Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/314

 fountain of knowledge that is hidden in the scholars, but instead have watered them with water from other sources. That is to say, they have not shown them the objective world as it exists in itself, but only what this, that, or the other author has written or thought about this or that object, so that he is considered the most learned who best knows the contradictory opinions which many men have held about many things. The result is that most men possess no information but the quotations, sentences, and opinions that they have collected by rummaging about in various authors, and thus piece their knowledge together like a patchwork quilt. “Oh you imitators, you slavish pack!” cries Horace. A slavish pack indeed, and accustomed to carry burdens that are not their own.

24. But why, I ask you, do we allow ourselves to be led astray by the opinions of other men, when what is sought is a knowledge of the true nature of things? Have we nothing better to do than to follow others to their cross-roads and down their by-ways, and to study attentively the deviation that each makes from the right path? O brother mortals! let us hasten to the goal and give up this idle wandering. If our goal be firmly set before us, why should we not hasten to it by the shortest road; why should we use the eyes of other men in preference to our own?

25. The methods by which all branches of knowledge are taught show that it really is the schools that are to blame for this; that they really teach us to see by means of the eyes of others, and to become wise by employing their brains. For these methods do not teach us to discover springs and conduct streams of water from them, but place before us the water that has been drawn off from various authors and teach us to return from these to the springs. For the dictionaries (at least so far as I know, though perhaps with the exception of the one by Cnapius, but even in this one there are some things left to be desired, as will be shown in ) do not teach how to speak but only how to understand; the grammars do not teach how to construct sentences but only how to