prelection

As was said above, the various exercises (the "prelection", memory lessons, compositions, repetitions, and contests) are the means of training the mind.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 12: Philip II-Reuss 1840-1916 1913

Thus prelection appertaining to virtue and morality is now over.

The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 Books 1, 2 and 3 Kisari Mohan [Translator] Ganguli

I was then horribly out of humor from an irritating prelection, and I felt towards Monsieur Legouvé that sort of vexation the unlucky feel towards the lucky, the poor towards the rich, the hunchbacks towards handsome men, and the awkward towards the adroit.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 Various

When tired of his lecture, they either began to yawn, or open their mouths in imitation of that act, and the prelection was interrupted.

The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection Various

In the lower grades it means "explanation", but, as it has some special features, it is best to retain the word in an English dress as "prelection".

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 12: Philip II-Reuss 1840-1916 1913

To have heard Dr. William Adams of New York at his best was better than any lecture on “Homiletics”; to have met him at the fireside or in the sick room of one of his parishioners was a prelection in pastoral theology.

Recollections of a Long Life Cuyler, Theodore L 1902

Though with a glittering eye and a strong flush on his cheek, he conserved a deliberate incidental manner, and maintained a pose of extreme interest in his own prelection as, seated in an arm-chair before the fire he began to talk with a very definite intention of a quiet self-assertion, of absorbing and controlling the conversation.

The Ordeal A Mountain Romance of Tennessee Mary Noailles Murfree 1886

He would take a handful of golden sentences -- things wisely thought and finely said by persons having authority -- and spin them into an exquisite prelection; so that his work with all the finish of art retains a something of the freshness of those elemental truths on which it was his humour to dilate.

Views and Reviews Essays in appreciation William Ernest Henley 1876

Thaumaste, and merely linking his own prelection to the last by a few flippant criticisms.

Lay Morals Robert Louis Stevenson 1872

Germans say, ganz fortre flich; and I could not leave this place without testifying unto you what inward emotions I have undergone during your edifying prelection; and how I am touched to the quick, that I should yesterday, during the refection, have seemed to infringe on the respect due to such a person as yourself. ''

A Legend of Montrose 1871