Misplaced Pages

#898101

75-528: John Amos Comenius ( / k ə ˈ m iː n i ə s / ; Czech : Jan Amos Komenský ; German : Johann Amos Comenius ; Polish : Jan Amos Komeński ; Latinized : Ioannes Amos Comenius ; 28 March 1592 – 15 November 1670) was a Czech philosopher , pedagogue and theologian who is considered the father of modern education. He served as the last bishop of the Unity of the Brethren (direct predecessor of

150-635: A distinction between phonemic /l/ and /ʎ/ which survives in Slovak. With the beginning of the national revival of the mid-18th century, Czech historians began to emphasize their people's accomplishments from the 15th through 17th centuries, rebelling against the Counter-Reformation (the Habsburg re-catholization efforts which had denigrated Czech and other non- Latin languages). Czech philologists studied sixteenth-century texts and advocated

225-504: A doodle. During the 19th-century Czech National Revival , Czechs idealised Comenius as a symbol of the Czech nation . This image persists to the present day. The Czech Republic celebrates 28 March, the birthday of Comenius, as Teachers' Day . The University of Jan Amos Komenský was founded in Prague in 2001, offering bachelor's, master's and graduate degree programmes. Gate to Languages ,

300-506: A dozen additional counties in Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, North Dakota and Minnesota . As of 2009, 70,500 Americans spoke Czech as their first language (49th place nationwide, after Turkish and before Swedish ). Standard Czech contains ten basic vowel phonemes , and three diphthongs. The vowels are /a/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /o/, and /u/ , and their long counterparts /aː/, /ɛː/, /iː/, /oː/ and /uː/ . The diphthongs are /ou̯/, /au̯/ and /ɛu̯/ ;

375-426: A focus on logical thinking over dull memorization, equal opportunity for impoverished children, education for women, and universal and practical instruction. He also believed heavily in the connection between nature, religion, and knowledge, in which he stated that knowledge is born from nature and nature from God. Being lifelong proud of his origin from Moravia , he nevertheless for most of his life – mainly due to

450-528: A language in which false statements were inexpressible. In 1641, he responded to a request by the English parliament and joined a commission there charged with the reform of the system of public education. The English Civil War interfered with the latter project. According to Cotton Mather , Comenius was asked by Winthrop to be the President of Harvard University (this being more plausibly John Winthrop

525-571: A more-restricted distinction between "hard" and "soft" consonants (see Phonology below). The term "Old Czech" is applied to the period predating the 16th century, with the earliest records of the high medieval period also classified as "early Old Czech", but the term "Medieval Czech" is also used. The function of the written language was initially performed by Old Slavonic written in Glagolitic , later by Latin written in Latin script . Around

600-699: A professor at the first Hungarian Protestant College; he wrote some of his most important works there. Comenius returned to Leszno. During the Deluge in 1655, he declared his support for the Protestant Swedish side, for which Polish Catholic partisans burned his house, his manuscripts , and the school's printing press in 1656. The manuscript of Pansophia was destroyed in the burning of his home in Leszno in 1657. From Leszno he took refuge in Amsterdam in

675-474: A project of lifelong education , taking place in the Czech Republic from October 2005 to June 2007 and aimed at language education of teachers, was named after his book Janua linguarum reserata (Gate to Languages Unlocked). Comenius is pictured on the 200 Czech koruna banknote . Asteroid 1861 Komenský , discovered by Luboš Kohoutek , is named in his honor. In Leszno , Poland , a local college

750-514: A realistic chance of returning as a major language. However, Josef Jungmann and other revivalists used Dobrovský's book to advocate for a Czech linguistic revival. Changes during this time included spelling reform (notably, í in place of the former j and j in place of g ), the use of t (rather than ti ) to end infinitive verbs and the non-capitalization of nouns (which had been a late borrowing from German). These changes differentiated Czech from Slovak. Modern scholars disagree about whether

825-649: A request by the government of Sweden and traveled there to draw up a scheme for the management of the schools of that country, After his religious duties, Comenius's second great interest was in furthering the Baconian attempt at the organization of all human knowledge. He became one of the leaders in the encyclopædic or pansophic movement of the seventeenth century, and, in fact, was inclined to sacrifice his more practical educational interests and opportunities for these more imposing but somewhat visionary projects. In 1639, Comenius published his Pansophiæ Prodromus , and in

