Comenius Project

Description

John Amos Comenius  ( March 28, 1592 – November 15, 1670)  was a European Educator from Moravia, who wrote an important series of school textbooks for learning Latin. These were textbooks covering the complete curriculum, as he devised it. The textbooks were written in Latin, and come in a gradated series. The aim of these textbooks was to get the students to become fluent in Latin, as school was taught in Latin - but the textbooks were not all LATIN textbooks, but general schoolbooks, covering the subjects we now recognise as history, politics, the sciences, &c. The goal of learning Latin was combined with general scholarship, so the reader was not just learning the language, but useful information about the world as well, at the same time.

As such, these books are of enormous utility to the student of Latin, as they cover areas of knowledge with which we are somewhat familiar, and they provide a wealth of vocabulary, and knowledge about real things in the world – while at the same time giving us an insight into the mindset of the Renaissance, in a manner that no amount of academic study can give us – for by studying the course outlined by these textbooks, we become one of Comenius’ students, and are transported back in time. At the same time, we build up and strengthen our Latin.

Comenius' textbooks were very famous, and some editions remained in active classroom use until the early 1800's. Most editions are bilingual (Latin plus some other European language, including Hebrew and Classical Greek), some are trilingual or more, with the text running in parallel columns -  such a text is a veritable Rosetta Stone for learning Latin. One of the online texts you can access has parallel translations in German, Polish, French, and Czech.

Original URL

http://www.e.millner.btinternet.co.uk/languages/Comenius01.html

http://www.e.millner.btinternet.co.uk/languages/Comenius01.html