The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 3/The Ideal of Universal Education

by Martha Poindexter

The Ideal of Universal Education^[1]

By Martha Poindexter.

Among the many nations that the relatively recent tide of immigration has brought to our country Poles, Czechoslovaks and Italians far outnumber the others.

The Czechoslovaks are in a sense the youngest of the nations, inasmuch as their separate government has only been recognized within the past few months by the governments of the modern world.

Here is the irony of history, one of those curious co-incidences that make us stop with a gasp of astonishment and realize that the gods must sometimes smile at the childish games we would-be wordly-wise children of the 20th century are playing.

Here in America we are preaching, writing, often screaming, of the overwhelming heed of universal education—especially as applied to the newly-arrived strangers from the old world who have come to make part of our civilization. This education, we urge, is essential in order to Americanize them, and yet the corner stone, the principles, the ideals of our own system of education today were laid more than three hundred years ago by one of those Czechs, whom we are endeavoring to “convert” to our ideals in this country.

Comenius, known in his own country as John Amos Komensky, was practically the founder of the highest plans of education which have been in use since the 16th century. His life was given to the advancement of education among his own people, as well as to the teaching of the principles of Christ, as interpreted by the Moravian Church of which he was a faithful pastor for many years.

His road was a stony one and he never attained his great ambition of putting into actual practice his scheme of universal education to all kinds and conditions of men, but the programme he laid down in the early part of the 17th century lies before us to-day as an ideal system, embracing the highest principles of the democracy of the world, as it is understood in this century.

It is significant that while we are preaching his principles we are most of us unfamiliar with his name. A copy of his chief work was requested at a library in New York recently and the librarian said: “Comenius? oh yes, we have his life. Is he coming over to lecture?” The fact that he has been dead since 1672 does not mean, however, that we are not availing ourselves of his teachings, as far as in us lies.

One of his chief principles was the advantage of learning foreign languages, and he insisted that the best way to learn a language was to speak as much of it as one gained by speaking it from day to day, leaving the grammar and rhetoric to follow.

So modern was he, as we interpret the term, that although a devout preacher of the Moravian Church, he was as much a pragmatist as our own William James in his methods. He believed that example had force far stronger than precept and that results were the only proof of effectual effort, physical, mental or moral. He insisted that discipline was intended to prevent a recurrence of the fault corrected by reproof, and that in order to make discipline effective the actual reason for punishment must be made clear to the offender.

He was as much opposed to corporal punishment as the most ardent follower of the Montessori methods to-day, and quite as anxious to make the school a happy pleasure ground for the child, as are the disciples of Froebel in our own Kindergartens. Indeed the first seeds of the modern Kindergarten methods were sown by Comenius and a glance at his noted “School of Infancy” shows very definitely his attitude towards little children and his belief that on their early education rests the foundation of the future state. With him the child was literally the father of the man and the child’s development stood for all that was strongest in the government of the nation.

Comenius plead for the gradual development of the child from infancy to early childhood under the care of his father and mother. He cites, as an instance of the need for a mutual understanding between child and parent, the fact that Themistocles, the wise ruler of Athens, was seen riding astride a long reed, accompanied by his tiny son who had a similar reed which represented their horses; when questioned by a passer-by as to this singular pastime, Themistocles replied: “When you are a father you will understand.” One of our own senators to-day quotes, as an example of the wisdom he learnt from his grandmother, “those days when Grandma was willing to go fishing with me and wait more than an hour for me to catch a small catfish, taught me more than all I learned in lesson time.” So human nature changes very little in fundamental things, for it is a long stretch of time from Themistocles’ day to our own, and Comenius in between held the same faith in the advantage to the child of parental sympathy.

His outline of the great universal education was as follows:

The establishment of one system for all men and women. Can our most advanced suffragists demand more? Do our highest ideals of Democracy go further?

He divided the course of universal education into four periods.

From infancy to six years, the home school and the kindergarten; from child hood to twelve years, the elementary school (our grammar school); adolescence, from twelve to eighteen years. The study of Latin was to begin, (our high school); from eighteen to twenty-four years, university training and travel (our college). He held that a school of infancy should be available everywhere, an elementary school in each village, a Grammar school in each city or town, a University in each province or kingdom.

The three first periods were to be covered by all boys and girls. The university was to be reserved for those of higher ability. But the higher education, like the first periods, was open to all who had the intelligence to learn. Education was a broad ladder for everyone to climb as high as his or her ability would permit.

Comenius was a living illustration of the doctrine of Christ as regards the universal brotherhood of man. He believed that all men had a common divine father and so were entitled to all the best that the world afforded of knowledge which was the road to strength and and true happiness.

His school of infancy was to teach songs, simple counting, the difference between the earth, sun, moon and stars; habits of neatness and politeness. What has our Kindergarten in the next street to offer more than these? The elementary school included instruction in morals, elements of civics, government and economics; geography, especially of one’s own country; history of noted men of past and present, and a knowledge of art. All these were to be learned in the tongue of the country. The Latin, or high school, continued these subjects, with the addition of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, etc.

The University was meant to give instruction in general, or universal knowledge, languages, literature, science and art. Here we also have the most modern conception of vocational schools, as each individual was supposed to choose the course of instruction at the university for which he or she was peculiarly adapted. At the university pupils of exceptional ability were urged to pursue all branches of knowledge, in order that each country should have a rich reserve of teachers of encyclopaedic knowledge to whom the multitudes might come for mental refreshment and instruction.

The education which we are offering to all men and women to-day without regard to race, creed or colour, is but a 20th century attempt to follow in the footsteps of the wise and modest Czech reformer of the 16th century, whose life was given to teaching his fellow men the way to live in order to make their own lives, and consequently their own country, fuller and richer in that wisdom which is more precious than rubies.

That Comenius was abreast of his own times and far ahead of them is shown again and again throughout his writings. It may well make our American women smile, if not blush, to read that “some women would rather be seen carrying a dog or a squirrel in their arms than their own baby”, and again we have a most up-to-date remonstrance against the use of “maddening drink of wine and brandy to ruin the race.” Can Fashion and Prohibition demand a more enthusiastic priest! Even our most approved methods of neurology can go no further than to quote Comenius in saying that “A joyful mind is half-health.”

The latest Nature books can find rich “copy” in his precepts and it is of interest to remember that his Orbis Pictus was the first child’s picture-book. If all American citizens, whatever their native land, would respond to the appeal of Comenius for the need of an universal education, the much longed for peace among nations might perhaps be reached more quickly, through mutual understanding, and he would be alive in his teachings to-day, although he died in 1670 and cannot “come over here to lecture!”

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1. Jan Amos Comenius, the subject of this essay, was born March 28, 1692, and the Czechs who look upon him as one of their greatest men observe his birthday every year, just as Americans honor Washington and Lincoln.