The exercises in writing are to be followed by exercises in orthography and in composition:—
“The teacher will require the pupils to compose and write for themselves notes, receipts, bills, etc. He will also require them to write out what they remember of the catechism, and of the lectures that they have heard.”[164]
As to arithmetic, reduced to the four rules, we must commend La Salle’s attempt to have it learned by reason and not by routine. Thus, he requires the teacher to interrogate the pupil, in order to make him the better comprehend and retain the rule, or to make sure that he is attentive. He “will give him a complete understanding” of what he teaches; and, finally, he will require him “to produce a certain number of rules that he has discovered for himself.”
Prayers and religious exercises naturally hold a large place in the schools organized by La Salle:—
“There shall always be two or three scholars kneeling, one from each class, who will tell their beads one after another.”
“Care will everywhere be taken that the scholars hear the holy mass every day.”
“A half hour each day shall be devoted to the catechism.”
291. Method of Teaching.—The Institute of the Brethren has often been criticised for the mechanical character of its instruction. The Frère Philip, in the edition of the Conduct published in 1870, implicitly acknowledges the justice of this criticism when he writes: “Elementary instruction has assumed a particular character in these last days, of which we must take account. Proposing for its chief end to train the judgment of the pupil, it gives less importance than heretofore to the culture of the memory; it makes especial use of methods which call into activity the intelligence, and lead the child to reflect, to take account of facts, to withdraw from the domain of words to enter into that of ideas.” Do not these wise cautions unmistakably betray the existence of an evil tradition which should be corrected, but which tends to hold its ground? He who has read the Conduct is not left in doubt that the general character of the pedagogy of the Christian Schools, at the first, was a mechanical and routine exercise of the memory, and the absence of life.
292. Christian Politeness.—Under the title of Rules of Decorum and Christian Civility, La Salle had composed a reading book, intended for pupils already somewhat advanced, and printed in Gothic characters.[165] It was not only a manual of politeness, but was, the Conduct claims, a treatise on ethics, “containing all the duties of children, both towards God and towards their parents.” But we would examine the work in vain for the justification of this remark. In it are discussed only the puerile details of outward behavior and of worldly bearing. It would, however, be in bad taste to criticise at this day a book of another age, whose artlessness makes us smile. La Salle’s purpose was certainly praiseworthy, though attempting a little too much. It is said in the Preface that “there is not a single one of our actions which ought not to be regulated by motives purely Christian.” Hence an infinite number of minute prescriptions upon the simplest acts of daily life.[166]