SECTION 10

#1732772003899

900-489: A slow rise from low to high, quickly dropping to low on the last word or phrase. In modern Czech syntax, adjectives precede nouns, with few exceptions. Relative clauses are introduced by relativizers such as the adjective který , analogous to the English relative pronouns "which", "that" and "who"/"whom". As with other adjectives, it agrees with its associated noun in gender, number and case. Relative clauses follow

975-474: A verb; information about its subject is encoded in the verb. Enclitics (primarily auxiliary verbs and pronouns) appear in the second syntactic slot of a sentence, after the first stressed unit. The first slot can contain a subject or object, a main form of a verb, an adverb, or a conjunction (except for the light conjunctions a , "and", i , "and even" or ale , "but"). Czech syntax has a subject–verb–object sentence structure. In practice, however, word order

1050-414: A wanderer. In addition to Augsburg and Köthen, he put his method of instruction into operation in Amsterdam , Basel , Strassburg , Frankfurt , Weimar , and various other places. His ideas were advanced for his time, but he lacked executive ability, and his personality alienated both assistants and patrons. His influence upon his contemporaries and posterity was much greater than would be supposed from

1125-753: Is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group , written in Latin script . Spoken by over 12 million people including second language speakers, it serves as the official language of the Czech Republic . Czech is closely related to Slovak , to the point of high mutual intelligibility , as well as to Polish to a lesser degree. Czech is a fusional language with a rich system of morphology and relatively flexible word order . Its vocabulary has been extensively influenced by Latin and German . The Czech–Slovak group developed within West Slavic in

1200-636: Is a member of the West Slavic sub-branch of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. This branch includes Polish , Kashubian , Upper and Lower Sorbian and Slovak . Slovak is the most closely related language to Czech, followed by Polish and Silesian . The West Slavic languages are spoken in Central Europe. Czech is distinguished from other West Slavic languages by

1275-570: Is a recognized minority language in Slovakia, Slovak citizens who speak only Czech may communicate with the government in their language in the same way that Slovak speakers in the Czech Republic also do. Immigration of Czechs from Europe to the United States occurred primarily from 1848 to 1914. Czech is a Less Commonly Taught Language in U.S. schools, and is taught at Czech heritage centers. Large communities of Czech Americans live in

1350-422: Is also relevant to the declension patterns of nouns, which vary according to whether the final consonant of the noun stem is hard or soft. Voiced consonants with unvoiced counterparts are unvoiced at the end of a word before a pause, and in consonant clusters voicing assimilation occurs, which matches voicing to the following consonant. The unvoiced counterpart of /ɦ/ is /x/. The phoneme represented by

1425-432: Is flexible and used to distinguish topic and focus , with the topic or theme (known referents) preceding the focus or rheme (new information) in a sentence; Czech has therefore been described as a topic-prominent language . Although Czech has a periphrastic passive construction (like English), in colloquial style, word-order changes frequently replace the passive voice. For example, to change "Peter killed Paul" to "Paul

1500-651: Is named after him. There is also square of his name nearby post Unity's of the Brethren church. In Poland, the Comenius Foundation is a non-governmental organisation dedicated to the provision of equal opportunities to children under 10 years of age. In Sárospatak , Hungary , a teacher's college is named after him, which belongs to the University of Miskolc . Comenius' name has been given to primary schools in several German cities, including Bonn , Grafing , and Deggendorf . In Skopje , North Macedonia

1575-629: Is one of the EU's official languages and the 2012 Eurobarometer survey found that Czech was the foreign language most often used in Slovakia. Economist Jonathan van Parys collected data on language knowledge in Europe for the 2012 European Day of Languages . The five countries with the greatest use of Czech were the Czech Republic (98.77 percent), Slovakia (24.86 percent), Portugal (1.93 percent), Poland (0.98 percent) and Germany (0.47 percent). Czech speakers in Slovakia primarily live in cities. Since it

