{{Short description|Educational system of universal knowledge}} thumb|John Amos Comenius created the main concepts of Pansophism in the mid-1600s. '''Pansophism''' (from Greek ''pansophos'' and English -''ism'',),<ref name=":3">{{Cite news |last=Chambliss |first=J. J. |title=Education |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/education/The-new-scientism-and-rationalism |work=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref><ref name=":1" /> also known as '''pansophy''', is a pedagogical concept aimed to educate humanity to a complete understanding of everything. It was proposed by Czech philosopher John Amos Comenius in the mid-1600s.<ref name=":0">{{Cite report |url=https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED325079 |title=The Pansophism of John Amos Comenius (1592-1670) as the Foundation of Educational Technology and the Source of Constructive Standards for the Evaluation of Computerized Instruction and Tests |last=Small |first=Mary Luins |date=March 1990 |language=en}}</ref>
"[Comenius's] second great interest was in furthering the Baconian attempt at the organization of all human knowledge. He became one of the leaders in the encyclopædic or pansophic movement of the seventeenth century".<ref>"Comenius." ''The New International Encyclopædia'' (vol. 5), 1st ed.</ref>
== Etymology == The word ''pansophism'' comes from the Greek words ''pansoph''os plus the suffix -''ism''.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Definition of Pansophism |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pansophism |access-date=2025-12-20 |website=www.merriam-webster.com |language=en}}</ref>
The word ''pansophy'' comes from the Neo-Latin word ''pansophia'', derived from the Greek words πᾶν (''pan'') 'all' and σοφία (''sophia'') 'wisdom'.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Definition of Pansophy |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pansophy |access-date=2025-12-09 |website=www.merriam-webster.com |language=en}}</ref>
The term was not originally created by Comenius, having been applied by Bartolomeo Barbaro of Padua in his ''De omni scibili libri quadraginta: seu Prodromus pansophiae'', from the middle of the sixteenth century.<ref>{{Citation |title=On the Historical Source of Sanctian Linguistics |url=http://people.ku.edu/~percival/GramSanct.html |url-status=dead |publisher=KU |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20050419030358/http://people.ku.edu/~percival/GramSanct.html |archivedate=2005-04-19}}.</ref>
== Conceptions of pansophism ==
=== General conception === The pansophic principle is one of the important principles of Comenius: that everything must be taught to everyone, or in his words "to all men and from all points of view" (Great Didactic), as a guiding basis for education.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Learning from Nature {{!}} Christian History Magazine |url=https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/learning-from-nature |access-date=2023-05-16 |website=Christian History Institute |language=en}}</ref> This continues the idea of universal education (characteristica universalis).<ref>{{Citation |title=Article of Comenius |url=http://sheep.kangnam.ac.kr/~kccs/data/Article_of_Comenius.doc |place=KR |publisher=Kangnam |format=MS Word |quote=His education system was focused on teaching everything to everyone, since, from the outset, it was intended to educate all men of society to develop their democratic qualifications. In a word, the system of education proposed by Comenius is universal by its very nature: "as he says, it is 'pansophic', it is intended for all men irrespective of social, or economic position, race or nationality. [...]he attempted to unite all kinds of human knowledge in the universal science of his pansophism on a larger or smaller scale.}}{{dead link|date=May 2022}}</ref> According to Comenius, pansophism{{Blockquote|text=propoundeth to itself so to expand and lay open to the eyes of all the wholeness of things that everything might be pleasurable in itself and necessary for the expanding of the appetite.<ref name=":2" />}}The early concepts of pansophism included:
