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l68 THE MIDDLE AGES.
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into the Arabs in their education, induced them to adorn
their writings with a multitude of quotations through which
many important matters have been saved from oblivion.
What surprising disclosures on the civilization, and particularly
on the medicine, of antiquity may we expect, as soon
as the literary treasures of the Muhammedan seats of
learning in the East and in North Africa, such as Kairwan,
are thrown open to science !
Even in the earliest ages of Islam elementary schools
were universally erected near the mosques, in which
children learned to read the Koran. To this was added
later on the reading of other compositions, besides
grammar and instruction in writing. Attendance at school
began in the sixth year of age.* Religion formed the
basis of the higher teaching as well as of the more
elementary. The higher teaching institutions, too, were at
first in connection with the mosques. In the niches and
cosridors of these or in adjacent halls, the learned gathered
a circle of inquiring students around them and held discourses
upon theological, philological, philosophical, legal
and medical questions. During the first centuries any one
might act as a teacher without being obliged to show his
qualifications; from the teachers of theology and law only
was it demanded that they should give account of their own
education by a teacher of publicly recognized ability in the
branch of knowledge they professed. Many teachers
carried on some other calling as well: they worked as
readers and preachers in the mosques, as officials, judges,
secretaries, overseers at the markets, and even as tradesmen
and mechanics.t The teachers of medical science were no
doubt in most cases skilled as practical doctors. The
lectures being gratis, it was natural that teachers not
possessed of private means should be careful to get their
* D. HANEBERG: Uber das Schul-und Lehrwesen der Muhamedaner im
Mittelalter. Munchen 1850, S. 4 et seq.
t F. WUSTENFELD : Die Academien der Araber und ihre Lehrer, Gottingen
1837, S. 6.