The final _Ratio_ notes that the daily lesson should not exceed four lines in the lowest class of Grammar; seven in Middle Grammar. There is, as I have already observed, a prelection proper to grammatical rules; also to Greek, whether it be in the grammar or in an author. Proportion in width and depth of matter is adjusted to each grade. A careful dictation in the vernacular is to be given, which, when rendered into Latin or Greek, will exemplify the precepts explained, or the use of the phrases already dictated. And one part of the school exercises, from the lowest class up to Rhetoric, is a _concertatio_ between rivals, which is a lively discussion either upon matters explained in the prelections, or upon one another's compositions. In this field of debate, as is natural, the activity of the students grows, both in the extent of the field to be covered, and in the depth of erudition required, according as the grades are mounted. And it is carried out of the class-room into select societies, called "academies," the members whereof, whether grammarians or _littérateurs_, conduct their debates, give their own prelections or repeat a choice one of their Professor's, award a place in the archives to some specially meritorious production; and they conduct all these exercises in exact keeping with their actual prelections and studies. Nor do they yield an inch in gravity or dignity to the great academy of theologians and philosophers.[299] As to the native tongue, one of the earliest systems of studies in the Society, prior to the general _Ratio_ by about forty years, lays down for the middle class of Grammar, that "on Mondays and Wednesdays the boys will receive the themes in Bohemian and German for their epistolary exercises."[300] This document is probably from the pen of Peter Canisius, soon after the colleges were founded at Prague, Ingolstadt and Cologne. In a directive memorial of 1602, drawn up for Mayence by Father Ferdinand Alber, a postscript is added to the effect, "Let exercise in the German tongue be furthered."[301] Jouvancy lays down the practice in this manner: "After the correction and dictation of the written exercises, the Latin author is rendered into the mother tongue, or a _concertatio_ is held. These two exercises can be held on alternate days, if there is not enough of time every day for both. In rendering the author into the vernacular, you will observe three things: first, the idiom of the vernacular, and its agreement in construction with the Latin, or else its disagreement, so that the scholars learn each tongue by the other; secondly, the proper turns and elegance of the Latin style; finally, the thoughts of the author, as having a moral bearing, and as calculated to form and mould the judgment of the boys; also the ways of men, the punishments of the wicked, the maxims of sages. Some part of an historical author should be given sometimes for their written exercise, to translate into the