Komenský’s most noteworthy contributions to the literature and culture of his people and of all nations include an elaborate Czech-Latin and Latin-Czech dictionary; a versified version of the Psalms in the Czech language; “Labyrint Světa a Ráj Srdce” (The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart), published in 1681, the predecessor of Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” giving in exquisite form the struggles of man to attain perfect happiness and harmony of soul, the work being more distinctly pure literature in a technical sense than any of his other writings. It was translated into English by Count Francis Lutzow in 1905. The “Magna Didactica” or Great Didactic was written originally in the Czech language and Englished by M. W. Keating. In this he lays out a system of education forming the basis of all modern progressive plans to-day. The “Janua Linguarum Reserata” or Gate of Tongues Unlocked simplified the process of learning Latin and other tongues. It was written in exile in Poland after Komenský like thousands of other non-Catholics had been expelled from his native land by the edict of 1627 directed against the Brethren and was translated into twelve European languages and also certain eastern tongues as the Persian, Arabian, Turkish, etc. The Orbis Sensualium Pictus or the World in Pictures, the first illustrated school text-book for children ever published, prepared the way for the magnificent pictorial features in educational texts of the present day.
