as it has been called, and which has of
late years been extensively used by our best teachers, the desideratum
above described has been most happily and effectively supplied to the
Educationist. This valuable exercise may not perhaps be new;--but
certainly its nature, and its importance in education, till of late
years, has been altogether overlooked, or unknown. It differs from the
former mode of catechising, (or rather of using catechisms) in this,
that whereas a catechism provides an answer for the child in a set form
of words,--the catechetical exercise, having first _provided him with
the means_, compels him to search for, to select, and to construct an
answer for himself. For example, an announcement is given by his
teacher, or it is read from his book. This is the raw material upon
which both the teacher and the child are to work, and within the
boundaries of which the teacher especially must strictly confine
himself. Upon this announcement a question is founded,[10] which obliges
the child, before he can even prepare an answer, to reiterate in his own
mind, not the _words_,--for that would not answer his purpose,--but the
several _ideas_ contained in the sentence or truth announced. All these
ideas must be perceived,--they must pass in review before the mind,--and
from among them he must select the one required, arrange it in his own
way, and give it to the teacher entirely as his own idea, and clothed
altogether in his own words.

In the common method of making use of catechisms, the words of the
answer may be read, or they may be committed to memory, and may be
repeated with ease and fluency; while the ideas,--the truths they
contain,--may neither be perceived nor reiterated. In this there is
neither mental exercise, nor mental improvement;--and, what is worse,
without the catechetical exercise, the teacher has no means of knowing
whether it be so or not. By means of the catechetical exercise, on the
contrary, there can be no evasion,--no doubt as to the mental activity
of the pupil, and his consequent mental improvement. Its benefits are
very extensive; and in employing it the teacher is not only sure that
the ideas in the announcement have been perceived and reiterated, but
that a numerous train of useful mental operations must have taken place,
before his pupil could by any possibility return him an answer to his
questions. We shall, before proceeding, point out a few of these.

Let us then suppose that a