Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/81

 It was only in the introduction to the Vestibulum that the material was worked up into sentences. Comenius’ didactic principles had led him to think that it was a mistake to begin with sentences, no matter how simple. The body of the work, therefore, consisted of lists of words, arranged under the various headings of the Vestibulum, and these the child had to learn, preparatory to employing them later on. The Janua did not undergo so much alteration. In its new form the plan of not repeating individual words was abandoned; it was not written, as was the first edition, with special reference to the Bohemian language, and some fresh chapters, embodying an account of the world’s chief religions, were added.

The grammar composed for the Janua does Comenius little credit. It is far too long (it occupies sixty-three folio pages), it abounds in divisions, subdivisions, and such-like complications, and is thus totally at variance with the rules laid down in the Great Didactic. It is followed by some notes for the teachers who used it.

In the midst of his varied activity Comenius had ever kept his eyes fixed on one beacon light, and this was the triumphant return of the Bohemian Protestants to their fatherland. To this end he had devised plans for school-organisation, church discipline, social reform, and what not. For this he had courted Sweden and waited in Oxenstierna’s antechamber; for this he had buried himself at Elbing, and had spent the best part of six years in doing what he detested, writing school-books; for this he had pocketed his pride and eaten another’s bread; for this he had borne de Geer’s petulant humours and inconsiderate arrogance. And now it all proved to be in vain. The Thirty Years’ War was at an end. In 1648 the Peace of Westphalia had been ratified at Münster and at Osnabrück, and, while religious toleration had been granted to the Protestants in general, it had not been extended to the Bohemian Brethren. These found themselves as far as ever from the return to their beloved country.