COMENIUS, JOHANNES AMOS (1592–1670), the "grandfather of modern education." Born Jan Amos Komenský in Nivnitz, Moravia, he was orphaned early and did not begin school until the age of sixteen. He died in Amsterdam, a lifelong refugee from religious wars, the last bishop of the Moravian and Bohemian Brethren, formerly known as the Old Church.

Said to be unoriginal in philosophy, Comenius's genius lay in teaching. His philosophy and his teaching were forged from personal experience with both religious intolerance and bad schooling. He was convinced that international tensions were grounded in religious differences, which in turn were grounded in lack of knowledge of the order of nature as well as of others' religions.

His grand strategy was "Pansophia," a philosophy of universal knowledge based on a universal language built on a universal education that included women. Invited to England to develop a system of...