Comenius, Didactica Magna
Comenius was a great Humanist. He believed that human beings were the supreme creation of God, and that we are in His image and likeness, as He endowed us with Reason. This divine gift must be utilized, instructed, and educated so that we are not reduced to miserable brutishness and animality. Thus, we achieve the human dignity that is ours.
Education is preparation for the afterlife. Just as in the womb we are formed for life on the outside, in this life we are formed for the eternal life. Since in this life we do not find fulfillment or perfection, we always yearn for more, for goods and knowledge, but we are never satisfied, for we will only be fully satisfied in heaven. This world is our seedbed, our school. All of creation is there for us to utilize and understand.
He postulates a Pansophic ideal: to teach everything to everyone. But not in the sense of teaching all the sciences and arts in depth, as there are experts who dedicate their entire lives to one area and still do not fully understand it. Teaching in this way would be impossible and useless; rather, we must instruct in such a way that nothing in this world seems completely foreign to us. We must thus know the foundations and purposes of things.
Education must be graded; for one knowledge paves the way for the next, just as the senses and reason develop in children until they reach adulthood.
We must instruct our understanding through the arts and sciences, the classical languages, and our morals through ethics and the knowledge of norms and customs. For the soul is endowed with faculties such as understanding (reason), will (self-control), and memory.
Schools must be organized in their tasks and divide the morning and afternoon into theoretical and practical knowledge.