ABSTRACT

This chapter presents a case study, which illustrates some of the potential benefits of a broadened and deepened history of Ramism, and also some of its inherent difficulties. The origins of Comenian pansophia in the post-Ramist encyclopaedic' tradition rooted in Herborn are perhaps most immediately apparent. The first step in revealing the Ramist roots of Comenian pansophia is therefore to strip away the welter of detail and reduce Ramism to its most basic impulses by tracing it back to the concrete conditions from which it emerged. The ultimate purpose of Comenian pansophia was to teach all human beings what they needed to know about their proper relationship to God. Comenius' plan of universal education was closer to the programmes of universal catechization widespread in the confessional era than it was to the agendas of either Ramus or Bacon. The goals of Comenian pedagogy thus represent a further extension of the central European Reformed pedagogical tradition generally.