LITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 79 



orders, were instructed in the elements of reading, 

 writing, and religion. From the Arabic alphabet 

 they gradually advanced to the Koran, for the correct 

 pronunciation of which, rules were carefully pre- 

 scribed. A second description of colleges called the 

 Madras, though sometimes connected with the 

 mosques like the preceding, were occasionally erect- 

 ed as independent institutions. Here were taught 

 the higher branches of grammar, logic, theology, 

 and jurisprudence. Many of these colleges were 

 so constituted as to contain thirty apartments, each 

 of which was occupied by three or four students. 

 The government of every school and academy 

 was confided to a rector chosen from the most emi- 

 nent of the learned, and often without regard to 

 his religious opinions. That academical examina- 

 tions took place among all the pupils seems highly 

 probable; with respect to medical students the 

 fact is certain. In Egypt and Spain this class were 

 subjected to a very strict investigation as to their 

 proficiency. Casiri has noticed a treatise by a pro- 

 fessor of Cordova, containing seventy-seven ques- 

 tions to be proposed to medical candidates, and 

 when the Achimbasi or chief physician was satis- 

 fied of their qualifications, they received a testimo- 

 nial or diploma, under his hand, authorizing them 

 to practise. The different professors were furnished 

 with text-books, on which they lectured, authorized 

 by the colleges, and accounted classical by the Arabs. 

 Whatever might be the real progress of the Sa- 

 racens in the speculative or the useful sciences, 

 their studies embraced a course sufficiently ample to 

 exercise every faculty of the human mind. Gram- 

 mar and rhetoric were cultivated with singular as- 



