286

A HISTORY OF BOHEMIAN

LITERATURE

tition, has here given us an enormous amount of thought and experience in a very small volume. The great educational works of Komensky, on which his principal claim to posthumous fame is founded, but which do not perhaps require lengthy mention in a work that deals mainly with literature, were principally written during the author's first prolonged stay at Lissa. Though the order in which Komensky's educational works were written cannot always be ascertained with certainty, there is little doubt that one of the earliest was the Informatorium It Skoly Matef-ski ( = instruction for mother-schools).^ first appeared in Bohemian in 1628. The little book deals with the earliest instruction which a child receives from It soon obtained great popularity, and was its mother. speedily translated into German, Latin, and English. Anticipating Rousseau, Komensky lays great stress on the duty of mothers to nurse their children. The Instruction for Mother - Schools is still much read in Bohemia, and some of the regulations contained in it have been adopted for the modern " Kindergarten." Many other educational works of Komensky appeared in rapid succession during his stay at Lissa. The most valuable of them is the Didactica Magna, which, like the Informatorium, was originally written and first published in Bohemian. Komensky here establishes four degrees of education : the mother-school, the vernacular school, the Latin school or gymnasium, and the academy or The earliest education in Germany and university. The book has recently again been translated into English (probably from the German version) by Mr. W. Monroe, under the name of the School of " Infancy. The book contains a bibliography of Comenian literature," from 1

which one would fancy that Bohemian works were purposely excluded, books written

in that language, published

U.S., did not figure in the list.

if two

respectively at Omaha and Racine,