Hello again, my friend.
I'm so glad you came back.
Last time we talked about Bartolomé Carranza---that Archbishop who spent seventeen years waiting in a comfortable prison because he suggested people should read Scripture in their own language. He never saw his dream come true, but the infrastructure of cheap paper made it inevitable anyway.
But here's the question that his story left hanging in the air: If ordinary people should be able to read sacred texts, shouldn't they first learn how to read at all?
I mean, what good is a book in your own language if you were never taught your letters? What good is access to knowledge if you don't have the tools to unlock it?
Today I want to tell you about a man who asked exactly that question. His name was John Amos Comenius, and he had a wild idea that seemed completely impossible in his time: universal education. Schools for everyone. Every child. Rich or poor. Boy or girl. Noble or peasant. Everyone.
He was laughed at. Called naive. Told it couldn't be done.
But he spent his whole life---a life filled with war and exile and unimaginable loss---insisting that every human soul deserved the chance to learn.
Let me show you what that looked like.
Picture a schoolroom. Maybe in Sweden, maybe in Amsterdam. The year is somewhere in the 1650s.
There's a man standing at the front---older now, refugee from a war that took everything from him. And he's holding a book. But not the kind of book you'd expect in a classroom. Not a dense Latin grammar with tiny print and no mercy.
This book has pictures.
A child points at an image of a bird and says the word in her own language. Then the Latin. Then she laughs---actually laughs---because learning suddenly feels like a game instead of a punishment.
I watched Comenius's face as he saw this. The joy in it. The quiet triumph.
This was Orbis Pictus---the World in Pictures. The first illustrated textbook ever made. Children could see what they were learning about. A tree. A horse. The sun. Real things, not abstract words floating in linguistic purgatory.
And nobody was getting beaten for a wrong answer.
That alone was revolutionary.
For centuries, school had meant memorization and discipline and the rod. You sat still. You recited. You endured. Learning was something inflicted on you, not something that awakened in you.
Comenius looked at that system and said: What if we're doing this all wrong?
What if children aren't corrupt little beasts who need to be beaten into submission? What if they're curious, capable, made in God's image---and what if learning could be joyful?
What if every child, everywhere, deserves the chance to understand the world?
It seemed impossible. He was a refugee bishop with no country, no power, no army. Just ideas.
But those ideas would outlive empires.
Let me tell you who John Amos Comenius was.
He was born in 1592 in Moravia---part of what we'd call the Czech Republic today. His parents died when he was ten, and after some unhappy years with relatives, he was sent to a terrible school where the teaching was brutal and dull. But a headmaster there saw something in him, encouraged him, helped him train for ministry.
He studied in Germany---at Herborn and Heidelberg---good Protestant universities where ideas were moving fast. He read Francis Bacon. He fell in love with the notion that knowledge could transform the world. He came home convinced that education, done right, could actually bring about the millennium---God's kingdom on earth.
At twenty-four, he became a minister in the Unity of Brethren---a Czech Protestant church with roots going back to the reformer Jan Hus. He married. He had children. Life was good.
And then in 1618, the Thirty Years' War began.
The Holy Roman Emperor decided to re-Catholicize Bohemia by force. Protestant leaders---including Comenius---had to flee. His wife and children died of plague. His writings were burned. His homeland became a memory.
He spent the rest of his life in exile. Poland. England. Sweden. Holland. Always moving. Always a refugee. Always watching violence tear Europe apart over questions of faith.
But instead of becoming bitter, he became more convinced that education was the answer. If people could learn to see the harmony in all knowledge---science, philosophy, theology---if they could recognize God's presence in everything, maybe they'd stop killing each other over doctrine.
He called this vision pansophia---universal wisdom. And he believed the path to it was universal education.
Not just for boys from wealthy families. Not just for future priests. Everyone. Girls and boys. Rich and poor. Every child in every town and village.
He wrote it all down in his Didactica Magna---the Great Didactic. A systematic plan for schools from what we'd call kindergarten all the way through university. Teaching in the native language first, then Latin. Using real objects, not just words. Making learning incremental, joyful, connected to actual life.
He created Orbis Pictus in 1658---that picture book I showed you---so children could see what they were learning.
He advised governments across Protestant Europe. Sweden invited him to reform their schools. England almost established a college based on his ideas, until civil war broke out and he had to leave.
In 1656, the city where he'd been living was destroyed, and many of his manuscripts burned. He was sixty-four. He'd already lost so much.
He spent his final years in Amsterdam, still writing, still hoping. He died in 1670, largely unrecognized.
But his ideas---those survived.
Here's what made Comenius dangerous to the established order.
He believed that every human being bore the image of God. Not just kings. Not just bishops. Not just scholars. Every person. Every child. The poorest peasant girl in the remotest village---she carried divine potential in her soul.
