THE 'JANUA LINGUARUM.'

65

titles and 1058 periods. In Latin first, and now, as a token of thankfulness, brought to light in Latine, English, and French, in the behalfe of the most illustrious Prince Charles, and of British, French, and Irish youth. The 4th edition, much enlarged, by the labour and industry of John Anchoran, Licentiate in Divinity, London. Printed by Edward Griffin for Michael Sparke, dwelling at the Blew Bible in Green Arbor, 1639.'

In the preface to this volume we have the complaint which has reproduced itself in various forms up to the present time, that the youth was delayed with grammar precepts infinitely tedious, perplexed, obscure, and (for the most part) unprofitable, and that for many years.' From this barren region the pupil was to escape to become acquainted with things. 'Come on,' says the teacher in the opening dialogue: let us go forth into the open air. There you shall view whatsoever God produced from the beginning, and doth yet effect by nature. Afterwards we will go into towns, shops, schools, where you shall see how men do both apply those Divine works to their uses, and also instruct themselves in arts, manners, tongues. Then we will enter into houses, courts, and palaces of princes, to see in what manner communities of men are governed. At last we will visit temples, where you shall observe how diversely mortals seek to worship their Creator and to be spiritually united unto Him, and how He by His Almightiness disposeth all things.' (This is from the 1656 edition, by W.D.') The book is still amusing, but only from the quaint manner in which the mode of life two hundred years

F

6

ago is described.

will find a specimen.

In appendix (p. 308) the reader

But though parts of the book may on first reading have gratified the youth of the seventeenth century, a great deal of it gave scanty information about difficult subjects, such as physiology, geometry, logic, rhetoric, and that too in the driest and dullest way. Moreover, Comenius boasts that no important word occurs twice; so that the book, to attain the end of giving a perfect stock of Latin words, would have to be read and re-read till it was almost known by heart; and however amusing boys might find an account of their toys written in Latin the first time of reading, the interest would somewhat wear away by the fifth or sixth time. We cannot then feel much surprised on reading this 'general verdict,' written some thirty years later, touching those earlier works of Comenius:

They are of singular use, and very advantageous to those of more discretion (especially to such as have already got a smattering in Latin), to help their memories to retain what they have scatteringly gotten here and there, and to furnish them with many words which perhaps they had not formerly read or so well observed; but to young children, as those that are ignorant altogether of most things and words, they prove rather a mere toil and burden than a delight and furtherance.*

The 'Janua' would, therefore, have had but a shortlived popularity with teachers, and a still shorter with learners, if Comenius had not carried out his principle of appealing to the senses, and called in the artist. The result was the 'Orbis Pictus,' a book which proved * Hoole's preface to his trans. of Orbis Pictus.

6

THE ORBIS PICTUS.'

67

a favourite with young and old, and maintained its ground in many a school for more than a century. The Orbis' was in substance the same as the 'Janua' though abbreviated, but it had this distinctive feature, that each subject was illustrated by a small engraving, in which everything named in the letter-press below was marked with a number, and its name was found connected with the same number in the text. I am sorry I cannot give a specimen of this celebrated book with its quaint pictures. The artist, of course, was wanting in the technical skill which is now commonly displayed even in very cheap publications, but this renders his delineations none the less entertaining. As a picture of the life and manners of the seventeenth century, the work has great historical interest, which will, I hope, secure for it another English edition; especially as the last (that of 1777, reprinted in America in 1812), which is now occasionally to be met with, is far inferior to those of an earlier date.

In the beginning of the tract to Hartlib, Milton would seem to deny that he had learned anything from Comenius. Whether this is his meaning or not, he gives expression in the tract to the principle of which Comenius was the great exponent. 'Because one's understanding cannot in this body found itself but on sensible things, nor arrive so clearly to the knowledge of God and things invisible as by orderly conning over the visible and inferior creature, the same method is necessarily to be followed in all discreet teaching.' This conviction, which bore fruit in the Baconian philosophy, was systematically brought to bear by Comenius on the instruction of youth.

IV.

LOCKE.

AMONG the writers on education and inventors of new methods, there are only two Englishmen who have a European celebrity-Locke and Hamilton. The latter of these did, in fact, little more than carry out a suggestion of the former, so that almost all the influence which England has had on the theory of education must be attributed to Locke alone. Locke's authority in this subject has indeed been due chiefly to his fame as a philosopher. His 'Thoughts on Education,' had they proceeded from an unknown author, would probably have never gained him a reputation even in his native country; and yet, when we read them as the work of the great philosopher, we feel that they are not unworthy of him. He was no enthusiast, conscious of a mission to renovate the human race by some grand educational discovery, but as a man of calm good sense, who found himself encharged with the bringing up of a young nobleman, he examined the ordinary education of the day, and when it proved unsatisfactory, he set about such alterations as seemed expedient. His thoughts were written for the advice of a friend, and, as we may infer from the title, are not intended as a complete treatise. The book, however, has placed its author in the first rank of those

AGAINST PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

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innovators whose innovations, after a struggle of two hundred years, have not been adopted, and yet seem now more than ever likely to make their way.

Locke's thoughts were concerned exclusively with the training of a young gentleman, at a time when gentlemen were a caste having little in common with 'the abhorred rascality.' The education of those of inferior station might be of interest and importance to individuals, but the nation was chiefly concerned with the bringing up of its gentlemen.

That most to be taken care of,' he writes, "is the gentleman's calling; for if those of that rank are by their education once set right, they will quickly bring all the rest into order.'

Locke would have the education of a gentleman entrusted to a tutor. His own experience had made him no friend to grammar-schools, and while he admits the inconveniences of home education, he makes light of them in comparison with the dangers of a system in which the influence of schoolmates is greater than that of schoolmasters. Locke's argument is this: It is the business of the master to train the pupils in virtue and good manners, much more than to communicate learning. This function, however, must of necessity be neglected in schools. 'Not that I blame the schoolmaster in this, or think it to be laid to his charge. The difference is great between two or three pupils in the same house and three or fourscore boys lodged up and down; for let the master's industry and skill be never so great, it is impossible that he should have fifty or a hundred scholars under his eye any longer than they are in the school