1727, in which for the first time the English words were so arranged as to stand opposite their Latin equivalents.

The cuts have been reproduced with great care by the photographic process. I thought best not to permit them to be retouched, preferring occasional indistinctness to modern tampering with the originals that would make them less authentic.

The English text is unchanged from that of the 1727 edition, except in rare instances where substitutions have been made for single words not now permissible. The typography suggests rather than imitates the quaintness of the original, and the paper was carefully selected to produce so far as practicable the impression of the old hand-presses.

In short my aim has been to put within the reach of teachers at a moderate price a satisfactory reproduction of this important book; and if the sale of the Orbis Pictus seems to warrant it, I hope subsequently to print as a companion volume the Vestibulum and Janua of the same author, of which I have choice copies.

C. W. Bardeen.

Syracuse, Sept. 28, 1887.

Comments upon the Orbis Pictus.

During four years he here prosecuted his efforts in behalf of education with commendable success, and wrote, among other works, his celebrated Orbis Pictus, which has passed through a great many editions, and survived a multitude of imitations. —Smith’s History of Education, N.Y., 1842, p. 129.

The most eminent educator of the seventeenth century, however, was John Amos Comenius . . . . . . His Orbis Sensualium Pictus, published in 1657, enjoyed a still higher renown. The text was much the same with the Janua, being intended as a kind of elementary encyclopædia; but it differed from all previous text-books, in being illustrated with pictures, on copper and wood, of the various topics discussed in it. This book was universally popular. In those portions of Germany where the schools had been broken up by the “Thirty years’ war,” mothers taught their children from its pages. Corrected and amended by later editors, it continued for nearly two hundred years, to be a text-book of the German schools. —History and Progress of Education, by Philobiblius, N.Y., 1860, p. 210.

The “Janua” would, therefore, have had but a short-lived popularity with teachers, and a still shorter with learners, if Comenius had not carried out his principle of appealing to the senses, and called in the artist. The result was the “Orbis Pictus,” a book which proved a favorite with young and old, and maintained its ground in many a school for more than a century . . . . I am sorry I cannot give a specimen of this celebrated book with its quaint pictures. The artist, of course, was wanting in the technical skill which is now commonly displayed even in the cheapest publications, but this renders his delineations none the less entertaining. As a picture of the life and manners of the seventeenth century, the work has great historical interest, which will, I hope, secure for it another English edition. —Quick’s Educational Reformers, 1868; Syracuse edition, p. 79.

But the principle on which he most insisted is that the teaching of words and things must go together, hand in hand. When we consider how much time is spent over new languages, what waste of energy is lavished on mere preparation, how it takes so long to lay a foundation that there is no time to lay a building upon it, we must conclude that it is in the acceptance and development of this principle that the improvement of education will in the future consist. Any one who attempts to inculcate this great reform will find that its first principles are contained in the writings of Comenius. —Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th edition, vii. 674.

The first edition of this celebrated book was published at Nuremberg in 1657; soon after a translation was made into English by Charles Hoole. The last English edition appeared in 1777, and this was reprinted in America in 1812. This was the first illustrated school-book, and was the first attempt at what now passes under the name of “object lessons.” —Short History of Education, W. H. Payne, Syracuse, 1881, p. 103.

Of these, the “Janua” and the “Orbis” were translated into most European and some of the Oriental languages. It is evident that these practices of Comenius contain the germs of things afterwards connected with the names of Pestalozzi and Stow. It also may be safely assumed that many methods that are now in practical use, were then not unknown to earliest teachers. —Gill’s Systems of Education, London, 1876, p. 13.

The more we reflect on the method of Comenius, the more we shall see it is replete with suggestiveness, and we shall feel surprised that so much wisdom can have lain in the path of schoolmasters for two hundred and fifty years, and that they have never stooped to avail themselves of its treasures. —Browning’s Introduction to the History of Educational Theories, 1882, New York edition, p. 67.

The “Orbis Pictus,” the first practical application of the intuitive method, had an extraordinary success, and has served as a model for the innumerable illustrated books which for three centuries have invaded the schools. —Compayre’s History of Pedagogy, Payne’s translation, Boston, 1886, p. 127.

He remained at Patak four years, which were characterized by surprising literary activity. During this short period he produced no less than fifteen different works, among them his “World Illustrated” (Orbis Pictus), the most famous of all his writings. It admirably applied the principle that words and things should be learned together . . . . The “World Illustrated” had an enormous circulation, and remained for a long time the most popular text-book in Europe. —Painter’s History of Education, N.Y., 1886, p. 206.

Or, si ce livre n’est qu’un équivalent de la véritable intuition; si, ensuite, le contenu du tout paraît fort défectueux, au point de vue de la science de nos jours; si, enfin, un effort exagéré pour l’intégrité de la conception de l’enfant a créé, pour les choses modernes, trop de dénominations latines qui paraissent douteuses, l’Orbis pictus était pourtant, pour son temps, une oeuvre très originale et très spirituelle, qui fit faire un grand progrès à la pédagogie et servit longtemps de livre d’école utile et de modèle à d’innombrables livres d’images, souvent pires. —Histoire d’Éducation, Frederick Dittes, Redolfi’s French translation, Paris, 1880, p. 178.

Here Comenius wrote, among others, his second celebrated work the “Orbis Pictus.” He was not, however, able to finish it in Hungary for want of a skilful engraver on copper. For such a one he