* Open schools for all<ref name=":52">{{Cite journal |last=Dent |first=Robert A. |date=2021-11-17 |title=John Amos Comenius: Inciting the Millennium through Educational Reform |journal=Religions |language=en |volume=12 |issue=11 |pages=1012 |doi=10.3390/rel12111012 |issn=2077-1444 |doi-access=free}}</ref> * Support for impoverished children<ref name=":52">{{Cite journal |last=Dent |first=Robert A. |date=2021-11-17 |title=John Amos Comenius: Inciting the Millennium through Educational Reform |journal=Religions |language=en |volume=12 |issue=11 |pages=1012 |doi=10.3390/rel12111012 |issn=2077-1444 |doi-access=free}}</ref> * Mixed gender classes<ref name=":52">{{Cite journal |last=Dent |first=Robert A. |date=2021-11-17 |title=John Amos Comenius: Inciting the Millennium through Educational Reform |journal=Religions |language=en |volume=12 |issue=11 |pages=1012 |doi=10.3390/rel12111012 |issn=2077-1444 |doi-access=free}}</ref> * Investment in schoolbooks * Text and pictures in books * Gradual complexity<ref>{{Cite web |last=Monroe |first=W. S. (Will Seymour) |title=Comenius and the Beginnings of Educational Reform |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/58483/pg58483-images.html |access-date=2025-12-21 |website=Project Gutenberg |language=en}}</ref> * Lifelong learning<ref name=":52">{{Cite journal |last=Dent |first=Robert A. |date=2021-11-17 |title=John Amos Comenius: Inciting the Millennium through Educational Reform |journal=Religions |language=en |volume=12 |issue=11 |pages=1012 |doi=10.3390/rel12111012 |issn=2077-1444 |doi-access=free}}</ref>
Pansophism was a term used generally by Comenius to describe his pedagogical philosophy. His book ''Pansophiae prodromus'' (1639) was published in London with the cooperation of Samuel Hartlib. It was followed by ''Pansophiae diatyposis''. Pansophy in this sense has been defined as ‘full adult comprehension of the divine order of things’.<ref>{{Citation |title=Czech Baroque Literature |url=http://users.ox.ac.uk/~tayl0010/lit_baroq.htm |url-status=dead |place=UK |publisher=Ox |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071014090519/http://users.ox.ac.uk/~tayl0010/lit_baroq.htm |archivedate=2007-10-14}}.</ref> He aimed to set up a Pansophic College, a precursor of later academic institutes<ref>{{Citation |title=Literatur |url=http://www.deutsche-comenius-gesellschaft.de/literatur_9.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120729152920/http://www.deutsche-comenius-gesellschaft.de/literatur_9.html |archive-date=2012-07-29 |url-status=dead |place=DE |publisher=Deutsche Comenius Gesellschaft |quote=If he did not succeed in securing the establishment of the international center, or Pansophic College, for the coordination of the knowledge and sciences of the world, he did participate in, and probably contributed to, the discussions which ultimately resulted in the founding of the Royal Society.}}</ref> He wrote his ideas for this in a tract ''Via lucis'', written 1641/2 in London; he had to leave because the English Civil War was breaking out, and this work was eventually printed in 1668, in Amsterdam.<ref>{{Citation |title=A biographical time chart |url=http://www.deutsche-comenius-gesellschaft.de/comenius_2.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120804013315/http://www.deutsche-comenius-gesellschaft.de/comenius_2.html |archive-date=2012-08-04 |url-status=dead |place=DE |publisher=Deutsche Comenius Gesellschaft}}.</ref>
== History ==
=== Educational reform === [[File:Janua Linguarum.jpg|thumb|292x292px|''Janua Linguarum Reserata.'']] Believing that the Protestants would win and liberate Bohemia from the Habsburg Counter-Reformation, John Amos Comenius, then a minister, wrote a "Brief Proposal" advocating for full-time schooling for the youth of Bohemia and maintaining that they should be taught both their native culture and the culture of Europe whilst hiding in Leźno in 1628 with the Bohemian Brethren during the Thirty Years' War.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news |title=John Amos Comenius {{!}} Biography, Theory, Contribution to Education, & Facts {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Amos-Comenius |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20251019085350/https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Amos-Comenius |archive-date=2025-10-19 |access-date=2025-12-20 |work=Encyclopedia Britannica |language=en}}</ref> Comenius wrote three books during this time: ''The Great Didactic'', which focused on a reform on the education system, ''The School of Infancy'', a book for mothers on the early years of childhood, and ''Janua Linguarum Reserata'' in 1629, which was then published in 1631.<ref name="Palacký">František Palacký: Život Jana Amose Komenského, Prague 1929, pp. 39–42 {{in lang|cs}}</ref> After being translated to German, the ''Janua'' became famous in Europe and was subsequently translated into a number of European and Asian languages.<ref name=":2" /><ref name="Staněk">Václav Staněk: Stručné dějiny literatury české, Olomouc 1905, p. 53 {{in lang|cs}}</ref> Comenius wrote that he was "encouraged beyond expectation" from the reception of the ''Janua''.<ref name=":2" />
