Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/85

 February (1651). On this occasion he delivered his Panegyric of the true method. The second, or Janual class, followed on the 14th of March, and was inaugurated in turn by a lecture On the advantage of an exact nomenclature of objects. The opening of the Atrial class, occasion for a lecture on The elegant study of style, had to be postponed until the January of 1652.

In spite of the enthusiasm with which he had been welcomed on his arrival at Saros-Patak, Comenius’ path of reform was a thorny one. In asking for a seven-class Gymnasium, he had, like a practical man, probably asked for a good deal more than he expected to get, but he experienced great difficulty in obtaining that even the three classes opened should be arranged in accordance with his didactic principles. The teachers of the school, who had been vaguely anxious for an improved method that promised to make their work lighter, were mutinous when they understood the details of the scheme. The introduction of so much orderliness meant for them regular attendance and continuous application, and to this they objected strongly. Chosen from “the crowd of students,” accustomed to attend the lectures of professors and to come into class only in their spare hours, and then with their minds full of other matters, it is small wonder that reform was more congenial to them in principle than in practice. “The task of a schoolmaster needs the whole man, since it consists in fashioning and refashioning the countenance, the hands, the minds, and the hearts of the little ones”; but how could this be expected from men who only intended to remain in the profession for one year, who looked on their occupation as degrading, and meant to leave it as soon as they could find any more lucrative employment? It need scarcely cause surprise