SECTION 20

#1732772003899

1650-575: Is realized as its voiceless allophone [r̝̊], a sound somewhere between Czech r and š . The consonants /r/, /l/, and /m/ can be syllabic , acting as syllable nuclei in place of a vowel. Strč prst skrz krk ("Stick [your] finger through [your] throat") is a well-known Czech tongue twister using syllabic consonants but no vowels. Each word has primary stress on its first syllable , except for enclitics (minor, monosyllabic, unstressed syllables). In all words of more than two syllables, every odd-numbered syllable receives secondary stress. Stress

1725-499: Is unrelated to vowel length; both long and short vowels can be stressed or unstressed. Vowels are never reduced in tone (e.g. to schwa sounds) when unstressed. When a noun is preceded by a monosyllabic preposition, the stress usually moves to the preposition, e.g. do Prahy "to Prague". Czech grammar, like that of other Slavic languages, is fusional ; its nouns, verbs, and adjectives are inflected by phonological processes to modify their meanings and grammatical functions, and

1800-500: The Book of Revelation , he promised the millennium in 1672 and guaranteed miraculous assistance to those who would undertake the destruction of the Pope and the house of Austria, even venturing to prophesy that Oliver Cromwell , Gustavus Adolphus , and George I Rákóczi , prince of Transylvania , would perform the task. He also wrote to Louis XIV of France, informing him that the empire of

1875-532: The Court of Justice of the European Union . The building houses many of the institution's translation services. The Italian film director Roberto Rossellini took Comenius, and especially his theory of "direct vision", as his model in the development of his didactic theories , which Rossellini hoped would usher the world into a utopian future. Comenius is a European Union school partnership program. In

1950-761: The Czechoslovak government built a school after a catastrophic 1963 earthquake and named it after Comenius (Jan Amos Komenski in Macedonian ). In 1919 Comenius University was founded by an act of parliament in Bratislava , Czechoslovakia, now in Slovakia . It was the first university with courses in Slovak . The Comenius tower in Luxembourg was completed in 2008 as an addition to the headquarters of

2025-733: The Kralice Bible between 1579 and 1593 (the first complete Czech translation of the Bible from the original languages) became very important for standardization of the Czech language in the following centuries as it was used as a model for the standard language. In 1615, the Bohemian diet tried to declare Czech to be the only official language of the kingdom. After the Bohemian Revolt (of predominantly Protestant aristocracy) which

2100-622: The Leskovec-Dresden Bible , also dates to this period. Old Czech texts, including poetry and cookbooks, were also produced outside universities. Literary activity becomes widespread in the early 15th century in the context of the Bohemian Reformation . Jan Hus contributed significantly to the standardization of Czech orthography , advocated for widespread literacy among Czech commoners (particularly in religion) and made early efforts to model written Czech after

2175-642: The Moravian Church ) before becoming a religious refugee and one of the earliest champions of universal education , a concept eventually set forth in his book Didactica Magna . As an educator and theologian, he led schools and advised governments across Protestant Europe through the middle of the seventeenth century. Comenius introduced a number of educational concepts and innovations including pictorial textbooks written in native languages instead of Latin, teaching based in gradual development from simple to more comprehensive concepts, lifelong learning with

2250-742: The high medieval period, and the standardization of Czech and Slovak within the Czech–Slovak dialect continuum emerged in the early modern period. In the later 18th to mid-19th century, the modern written standard became codified in the context of the Czech National Revival . The most widely spoken non-standard variety , known as Common Czech, is based on the vernacular of Prague , but is now spoken as an interdialect throughout most of Bohemia . The Moravian dialects spoken in Moravia and Czech Silesia are considerably more varied than

2325-406: The voiced velar fricative consonant (/ɣ/) and consistent stress on the first syllable. The Bohemian (Czech) language is first recorded in writing in glosses and short notes during the 12th to 13th centuries. Literary works written in Czech appear in the late 13th and early 14th century and administrative documents first appear towards the late 14th century. The first complete Bible translation ,

John Amos Comenius - Misplaced Pages Continue

2400-528: The 7th century, the Slavic expansion reached Central Europe, settling on the eastern fringes of the Frankish Empire . The West Slavic polity of Great Moravia formed by the 9th century. The Christianization of Bohemia took place during the 9th and 10th centuries. The diversification of the Czech-Slovak group within West Slavic began around that time, marked among other things by its use of

