ourage others. If there were some who would voluntarily commence it
themselves, _it would not be interpreted ill, or thought below their
dignity_.

"I have become acquainted with the character of most instructors of
youth, and I find that their real aim is not to lead the soul of youth
to God, but their pay also, that they are chiefly not fit to impart a
correct knowledge of God since they do not possess it themselves. And
indeed there are very many who have not a knowledge even of the _letter_
of that which is or is not to be believed; much less do they comprehend
thoroughly and spiritually what is the will of God in faith and its
fruits. Catechizing is as necessary to the church as any other religious
agency can be."

We have also the important authority of Calixtus on the sad condition of
the education of the young. "The chief cause and origin of the decay of
learning," says he, "now tending to extinction, (which may God avert!)
I hold for my own part, to be this:--that the younger children are not
well grounded in the minor schools. Foundations ought to be laid there,
which might afterwards support the whole weight of solid learning and
true erudition. The children ought to learn from genuine authors the
Greek and Latin languages; the Keys (as they are) of those treasures
which preceding ages have laid up for our use. And they ought so to
learn, as to be able to appreciate the thoughts of others (specially of
the best authors), and to express their own in suitable and perspicuous
words.... But now, in many places, we see the reverse of all this.
Before they can speak (passing by preposterously, the matters essential
to ultimate success), the boys are made to proceed, or rather leap, to
higher subjects; 'real' subjects, as we have learned to call them.
Pedagogues of this stamp seem to themselves learned, whilst they are
teaching what they have never themselves mastered; and what their
scholars neither understand, nor at their age _can_ understand. In the
mean time the writings of those good authors, who, by all past ages,
have been recognized as masters of literature and style, are struck out
of their hands, and they (the schoolmasters) substitute their own
comments; disputing in a circle of children about Anti-Christ and the
doctrine of predestination."[21]

The theological literature of these times was voluminous and confused. A
work on an unimportant subject would occupy a dozen volumes, and then
the writer wou