©UNESCO:International Bureau of Education, 1999 This document may be reproduced free of charge as long as acknowledgement is made of the source.

The year 1997 will mark the four-hundredth anniversary of free public primary education in modern Europe. It was four centuries ago that the great Spanish educator, Joseph Calasanz, founded the Pious schools, the first step on the long and difficult road to universal, free education. His philosophy and his life’s work were highly innovative and left their mark on this and many other aspects of education. In the seventeenth century, he was matched in stature only by Comenius, and a number of parallels can be drawn between the two educators. Each belonged to a separate and antagonistic camp in a Europe convulsed by the Thirty Years War: Comenius was the educator of Protestant Europe and Calasanz the educator of Catholic Europe. Both men were born in the sixteenth century, Calasanz in 1557 and Comenius in 1592. The difference in age was considerable, but the Spanish educator lived until the age of 91 and so was a contemporary of the Czech during the first half of the seventeenth century. In Moravia, Comenius ’ homeland, and in other European countries, the influence of the two great teachers overlapped. Both promoted universal education and the use of national languages in schools. Both were responsible for significant innovations in teaching methods and educational structure. Although they held different positions, both men were profoundly religious. One wa