2475-795: The Bohemian Brethren and four years later became pastor and rector at Fulnek , one of its most flourishing churches. Throughout his life this pastoral activity was his most immediate concern. In consequence of the religious wars , he lost all his property and his writings in 1621. In 1627 he led the Brethren into exile when the Habsburg Counter-Reformation persecuted the Protestants in Bohemia. In 1628 he corresponded with Johann Valentin Andreae . He produced

2550-793: The Comenian Society for the study and publication of his works was formed. The education department at Salem College in North Carolina has an annual Comenius Symposium dedicated in his honor; the subjects usually deal with modern issues in education. The Comenius Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) charity which uses film and documentary production to further faith, learning, and love. Czech language Czech ( / tʃ ɛ k / CHEK ; endonym : čeština [ˈtʃɛʃcɪna] ), historically also known as Bohemian ( / b oʊ ˈ h iː m i ə n , b ə -/ boh- HEE -mee-ən, bə- ; Latin : lingua Bohemica ),

2625-625: The Kloosterstraat, devoted to him. Next to the mausoleum is the Comenius Museum. For the greater part of the eighteenth century and early part of the nineteenth, there was little recognition of his relationship to the advance in educational thought and practice. However, the importance of the Comenian influence in education has been recognized since the middle of the nineteenth century. The practical educational influence of Comenius

2700-534: The Netherlands. He lived in the Huis met de Hoofden and taught his grandson Johann Theodor Jablonski as well as the young patricians Pieter de Graeff and Nicolaas Witsen . In 1659, Comenius produced a new edition of the 1618 Bohemian Brethren hymnal, Kancionál, to jest kniha žalmů a písní duchovních containing 606 texts and 406 tunes. In addition to revising the psalms and hymns, his revision greatly expanded

2775-464: The Prince of Orange in his cause, but failing, he went to Germany. In 1618 he opened schools at Augsburg and elsewhere. In Köthen , Prince Ludwig von Anhalt furnished him with the means of opening a school to be conducted according to his own ideas; however, difficulties with the clergy led to his imprisonment for eight months. After starting another school at Magdeburg in 1620, which failed, he became

2850-458: The Saviour should dwell and rule. This teaching is also repeated in one of his last works, Unum Necessarium (Only One is Needed), where he shows various labyrinths and problems in the world and provides simple solutions to various situations. In this book he also admits that his former believing in prophecies and revelations of those days was his personal labyrinth where he got lost many times. He

2925-776: The United Kingdom, the University of Sheffield 's Western Bank Library holds the largest collection of Comenius manuscripts outside of the Czech Republic. He is commemorated in the Calendar of Saints of the Evangelical Church in Germany on 16 November. In 1892, educators in many places celebrated the 300th anniversary of Comenius. Comenius Hall was built as the principal classroom and faculty office building on Moravian College 's campus in Pennsylvania, and

3000-787: The Younger than his father as junior Winthrop was in England) but in 1642, Comenius moved to Sweden instead to work with Queen Christina (reigned 1632–1654) and the chancellor Axel Oxenstierna (in office 1612–1654) on the task of reorganizing the Swedish schools. The same year he moved to Elbląg (Elbing) in Poland and in 1648 went to England with the aid of Samuel Hartlib , who came originally from Elbląg. In 1650 Zsuzsanna Lorántffy , widow of George I Rákóczi prince of Transylvania invited him to Sárospatak . Comenius remained there until 1654 as

3075-567: The book Janua linguarum reserata , or The Gate of Languages Unlocked , which brought him to prominence. However, as the Unity became an important target of the Counter Reformation politics, he was forced into exile even as his fame grew across Europe. Comenius took refuge in Leszno (Lissa) in Poland, where he led the gymnasium and, furthermore, was given charge of the Bohemian and Moravian churches. In 1638 Comenius responded to

John Amos Comenius - Misplaced Pages Continue

3150-433: The child to introduce him to both the new language and the more remote world of objects; (4) giving the child a comprehensive knowledge of his environment, physical and social, as well as instruction in religious, moral, and classical subjects; (5) making this acquisition of a compendium of knowledge a pleasure rather than a task; and (6) making instruction universal "to all men and from all points of view". John Amos Comenius