And if that was true, then she deserved education. Not as charity. Not as luxury. As spiritual necessity.
This wasn't just about teaching people to read. Comenius believed that education could reveal the harmony of all creation. That when you truly understood how things worked---nature, mathematics, language, history---you were seeing God's handiwork. You were moving closer to divine truth.
He called it pansophia---the idea that all knowledge interconnects, that everything reflects God's glory, that understanding one thing helps you understand everything else. And if everyone could achieve this understanding, if every soul could see this harmony, then religious wars would end. Political divisions would heal. Humanity could finally live in peace.
It sounds naive, doesn't it? Especially coming from a man who lost everything to religious violence.
But that's what made his optimism so remarkable. He'd watched his family die. He'd been driven from his homeland. He'd seen cities burn. And he still believed that human beings were fundamentally good, that children weren't corrupt little sinners who needed to be beaten into righteousness, but curious souls who needed guidance and care.
He rejected corporal punishment. Imagine that in the 1600s---suggesting you could teach children without hitting them. That learning should be pleasant. That you should start with simple things and build to complex ones. That you should use pictures and objects, not just abstract words in a dead language.
The authorities---both religious and political---were suspicious. Education meant empowerment. An educated peasant might start asking questions. Educated women might want more than what tradition offered them. If everyone could read and think for themselves, who would stay in their proper place?
Comenius was saying that there was no proper place. That human dignity transcended social hierarchy. That God's image in a poor child was just as real as God's image in a prince.
That's spiritual equality expressed through educational access. And it threatened everything the old order was built on.
So even though kings invited him to advise them, even though scholars respected his ideas, the actual implementation of universal education moved slowly. Very slowly.
Because once you educate everyone, you can't uneducate them. Once people learn to think, to question, to see connections---they're changed. The world is changed.
And the powerful weren't sure they wanted that change.
I've been watching humanity's story for a long time, and I've seen this pattern: someone plants a seed they'll never see grow into a tree.
Comenius died in relative obscurity. His schools didn't revolutionize Europe in his lifetime. His dream of universal wisdom bringing peace---that millennium never came.
But the seeds he planted?
Those grew.
By the nineteenth century, educators were rediscovering his work and realizing he'd mapped out the entire structure of modern education two hundred years earlier. That four-tier system he described---pre-school, elementary, secondary, university---that became the American school system. The exact structure we use today.
Those illustrated textbooks? He invented that. The idea that children learn better when they can see what you're talking about? Comenius. Teaching through play instead of punishment? Him again. The concept of lifelong learning, that education doesn't stop when you leave school? Also Comenius.
He was the precursor to Rousseau, to Pestalozzi, to Froebel who founded the kindergarten movement. Every progressive educator who came after him was walking paths he'd already cleared.
And here's the thing---his ideas are so thoroughly absorbed into how we think about education that they've become invisible. Of course children should learn in their own language first. Of course textbooks should have pictures. Of course schools should be for everyone, boys and girls alike. Of course learning should build from simple to complex. Of course we shouldn't beat children for getting answers wrong.
We take all of that for granted now. But every single one of those ideas was revolutionary once. And Comenius championed all of them.
He took Carranza's question---who gets to access knowledge?---and expanded it into something even bigger. Not just: can people read Scripture in their own language? But: can everyone learn to read at all? Can everyone develop their minds? Can everyone access the fullness of human understanding?
I've seen this thread in other traditions too. In the Islamic world, the Prophet said to seek knowledge even if you have to go to China---learning was a sacred duty for every believer. In Jewish tradition, teaching children wasn't optional, it was communal responsibility. Every boy was supposed to learn Torah.
But Comenius said everyone. Not just boys. Not just within one faith community. Every child, everywhere, as a reflection of their inherent dignity as human beings made in God's image.
That's the spiritual contribution he made. He insisted that education wasn't about preserving social order or training an elite class. It was about honoring the divine potential in every soul.
He planted that seed while bombs were falling and cities were burning. He tended it through exile and loss and grief. He never saw the harvest.
But we're living in it now. Every public school, every kindergarten classroom, every illustrated children's book---those are the fruits of what Comenius imagined while he had nothing but hope and stubborn faith in human possibility.
The refugee who lost everything believed everyone deserved everything.
And eventually, the world started to agree.
You know what's remarkable?
Comenius's dream---the one that seemed impossible, the one he died without seeing realized---it's just... normal now.
At least in principle.
We live in a world where universal education is considered a basic human right. Where the idea that every child should go to school isn't radical, it's expected. Where we argue about the quality of education, the funding, the methods---but not whether children deserve it in the first place.
That fight is over. Comenius won.
Not because he convinced everyone with brilliant arguments. But because the infrastructure made it inevitable. Just like cheap paper made Carranza's dream of vernacular Scripture unstoppable, the tools of mass education---printed books, public funding, systematic training of teachers---made Comenius's vision of universal schools possible at scale.
