no one had brought the mind of a philosopher to bear practically on the subject of education. Montaigne, Bacon, Milton, had advanced principles, leaving others to see to their application. A few able school-masters, as Ascham and Ratich, had investigated

new methods, but had made success in teaching the test to which they appealed, rather than any abstract principle. Comenius was at once a philosopher who had learnt of Bacon, and a school-master who had earned his livelihood by teaching the rudiments. Dissatisfied with the state of education as he found it, he sought for a better system by an examination of the laws of Nature. Whatever is thus established, we must allow to be on an immovable foundation, and, as Comenius himself says, "not liable to any ruin ;" but looking back on the fruit of Comenius' labors, we find that much which he thought thus based, was not so in reality—that he often believed he was appealing to Nature, when in truth he was merely using fanciful illustrations from her. But whatever mistakes he and others may have made in consulting the oracle, it is no proof of wisdom to attempt, as "practical men" often do, to use these mistakes in disparagement of the oracle itself; and because some have gone wrong when they thought they were following Nature, to treat every appeal to her with contempt. It will hardly be disputed, when broadly stated, that there are laws of Nature which must be obeyed in dealing with the mind, as with the body. No doubt these laws are not so easily established in the first case as in the second, but whoever in any way assists or even tries to assist in the discovery, deserves our gratitude, and greatly are we indebted to him who first boldly set about the task, and devoted to it years of patient labor.

Comenius' Principles. Every one who has studied Comenius' voluminous writings is agreed that the "Didactica Magna," though one of his earlier works, contains,

in the best form, the principles he afterward endeavored to work out in the "Janua," "Orbis Pictus," and "Novissima Methodus." A short account of this book will give some notion of what Comenius did for education.

Summary of the Didactica Magna. We live, says Comenius, a threefold life-a vegetative, an animal, and an intellectual or spiritual. Of these, the first is perfect in the womb, the last in heaven. He is happy who comes with healthy body into the world, much more he who goes with healthy spirit out of it. According to the heavenly idea, man should (1) know all things; (2) should be master of all things, and of himself; (3) should refer everything to God. So that within us Nature has implanted the seeds of (1) learning, (2) virtue, (3) piety. To bring these to maturity is the object of education. All men require education, and God has made children unfit for other employments that they may have leisure to learn.

But schools have failed, and instead of keeping to the true object of education, and teaching the foundations, relations, and intentions of all the most important things, they have neglected even the mother-tongue, and confined the teaching to Latin, and yet that has been so badly taught, and so much time has been wasted over grammar rules and dictionaries, that from ten to twenty years are spent in acquiring as much knowledge of Latin as is speedily acquired of any modern tongue.

Education must follow Nature. The cause of this want of success is that the system does not follow Nature. Everything natural goes smoothly and easily. There must, therefore, be no pressure. Learning should come

to children as swimming to fish, flying to birds, running to animals. As Aristotle says, the desire of knowledge is implanted 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.

Everything to be taught first in Rudimentary Outline. 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.

Nothing by Fits and Starts. Again, as Nature does nothing per saltum, nor 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.

Principles of Easy Teaching. 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