Comenius, is perhaps the most noteworthy contribution of Herbart to modern pedagogy; but to summarize Herbart's views on interest would be to summarize his whole theory of education. He recognizes two groups of interests intellectual and social. Two phases of intellectual interests are distinguished: (1) empirical interests, or the pleasures occasioned by disinterested curiosity; (2) speculative interests occasioned by the impulse to search out causal relations; and (3) æsthetic interests aroused through beauties in nature, art, and character. The social interests are likewise threefold: (1) sympathetic or altruistic; (2) social and fraternal; and (3) religious.

Herbart's contribution to empirical psychology, although important, was second to his application of direct pedagogic problems to actual school practicethe working out of his doctrine of many-sided interest, the selection and adjustment of materials of instruction, and the reform of school government and discipline.1

1 See Herbart's Science of education. Translated from the German, with a biographical introduction by Henry M. and Emmie Felkin. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co., 1895. pp. 268.

CHAPTER X

PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF COMENIUS

General neglect of Comenius during the eighteenth centuryCauses Intrenchment of humanism-Summary of the permanent reforms of Comenius - Revived interest in his teachingsNational Comenius pedagogical library at Leipzig-The Comenius Society-Reviews published for the dissemination of the educational doctrines of Comenius-Conquest of his ideas.

THE permanent influence of Comenius remains to be noted. Famous in his own day; enjoying the friendship of great scholars and the confidence of royal personages; the founder of numerous school systems; the author of more than a hundred books and treatises, which were translated into most of the languages of Europe and Asia, the name of the great Moravian reformer was quite if not entirely forgotten, and his writings practically unknown, for more than a century after his death. Professor Nicholas Murray Butler,1 in likening him unto the stream that loses itself in the arid desert and then reappears with gathered force and volume to lend its fertilizing power to the surrounding country, says: "Human history is rich in analogies to this natural phenomenon; but in Comenius the history of education furnishes its example. The great educational revival of our century, and particularly of our generation, has shed the bright light of

1 The place of Comenius in the history of education. Proceedings of the National Education Association for 1892. pp. 723-728.

scholarly investigation into all the dark places, and to-day, at the three hundredth anniversary of his birth, the fine old Moravian bishop is being honored wherever teachers gather together and wherever education is the theme."

The world, which usually takes pause for a moment, when a great man dies, to seriously consider what there was in the dead that lifted him above the ordinary level, took no such inventory when the remains of Comenius were laid at rest in a quiet little town in Holland. "The man whom we unhesitatingly affirm," says Mr. Keatinge, "to be the broadest-minded, the most far-seeing, the most comprehensive, and withal the most practical of all writers who have put pen to paper on the subject of education; the man whose theories have been put into practice in every school that is conducted on rational principles; who embodies the materialistic tendencies of our 'modern side' instructors, while avoiding the narrowness of their reforming zeal; who lays stress on the spiritual aspect of true education, while he realizes the necessity of equipping his pupils for the rude struggle with nature and with fellow-men-Comenius, we say, the prince of schoolmasters, produced, practically, no effect on the school organization and educational development of the following century."

The causes of this universal neglect are not easily explained. That he lived most of his days in exile; that he belonged to a religious community which was numerically insignificant and which suffered all those bitter persecutions following in the train of the Thirty Years' War; that indiscretion entangled him in certain alleged prophetic revelations,

which subsequently turned out the baldest impostures; and, more important than all, as Professor Laurie points out, that schoolmasters did not wish to be disturbed by a man with new ideas, these facts help to explain the universal neglect into which his name and writings fell. In a personal letter, Oscar Browning expresses the belief that if the teachings of Comenius had been dated a century earlier, that the realistic type of education might have been generally followed

- at least in the countries that had broken with the Church of Rome. As it was, however, Melanchthon, the schoolmaster of the Reformation, adopted, with slight modifications, the humanistic type of education. For the time being, at least, the ideas held by Comenius were pushed into the background, and humanism, already deeply intrenched, dominated educational practices. Reformers were not wanting, however, to champion the reforms of Comenius, men like Francke, Rousseau, Basedow, Pestalozzi, Fröbel, and Herbart. But it remained for the nineteenth century to realize, in considerable measure, the aims and aspirations of the far-reaching reforms of the Moravian bishop.

"There is nothing startling about the educational reforms of Comenius to-day," says Professor Earl Barnes. "They are the commonplace talk of all school conventions. But to see them when no one else has formulated them, to enunciate them before an audience often hostile, and to devote a life to teaching them and working them out-this requires a broad mind and something of the spirit of the martyr, and both these elements were strong in Comenius."

In spite of the neglect into which the reforms of

Comenius fell, his influence has been lasting because his work was constructive and his reforms were far reaching. Among the reforms which he advocated (and since incorporated in the modern educational movement), the following may be named:

1. That the purpose of education is to fit for complete living, in consequence of which its benefits must be extended to all classes of society.

2. That education should follow the course and order of nature, and be adapted to the stages of mental development of the child.

3. That intellectual progress is conditioned at every step by bodily vigor, and that to attain the best results, physical exercises must accompany and condition mental training.

4. That children must first be trained in the mother-tongue, and that all the elementary knowledge should be acquired through that medium.

5. That nature study must be made the basis of all primary instruction, so that the child may exercise his senses and be trained to acquire knowledge at first hand.

6. That the child must be wisely trained during its earliest years, for which purpose mothers must be trained for the high and holy mission of instructing little children, and women generally be given more extended educational opportunities.

7. That the school course must be enriched by the addition of such useful studies as geography and history.

8. That the subjects of study must be so correlated and coördinated that they may form a common unit of thought.