Sublime

What separates twenty-first-century humans from their cave-dwelling ancestors isn’t raw intellectual power but a good curriculum.

John Amos Comenius, a Moravian bishop of the seventeenth century, a self-styled pansophist and pedagogue, is rightly considered one of the founders of the modern school. He was among the first to propose seven or twelve grades of compulsory learning. In his Magna Didactica he described schools as devices to “teach everybody everything” and outlined

Homo docens—the species that teaches itself.

although a learner may be able to locate, and sometimes learn from, the most successful or skilled person in his community (say, the best hunter in a foraging band), many young learners will be too inexperienced or ill-equipped to take advantage of the nuances and fine points that distinguish the top hunters. Instead, by focusing on older children,