letter to John Valentine Andreae,[1] whose works, both religious and educational, he had read with great interest. Andreae, who was then pastor of the church at Calva in the Duchy of Wittemberg, sent a prompt reply, but only to the effect that he was too old to pronounce an opinion on such matters. Greatly disappointed, Comenius wrote again, but, though the answer that he elicited was long and sympathetic, it contained nothing that could help him to put his ideas into shape.
Of greater use were the didactic works of Rhenius, Ritter, and Glaum[2] that now came into his hands.[3] These writers were loud in their complaints of contemporary education, and turned a search-light on the defective arrangements that Comenius saw daily in the Gymnasium. Less stimulating, perhaps, but of more definite assistance, were the writings of Eilhard Lubin and of C. Vogel. Lubin, a friend of Andreae’s, had been elected Professor of Theology at Rostock in 1605, and had brought out a parallel edition of the New Testament in Latin and Greek, to which he had prefixed some hints on the teaching of Latin to boys.[4] Vogel, who was head-master of the Paedagogium at Göttingen, had drawn up a scheme of instruction in Latin in which he had specified the daily task for twelve months. The student was to commence by learning a list of simple words, arranged in alphabetical order with the German meanings attached, and was then to aid his memory by combining these words into sentences. In this way he claimed that a boy of moderate intelligence, by working only two hours daily, could easily learn the whole Latin language in one year. The system was probably in Comenius’ thoughts when he devised the
- ↑ Op. Did. Omn. ii. 283.
- ↑ In 1628 Gabriel Holstein had expounded Glaum’s method under the title “Divinæ Glaumianæ Methodi Specimina,” and claimed that any language could, by its aid, be learned in six months. “But,” says Comenius, “hanc methodum prodiise [sic] non vidimus,” ii. 86, 87.
- ↑ Comenius ad Palatinum Belzensem.—Ep. Com. Mus. Boh. [Kvacsala.]
- ↑ Consilium de latina lingua compendiose a pueris addiscenda.
