Reading Notes--Adam Kissel
From the introduction by M.W. Keatinge

Adam's Notes on the text

"Comenius's aims were revolutionary, and he believed his didactic principles to be capable of changing by slow degrees the aspect of civilisation, but the basis on which they rested was that of harmonious development from existing institutions," 13. [Ditto his aims with pansophism]

"Nothing could be further removed from the method of Rousseau. Comenius starts with no fundamental condemnation of society. No brilliant paradoxes fill his pages. His reform is to be a gradual development of what already exists, and, that his suggestions may be practicable and may pave the way for a transition with as little friction as possible, he bases them on the writings of his predecessors, whose work he adopts and adapts whenever he thinks fit," 14.

"Of Rabelais, of Montaigne, of Erasmus, of Vives we shall make no mention. Like Ascham and Locke they dealt with the training of the 'young gentleman,' and stand in no relation to schemes for the education of the people. For the same reason we shall pass over the great teaching corporation of the Jesuits [though] in many ways their methods of instruction have never been surpassed . . . . Very different was the ideal of Comenius. The day school open to children of every rank; the large class managed by a single teacher as the only means by which such schools were economically possible; the introduction of every subject of instruction that could free the understanding from sophistic habits and teach men to look facts squarely in the face--these were the goals . . and his historical antecedents are bound up with the great democratic movement of which the Reformation was the most striking manifestation, with the names of Luther, Sturm, Calvin, and Knox." 124-25

"Comenius's chief title to fame as an educationist rests on the discovery, application, and embodiment in a large-minded treatise on Didactic, of the fundamental principles: I. That all instruction must be carefully graded. II. That in imparting knowledge to children the teacher must, to the utmost, appeal to the faculties of sense-perception," 148. "he was the first to realize that the object-lesson was the only way in which any impression could be made on the half-developed thinking powers of the child [and] he practically anticipated Pestalozzi, and paved the way for Froebel . . . Visualization in all things is the watchword of the Comenian method," 150.

"a contrast between his views and those of the present day will bring into relief the great advance that has been made of recent years by even such a backward study as educational science," 154

C. read Bacon: Novum Organum (1620) and New Atlantis, at least. "while he had a great regard for Bacon and alludes to him continually, he remained in reality little affected by the Inductive Philosophy. . . he was but slightly impressed by the experimental side of the question." Does not mention Bacon in DM, instead uses analogy for his arguments. 27
   Did not really understand Novum, but "From a combination of a wish to follow nature on Baconian lines and his ignorance of what [that] means, was produced his method of the imitation of natural processes by the educator." 157
   "Laugh as we may at the quaintness of the method and the insufficiency of the proof, there is here contained the first germs of a scientific method in educational theory, the assumption that a proof is necessary and that isolated statements of procedure are lacking in cogency. To have made this beginning is worthy of all praise." Furthermore, Comenius beats most of the educational classics by isolating separate points analytically, 159

Teaching of morality: Aristotelian: "Virtues are to be learned by continually doing what is right [though] an opening is left for instruction." Moral teaching must develop internal character from the outside. 169

C's 18 aphorisms of pansophism, 33-34

Others against Pansophism: "in Poland it met with strong disapproval from those who said that it was a dangerousexperiment to mix things divine with things human, Theology with Philosophy, Christianity with Paganism," 31 (This leads C. to write Explanation of my Pansophic efforts, the Dilucidatio)

John Henry Alsted. "a large number of the most striking precepts that figure in the Great Didactic might have been taken direct from Alsted's Encyclopaedia [of All the Sciences (1630)]," 5. Alsted "declared that instruction in the mother-tongue should precede . . . Latin, . . . that grammar was the least effective instrument in teaching a language, . . . proclaimed, almost in Baconian language, the doctrine of 'Experience,' and . . . believed in method to such an extent that he drew up time-tables of the most intricate description for a day, a week, a month, and a year," 5.

Elias Bodinus, Didactic, from Germany. "The perusal of this fired Comenius to attempt a work on a similar scale in his own language," 9. Ratke refused to help.

John Valentine Andreae, Reipublicae Christiano-Politicae Descriptio, 136

Rhenius, Ritter, Glaum, Eilhard Lubin and C. Vogel, 12; J. Cecilius Frey, 1629, 13.

Campanella [leads to craziness]

Keatinge on the diversity of the "aims of education" [his own words], 159-60

Milton, Tractate on Education; Of Education, 1644
Hartlib: Samuel Hartlib, a biographical memoir, H. Dircks, 1865
Comenius in English, via Hartlib: Delineatio and Dilucidatio pub. 1642 as "A reformation of schooles, designed in two treatises."
J.W. Adamson, 1905: Pioneers of Modern Education 1600-1700 has account of C's visit to London etc.

Other encyclopedic works: 1264, Vincent of Beauvais; Alsted; Peter Laurenberg, Pansophia [which "said nothing of Christ, the fount of true wisdom, and nothing of the life to come" and was therefore lacking, Comenius, ODO I.458] 31