Comenius

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Overview: John Amos Comenius (Czech: Jan Amos Komenský; Polish: Jan Amos Komeński; German: Johann Amos Comenius; Latinized: Ioannes Amos Comenius; 28 March 1592 – 15 November 1670) was a Moravian philosopher, pedagogue and theologian who is considered the father of modern education. He served as the last bishop of the Unity of the Brethren before becoming a religious refugee and one of the earliest champions of universal education, a concept eventually set forth in his book Didactica Magna. As an educator and theologian, he led schools and advised governments across Protestant Europe through the middle of the seventeenth century.

Comenius introduced a number of educational concepts and innovations including pictorial textbooks written in native languages instead of Latin, teaching based in

Photographed By Andrew Ruppenstein, June 19, 2023

2. Comenius Marker - wide view (Mercury, Bacchus, and Diana heads)

Per Wikipedia, this building is known as “The House with the Heads” (known as 'Huis met de Hoofden' in Dutch) - a large canal house on the Keizersgracht 123 in Amsterdam, named after the six ornaments shaped as heads, which are on the facade. The house is a rijksmonument and is listed on the Top 100 Dutch heritage sites. Comenius took refuge here from Leszno, Poland, where Catholic partisans had burnt down his home and printing press.

gradual development from simple to more comprehensive concepts, lifelong learning with a focus on logical thinking over dull memorization, equal opportunity for impoverished children, education for women, and universal and practical instruction. He also believed heavily in the connection between nature, religion, and knowledge, in which he stated that knowledge is born from nature and nature from God. Besides his native Moravia, he lived and worked in other regions of the Holy Roman Empire, and other countries: Sweden, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Transylvania, England, the Netherlands and Hungary.

Photographed By Andrew Ruppenstein, June 19, 2023

3. Comenius Marker - wider view

The marker is mounted to the exterior of what is now called “The Embassy of the Free Mind”, which is, as described by Wikipedia, “…a museum, library and platform for free thinking, inspired by the philosophy of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica collection. The museum focusses on the European culture of free thinking of the past 2.000 years, with Hermetic wisdom as the source of inspiration: insight into the connection between God, cosmos and man. This connection is reflected in the Hermetic, alchemical, astrological, magical, mystical, kabbalistic and Rosicrucian texts and images in the collection.“