The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius/The Great Didactic/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
A MAN CAN MOST EASILY BE FORMED IN EARLY YOUTH, AND CANNOT BE FORMED PROPERLY EXCEPT AT THIS AGE
1. From what has been said it is evident that the circumstances of men and of trees are similar. For, as a fruit tree (an apple, a pear, a fig, or a vine) is able to grow from its own stock and of its own accord, while a wild tree will not bring forth sweet fruits until it be planted, watered, and pruned by a skilled gardener, so does a man grow of his own accord into a human semblance (just as any brute resembles others of his own class), but is unable to develope into a rational, wise, virtuous, and pious creature, unless virtue and piety are first engrafted in him. We will now show that this must take place while the plants are young.
2. From the human point of view there are six reasons for this. First, the uncertainty of our present life. For that we must leave it is certain, but when and how is uncertain. And that any should be snatched away unprepared is a danger greatly to be dreaded, since a man is thus doomed eternally. For, just as a man must go through life without a limb if he leave his mother’s womb bereft of it, so, if, when we leave this world, our minds have not been moulded to the knowledge of and participation in God, there will be no further opportunity given us. And therefore, as the matter is of such importance, the greatest haste is necessary, lest any man be lost.
3. And although death be far off and a long life be assured, the formation of character should none the less begin early, because life must be spent not in learning but in acting. We should therefore be prepared for the actions of life as soon as possible, since we may be compelled to desist from action before we have learned our lesson properly. Indeed, if any wish to devote his life to learning, the multitude of objects which the Creator has placed before his happy gaze is infinite, and, if he chance to have a life like Nestor’s, he will find his most useful occupation in discerning the treasures of divine wisdom that the Creator has provided, and in thus preparing for himself the bulwarks of a happy life. Man’s senses, therefore, must be early brought to bear on the world that surrounds him, since throughout his whole life he has much to learn, to experience, and to accomplish.
4. It is the nature of everything that comes into being, that while tender it is easily bent and formed, but that, when it has grown hard, it is not easy to alter. Wax, when soft, can be easily fashioned and shaped; when hard it cracks readily. A young plant can be planted, transplanted, pruned, and bent this way or that. When it has become a tree these processes are impossible. New-laid eggs, when placed under a hen, grow warm quickly and produce chickens; when they are old they will not do so. If a rider wish to train a horse, a ploughman an ox, a huntsman a dog or a hawk, a bear-leader a bear for dancing, or an old woman a magpie, a raven, or a crow, to imitate the human voice, they must choose them for the purpose when quite young; otherwise their labour is wasted.
5. It is evident that this holds good with man himself. His brain, which we have already compared to wax, because it receives the images of external objects that present themselves to its organs of sense, is, in the years of childhood, quite wet and soft, and fit for receiving all images that come to it. Later on, as we find by experience, it grows hard and dry by degrees, so that things are less readily impressed or engraved upon it. Hence Cicero’s remark, “Boys pick up countless things with rapidity.” In the same way it is only in the years of boyhood, when the muscles are still capable of being trained, that the hands and the other members can be trained to produce skilled work. If a man is to become a good writer, painter, tailor, smith, cabinet-maker, or musician, he must apply himself to the art from his early youth, when the imagination is active and the fingers flexible: otherwise he will never produce anything. If piety is to take root in any man’s heart, it must be engrafted while he is still young; if we wish any one to be virtuous, we must train him in early youth; if we wish him to make great progress in the pursuit of wisdom, we must direct his faculties towards it in infancy, when desire burns, when thought is swift, and when memory is tenacious. “An old man who has still to learn his lessons is a shameful and ridiculous object; training and preparation are for the young, action for the old” (Seneca, Epist. 36).
6. In order that man may be fashioned to humanity, God has granted him the years of youth, which are unsuitable for everything but education. While the horse, the ox, the elephant, and other beasts, mere animated masses, come to maturity in a few years, man alone scarcely does so in twenty or thirty. Now, if any imagine that this arises from chance or from some accidental cause or other, he surely betrays his folly. To all other things, forsooth, God has meted out their periods, while in the case of man alone, the lord of all, He allows them to be fixed by chance! Or are we to suppose that nature finds it easier to complete the formation of man by slow processes? Nature, who with no trouble can produce vaster bodies in a few months. We can only suppose, therefore, that the Creator, of deliberate intent, interposed the delay of youth, in order that our period of training might be longer; and ordained that for some time we should take no part in the action of life, that, for the rest of our lives, and for eternity, we might be the more fitted to do so.
7. In man, that alone is lasting which has been imbibed in early youth, as is clear from the same examples. A jar, even though broken, preserves the odour with which it was imbued when new. When a tree is young its branches spread out all round it, and remain in this position for hundreds of years, until it is cut down. Wool is so tenacious of the colour with which it is first dyed, that it cannot be bleached. The wooden hoop of a wheel, which has been bent into a curve, will break into a thousand pieces rather than return to straightness. And similarly, in a man, first impressions cling so fast that nothing but a miracle can remove them. It is therefore most prudent that men be shaped to the standard of wisdom in early youth.
8. Finally, it is most dangerous if a man be not imbued with the cleanly precepts of life from his very cradle. For, when the external senses begin to fulfil their functions, the mind of man cannot remain at rest, and, if not engaged with what is useful, it occupies itself with the vainest and even with harmful things (a process which is assisted by the evil examples of a corrupt age), while later on, if it wish to unlearn what it has acquired, it finds this impossible or very difficult; as we have already shown. Hence the world is full of enormities which neither the civil magistrates nor the ministers of the Church are able to quell, since no serious attention is given to the source from which the evil flows.
9. If, then, each man have the welfare of his own children at heart, and if that of the human race be dear to the civil and ecclesiastical guardians of human affairs, let them hasten to make provision for the timely planting, pruning, and watering of the plants of heaven, that these may be prudently formed to make prosperous advances in letters, virtue, and piety.