Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/419

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
OF SCHOOL DISCIPLINE
405

that is to say, that they may love and reverence their masters, and not merely allow themselves to be led in the right direction, but actually tend towards it of their own accord.

This training of the character can only be accomplished in the above-mentioned ways: by good example, by gentle words, and by continually taking a sincere and undisguised interest in the pupil. Sudden bursts of anger should only be used in exceptional circumstances, and then with the intention that renewed good feeling shall be the result.

11. For (to give one more example) did any one ever see a goldsmith produce a work of art by the use of the hammer alone? Never. It is easier to cast such things than to beat them out, and, if any excrescence have to be removed, it is not by violent blows that the artificer gets rid of it, but by a series of gentle taps, or by means of a file or a pair of forceps; while he completes the operation by polishing and smoothing his work. And do we believe that irrational force will enable us to produce intelligent beings, images of the living God?

12. A fisherman, too, who catches fish in deep waters with a drag-net, not only fastens on pieces of lead to sink it, but also attaches corks to the other end of it, that it may rise to the surface of the water. In the same way whoever wishes to ensnare the young in the nets of virtue, must, on the one hand, humble and abase them by severity, and, on the other, exalt them by gentleness and affection. Happy are the masters who can combine these two extremes! Happy are the boys who find such masters!

13. Here we may quote the opinion which that great man, Eilhard Lubinus, doctor of theology, has expressed on the reform of schools in the preface to his edition of the New Testament in Greek, Latin, and German—

“The second point is this: the young should never be compelled to do anything, but their tasks should be of such a kind and should be set them in such a way that they will do them of their own accord, and take pleasure