ses the value of the catechetical exercise,
not only in cultivating in an extraordinary degree the mental faculties
of the pupil, but in powerfully forcing information upon the mind, and
permanently fixing it upon the memory for after use.

But even this does not exhaust the catalogue of benefits to be derived
from the use of the catechetical exercise in communicating knowledge to
the young. We have supposed only one question to have been asked by the
teacher upon the original sentence, and yet we have seen that this one
question has in fact in a great measure secured the understanding of the
whole of the ideas contained in it. But instead of one question, the
catechetical exercise has the power of originating many, each producing
successively similar results, but with greater ease to the child, and
with much more effect in rivetting the several ideas upon the memory.
The first question, when properly put, gives the pupil the command of
the whole proposition; but it requires considerable mental effort in the
child to recall the words, and internally to translate the ideas _for
the first time_. But when this has once been done, and a second question
is asked from the same sentence, the ideas being now more familiar,
there is less mental labour required in preparing the answer, and there
being equal success, there is of course more satisfaction. The ideas
become much more clear and distinct before the mind by a second review;
and the effect, in fixing the whole upon the memory, is much more
powerful than it could be by means of the first. When therefore the
teacher confines himself to the original sentence, and does not indulge
in catechetical wanderings, the questions, "When did God make all
things?" "How many things did God make?" "Of what did God make all
things?" and, "Why did God make all things?" produce extensive and
powerful effects. The pupil finds himself able to master each question
in succession without difficulty, and the answering of each appears to
him a triumph. Whoever has been in the habit of making use of this
exercise in the manner explained above, must have witnessed with
pleasure the life, and energy, and delight, which it invariably infuses
into the scholar, giving education a perfectly different aspect from
what it usually assumes in the eyes of the young, and making it even in
the estimation of the pupil a formidable rival to his play. In this
manner has Nature set her seal upon this exercise, as a