is also given by the Jesuit Kropf in his Ratio et Via (ch. V, art. 9): "The repetition ought to be conducted partly in the form of an examination etc."
A few remarks about the prelection must be added:
1. After the whole work has been studied, a retrospective view is to be taken; the work is to be estimated as a whole, with its leading ideas; as a masterpiece of art; as a product of a certain age or school, from the aesthetical, philosophical, and historical point of view. This should be done especially in higher classes; – but ne quid nimis, and everything, in the words of the Ratio: "sparingly and according to the capacity of the pupils."
2. Longer explanations should not interrupt the translation, but should be put off to the end; occasionally, however, they might be given earlier in the prelection, if the text without the explanation would be hardly understood.
3. The first preparation done by the pupils at home ought not to be the principal part of the work; the principal part consists in the handling of the text in class.
This principle of the prelection of the Ratio Studiorum is also advocated by an able English schoolman. Sir Joshua Fitch says in his Lectures on Teaching, that home work should be "supplementary rather than preparatory." It should have a bearing on the school teaching of the previous day, "the best part of it is supplementary," and the chief value of home lessons, also of written exercises, is to give definiteness to lessons already learned (in class), and to thrust them home into the memory rather than to break new grounds."[1] And Professor Bain of Aberdeen Univer-
- ↑ American edition, pp. 147-149.
