ABSTRACT
IN the view of Comenius the fundamental aim of universal education was to make every human being ‘good’ by which he meant ‘made in the image of God’. This concept was, however, a complex one for which he took inspiration from a number of sources but it was essential to his purpose that the different strands should be woven into a harmonical unity with no one of them emphasized at the expense of another. First he had to bring into harmony the inner life of the soul of man and the outward expression of goodness in the social life, that is mystic experience and practical virtue. Thus he says, ‘there are two parts of celestial wisdom . . . the one is a clear and true knowledge of God; the other is prudence to regulate carefully and wisely one's self and all external and internal actions that pertain both to this life and to future life’. 1 Secondly he had to integrate faith and reason. The good man was he who, accepting his limitations, looked to God for wisdom and depended upon God for everything. At the end of his life he came to think of faith as the one thing necessary but for him faith was never blind. Without the exercise of reason it would become only superstition and therefore the good man was one who cultivated all his own powers to the fullest extent and became wise by striving for wisdom. Thus a fully-rounded personality was a universal objective to be obtained through right education.
