nts, Luther could but urge that
it be introduced in the churches, too. He also showed them how to use
it. On June 11, 1529, for instance, he expounded the First Article after
he had read the text and the explanation of the Small Catechism. (549.)
This the pastors were to imitate, a plan which was also carried out. The
charts were suspended in the churches; the people and children were wont
to bring the book edition with them to church; the preachers read the
text, expounded it, and had it recited. The Schoenewald Church Order
prescribed that the pastor "first pronounce for the people" the text of
the chief parts, and then expound it as on Luther's charts. (549.)

106. A Book Also for Schools and Teachers.

When planning and writing his Small Catechism, Luther self-evidently did
not overlook the schools and the schoolteachers. The first booklet of
the charts for the Latin schools of the Middle Ages contained the abc;
the second, the first reading-material, _viz._, the Paternoster, Ave
Maria, and the Credo; the third, the Benedicite, Gratias, and similar
prayers. Albrecht writes: "We may surmise that Luther, when composing
the German tables and combining them in a book, had in mind the old
chart-booklets. This view is supported by the fact that in it he
embodied the prayers, the Benedicite and Gratias, and probably also by
the title Enchiridion, which, besides the titles 'Handbooklet' or 'The
Children's Handbooklet' was applied to such elementary books." (W. 30,
1, 546.) In the _Instruction for the Visitors_ we read: "A certain day,
either Saturday or Wednesday, shall be set aside for imparting to the
children Christian instruction. ... Hereupon the schoolteacher shall
simply and correctly expound at one time the Lord's Prayer, at another
the Creed, at another the Ten Commandments, etc." (W. 26, 238.) In these
schools Luther's Small Catechism served as text-book. From 1529 until
the beginning of the eighteenth century Sauermann's Latin translation
(_Parvus Catechismus pro Pueris in Schola_) was employed in the Latin
schools of Saxony. In the German schools the German Enchiridion was used
as the First Reader. Hence, the Marburg reprint of the first Wittenberg
edition of the Catechism begins with the alphabet, and makes it a point
to mention this fact on its title-page.

Down to the present day no other book has become and remained a
schoolbook for religious instruction to such an extent as Luther's Small
Catechism. And r