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.
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