Comenius and the World of Latin Things

Words should always be taught and learned alongside things, in the same way that wine is bought and sold with the cask that bears it, a sword with its sheath, a tree with its bark, and fruit with its skin. For what are words but the sheaths and shield-coverings of things?¹

When it comes to education, how should we begin? By teaching abstract rules or concrete examples? By proceeding deductively from universal principles or by building inductively from particular phenomena? By lecturing on theory to a passive classroom or by inviting students to actively imitate the material themselves? And how about in Latin education? Should we forward a host of grammatical precepts to be memorized by rote through charts and pithy chants, or should we first introduce basic vocabulary and then, more gradually, grammar?

John Amos Comenius, a 17th century Czech Reformed theologian, pedagogue, and educational theorist, provides us with particular insights in addressing these critical questions. Though largely unknown or unappreciated in our own day, Comenius enjoyed international renown in his own, authoring literally hundreds of works in Czech and Latin, including the most pioneering illustrated children’s textbook of its time, Orbis Sensualium Pictus (The World of Sensible Things in Pictures). (Unfortunately, many of Comenius’ works are no longer extant and only a fraction of them are easily accessible in English translation.) Comenius has been remembered as a champion of the importance of play in early learning (including reciting short skits) as well as of universal education for both sexes². Of particular interest here, however, are his insights on Latin pedagogy and educational reform. 

The state of Latin education in Comenius’ day was, admittedly, bleak. Through a misapplication of the Renaissance humanist ideal of ad fontes, new Latin students were exposed almost immediately to original Roman authors—in particular, Cicero’s letters and Vergil’s Eclogues—“after receiving a trifling foretaste of grammatical precepts.”³ Furthermore, what little Latin students did learn was acquired mainly through contextless memorization and trite ditties in the vernacular, not active use of the material meant to deepen students’ understanding of Latin as a language in its own right.⁴ Comenius utterly decries this method, maintaining that such teachers “are asking chicks without plumage to soar through the heights; commanding puppies just learning to run to charge against full-grown beasts; demanding fledgling ponies whose legs are not yet firm to pull carts weighed down with heavy loads—that is, demanding something impossible or, at the very least, laughable.”⁵ By prematurely introducing the ancients in their very words, teachers were subjecting students—mere novices both in Latin and the real world—to material far surpassing their natural capacities. Despite all good intentions, they were, in effect, denigrating students to the status of mere statues—unable to articulate understanding of the material and paralyzed by fear and indecision—or of parrots—mimicking the teachers’ words without genuine understanding.

Such was the educational malaise of Comenius’ day. But what was his proposed cure? While in no way denying or trivializing the importance of reading the ancients in the original Latin or of teaching grammatical rules and precepts, Comenius insists that true education must proceed from the known to the unknown; from the more familiar to the less familiar; from concrete images, objects, and examples to abstract principles and paradigms. Specific to Latin pedagogy, this means beginning with basic vocabulary (especially tangible nouns and verbs) and simple sentences before introducing in-depth grammatical systems and more complex material. True education, therefore, has as much to do with the things or realities (res) being taught as with the words or linguistic systems (verba) that express those things. As Comenius said, “what are words but the sheaths and shield-coverings of things?” The fundamental error of Comenius’ opponents, then, was in divorcing the words of the ancients (and of Latin grammar) from the things those words were meant to represent. In so doing, teachers had deprived students of true knowledge of words and things alike: they had sold them sheaths without swords, bark without trees, rinds without fruit.

So, the utility of Latin (and of all true education) is in bringing us into contact with the world of things. But what are the things that Latin particularly equips us to see and understand in the world? First, there are obviously the res Romanae (Roman or ancient things). It comes as no surprise that the Roman world was, in many respects, very different from our own. Agriculture, navigation, astronomy, textiles, smithing, hunting, Greek mythology: the Romans had daily exposure to such things, while we as moderns rarely (if ever) experience them ourselves. Latin thus brings us into conversation with an ancient people with their own distinct experiences and customs, and whose outlook on the world, therefore, often challenges and refines our own.

More importantly, however, Latin exposes us to the world of res humanae (human or universal things). There’s nothing new under the sun, and though many of the accoutrements of daily life have changed dramatically over the past two millennia, what it means to be human, fundamentally, has not. For instance, in introducing undergraduate students to original Roman authors, I regularly have the pleasure of witnessing students’ eyes light up, as they exclaim, “They saw things that way too? They noticed that in people too? They found that joke funny too?” Thus, while Latin challenges some of our modern assumptions about reality, it just as strongly confirms and reinforces others.

Now, someone will object, “But doesn’t every language reveal something of our shared humanity? Why not instead learn Greek or Hebrew, or even Mandarin, Italian, or German?” While it’s true that all languages can open up some dimension of the res humanae, more than any of these languages, Latin is distinctly ours. As NSA’s Head of Languages, Tim Griffith, recently demonstrated in a manifesto on classical languages, Latin has done more to shape Western culture, civilization, imagination, and literature than any other language in history. Indeed, until well into the 19th century, Latin was the universal language of the academy as well as of theology—and not just among Roman Catholics.

And this brings us to Latin’s greatest utility: opening up the world of res Christianae (Christian or sacred things). Whether through Jerome’s Vulgate or Beza’s New Testament or Junius/Tremellius’ Old Testament, Latin grants us access to the Scriptures in the historic language of the Western church, and from a perspective closer to that of its original authors and readers. Commenting on Christ’s words in John 3:12 (“If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”), Comenius explains, “God in Scripture speaks of things removed, invisible, eternal, yet He does so in words relating to proximate, visible, temporal things.” Rock, sheep, goat, shepherd, bridegroom, schoolmaster, fox, bread, salt, light: Scripture abounds with such tangible images, all of which are meant to draw us up to a knowledge of the deeper, heavenly realities they represent. Comenius therefore concludes, “It is, practically, the sole aim of theologians and commentators—their one and only job—to unfold the words [of Scripture] and the things these words signify.” And here, too, Latin grants us access to the largest, most extensive corpus of exegesis and reflection on Scripture from our fathers in the faith—much of which remains untranslated into English.

So, where should Latin education (and all other education) begin? In the same place it should end: in the world of things—things ancient, things universal (and things Western), and things sacred.

_{1 John Amos Comenius, Didactica Magna (The Great Didactic), in Opera Didactica Omnia, 1657 (Prague: Academia Scientiarum Bohemoslovenica, 1957), XIX.45.
2 For a succinct, approachable introduction to Comenius, see David I. Smith, John Amos Comenius: A Visionary Reformer of Schools, in David Diener, ed., Giants in the History of Education (Camp Hill, PA: Classical Academic Press, 2017). Smith offers an extended overview of Comenius’ Orbis Pictus in pgs. 54-61.
3 Comenius, Novissima Linguarum Methodus (The Latest Method for Learning Languages), in Opera Didactica Omnia, II.15
4 Comenius gives a couple examples of such ditties from Latin into German in Methodus, VII.10: “Deus, Gott [God], / Necessitas, Nott [need/distress]”; and “Manus, Hand [hand], / Pignus, Pfand [pledge].”
5 Comenius, Methodus, VII.17.
6 Comenius, Methodus, XXIII.4-5.}

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