The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius/The Great Didactic/Chapter 27

by Johan Amos Comenius

CHAPTER XXVII

OF THE FOURFOLD DIVISION OF SCHOOLS, BASED ON AGE AND ACQUIREMENTS

1. Artisans are accustomed to fix certain limits of time for the training of an apprentice (two, three, or seven years), according to the ease or difficulty of the trade. Within these limits a complete training can be had, and those apprentices who have completed the course become, first, journeymen, and then master-workmen. The same system must be adopted in school organisation, and distinct periods of time must be mapped out for the acquirement of arts, sciences, and languages respectively. In this way we may cover the whole range of human knowledge within a certain number of years, and may possess true learning, true morality, and true piety by the time we leave the forging-places of humanity.

2. In order that this goal may be reached, the whole period of youth must be devoted to the cultivation of the intellect (and by this we do not mean that one art only, but that all the liberal arts and all the sciences should be acquired). The process should begin in infancy and should continue until the age of manhood is reached; and this space of twenty-four years should be divided into well-defined periods. In this we must follow the lead of nature. For experience shows that a man’s body continues to grow up to his twenty-fifth year, and that after this it only increases in strength; and we must conclude that this slow rate of increase has been accorded to man by the forethought of God (for the larger bodies of animals attain their full growth in a few months, or in a couple of years at most) that he may have the more time to prepare himself for the duties of life.

3. The whole period, therefore, must be divided into four distinct grades: infancy, childhood, boyhood, and youth, and to each grade six years and a special school should be assigned.

I.	For infancy	$\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$	the school should be	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	The mother’s knee.
II.	For childhood				The Vernacular-School.
III.	For boyhood				The Latin-School or Gymnasium.
IV.	For youth				The University and travel.

A Mother-School should exist in every house, a Vernacular-School in every hamlet and village, a Gymnasium in every city, and a University in every kingdom or in every province.

4. These different schools are not to deal with different subjects, but should treat the same subjects in different ways, giving instruction in all that can produce true men, true Christians, and true scholars; throughout graduating the instruction to the age of the pupil and the knowledge that he already possesses. For, according to the laws of this natural method, the various branches of study should not be separated, but should be taught simultaneously, just as the various parts of a tree increase together at every period of its growth.

5. The difference between these schools is threefold. Firstly, in the earlier schools everything is taught in a general and undefined manner, while in those that follow the information is particularised and exact; just as a tree puts forth more branches and shoots each successive year, and grows stronger and more fruitful.

6. Secondly, in the Mother-School the external senses should be exercised and taught to distinguish the objects that surround them. In the Vernacular-School, the internal senses, the imagination and the memory, in combination with their cognate organs, should be trained, and this by reading, writing, painting, singing, counting, measuring, weighing, and committing various things to memory. In the Latin-School the pupil should be trained to understand and pass judgment on the information collected by the senses, and this by means of dialectic, grammar, rhetoric, and the other sciences and arts that are based on principles of causation Finally, to the University belong those subjects that have special relation to the will, namely, the faculties, of which theology teaches us to restore harmony to the soul; philosophy, to the mind; medicine, to the vital functions of the body; and jurisprudence, to our external affairs.

7. Our faculties are best developed in the following manner. The objects should first be placed before the organs of sense on which they act. Then the internal senses should acquire the habit of expressing in their turn the images that result from the external sensation, both internally by means of the faculty of recollection, and externally with the hand and tongue. At this stage the mind can begin to operate, and, by the processes of exact thought, can compare and estimate all objects of knowledge. In this way an acquaintance with nature and a sound judgment may be obtained. Last of all, the will (which is the guiding principle in man) makes its power felt in all directions. To attempt to cultivate the will before the intellect (or the intellect before the imagination, or the imagination before the faculty of sense perception) is mere waste of time. But this is what those do who teach boys logic, poetry, rhetoric, and ethics before they are thoroughly acquainted with the objects that surround them. It would be equally sensible to teach boys of two years old to dance, though they can scarcely walk. Let our maxim be to follow the lead of nature in all things, to observe how the faculties develope one after the other, and to base our method on this principle of succession.

8. A third difference between the schools is this. The Mother-School and the Vernacular-School embrace all the young of both sexes. The Latin-School gives a more thorough education to those who aspire higher than the workshop; while the University trains up the teachers and learned men of the future, that our churches, schools, and states may never lack suitable leaders.

9. These four classes of schools may be compared to the four seasons of the year. The Mother-School recalls the gentle spring, filled with the varied scent of flowers. The Vernacular-School represents the summer that spreads before our eyes its full ears and early fruit. The Latin-School corresponds to autumn, for here the fruit in the fields and vineyards is collected and stored away in the granaries of our mind. And last of all, the University may be compared to the winter, when we prepare for various uses the fruit already collected, that we may have sufficient to sustain us for the rest of our lives.

10. Our method of education may also be compared to the various stages in the growth of a tree. The boys who are six years of age and are tenderly cared for by their parents are like shoots that have been carefully planted, have taken root, and are beginning to put forth buds. At twelve years of age they are like a young tree that is covered with branches and buds, though it is as yet uncertain how these will develope. At eighteen years of age, youths well instructed in languages and arts are like trees covered with blossoms that are pleasant to see and to smell, and at the same time give promise of fruit. And finally, at twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, young men, who have been thoroughly educated at a university, resemble a tree covered with fruit that can be plucked and used when it is required.

But we must now examine the several stages in detail.