Origin of the work:
1656 – 1657 Amsterdam
Editions:
1657 Amsterdam, Opera didactica omnia IV
1957 Prague, Opera didactica omnia IV, pp122-124
Contents:
This is a list of the nine signs of a good school and the nine insufficiencies of a bad school, from which that which requires improvement should follow.
Among the marks of a good school are the teaching of pupils in the manner of a father with his children. Since children cannot know or achieve anything by themselves it is necessary that they be shown in advance, a task that falls to their fathers (i.e. their teachers). The latter are not only to provide schooling, but are also to provide an example, not just for the behaviour of others but also through their own behaviour. They may then require a suitable imitation of this example from their pupils.
The marks of a bad school include everything therein being done in a careless manner, students left to themselves, and students being expected to know what they have not been taught, being given only fragmentary teaching, teachers who do not teach themselves but merely show pupils the books, who instead of examples give only instructions and blows, teaching only on the example of others and not by their own example, and not requiring that pupils imitate these examples through regular practice.