Comenius's Birthday
Next: March 28, 2027
Every child can learn.
The story
Where it comes from
John Amos Comenius, in Czech Jan Amos Komenský, was born on 28 March 1592 in Nivnice, Moravia, and this Story marks his birthday. Orphaned young, he did not start school until his teens, then became a teacher, a pastor and the last bishop of the Moravian Brethren, and spent much of his life as a religious refugee. He argued that every child could learn with good teaching, and that children should learn about real things, not only grammar. In 1658 he published Orbis Sensualium Pictus, often called the first children's picture book.
How it's celebrated
There is no worldwide observance, but his birthday is a natural day to thank a teacher. Comenius paired each picture with a simple sentence so that children could learn words from the things around them, so a good way to mark the day is to share a picture book with a child, or to learn a few words of a new language by labelling the objects in a room.
Did you know
- His textbook Janua Linguarum Reserata (1631), which described useful facts about the world in Latin and Czech side by side, was translated into 16 languages.
- Orbis Sensualium Pictus was used as a school textbook in Europe for some 200 years.
- According to the Puritan writer Cotton Mather, Comenius was offered the presidency of Harvard College in 1654, and turned it down.
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