United States or Bulgaria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Not only may he have had to do with the importation of Comenius's Janua Linguarum and the recommendation of that book to such pedagogues as Home and Anchoran; but he was instrumental in extracting from Comenius, while that book and certain appendices to it were in the flush of their first European popularity, a summary of his reserved and more general theories and intentions in the field of Didactics.
Howes was tolerant also, not from want of faith, but from depth of it. "The relation of your fight with the Indians I have read in print, but of the fight among yourselves, bellum linguarum the strife of tongues, I have heard much, but little to the purpose.
But, since the publication of the Janua Linguarum, Hartlib had been in correspondence with Comenius in his Polish home; and, by 1636, his interest in the designs of Comenius, and willingness to forward them, had become so well known in the circle of the admirers of Comenius that he had been named as one of the five chief Comenians in Europe, the other four being Zacharias Schneider of Leipsic, Sigismund Evenius of Weimar, John Mochinger of Dantzic, and John Docemius of Hamburg.
In that year a Thomas Home, M.A., then a schoolmaster in London, but afterwards Master of Eton, put forth a "Janua Linguarum" which is said by Anthony Wood to have been taken, "all or most," from Comenius.
Comenius was sure that due drill in this book would put a boy in effective possession of Latin for all purposes of reading, speaking, and writing. And, of course, by translation, the same manual would serve for any other language. Comenius rather smiled at the rush of all Europe upon his Janua Linguarum, or Method for Teaching Languages.
Swedish, Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hungarian; but it was translated, as we have learnt, into such Asiatic tongues as the Arabic, the Turkish, the Persian, and even the Mongolian." The process which Comenius thus describes must have extended over several years. There are traces of knowledge of him, and of his Janua Linguarum Reserata, in England as early as 1633.
This was a so-called "Janua Linguarum Reserata," or "Gate of Languages Opened," propounding a method which he had devised, and had employed at Leszno, for rapidly teaching Latin, or any other tongue, and at the same time communicating the rudiments of useful knowledge. The little book, though he thought it a trifle, made him famous.
Comenius himself actually wrote a Vestibulum for Latin, consisting of 427 short sentences, and directions for their use; and, as we know, his Janua Linguarum Reserata, which appeared in 1631, was the publication which made him famous. It is an application of his system to Latin.
Again Comenius introduced a new way of learning languages. His great work on this subject was entitled "Janua Linguarum Reserata" i.e., The Gate of Languages Unlocked. Of all his works this was the most popular. It spread his fame all over Europe. It was translated into fifteen different languages. It became, next to the Bible, the most widely known book on the Continent.
Nevertheless, there the book was, and the world now knew of Comenius not only as the author of the little Janua Linguarum, but also as contemplating a vast Janua Rerum, or organization of universal knowledge on a new basis. In fact, the fame of Comenius was increased by Hartlib's little indiscretion.
Word Of The Day