Comenius Facts & Quotes
Comenius was asked to be the first President of Harvard College -- and declined.
Comenius was the first to use pictures in a textbook.
Comenius was the first to promote continuing education -- and the first to advocate equal education for all, including women and the poor.
Comenius wrote 154 books in his lifetime. Many were banned and burned by the Roman Catholic Church.
Comenius owned the actual manuscript of Nicolas Copernicus' On the Revolution of Celestial Bodies. He purchased the manuscript at great personal expense to preserve it from burning -- even though he himself did not believe Copernicus' idea.
Comenius was a contemporary of such notables as:
- Francis Bacon
- Rene Descartes
- Oliver Cromwell
- John Milton
- John Bunyan
- Cardinal Richelieu
The Thirty Years' War, which nearly destroyed the Unitas Fratrum, is best known to most people as the historical backdrop of Dumas' The Three Musketeers.
The great educator Jean Piaget once wrote, 'The ideas of Comenius do not have to be updated, merely translated.'
Comenius' Labyrinth of the World, an allegory often compared to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, was written five years before Bunyan was born.