3225-434: The conservative revivalists were motivated by nationalism or considered contemporary spoken Czech unsuitable for formal, widespread use. Adherence to historical patterns was later relaxed and standard Czech adopted a number of features from Common Czech (a widespread informal interdialectal variety), such as leaving some proper nouns undeclined. This has resulted in a relatively high level of homogeneity among all varieties of

3300-427: The dialects of Bohemia. Czech has a moderately-sized phoneme inventory, comprising ten monophthongs , three diphthongs and 25 consonants (divided into "hard", "neutral" and "soft" categories). Words may contain complicated consonant clusters or lack vowels altogether. Czech has a raised alveolar trill , which is known to occur as a phoneme in only a few other languages, represented by the grapheme ř . Czech

3375-701: The difficult wartime circumstances in the homeland and fear from religious persecution – lived and worked as an exile in various regions of the Holy Roman Empire and other countries: Sweden , the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , Transylvania , England , the Netherlands and Hungary . An offer to immigrate to the New England and take up the presidency of the newly founded Harvard University he turned down. John Amos Comenius

3450-405: The easily separable affixes characteristic of agglutinative languages are limited. Czech inflects for case, gender and number in nouns and tense, aspect, mood , person and subject number and gender in verbs. Parts of speech include adjectives, adverbs , numbers, interrogative words , prepositions , conjunctions and interjections . Adverbs are primarily formed from adjectives by taking

3525-477: The final ý or í of the base form and replacing it with e , ě , y , or o . Negative statements are formed by adding the affix ne- to the main verb of a clause, with one exception: je (he, she or it is) becomes není . Because Czech uses grammatical case to convey word function in a sentence (instead of relying on word order , as English does), its word order is flexible. As a pro-drop language , in Czech an intransitive sentence can consist of only

3600-403: The following year his English friend Hartlib published, without his consent, the plan of the pansophic work as outlined by Comenius. The pansophic ideas find partial expression in the series of textbooks he produced from time to time. In these, he attempts to organize the entire field of human knowledge so as to bring it, in outline, within the grasp of every child. Comenius also attempted to design

3675-450: The general theory of education. In this respect, he is the forerunner of Rousseau , Pestalozzi , Fröbel , etc., and is the first to formulate the idea of "education according to nature," which became consequential during the latter part of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth century. The influence of Comenius on education is comparable with that of his contemporaries, Bacon and Descartes , on science and philosophy. In fact, he

3750-494: The language. Czech is spoken by about 10 million residents of the Czech Republic . A Eurobarometer survey conducted from January to March 2012 found that the first language of 98 percent of Czech citizens was Czech, the third-highest proportion of a population in the European Union (behind Greece and Hungary ). As the official language of the Czech Republic (a member of the European Union since 2004), Czech

3825-844: The last two are found only in loanwords such as auto "car" and euro "euro". In Czech orthography, the vowels are spelled as follows: The letter ⟨ ě ⟩ indicates that the previous consonant is palatalized (e.g. něco /ɲɛt͡so/ ). After a labial it represents /jɛ/ (e.g. běs /bjɛs/ ); but ⟨mě⟩ is pronounced /mɲɛ/, cf. měkký ( /mɲɛkiː/ ). The consonant phonemes of Czech and their equivalent letters in Czech orthography are as follows: Czech consonants are categorized as "hard", "neutral", or "soft": Hard consonants may not be followed by i or í in writing, or soft ones by y or ý (except in loanwords such as kilogram ). Neutral consonants may take either character. Hard consonants are sometimes known as "strong", and soft ones as "weak". This distinction

SECTION 50

#1732772003899

3900-504: The letter ř (capital Ř ) is very rare among languages and often claimed to be unique to Czech, though it also occurs in some dialects of Kashubian , and formerly occurred in Polish. It represents the raised alveolar non-sonorant trill ( IPA : [r̝] ), a sound somewhere between Czech r and ž (example: "řeka" (river) ), and is present in Dvořák . In unvoiced environments, /r̝/

3975-454: The next century. It was also the first successful application of illustrations to the work of teaching youth (though not the first illustrated book for children, per se). The educational writings of Comenius comprise more than forty titles. These texts were all based on the same fundamental ideas: (1) learning foreign languages through the vernacular; (2) obtaining ideas through objects rather than words; (3) starting with objects most familiar to

