The masters were charged with the training of their scholars in religion
and morals--an onerous duty in too many cases imperfectly performed.
This is shown not only by the lawlessness prevalent in the University,
but by the low views and low practices that characterized methods of
instruction in secular subjects. The term "lecture," as commonly
understood in the Middle Ages, implied or included a catechetical system
of teaching, in which the master asked and the scholar answered a series
of questions. This laborious but effective mode of ascertaining and
accelerating progress in knowledge was left irksome by both parties, and
"ordinary" lectures--or, as we should term them, lessons--were
threatened with supersession by a seductive invention known as "cursory"
lectures. These appear to have been neither more nor less than lectures
in the modern sense. The master delivered his discourse, and the scholar
was left to gather from it what degree of enlightenment he could or
would. The statute referring to the subject taxes teachers with
favouring scholars in this way, for the "hope of gain," which points to
corrupt dealing between them. In both its moral and intellectual aspects
the practice met with scant countenance from the authorities, and, save
in special cases, any master indulging in it was liable to be punished
with deprivation and imprisonment for so long a period as the
Chancellor, in his discretion, deemed fit.
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