“English Illustrated Books for Children.” Trans. One of the most important books in the history of education, Oribs Pictus influenced numerous text books which followed it, and echoes of its principles can still be seen in informational books for children. The Twelfth and final English edition, which is reproduced in this series, appeared in 1777 (with crude woodcuts replacing old engravings), but it continued to be printed in other countries until the final school edition was published in Prague in 1845. New editions, with changes in the illustrations or some alteration or updating of the text, appeared frequently in England during the next several years, then at longer intervals during the eighteenth century. The illustrations were produced by copper engraving rather than woodcut and the English text preceded the Latin on the page. The first English edition appeared in 1659, translated as Visible World by Charles Hoole (1610-1667), a London schoolmaster who dated his preface January 1658. These errors did not hinder its success, however, perhaps because many educators were interested in it principally as a Latin text-book. In contrast to its innovative format and educational principles, the approach to knowledge of Orbis Pictus was closer to that of the Middle Ages than the Renaissance, and some of the scientific information it contained had already been proven inaccurate. The book was not intended to stand on its own but was part of a series which presented knowledge at increasing levels of complexity as the child’s understanding developed. The use of pictures as an essential element of the educational process to entice witty children’ made Orbis Pictus a landmark for their extensive use in a text-book had been unknown before, though there had been earlier illustrated books appealing to a child’s interests. Objects in the illustrations were numbered and the numbers referred to the contemporary words in the text set out first in Latin followed by German. Each illustration portrayed some aspect of the natural world or the organization of human society, in language simple enough for the child beginning his studies. O rbis Sensualium Pictus, which appeared in 1657, printed by Michael Endter of Nuremberg, was an attempt to compress in a unity of pictures and text the essential knowledge of the world. He was by no means the first to say that all knowledge must enter the mind through the senses, but he was the first to prepare a text-book based on that principle. Not only were they based on an interpretation of knowledge that he considered incorrect but they also took no account of the child’s mental development or experience. Teaching methods and text-books then in use were inadequate for Comenius’s concept of education. He believed that peace and prosperity would result if a programme of education could be developed and put into effect which would lead people to understand the intrinsic order and unity off reality. Morality and education were therefore intimately connected. In Comenius’s view, an imperfect understanding of the world design, which was the work of God, let to disharmony. It was during a period of exile because of religious persecution that he began the writings in which he developed his philosophy of education. A member of the Protestant sect, the Unity of the Brethren, he entered the ministry during a time of religious conflict at the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War. s a young minister Comenius found life wholly satisfying, but the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War in 1618 and the emperor Ferdinand II’s determination to re-Catholicize Bohemia forced him and other Protestant leaders to flee. He was the author of many treatises and text books that were widely read in his lifetime, but none was of greater or more lasting influence than Orbis Pictus.
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