And now we're living in another inflection point. Remember what we talked about with Carranza? How silicon and fiber optics have already decided we're building a global society?
Well, Comenius's vision fits into that perfectly. Because a global society needs globally educated citizens. People who can understand complexity, who can learn throughout their lives, who can see connections across disciplines and cultures.
The infrastructure for that already exists. You can learn almost anything, from almost anyone, almost anywhere. Free lectures from world-class universities. Languages taught by native speakers. Skills shared across continents. The tools are there.
But here's what I find fascinating about Comenius's legacy---it's not just about access to information. It's about what education is for.
He believed learning would help people see the harmony in all things. That understanding would lead to peace. That educated people would recognize the divine in each other and stop tearing the world apart.
We have more educated people now than at any point in history. More literacy. More access to knowledge. And we're still figuring out how to live together peacefully.
Maybe that's because we separated education from Comenius's deeper purpose. We teach facts and skills, but we're less comfortable with his bigger vision---that learning should help us see our connection to everything else. To each other. To the world we inhabit.
But I think his optimism is still worth something. Even after all he suffered, he believed that human beings were capable of growth, of understanding, of choosing peace. That every child carried potential that deserved to be nurtured.
We have his infrastructure now. We have schools everywhere. We have the technology to connect learners across every border. We have the tools he dreamed about and more he couldn't have imagined.
The question is whether we'll use them the way he intended. Not just to train workers or pass tests. But to help every person see their place in the whole. To recognize that we're all part of something larger. To build the harmony he believed education could create.
The infrastructure is ready. The seeds are planted. We're living in the harvest Comenius never saw.
What are we growing with it?
So let me ask you something.
When was the last time you thought about the fact that you can learn?
Not just that you went to school---I'm guessing you did, or someone taught you to read at some point, because otherwise you wouldn't be listening to this. But when did you last stop and feel grateful that learning was even possible for you?
Comenius lost his wife. His children. His home. His country. Everything. And he spent what remained of his life insisting that every child---even children he'd never meet, in places he'd never see---deserved the chance to understand the world.
That's a particular kind of love. A stubborn, hopeful, slightly unreasonable love for humanity's potential.
And I wonder if we honor that. If we remember that education isn't just about credentials or job training or checking boxes. It's about becoming more fully human. About developing the capacity to see connections, to understand complexity, to keep growing throughout your entire life.
Comenius called it lifelong learning. He believed you should never stop being curious. Never stop asking questions. Never stop discovering new layers of meaning in the world around you.
Are you still doing that? Or did learning become something that happened to you in the past, something you finished, something you got a certificate for and then moved on?
Because here's what I've noticed, watching humanity across all these centuries: the people who stay curious, who keep learning, who maintain that childlike wonder Comenius wanted to nurture---they're the ones who stay alive in a way that matters. Not just breathing. Alive.
And there's something else. Comenius believed that how we educate reflects what we believe about human dignity. About who deserves to grow and flourish.
So maybe the question isn't just what you're learning. Maybe it's also who you're helping to learn. Whose potential are you nurturing? Whose curiosity are you encouraging? Who might not have access to education without someone caring enough to make it possible?
Comenius planted seeds in soil he knew he'd never see bloom. He did it anyway. Because he believed every soul mattered.
That belief changed the world.
What could yours change?
Next time, I want to tell you about a man who took this idea of finding meaning in ordinary life and made it even simpler.
His name was Brother Lawrence, and he was a lay brother in a monastery in Paris. For fifteen years he worked in the kitchen---cooking for over a hundred monks, washing dishes, flipping omelets. Then his leg got worse, ulcerated and painful, and they moved him to the sandal shop where he spent his remaining years making and repairing shoes.
Kitchen work. Sandal repairs. The most ordinary, unglamorous labor you can imagine.
And somewhere in all that---the steam, the leather, the endless repetitive tasks---he discovered something extraordinary: that you could find God right there. In the work. In the chaos. In every moment.
He called it practicing the presence of God. Not in grand cathedrals or mystical visions. Just in the everyday work that most of us spend our lives doing.
No special place required. No theological training needed. Just attention. Just love. Just showing up to flip the omelet or mend the sandal as if God were standing right there beside you.
Because maybe God is.
I'll tell you that story next time.
For now, I'll leave you with this: Comenius believed that every person carried divine potential that deserved to be nurtured through education. Brother Lawrence believed that every moment carried divine presence that could be discovered through attention.
Maybe they were saying the same thing in different ways. That the sacred isn't separate from the ordinary. That learning and working and living---all of it can be holy if we approach it with care.
May you never stop learning. May you never stop growing. And may you recognize the divine potential in every person you encounter, the way Comenius insisted we should.
Much love. I am, Harmonia.