school. Rules are laid down for good behaviour in class, in the streets, and at home. Playing in the streets is forbidden, though the boys are urged to go and play outside the town, first choosing one of their number as a leader. Early rising is recommended, and all are advised to enter in a notebook anything of interest that they may learn from day to day. Dancing is strictly forbidden. “The dance is a circle whose centre is the devil”[1] is the portentous phrase by which the heinousness of the offence was impressed on the boys’ minds.
In the following year a portion of Bechner’s Viridarium, under the title Proplasma Templi Latinitatis, was completed, and was subjected to Comenius’ criticism. As a writer of school-books Bechner was inferior, and the chief value of the work lies in its preface. Comenius, however, must have thought well of it, as he includes it in the Amsterdam Folio (i. 318–345).
In his preface Bechner laments that Latin is learned as a dead and not as a living language. Themistocles learned to speak Persian in a short time by going to Persia, and Ovid picked up Sarmatian rapidly by living at Tomi. Why do we not bear these examples in mind when we teach Latin? A suitable place should be set apart with its own church, school, workshops, and everything necessary for carrying on life. Here boys should be sent to school, and in this community nothing but Latin should be talked. A master must accompany each division of boys to see that the vernacular is completely laid aside. Pictures and carved models of every-day objects are to be exposed to view with their Latin names written under them that the boys may be given every opportunity of absorbing Latinity, and, in addition to this, they should act moral and instructive plays in Latin.[2]
With this last suggestion in view he takes section 5 of the Janua, “De Igne,” and works it up into a series of dialogues of increasing difficulty, all illustrative of the
