![]() In his Didactica Magna, for example, he advocates for equal educational opportunities for all: boys and girls, rich and poor, urban and rural. His portrait was painted by Rembrandt, and according to an 1887 edition of the Orbis, Comenius was even “once solicited to become President of Harvard College.” (Although he never came to Harvard, one can still find his name engraved on the western frieze of Teachers College at Columbia University.) Even if he is less celebrated today by name, his innovative ideas about education are still influential. At one point it was the most used textbook in Europe for elementary education, and according to one account it was translated into “most European and some of the Oriental languages.” Its author John Comenius, a Czech by birth, was also well-known throughout Europe and worked in several countries as a school reformer. Unlike treatises on education and grammatical handbooks, it is aimed directly at the young and attempts to engage on their level. ![]() This approach centered on the visual was a breakthrough in education for the young, as was the decision to teach the vernacular in addition to Latin. ![]() John Comenius’ Orbis Sensualium Pictus (or The World of Things Obvious to the Senses drawn in Pictures) is, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “the first children’s picture book.” Originally published in 1658 in Latin and German, the Orbis - with its 150 pictures showing everyday activities like brewing beer, tending gardens, and slaughtering animals - is immediately familiar as an ancestor of today’s children’s literature. This article, Orbis Sensualium Pictus: John Comenius and the First Children’s Picture Book, 1658, was originally published in The Public Domain Review under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. Charles McNamara explores how, contrary to Comenius’ assertions, the book can be seen to be as much about the invisible world as the visible. In the mid 17th-century John Comenius published what many consider to be the first picture book dedicated to the education of young children, Orbis Sensualium Pictus – or The World of Things Obvious to the Senses drawn in Pictures, as it was rendered in English. Illustration for “God’s Providence”, from the 1705 English edition of Orbis Sensualium Pictus / Internet Archive
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