Study Guide Children and Education
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Catechism
“[F]ew Pastors of Mankind ever took such pains at Catechising as have been taken by our New English Divines” boasted Cotton Mather in the Magnalia Christ Americana (Mather V.3). Indeed catechisms are mentioned frequently in Mayhew’s discussion of island life. Catechism is an ancient spiritual teaching practice that, as one Catechist put it, involves “sending out a questions and listening for the echo, the answer that fixes the depth of knowledge and understanding” (Van Dyken 11). Catechism is not a solely Puritan practice: rather, it derives from a Greek word found in the New Testament: katecheo (Van Dyken 11). Katecheo means to instruct or teach, but has larger connotations that include to charm or fascinate with sound, and “to sound towards, sound down upon, resound” (The New Testament Greek Lexicon). Although catechism was popularized in Late Antiquity by St. Augustine and Erasmus, Protestant reformers made this mode of charming their own: during the Reformation Martin Luther, John Calvin and others brought catechism back to the forefront as a means of educating and saving souls (Van Dyken 14). Catechism served as a map for young learners. The texts provided a way of understanding the large unknown territory of the soul and God.
Catechism was part of the child’s (and coverts’) daily life in Puritan New England. Schoolmasters drilled children in catechism every school day. Even children of only four or five years were expected to repeat it precisely at home, and after the age of seven or eight in front of the entire congregation (Ford 81-83; Axtell 1974: 37-38). The popularity of catechism in New England and the large number of catechism published added to the theological schisms already present in the colonies (Ford 24). Catechisms were included as part of the New England Primer, and usually followed verses to martyrs such as John Rogers. The most popular catechisms included were the Shorter Catechism from the Westminster Assembly and John Cotton’s “Spiritual Milk for American Babes Drawn Out of the Breasts of both Testaments” (Ford 77-79, 86). Cotton’s “Spiritual Milk” was translated into Algonquian as part Mayhew’s Indian Primer. Cotton’s son John Cotton Jr. was one of the early ministers to the Wampanoags on the island, and his grandson Cotton Mather wrote a number of texts that were translated into Algonquian.
Puritan catechism such as Cotton’s “Spiritual Milk,” were covenantal: that is, they emphasized the relationship between the child or convert and God. The catechisms outlined the duties of the child/convert and the promises God made in return. Many of the Wampanoag speeches and sermons related in Indian Converts echo these duties and promises. Catechisms were a way for the child/convert to know God and to understand his nature and the nature of Christ. Psalms and hymns fulfilled a similar function in that they, too, created a direct relationship between the speaker and God and they provided guidelines for how prayer should look, sound, and be structured. When converts and children said the catechism or sang they in turn sent out their questions to God and listened for the Divine echo that would confirm Divine acceptance of the covenant, and would provide a depth of knowledge and understanding.
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