Comenius 39 



(2) The truth and certainty of science depend more on the 

 witness of the senses than on anything else, for things impress 

 themselves directly on the senses, but on the understanding only 

 mediately and through the senses. . . It follows, therefore, 

 that if we wish to implant a true and certain knowledge of things 

 in our pupils, we must take special care that everything can be 

 learned by means of actual observation and sensuous perception. 



(3) Since the senses are the most trusty servants of the 

 memory, this method of sensuous perception, if universally ap- 

 plied, will lead to the permanent retention of knowledge that has 

 once been acquired. (Didactica Magna: XX.) 



There are obviously for Comenius two very significant aspects 

 of the method of education, one dealing with materials, and the 

 other concerned with processes. In his other works, such as the 

 " Janua Linguarum," the " Janua Rerum," and the " Orbis Pic- 

 tus," Comenius had fully considered the material of education, as 

 well as in the specific chapters of the " Didactica Magna " which 

 deal with the sciences, the arts, languages, and morals. In every 

 case the processes of nature are to be paralleled, so that the 

 theory of education requires as an introductory discipline on the 

 part of the teacher a knowledge of the phenomena of nature. 

 Comenius embodies in an admirable way the first tentative efforts 

 towards the functional conception of education as a phase of 

 human experience. 



" Perfect knowledge of an object," he says, when speaking of 

 the method of the sciences, " can only be obtained by acquiring 

 a knowledge of the nature and function of each of its parts." 

 He insists throughout his works upon the importance of knowl- 

 edge in the experience of the individual, and his interpretation 

 of the method of the learning process involves both the genetic 

 and the teleological points of view. From the former, he em- 

 phasises the necessity of teaching all things through their causal 

 relations, and especially through a knowledge of the genetic 

 stages in the process of their development. From the latter 

 point of view Comenius holds that before anything can be truly 

 known the general principles underlying it must be understood. 

 Such knowledge we arrive at by answering the questions What? 

 Of what kind? and Why? The answer to the first gives us the 

 fact or function under consideration ; the second gives us the 



