Well might the vicegerent of the Armenian pope--which the Catholicos in fact is, although his title is improperly rendered by foreigners as patriarch--and his brother archbishops, feel misgivings at sight of the quiet-looking German, who replied to their welcome by a gravely ironical compliment on their many virtues and distinguished reputation; and who now, having got them upon paper, draws, quarters, and dissects them with a merciless scalpel. Whatever their previous experience of note-taking travellers, it was insufficient to guard them from imprudence, and they allowed Dr Wagner to witness an examination of the pupils in their clerical seminary. Here proof was quickly elicited of the almost incredible ignorance of scholars and teachers. The oldest lad in the school, which included young men eighteen and twenty years old, was unable to decline the Russian noun _matj_, (mother,) although, for years past, an archimandrite had officiated as professor of that language. The professor came to the assistance of his embarrassed pupil, (whom Abowian questioned,) and managed to prove beyond possibility of doubt, that he himself did not know the Russian declensions. "I now requested Mr Abowian to ask the boys the simplest possible questions, as, for instance, how many days the year has. Not one of them could answer, although many were already bearded men. And from these dunces are selected archbishops for all Armenia! The instruction in this convent-seminary is limited to mechanical learning by rote, and to a heedless and unmeaning repetition of prayers and Scripture passages. The scholars are well drilled in respect of fasts; and for the slightest offence against external order, for unsteadiness during mass, or the like, they are cruelly chastised with blows. It is not surprising if such treatment extinguishes all vivacity of intellect. It needs but a glance at the pale, thin, stolid countenances of the lads, to discern the hideous effects of their slavish, mind-destroying education. With deep disgust I left the school."