COME'NIUS, or KOINIENSEY, JOHANN AMOS (1592-1670). A noted educational reformer of the seventeenth century. born either at or near Un garisch-Brod. Moravia. His parents belonged to the Moravian Brethren, and Comenius became one of the leaders of that seet. Though on ac count of poverty he was unable to begin his education until late—he did not enter the Latin school at Strassuick until he was sixteen—he attended the gymnasium of lierban, in Nassau, and later studied at Heidelberg. In the course of his study he became acquainted with the edu cational reforms of Ratiehius (q.v.), and with the report of these reforms issued by the univer sities of Jena and Giessen.
The work of Comenius included three impor tant fields of activity. practical work, con stituting throughout his life his most immediate concern, was that connected with the _Moravian Church. In 1014 he was ordained to its minis try, and four years later was given the charge at Fulnek, one of the most flourishing churches of that communion. In consequence of the religious wars he lost all his property and his writings in 1621, and six years later was compelled to flee from his native country on account of the pro scription of all Protestants. Settling at Lissa, in Poland, he became director of the gymnasium there and was given charge of the Bohemian and :Moravian churches. In 1041 he went to Eng land to join a commission charged with the re form of the system of public education, but the disturbed political condition of the country in terfered with his project. In the following year, at the invitation of Oxenstiern, he applied him self to the task of reorganizing the Swedish schools. He elaborated his plans at Elbing, West Prussia, where be settled in 1642. In 1048 he was elected Bishop of the Moravian Brethren at Lissa, which town he made once more his resi dence_ and where he published a number of his philological works. He subsequently visited Transylvania, and in 1650 assisted in drawing up a plan for reforming the Protestant school of Siiros-Patak, Hungary. In 1054 he returned to
Lissa ; but in war which soon after raged in Poland lie once more lost all his property, in cluding his manuscripts, and was compelled to flee (1657). He traveled through Silesia and Brandenburg, visited Stettin and Hamburg, and finally settled at Amsterdam, where he died.
Through all his wanderings and all his educa tional activities, Comenius's religious interests were eared for to the neglect of many of his great educational plans. The somewhat mystical bent of his mind, however, led the gifted reformer into extremes that render much of his writings value less for modern times, and in his last years made him an easy dupe of religious impostors.
His second great interest was in furthering the Baconian attempt at the organization of all human knowledge. Ile became one of the leaders in the eneyclopmdic or pansophic movement of the seventeenth century, and, in fact, was in clined to sacrifice his more practical educational interests and opportunities for these more im posing but somewhat visionary projects. The men of affairs who aided him with funds and gave him protection and opportunity for con tinuing his educational investigations and writ ings were more interested in their immediate practical import, and insisted, in spite of the wishes of Comenius, on his devoting his energies and original insight to the work of organizing schools, and writing text-hooks or works on method. In 1639 Comenins had published his Pansophia' Prodromus, and in the following year his English friend Hartlib published, without his consent, the plan of the pansophic work as outlined by Comenius. The result of his life's work in this sphere, his Pansophia, was de stroyed in manuscript in the burning of his Ii once in Lissa in 1657. The pansophic ideas find par tial expression in the series of text-books pro duced 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.