Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/777

Rh undertaking, as far as respects any established instruction. The school, which was opened June 21, 1619, received the censure of the school inspectors on July 28th of the same year, and in October the reformer was cast into prison. Among the ideas generally accredited to Ratich as his own, the following are significant: "Education is a common, thorough-going work, and no one is to be shut out from it; every one must, at least, be capable of reading and writing. The young may be instructed in only one language or study at the same time; before this has been learned, they may not take up another. Everything must proceed according to the order of Nature, who, in all her arrangements, is wont to advance from the simpler and lower to the larger and higher. All subjects must be proceeded with in a twofold manner: first, they must be seized in outline or abbreviation; afterward, they should be comprehended and taught with more complete instruction." This brief account of Ratich furnishes clear evidence that attention was now given to education in remarkable degree. It shows the presence of new and true principles in the educational question, as witness the last quotations. Further, this account strikingly confirms our statements in the first paper, where the distinction was drawn between a scientific treatment of education and an enunciation of educational principles.

We now, and for the first time, meet an avowed attempt to treat education philosophically—that is, to apply ideas concerning man's nature to his education. This attempt was made by John Amos Comenius, born at Comnia, in Moravia, 1592. Comenius was every way great-minded, and had it thoroughly in him to teach. All philosophy has been and will continue to be distinguished by two fundamentally opposed methods. For our present purpose, we may characterize these methods by the terms intuitive and experimental. According to the first method, man, in his spiritual nature, contains the truth—is the truth. The idea, the reason, is alone permanent and real. According to the second method, man is dependent on an external world for the origin, continuance, and verification of all his knowledge. As related through the senses to nature, man is capable of reasoning and of correcting his conclusions. He brings no knowledge with him into the world. He is a power, or series of powers, to be awakened through the senses. It was the mission of Comenius to apply this inductive, experimental method to education.

For him, therefore, there was but one procedure in education, viz., development of the natural capacities. Education was an unfolding, not of original knowledge but of original powers, and this by such means as the senses furnished. A moment's reflection shows that his method directly antagonizes middle-age, Lutheran, and Calvinistic orthodoxy. The point of antagonism is the doctrine of man's condition as produced by the fall. Original sin had made man through and through bad, good for—nothing; how, then, could any