Reimagining the “Nature of Children”: Realia, Reform, and the Turn to Pedagogical Realism in Central Europe c. 1600–1700

Object lessons have been the subject of much recent interest in the history of childhood and youth. This article explores early efforts to introduce Realia, or real things, to the curricula of Latin schools in central Europe during the seventeenth century. Using little-studied educational writings and textbooks, including a collection of plays called the Schola Ludus (or School of Play) by Czech reformer J. A. Comenius, Whitmer argue these efforts were controversial because they raised pressing questions about the status and authority of everyday things in schools; they also informed new accounts of children’s natures, especially their “natural inclination” to learn through experience.