0"T' LAERT> "! - USP

170 THE MIDDLE AGES.
teachers were in this respect very ready to come forward. j
Of one of these it is said in a somewhat exaggerated strain
that " he covered the earth with certificates of attendance
and licenses to teach."*
Many schools and mosques possessed large libraries.
QUATREMERE has described 40 and v. HAMMER-PuRGSTALL
made important additions to this number.t The love of
possessing books was moreover widely spread among
private people. The doctor ALGIZAR (IBN DSCHEZZAR)
left behind him when he died in the year 1009 at Kirwan a
library which weighed 25 hundredweight. J
In the 1 rth-century the Madaris began to arise: these
may be compared either to European Academies, according
to WUSTENFELD or to Gymnasia as MEYER suggests. They
most of all resembled English Colleges. They were, in fact |
boarding establishments devoted to the higher teaching, in
which teachers and pupils lived together. Some possessed J
imposing buildings ; all were provided with libraries. The.
most celebrated Madaris were at Baghdad, Basra, Bokhara,
Nisabur, Damascus, Samarcand and Cairo ;§ Spain at the
most flourishing period possessed 17 of such institutions.
WUSTENFELD has described 37 of these places and has
given detailed information about the conditions of life
amongst the teachers engaged at them and their literary j
works. If we peruse the copious list of their writings we
find that they deal chiefly with theology, law, philosophy,
and philology; only a few treat of mathematics, chemistry,
the natural sciences, and other subjects, but not one with
medicine. It appears therefore that these institutions
served chiefly for education in the humanities, theology, and
* HANEBERG op. cit. S. 22.
f QUATREMERE : " Sur le gout des livres chez les Orientaux "' in the Journal-
Asiat. Ser. iii, t. iv, p. 35, Paris 1838, and Ser. iv, t. xi, p. 187 et seq Paris 1848.
-LECLERC op. cit. i, 583 et seq.—A. v. KREMER : Culturgeschichte des Orients- |
unter den Khalifen, Wien 1877, ii, S. 434.
X LECLERC op. cit. i, 584.
§ WUSTENFELD op. cit. S. 6.