4050-403: The noun they modify. The following is a glossed example: Chc-i want- 1SG navštív-it visit- INF universit-u, university- SG . ACC , na on kter-ou which- SG . F . ACC chod-í attend- 3SG Wolfgang Ratke He was born at Wilster , Holstein , the son of Andreas Ratke who died early and Margarete Rost who died aged 66 on 19 May 1613. He

4125-548: The number of hymns and added a new introduction. This edition was reissued several times, into the nineteenth century. His texts in Czech were notable poetic compositions, but he used tunes from other sources. He also edited the German hymnal Kirchen-, Haus- und Hertzens-Musica (Amsterdam, 1661), which had been published under the title Kirchengesänge since 1566. In other writings, Comenius addresses both instrumental and vocal music in many places, although he dedicated no treatise to

4200-458: The principle that every theory has to be functional in practical use, therefore it has to be didactic (i.e. morally instructive). In the course of his study he also became acquainted with the educational reforms of Ratichius and with the report of these reforms issued by the universities of Jena and Giessen . Comenius became rector of a school in Přerov. In 1616 he was ordained into the ministry of

4275-582: The return of the language to high culture . This period is known as the Czech National Revival (or Renaissance). During the national revival, in 1809 linguist and historian Josef Dobrovský released a German-language grammar of Old Czech entitled Ausführliches Lehrgebäude der böhmischen Sprache ('Comprehensive Doctrine of the Bohemian Language'). Dobrovský had intended his book to be descriptive , and did not think Czech had

4350-441: The spoken language. There was no standardization distinguishing between Czech and Slovak prior to the 15th century. In the 16th century, the division between Czech and Slovak becomes apparent, marking the confessional division between Lutheran Protestants in Slovakia using Czech orthography and Catholics, especially Slovak Jesuits, beginning to use a separate Slovak orthography based on Western Slovak dialects. The publication of

4425-465: The states of Texas , Nebraska and Wisconsin . In the 2000 United States Census , Czech was reported as the most common language spoken at home (besides English ) in Valley , Butler and Saunders Counties , Nebraska and Republic County, Kansas . With the exception of Spanish (the non-English language most commonly spoken at home nationwide), Czech was the most common home language in more than

4500-517: The topic. Sometimes he follows the medieval mathematical conception of music, but in other places he links music with grammar, rhetoric, and politics. Musical practice, both instrumental and vocal, played an important role in his system of education. He would die there, in Amsterdam, in 1670. For unclear reasons he was buried in Naarden , where visitors can see his grave in the mausoleum, located in

4575-424: The upper classes. Modern standard Czech originates in standardization efforts of the 18th century. By then the language had developed a literary tradition, and since then it has changed little; journals from that period contain no substantial differences from modern standard Czech, and contemporary Czechs can understand them with little difficulty. At some point before the 18th century, the Czech language abandoned

SECTION 60

#1732772003899

4650-461: The world should be his reward if he would overthrow the enemies of God. One of his daughters, Elisabeth, married Peter Figulus from Jablonné nad Orlicí . Their son, Daniel Ernst Jablonski (1660–1741), Comenius's grandson, later went to Berlin in 1693; there he became the highest official pastor at the court of King Frederick I of Prussia (reigned 1701–1713). There he became acquainted with Count Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf (1700–1760). Zinzendorf

4725-551: Was Jan (János) Szeges, was of Hungarian origin. He started to use the surname Komenský after leaving Komňa to live in Uherský Brod. Martin and Anna Komenský belonged to the Bohemian Brethren, a pre-Reformation Protestant denomination, and Comenius later became one of its leaders. His parents and two of his four sisters died in 1604 and young John went to live with his aunt in Strážnice . Owing to his impoverished circumstances he

4800-570: Was a bishop of the Unity of the Brethren church that had its roots in the teaching of Czech reformer Jan Hus . One of his most famous theological works is the Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart . The book represents his thinking about the world being full of various useless things and complex labyrinths, and that the true peace of mind and soul can be found only in one's heart where Christ

