Comenius' School of Infancy/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
OBLIGATIONS OF PARENTS.
1. Should it enter the mind of any one to inquire why it pleased the Divine Majesty to produce these celestial gems not at once in the full number which He purposed to have for eternity, as He did the angels, such inquirer will discover no other reason than that, in doing so, he honors human kind by making them as it were his coadjutors in multiplying creatures. Not, however, that from that source alone they draw pleasure, but that they may exercise their zeal in rightly educating and training them for eternity.[1]
2. Man accustoms the ox for plowing, the hound for hunting, the horse for riding and driving, because for these uses they were created, and they cannot be applied to other purposes; man, however, being more noble than all those creatures, ought to be educated for the highest objects, so that as far as possible he may correspond in excellences to God, whose image he bears. The body, no doubt, being taken from the earth, is earthy, is conversant with the earth, and must again be turned into earth; whereas the soul, being inspired by God, is from God, and ought to remain in God and elevate itself to God.
3. Parents, therefore, will not fully perform their duty, if they merely teach their offspring to eat, to drink, to walk about, to talk, and to be adorned with clothing; for these things are merely subservient to the body, which is not the man, but his tabernacle only; the guest (the rational soul) dwells within, and rightly claims greater care than its outward tenement.[2] Plutarch has rightly derided such parents as desire beauty, riches, and honors for their children, and endeavor to promote them in these respects, regarding very little the adornment of the soul with piety and virtue, saying: “That those persons valued the shoe more than the foot.” And Crates the Theban, a Gentile philosopher, vehemently complaining of the madness of such parents, declared, as the poet relates:—
“Were I permitted to proclaim aloud everywhere,
I should denounce all those infatuated and shamefully wicked,
Whom destructive money agitates with excessive zeal.
Ye gather riches for your children, and neither nourish them with doctrine,
Nor cherish within them intellectual capability.”
4. The first care, therefore, ought to be of the soul, which is the principal part of the man, so that it may become, in the highest degree possible, beautifully adorned. The next care is for the body, that it may be made a habitation fit and worthy of an immortal soul.[3] Regard the mind as rightly instructed which is truly illuminated from the effulgence of the wisdom of God, so that man, contemplating the presence of the Divine Image in himself, may diligently observe and guard that excellence.
5. Now there are two departments of true celestial wisdom which man ought to seek, and into which he ought to be instructed. The one, a clear and true knowledge of God and all of his wonderful works; the other, prudence,—carefully and wisely to regulate self and all external and internal actions appertaining to the present and future life.
6. Primarily as to the future life, because properly speaking that is life, from which both death and mortality pass into exile, since the present is not so much life as the way to life; consequently, whosoever has attained so much in this life as to prepare himself by faith and piety for a future life, must be judged to have fully performed his duty here.
7. Yet, notwithstanding this, inasmuch as God, by bestowing longevity upon many, assigns them certain duties, places in the course of their life various occurrences, supplying occasions for acting prudently. Parents must by all means provide for the training of their children in the duties of faith and piety; so must they also provide for the more polite culture in the moral sciences, in the liberal arts, and in other necessary things; to the end that when grown up they may become truly men, prudently managing their own affairs, and be admitted to the various functions of life, which, whether ecclesiastical or political, civil or social, God has willed them to fulfill, and thus, having righteously and prudently passed through the present life, they may, with the greater joy, migrate to the heavens.
8. In a word, the purpose for which youth ought to be educated is threefold: (1) Faith and Piety; (2) Uprightness in respect of morals; (3) Knowledge of languages and arts.[4] These, however, in the precise order in which they are here propounded, and not inversely. In the first place, youth must be exercised in piety, then in the morals or virtues, finally in the more advanced literature. The greater the proficiency the youth makes in the latter, the better.
9. Whosoever has within his house youth exercising themselves in these three departments, possesses a garden in which celestial plantlets are sown, watered, bloom, and flourish; a studio, as it were, of the Holy Spirit, in which He elaborates and polishes those vessels of mercy, those instruments of glory, so that in them, as lively images of God, the rays of His eternal and infinite power, wisdom, and bounty, may shine more and more. How inexpressibly blessed are parents in such a paradise!
COLLATERAL READING.
Malleson’s Early Training of Children, Chap. II.; Marwedel’s Conscious Motherhood, Chap. II.; Necker de Saussure's Progressive Education, Book II., Chaps. I., II., and III.; Rousseau’s Émile, Book I.
- ↑ Jean Paul says: “The light of the soul which we call life, issuing from I know not what sunny cloud, strikes upon the bodily world and molds the rough mass into its dwelling place, which glows on until death—by the nearness of another world—allures it still further on.”
- ↑ A. Bronson Alcott once said: “Character, natural and acquired, modified by temperament, by education, by society, government, and religion, is a subject worthy of all attention. All that affects its formation and reformation, all that mysterious process by which the human mind accomplisbes its great purposes—the perfection of its nature and the elevation of its hopes—should be regarded by a deep and scrutinizing attention by all those entrusted with its high capacities and lofty destinies.”
- ↑ Plato notes in this connection: “My belief is, not that a good body will by its own excellence make the soul good; but on the contrary, that a good soul will by its excellence render the body as perfect as it can be.”
- ↑ The purpose of education with Fröbel was likewise threefold: “Instruction should lead the boy (1) to a knowledge of himself in all circumstances, and thus to a knowledge of man in general, in his being and relations; (2) to the knowledge of God, the constant condition, the eternal foundation and source of all being; and (3) to the knowledge of nature—the material world, as issuing from and conditioned by the eternally spiritual.”