(CZ) Jan Ámos Komenský a lidová pedagogika
(EN) Comenius and People's Pedagogy

One. of the roots of J. A. Comenius’ educational system is popular pedagogy, which this outstanding pedagogue got to know in the social environment of Czech Brethren. Comenius took over a great deal from the popular educational practice, particularly as regards pre-school education, which at that time was not yet developed as a separate institution, but took the form of family education. He found numerous suggestions for this sort of education especially in the popular literary forms (such as rhymes, puns, and most probably also disputations). He collected popular proverbs, generalizing age-long. experiences of the people, and published them in a special collection; he uses these proverbs in his own literary work, not only as a speech ornament as the humanists did, but also for the sake of their meaning, as argunřients of equal value with various statements of the contemporary, medieval, and ancient authorities. His educational system further includes children’s games, because he is well aware of their significance for an all-round development of the child, and as a prelude to the more serious matters of life. He wants to fill the classroom work with the attendant qualities of free play, such as joyous activity and the spirit of competition. Comenius further takes over from popular educational practice the following items: a positive attitude to productive manual work, the objective to edupate hard-working people, and the methods of acquiring working skills (illustrative examples, demonstration, imitation, exercises based on correcting mistakes), and he applies them also to rational and moral education. The popularity of his pedagogical work therefore does not consist only in his efforts to democratize education, but also in the fact that he proceeds from popular pedagogy, whose experiences he generalizes and makes them together with other suggestions into a system.