expresses willingness to be satisfied if men know the principles, the causes, and the uses of all things in existence. It is general culture - something about a great many things-that he demands.

Comenius clearly saw that the conditions of educational institutions were wholly inadequate for the realization of these purposes — (1) because of an insufficient number of schools, and (2) because of the unscientific character of current methods of instruction. The exhortations of Martin Luther, he observes, remedied the former shortcoming, but it remains for the future to improve the latter.

The best intellects are ruined by unsympathetic and unpedagogic methods. Such great severity characterizes the schools that they are looked upon as terrors for the boys and shambles for their intellects. Most of the students contract a dislike for learning, and many leave school altogether. The few who are forced by parents and guardians to remain acquire a most preposterous and wretched sort of education, so that instead of tractable lambs, the schools produce wild asses and restive mules. Nothing could be more wretched than the discipline of the schools. "What should be gently instilled into the intellect is violently impressed upon it, nay, rather flogged into it. How many, indeed, leave the schools and universities with scarcely a notion of true learning." Comenius laments that he and many thousands of his contemporaries have miserably lost the sweet springtime of life and wasted the fresh years of youth on scholastic trifles.

Education according to Nature

Comenius proposes to so reconstruct systems of education that (1) all shall be educated, except those to whom God has denied understanding, in all those subjects calculated to make men wise, virtuous, and pious; (2) the course of training, being a preparation for life, shall be completed before maturity is attained; (3) and schools shall be conducted without blows, gently and pleasantly, in the most natural manner. Bold innovator! How clearly he perceived the faults of the schools of his day; with what keen insight he formulated methods for their improvement; and with what hope in the reform which has gone forward steadily for these two hundred and seventy-five years, but which even now is far from being an accomplished fact!

The basis of the reform which he advocates is an application of the principle of order-order in the management of time, in the arrangement of subjects taught, and in the methods employed. Nature furnishes us a criterion for order in all matters pertaining to the improvement of human society. Certain universal principles, which are fundamental to his philosophy of education, are deduced from nature. These, stripped of their tedious examples and details,

are:

1. Nature observes a suitable time.

2. She prepares the material before she attempts to give it form.

3. She chooses a fit subject to act upon, or first submits her subject to a suitable treatment in order to make it fit.

4. She is not confused in her operations; but, in her onward march, advances with precision from one point to another.

5. In all the operations of nature, development is from within.

6. In her formative processes, she begins with the universal and ends with the particular.

7. Nature makes no leaps, but proceeds step by step.

8. When she begins a thing, she does not leave off until the operation is completed.

9. She avoids all obstacles that are likely to interfere with her operations.

With nature as our guide, Comenius believes that the process of education will be easy, (1) if it is begun before the mind is corrupted; (2) if the mind is prepared to receive it; (3) if we proceed from the general to the particular, from what is easy to what is more complex; (4) if the pupils are not overburdened with too many different studies; (5) if the instruction is graded to the stages of the mental development of the learners; (6) if the interests of the children are consulted and their intellects are not forced along lines for which they have no natural bent; (7) if everything is taught through the medium of the senses; (8) if the utility of instruction is emphasized; and (9) if everything is taught by one and the same method.

Nature begins by a careful selection of materials, therefore education should commence early; the pupils should not have more than one teacher in each subject, and before anything else is done, the morals should be rendered harmonious by the teacher's influence.

Nature always makes preparation for each advance

step; therefore, the desire to know and to learn should be excited in children in every way possible, and the method of instruction should lighten the drudgery, that there may be nothing to hinder progress in school studies.

Nature develops everything from beginnings which, though insignificant in appearance, possess great potential strength; whereas, the practice of most teachers is in direct opposition to this principle. Instead of starting with fundamental facts, they begin with a chaos of diverse conclusions.

Nature advances from what is easy to what is more difficult. It is, therefore, wrong to teach the unknown through the medium of that which is equally unknown. Such errors may be avoided if pupils and teachers talk in the same language and explanations are given in the language that the pupil understands; if grammars and dictionaries are adapted in the language and to the understanding of the pupils; if, in the study of a foreign language, the pupils first learn to understand it, then to write it, and lastly to speak it; if in such study the pupils get to know first that which is nearest to their mental vision, then that which lies moderately near, then that which is more remote, and lastly that which is farthest off; and if children be made to exercise first their senses, then their memory, and finally their understanding.

Nature does not overburden herself, but is content with a little at a time; therefore the mental energies of the pupils should not be dissipated over a wide range of subject-matter.

Nature advances slowly; therefore school sessions should be shortened to four hours; pupils should be

forced to memorize as little as possible; school instruction should be graded to the ages and capacities of the children.

Nature compels nothing to advance that is not driven forward by its own mature strength; therefore it follows that nothing should be taught to children not demanded by their age, interests, and mental ability.

Nature assists her operations in every possible manner; therefore children should not be punished for inability to learn. Rather, instruction should be given through the senses that it may be retained in the memory with less effort.

Nothing is produced by nature the practical application of which is not evident; therefore those things only should be taught whose application can be easily demonstrated.

Nature is uniform in all her operations; hence the same method of instruction should be adapted to all subjects of study, and the text-books in each subject should, as far as possible, be of the same editions.

Comenius observes that there is a very general complaint that few leave school with a thorough education, and that most of the instruction retained in after life is little more than a mere shadow of true knowledge. He considers that the complaint is well corroborated by facts, and attributes the cause to the insignificant and unimportant studies with which the schools occupy themselves. If we would correct this evil, we must go to the school of nature and investigate the methods she adopts to give endurance to the beings which she has created.

A method should be found by means of which each person will be able not only to bring into his mental