ABSTRACT
THE objective of pansophical wisdom was ‘that the entire Youth of both sexes’ should become learned ‘in all things necessary quickly, pleasantly and thoroughly’. This aim required an efficient instrument in language and Comenius was well aware that this was the heart of his problem. The need for speed seemed to determine the choice of language because ‘to attempt to teach a foreign language before the mother-tongue has been learned is as irrational as to teach a boy to ride before he can walk’. 1 If knowledge of a foreign language is required in order to have access to learning it must be taught in as natural a way as possible through first-hand experience because ‘it is as impossible to talk sensibly about matters with which we are not acquainted as it is for a virgin to bring forth a child’. 2 But it may be that ‘thoroughness’ of learning requires the devising of a language in which there shall be perfect parallelism between word and thing so that ambiguity is impossible, and this would be ‘the most beautiful instrument for illustrating the wisdom of God’. 3
