Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/421



1. 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