ELE3IENTARY SCHOOLS AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 31 All Christian instruction (such was the will of the Church) should begin in the family ; the Christian home should be the child's first place of training. 4 Children are the hope of the Church,' so runs the
- Seelenfiihrer.' ' Let parents, therefore, be admonished
to see that their children grow up in Christian fear and reverence, and that their home be their first school and their first Church. Christian mother, when thou holdest thy child, which is God's own image, on thy knee, make the sign of the holy cross on his forehead, on his lips and on his heart, and as soon as he can lisp teach him to say his prayers. Take him betimes to confession, and instruct him in all that is needful to make him confess rightly. Fathers and mothers should set their children a good example, taking them to mass, vespers, and sermons on Sundays and saints' days as often as possible. They should be punished as often as they neglect to do this.' - In the thirty-seventh chapter of Diedrich Coelde's Catechism, parents are admonished that they should teach their children in the German tongue the Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria, and the Apostles' Creed, and other matters of faith to be found in this book. ' Item : they should further teach them to honour Mary, the mother of God, and their guardian angel, and all the holy saints. Morning and evening they should give their children the Benediction, and make them kneel in thanksgiving to God. Item : they must be taught from their youth up, for when they are older they get " stiffened," so that they neither can nor will do what is good. Further, they should be taught to say " Bene- Swiss, Thomas Piatt, wrote in 1510, on his visit to Breslau : ' It is said there are several thousand bacchants and shooters in the city who live by alms ' (Thomas and Felix Piatt, pp. 20-21).
