COMENIUS or KOMENSKY, JOHANN AMOS (1592— 167o), a famous writer on education, and the last bishop of the old church of the Moravian and Bohemian Brethren, was born either at Comna, or at Niwnitz, in Moravia. Having studied at Herborn and Heidelberg, and travelled in Holland and England, he became rector of a school at Prerau, and later of a school at Fulnek. In 1621 the Spanish invasion drove him into Poland. Soon after he was made bishop of the Moravians. While teach ing Latin at Lissa, he published Pansophiae prodromus (163o), a work on education, and Janua linguarum reserata (1631), the latter being produced in 1 2 European languages, and in Arabic, Persian and Turkish. He subsequently published similar works, as the Eruditionis scholasticae janua and the Janua linguarum trilinguis. His original method of teaching Latin and Greek con sisted in giving, in parallel columns, useful sentences in the ver nacular and the languages to be taught. In some of his books, as the Orbis sensualium pictus (1658), pictures are added; this work is, indeed, the first children's picture-book. In 1638 Comenius was requested by the Government of Sweden to draw up a scheme for the management of its schools; and a few years after he was invited to join the commission that the English par liament intended to appoint for the reform of education. He visited England in 1641, but the disturbed state of politics pre vented the appointment of the commission, and Comenius left for Sweden where the minister, Oxenstjerna, employed him in the organization of Swedish schools. He died Nov. 15, 167o, at Amsterdam.
Comenius was disgusted at the pedantic teaching of his own day, and insisted that the teaching of words and things must go together. Languages should be taught, like the mother tongue, by topical conversation—pictures and objects should be used. In his course he included singing, economy, politics, world-history, geography, science and the arts and handicrafts.
As a theologian, Comenius was influenced by Boehme. His religious zeal is manifested in his semi-educational work, The Labyrinth of the W orld and the Paradise of the Heart, ed. Lutzom (Temple classics, 1905). The Great Didactic was edited by M. W. Keatinge (igio). Comenius also published three historical works—Ratio disciplinae or dinisque in unitate fratrum Bohemorum, Historia persecutionum ec clesiae Bohemicae (1648), and Martyrologium Bohemicum. See C. von Raumer, Geschichte der Piidogogik (1857) ; D. J. G. Carpzov, Religionsuntersuchung der Biihmischen und miihrischen Bruder (1742) ; S. S. Laurie, John Comenius (1881) .