tongue correctly, so as to he able to use the German
RATIER
919
RATIONALISM
Bible. Hebrew and Greek should then be learned as the tongues of the original text of the Bible, after which Latin might be studied. His views were em- bodied in a number of rules, or principles, the chief of which are : 1. Everything should be presented in its order, a due regard being always had to the course of nature. 2. Only one thing should be presented at a time. 3. Each thing should be often repeated. 4. Everything should be taught at first in the mother- tongue; afterwards other languages may be taught. 5. Everything should be done without compulsion, l!. Nothing should be learned by rote. 7. There should be mutual conformity in all things. 8. First the thing by itself, and afterwards the explanation of it ; that is to say, a basis of material must be laid in the mind be- fore any rules can be applied to it. Thus, in teaching grammar, he gave no rules, but began with the reading of the text, and required that the rules should be de- duced from it. 9. Even-thing by expression, and the investigation by parts. In his Methodus he has left minute directions to teachers concerning the details of the course, and the proper methods of instruction; but they are very prolix, and impose an immense amount of labor on the teacher, without seeming to call for a corresponding degree of exertion on the part of the pu- pil. Comenius, after reading his book, remarked that he "had not ill displayed the faults of the school, but that his remedies were not distinctly shown." Ratich's works were written in Latin, and are diffuse, tedious, and somewhat pedantic. He died in 1G35. See Bio- graphic Wniverselle, s. v.
Ratier, Vincent, a French preacher of note, was born in 1G34. At sixteen years of age he entered the Order of the Dominicans, and in 1694 was made superior- general of the order in France. He resigned this posi- tion in 1698, and died near the opening of the 18th cen- tury, greatly respected on account of his indefatigable zeal. He had preached with great success in the prin- cipal cities of France. He wrote, Octave Angelique de Saint-Francois de Sales (Orleans, 1CG7, 8vo) :— Oration Funebre de Jeanne-Gabrielle Dauvet des Marets,Abbesse du Mont-Notre-Dame, pres Provins (Orleans, 1690, 4to). — Hoefer, Nouv, Biog. Generate, s. v.
Ratification is. in the Book of Common Prayer, used to indicate the act of confirming and sanctioning some- thing previously done by another, as in assuming the ob- ligations of baptism at the reception of confirmation.
Rationale. (1.) The chairs of theology and phi- losophy (during the scholastic ages) were the oracular seats from which the doctrines of Aristotle were ex- pounded as the rationale of theological and moral truth. " There cannot be a body of rules without a rationale, and this rationale constitutes the science. There were poets before there were rules of poetical composition; but before Aristotle, or Horace, or Boileau, or Pope could write their arts of poetry and criticism, they had con- sidered the reasons on which their precepts rested, they had conceived in their own minds a theory of the art. In like manner, there were navigators before there was an art of navigation ; but before the art of navigation could teach the methods of finding the ship's place by observations of the heavenly bodies, the science of as- tronomy must have explained the system of the world." Anthony Sparrow, bishop of Exeter, is the author of a work entitled .4 Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer.
(2.) A peculiar form of the bishop's pallium (pecto- rale, \oyuoi'~), appropriated by the bishops of Rome to themselves from the time in which they began to as- sume the title of pontifices maximi and the dignity of the high-priests of the Old Testament. It was some- times sent by the Roman pontiffs to other bishops as a mark of distinction and favor. It was in the form of a trefoil, quatrefoil, or oblong square, like the piece of stuff worn by the Aaronic high-priest. It appears in England on bishop Gifford's monument at Worcester in
1301. It was worn, perhaps for the last time on record, at Kheims. The pope has a formal, and cardinals and Italian bishops wear superb brooches to clasp their copes. The Greek iripttTTsSriov, worn by patriarchs and metro- politans over the chasuble, is an oblong plate of gold or silver, jewelled.
(3.) The word rationale is also the name of a treatise explaining the meaning, and justifying the continuance, of that ceremonial which it was thought fit to retain in the Church of England in the year 1541. The mem- bers of the committee to whom this subject was in- trusted were warmly attached to the splendor of the Roman ritual, and, of course, made few alterations. The collects in which prayers were offered for the pope, and the offices for Thomas a Bccket and some other saints, were omitted; but so slight were the changes intro- duced that in many churches the missal and breviary already in use were retained. The Rationale Dicino- rum Ojfciorum of Durand, bishop of Mende, written in the latter part of the 13th century, gives the "reasons" of the forms and ceremonies of Romish worship. See ( lollier, Eccles. IJist. v, 106 ; Burnet. Hist, of the Ref. i, 63; Itiddlc, Chris/ tan Antiq. (see Index).