e
labyrinth. The mode of demonstration which he adopted was thus, as he
himself called it, the syncretic or analogical. Whatever may be said of
the harmony that exists between the growth of nature and of mind, there
can be no doubt that the observation of the former is capable of
suggesting, if it does not furnish, many of the rules of educational
method.

From the simple to the complex, from the particular to the general, the
concrete before the abstract, and all, step by step, and even by
insensible degrees--these were among his leading principles of method.
But the most important of all his principles was derived from the
scholastic maxim quoted above. As all is from sense, let the thing to be
known be itself presented to the senses, and let every sense be engaged
in the perception of it. When it is impossible, from the nature of the
case, to present the object itself, place a vivid picture of it before
the pupil. The mere enumeration of these few principles, even if we drop
out of view all his other contributions to method and school-management,
will satisfy any man familiar with all the more recent treatises on
education, that Comenius, even after giving his precursors their due, is
to be regarded as the true founder of modern method, and that he
anticipates Pestalozzi and all of the same school.

When we come to consider Comenius' method as applied specially to
language, we recognize its general truth, and the teachers of Europe and
America will now be prepared to pay it the homage of theoretical
approval at least. To admire, however, his own attempt at working out
his linguistic method is impossible, unless we first accept his
encyclopaedism. The very faults with which he charged the school
practices of the time are simply repeated by himself in a new form. The
boy's mind is overloaded with a mass of words--the name and qualities of
everything in heaven, on the earth, and under the earth. It was
impossible that all these things, or even pictures of them, could be
presented to sense, and hence his books must have inflicted a heavy
burden on the merely verbal memory of boys. We want children to grow
into knowledge, not to swallow numberless facts made up into boluses.
Again, the amount that was to be acquired within a given time was beyond
the youthful capacity. Any teacher will satisfy himself of this who will
simply count the words and sentences in the _Janua_ and _Orbis_ of
Comenius, and then try to distribute