Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/426

 ness, and shade, and to know the difference between the principal colours, white, black, red, etc.

5. (iv) The rudiments of astronomy will consist in knowing what is meant by the heavens, the sun, the moon, and the stars, and in watching their rising and their setting daily.

6. (v) We know the elements of geography when we learn the nature of mountains, valleys, plains, rivers, villages, citadels, or states, according to the situation of the place in which we are brought up.

7. (vi) The basis of chronology is laid, if the boy understand what is meant by an hour, a day, a week, or a year; or what summer and winter are; or the signification of the terms “yesterday,” “the day before yesterday,” “to-morrow,” “the day after to-morrow,” etc.

8. (vii) The commencement of history consists in recollecting and reporting what has recently happened, or how this or that person has carried out this or that matter; though this exercise should only relate to some incident in the child’s life.

9. (viii) The seeds of arithmetic will be planted if the child understand what is meant by “much” and “little,” can count up to ten, can see that three are more than two, and that one added to three makes four.

10. (ix) He will possess the elements of geometry if he know what we mean by “large” and “small,” “long” and “short,” “broad” and “narrow,” “thick” and “thin”; what we signify by a line, a cross, or a circle, and how we measure objects in feet and yards.

11. (x) The elements of statics will have been learned if the children see objects weighed in scales, or acquire the power of telling the approximate weight of objects by weighing them in their hands.

12. (xi) They will receive a training in mechanics if they are permitted or are actually taught to employ their hands continually; for instance, to move something from one place to another, to arrange something else in one way or another, to construct something, or to pull something to