The role of the mother tongue in teaching foreign languages (according to J. A. Comenius)

According to J.A. Comenius native languages play the most important role in studying foreign languages. Not only the didactic purposes, but the democratization of the public education is connected with the prior and profound studying of the mother tongue. The pansophic program led Comenius to take a profound interest in language and in education. From earliest infancy the child must learn to join things and words. His native speech is his first introduction to reality. At school foreign languages – first those of neighboring nations and then Latin – must be learned by reference to the mother tongue.