4875-419: Was among the foremost successors to Comenius as a bishop (1737–1760) in the renewed Moravian Brethren 's Church. The Comenius Medal, a UNESCO award honouring outstanding achievements in the fields of education research and innovation, commemorates Comenius. Peter Drucker hailed Comenius as the inventor of textbooks and primers . On 28 March 2010, Google celebrated Jan Amos Komensky's 418th Birthday with

4950-744: Was born in 1592 in the Margraviate of Moravia in the Bohemian Crown . His exact birthplace is uncertain and possibilities include Uherský Brod (as on his gravestone in Naarden ), Nivnice , and Komňa (from this village he took his surname, which means "a man from Komňa"), all of which are located in Uherské Hradiště District of today's Czech Republic . John was the youngest child and only son of Martin Komenský (died ca. 1602–4) and his wife Anna Chmelová. His grandfather, whose name

5025-401: Was defeated by the Habsburgs in 1620, the Protestant intellectuals had to leave the country. This emigration together with other consequences of the Thirty Years' War had a negative impact on the further use of the Czech language. In 1627, Czech and German became official languages of the Kingdom of Bohemia and in the 18th century German became dominant in Bohemia and Moravia, especially among

5100-421: Was educated at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums and the University of Rostock . While sojourning in Holland (1603–11), he devised a new method for teaching languages quickly. His system of education was based upon Francis Bacon 's philosophy, the principle being that of proceeding from things to names, from the particular to the general, and from the mother tongue to foreign languages. His fundamental idea

5175-431: Was greatly influenced by Boehme . In his Synopsis physicae ad lumen divinum reformatae , Comenius gives a physical theory of his own, said to be taken from the Book of Genesis . He was also famous for his prophecies and the support he gave to visionaries. In his Lux in tenebris he published the visions of Christopher Kotterus, Mikuláš Drabík (lat. Nicolaus Drabicius ) and Kristina Poniatowska . Attempting to interpret

5250-529: Was killed by Peter" the order of subject and object is inverted: Petr zabil Pavla ("Peter killed Paul") becomes "Paul, Peter killed" ( Pavla zabil Petr ). Pavla is in the accusative case , the grammatical object of the verb. A word at the end of a clause is typically emphasized, unless an upward intonation indicates that the sentence is a question: In parts of Bohemia (including Prague ), questions such as Jí pes bagetu? without an interrogative word (such as co , "what" or kdo , "who") are intoned in

5325-466: Was largely influenced by the works of these two men. This comparison is largely due to the fact that he first applied or attempted to apply in a systematic manner the principles of thought and investigation, newly formulated by those philosophers, to the organization of education in all its aspects. The summary of this attempt is given in the Didactica Magna , completed about 1631, though not published until several years later. The third aspect of influence

5400-636: Was on the subject matter and method of education, exerted through a series of textbooks of an entirely new nature. The first-published of these was the Janua Linguarum Reserata (The Gate of Tongues Unlocked), issued in 1631. This was followed by a more elementary text, the Vestibulum , a more advanced one, the Atrium , and others. The Orbis Pictus , published in 1658, became one of the most renowned and widely circulated school books over

5475-471: Was that the Baconian theory of induction was following nature, meaning that there is a natural sequence along which the mind moves in the acquisition of knowledge, through particulars to the general. He advocated, above all, the use of the vernacular as the proper means for approaching all subjects, and demanded the establishment of a vernacular school on the basis of the Latin school . He tried to enlist

5550-522: Was threefold. He was first a teacher and an organizer of schools, not only among his own people, but later in Sweden, and to a slight extent in Holland. In his Didactica Magna (Great Didactic), he outlined a system of schools that is the exact counterpart of the existing American system of kindergarten, elementary school, secondary school, college, and university. The second influence was in formulating

5625-800: Was unable to begin his formal education until later in life. He was 16 when he entered the Latin school in Přerov (he later returned to this school as a teacher 1614–1618). He continued his studies in the Herborn Academy (1611–1613) and the University of Heidelberg (1613–1614). In 1612 he read the Rosicrucian manifesto Fama Fraternitatis . Comenius was greatly influenced by the Irish Jesuit William Bathe as well as his teachers Johann Piscator , Heinrich Gutberleth , and particularly Heinrich Alsted . The Herborn school held

#898101