26 DOUBLE TAP TO ZOOM WITH PHONE OR TABLET | Giants in the Nursery Bohemian nobles. Comenius and other members of the brotherhood set out for Poland. Crossing the mountains, Comenius was able to look back for the last time at his beloved Bohemia and Moravia. He later wrote, “My whole life was merely the visit of a guest; I had no fatherland” (Monroe 1900). The Years in Poland, 1628–1641 In the Polish city of Lissa, Comenius and several hundred other members of the brotherhood were welcomed to the estate of Count Raphael, who was also a mem- ber of the Moravian sect. During his thirteen years in Lissa, Comenius was able to pursue an idea that had gradually taken hold of his imagination. This idea was a pansophic (encyclopedic) educational system that would cover all extant knowl- edge and that was organized into an age-graded curriculum, which extended from infancy through the university. This was The Great Didactic, which he completed in outline form during his stay in Lissa. Comenius approached his grand design on two fronts: one philosophical and the other practical. These remained the two central themes of his educational dis- course for the rest of his life. While in Lissa, Comenius wrote some of his other most important educational works: Janua Linguarum Reserata (a revolutionary introduction to Latin), Orbis Pictus (The World in Pictures), and School of Infancy (a primer for parents). In Lissa, Comenius also taught elementary school and intro- duced a grading of the schools and a detailed description of a course of study for each grade. The publication of Janua and Orbis Pictus were well received, and Comenius’s educational work began to be recognized at home and abroad. It was not long before his educational ideas and methods began to be implemented in schools all over the world. He lectured in many countries on the European continent and in 1641 was invited to Britain. But despite the writings of Bacon decrying the state of education in England, British Parliament was too involved with the uprising in Ire- land and then the civil war against King Charles I to be concerned with educational reform. Comenius had hoped for financial support from the English to fill out his grand design of conducting universal research on curriculum and the founding of pansophic colleges, which would be comprehensive schools that taught the whole of human knowledge. Comenius regarded the pansophic colleges as the capstone of his educational system and whose graduates would exemplify the social, practical, and spiritual rewards of a universal education. This idea of a universal college that COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL