128 The history of pedagogy.

The second grade is the elementary public school. All the

children, girls and boys, enter here at six, and leave at

twelve. The characteristic of this school is that the instruc-

tion there given is in the mother tongue, and this is why

Corneuius calls it the "common" school, vernacula, a term

given by the Romans to the language of the people.

The third grade is represented by the Latin school or gym-

nasium. Thither are sent the children from twelve to

eighteen years of age for whom has been reserved a more

complete instruction, such as we would now call secondary

instruction.

Finally, to the fourth grade correspond the academies, that

is, institutions of higher instruction, opened to young men

from eighteen to twenty-four years of age.

The child, if he is able, will traverse these four grades in

succession ; but, in the thought of Corneuius, the studies

should be so arranged in the elementary schools, that in

leaving them, the pupil shall have a general education which

makes it unnecessary for him to go farther, if his condition

in life does not destine him to pursue the courses of the Latin

School.

"We pursue," says Corneuius, " a general education, the

teaching to all men of all the subjects of human concern.

. . . The purpose of the people's school shall be that all

children of both sexes, from the tenth to the twelfth or the

thirteenth .year, may be instructed in that knowledge which

is useful during the whole of life."

This was an admirable definition of the purpose of the

primary school. A thing not less remarkable is that Come-

nius establishes an elementary school in each village : —

"There should be a maternal school in each f arnily ; an

elementary school in each district ; a gymnasium in each

city ; an academy in each kingdom, or even in each consid-

erable province."

PROTESTANTISM AND PRIMARY INSTRUCTION. 129

140. Elementary Initiation into All the Studies. —

One of the most novel and most original ideas of the great

Slavic educator is the wish that, from the earliest years of

his life, the child may acquire some elementary notions of all

the sciences that he is to stud}' at a later period. From the

cradle, the gaze of the infant, guided by the mother, should

be directed to all the objects that surround him, so that his

growing powers of reflection will be brought into play in

working on these sense intuitions. "Thus, from the mo-

ment he begins to speak, the child comes to know himself, and,

by his daily experience, certain general and abstract expres-

sions ; he comes to comprehend the meaning of the words

something, nothing, thus, othertvise, where, similar, different ;

and what are generalizations and the categories expressed by

these words but the rudiments of metaphysics ? In the do-

main of physics, the infant can learn to know water, earth,

air, fire, rain, snow, etc., as well as the names and uses of the

parts of his body, or at least of the external members and

organs. He will take his first lesson in optics in learning to

distinguish light, darkness, and the different colors; and in

astronomy, in noticing the sun, the moon, and the stars, and

in observing that these heavenly bodies rise and set even-

day. In geography, according to the place where he lives,

he will be shown a mountain, a valley, a plain, a river, a

village, a hamlet, a city, etc. In chronology, he will be

taught what an hour is, a day, a week, a year, summer, win-

ter, yesterday, the da}' before yesterday, to-morrow, the day

after to-morrow, etc. History, such as his age will allow him

to conceive, will consist in recalling what has recently passed,

in taking account of it, and in noting the part that this one or

that has taken in such or such an affair. Arithmetic, geom-

etry, statistics, mechanics, will not remain strangers to him.

lie will acquire the elements of these sciences in distinguishing

130 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

the difference between little and much, in learning to count up

to ten, in observing that three is more than two ; that one

added to three makes four ; in learning the sense of the

words great and small, long and short, icicle and narrow,

heavy and light; in drawing lines, curves, circles, etc. ; in

seeing goods measured with a yard-stick ; in weighing an

object in a balance ; in tiding to make something or to take it

to pieces, as all children love to do.

" In this impulse to construct and destroy, there is but the

effort of the little intelligence to succeed in making or build-

ing something for himself ; so that, instead of opposing the

child in this, he should be encouraged and guided."

" The grammar of the first period will consist in learning

to pronounce the mother tongue correctly. The child may

receive elementary notions even of politics, in observing

that certain persons assemble at the city hall, and that they

are called councillors ; and that among these persons there

is one called nmyor, etc. " l

141. The People's School. — Divided into six classes,

the people's school should prepare the child either for active

life or for the higher courses. Comenius sends here not

only the sons of peasants and workmen, but the sons of the

middle class or of the nobility, who will afterwards enter

the Latin school. In other terms , the stucly of Latin is

postponed till the age of twelve ; and up to that period all

children must receive a thorough primary education, which

will comprise, with the mother tongue, arithmetic, geometry,

singing, the salient facts of history, the elements of the nat-

ural sciences, and religion. The latest reforms in secondary

instruction, which, only within a very late period, have post-

iBuisson's Dktionnaire de Ptdugoyie, Article Comenius.

PROTESTANTISM AND PRIMARY INSTRUCTION. 131

poned the study of Latin till the sixth year, 1 and which till

then keep the pupil upon the subjects of primary instruction,

— what are they but the distant echo of the thought of Come-

nius? Let it be noted, too, that the plan of Comenius gave

to its primary school a complete encyclopaedic course of

instruction, which was sufficient for its own ends, but which,

while remaining elementary, was a whole, and not a begin-

ning. 2

Surely, the programme of studies devised by Comenius

did not fail in point of insufficiency ; we may be allowed, on

the contrary, 'to pronounce it too extended, too crowded,

conformed rather to the generous dreams of an innovator than

to a prudent appreciation of what is practically possible ;

and we need not be astonished that, to lighten in part the

heavy burden that is imposed on the teacher, Comenius had

the notion of dividing the school into sections which assist-

ants, chosen from among the best pupils, should instruct

under the supervision of the master.

142. Site of the School. — One is not a complete

educator save on the condition of providing for the exterior

and material organization of the school, as well as for its

moral administration. In this respect, Comenius is still

deserving of our encomiums. He requires a yard for recre-

1 In the French Lyce'es and Colleges the grades are named as follows, be-

ginning with the lowest: " ninth, eighth, seventh, sixth, fifth, fourth, third,

second, rhetoric, philosophy, preparatory mathematics, elementary mathe-

matics, special mathematics." Latin was formerly begun in an earlier

grade.

2 The public school of the European type may be represented by a scries

of (">) pyramids, the second higher than the first, and the third higher than

the second, each independent and complete in itself: while the public school

of the American type is represented by a single pyramid in three sections.

While in an English, French, or German town, public education is admin-

istered in three separate establishments, in an American town there is a

single graded school that fuMUs the same functions. (P.)

132 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

ation, and demands that the school-house have a gay and

cheerful aspect. The question had been discussed before

him by Vives (1492-1540).

"There should be chosen," says the Spanish educator,

"a healthful situation, so that the pupils may not one day

have to take their flight, dispersed by the fear of an epi-

demic. Firm health is necessary to those who would heartily

and profitably apply themselves to the study of the sciences.

And the place selected should be isolated from the crowd,

and especially at a distance from occupations that are

noisy, such as those of smiths, stone-masons, machinists,

wheelwrights, and weavers. However, I would not have the

situation too cheerful and attractive, lest it might suggest to

the scholars the taking of too frequent walks."

But these considerations that do honor to Vives and to

Comenius, were scarcely in harmony with the resources then

at the disposal of the friends of instruction. There was

scarcely occasion seriously to consider how school-houses

should be constructed and situated, at a period when the

most often there were no school-houses existing. " In win-

ter," says Platter, "we slept in the school-room, and in

summer in the open air." *