In 1638, Comenius responded to a request by the government of Sweden and traveled there to draw up a scheme for the management of the country's schools and by writing a series of textbooks modeled on the ''Janua''.<ref name="eb1911">{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Comenius, Johann Amos}}</ref><ref name="americana">{{Cite Americana|wstitle=Comenius, Johann Amos|year=1920}}</ref><ref name=":2" /> Comenius interpreted the request as the Swedish government entitling him to base the textbooks on a system of pansophism, which he saw as an evolved form as philosophy.<ref name=":2" />
Pansophism at the time was not influential during Comenius' lifetime or afterward.<ref name=":2" />
=== Later esoteric reinterpretations === {{Esotericism}} ==== The Pansophic Lodges ==== In the early 1920s, {{ill|Heinrich Tränker|de|Heinrich Tränker}}, a German occultist, founded multiple "Pansophic lodges" to promote his Rosicrucian interpretation of pansophism in Germany.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lechler |first=Volker |url=https://www.google.com.ph/books/edition/Heinrich_Tr%C3%A4nker_als_Theosoph_Rosenkreu/E6oj0AEACAAJ?hl=en |title=Heinrich Tränker als Theosoph, Rosenkreuzer und Pansoph: unter Berücksichtigung seiner Stellung im O.T.O. und seines okkulten Umfeldes |date=2013 |publisher=V. Lechler |language=de}}</ref><ref>Marco Pasi: ''Ordo Templi Orientis.'' In: Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Hrsg.): ''Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism.'' Brill, Leiden 2006, {{ISBN|978-90-04-15231-1}} S. 904.</ref><ref name=":4" /> They were intended as esoteric societies combining elements of Rosicrucianism, western esotericism, and mysticism. One of the lodges was located out of Berlin from 1924 to 1926 and was called the ''Pansophische Loge der lichtsuchenden Brüder Orient Berlin'' (<small>English:</small> Pansophic lodge of the light-seeking brethren Orient Berlin), which was founded and led by Eugen Grosche.<ref name=":4" /> The lodges generally studied gnosis, Kabbalah, philosophy, and mysticism in an attempt to cultivate pansophism.<ref name=":4" /> The ''Pansophische Gesellschaft'' was succeeded by the Fraternitas Saturni in 1926 due to the closing of the lodges and Grosche's dissatisfaction with the lack of guidance from Tränker on the lodges.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |title='Heinrich Tränker' by Volker Lechler — PARALIBRUM. |url=https://www.paralibrum.com/reviews/heinrich-traenker-by-volker-lechler |access-date=2025-12-21 |website=PARALIBRUM |language=en-US}}</ref>
==== ''Pansophers.com'' ====
[https://pansophers.com Pansophers.com] is an online Rosicrucian blog created in 2015. According to the website, they claim to be the only non-denominational Rosicrucian blog.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Robinson |first=Samuel |date=2020-11-05 |title=About Pansophers.com |url=https://pansophers.com/about-pansophers-com/ |access-date=2025-12-21 |website=Rosicrucian Tradition Website |language=en-US}}</ref>
==== ''Pansophic Freemasonry'' ==== A group within Freemasonry is called ''Pansophic Freemasonry''.<ref>{{Citation |title=Pansophic |url=http://www.hometemple.org/PANSOPHIC.htm |publisher=Home temple}}.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Pansophic Freemasons – The Square Magazine |url=https://www.thesquaremagazine.com/mag/article/2024q2pansophic-freemasons/ |access-date=2025-12-21 |language=en-GB}}</ref>
==See also== * Free education
==References== {{reflist |64em}}
==External links== * {{Citation | url = http://www.pansophic.info/ | title = Pansophic info | url-status = dead | archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20080319012541/http://www.pansophic.info/ | archivedate = 2008-03-19 }}.
{{Authority control}}
Category:Pedagogical movements and theories