Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/453



1. have now spoken at length on the necessity of reforming schools and on the methods by which this reformation can be effected. It will not be amiss if we give a brief summary of our ideals and of the means we have proposed for their realisation.

2. Our desire is that the art of teaching be brought to such perfection that there will be as much difference between the old system and the new, as there is between the old method of multiplying books by the pen and the new method introduced by the printing-press; that is to say, the art of printing, though difficult, costly, and complicated, can reproduce books with greater speed, accuracy, and artistic effect, than was formerly possible; and, in the same way, my new method, though its difficulties may be somewhat alarming at first, will produce a greater number of scholars and will give them a better education as well as more pleasure in the process of acquiring it, than did the old lack of method.

3. It is easy to imagine how impracticable the first attempts of the inventor of printing must have appeared, in comparison with the simple use of the pen; but the event showed of what great use the invention was. For, firstly, by means of a printing-machine two youths can now produce more copies of a book than could have been written by two hundred in the same time.