Abstract

Vives and Comenius had a significant influence on European thought and education. They set offfrom very similar starting points and arrived at kindred teachings. Both tried to reform society and both saw the best way to do so in upbringing and education conceived so as to benefit and bring harmony to individuals as well as to humankind as a whole. Their writings - on philosophy, pedagogy, ethics and the ’universal reform of human affairs’ - appeared in numerous editions and were translated into many languages. The fact that Comenius was familiar with the work of the Spanish Humanist philosopher is evident in the references and citations he makes - particularly in Physicae synopsis, Didactica magna and Methodus lingvarum novissima - to J. L. Vives’ De tradendis disciplinis and Introductio ad sapientiam. A lifelong endeavour to bring about reform is apparent in the work of both learned men. They shared an interest in fostering peace and analysing the causes that bring about violence and war so as to prevent them - all in close relation to ethical and religious questions. Ethical issues and moral education are omnipresent in their work. As regards pedagogical reform, Vives opened new horizons thanks to the psychological foundations of his educational methods and Comenius produced an integrated, highly detailed framework for upbringing and education. He worked out a unified and exhaustive system comprising the subject matter to be taught, the organisation of instruction, schools and teaching methods and procedures. Both reformers emphasised the comprehensive and complex nature of education, which was to be adapted to the age of the student and his or her level of competence. The thought and teachings of both scholars rely on an empirical-rational approach. Vives - a prominent anti-scholastic humanist - stresses the strength of reason and rationality in education, criticising scholastic instruction with its mindless memorising. Comenius does the same, ascribing great significance to joining the sensory experience of things and events with a knowledge of their underpinnings. Both agreed on the need for a direct knowledge of real things on the basis of a student’s own experience in which reason relies on its perceptions of those things - thus, they both took a stand against verbalism and scholasticism. Truth and certainty in knowledge depend upon the testimony of the senses. Instruction should take the form of illustration and demonstration, not verbal transmission. Educating young people should not entail teaching them words, phrases or assertions, but opening up their comprehensive faculties toward understanding things. The principle of illustration is the basis of knowledge for Vives as it is for Comenius; it is a teaching method, an approach which ensures the comprehensibility and permanence of education. For both reformers, languages - including the mother tongue - are tools for learning about the world, in the service of the real disciplines which deal with things. Vives and Comenius shared foundations, principles and stances with regard to epistemological and educational considerations as well as how they conceive of the world, basic human values, ideas on upbringing and education and principally as regards their efforts to bring about reform.