The empress showed herself fully qualified for both offices. She had it greatly at heart to provide the young emperor with a learned education, and not unmindful of the proverb we have quoted above, was equally solicitous to secure for his tutor one who should merit the title of a saint. The priest whom she chose was a noble Saxon named Bernward; he was nephew to Folcmar, Bishop of Utrecht, who sent him when a child of seven years old to be educated in the episcopal school of Hildesheim, by the grave and holy master Tangmar. This good old man, who afterwards wrote his life, received him kindly, and to test his capacities, set him to learn by heart some of the select passages from Holy Scripture which were usually given to beginners. Little Bernward set himself to learn and meditate on them with wonderful ardour, and associating himself to the most studious of his companions, tried with their help thoroughly to master, not only the words, but the hidden sense of his lessons. As he was not yet judged old enough to join any of the classes, he sat apart by himself, but listened attentively to the lectures of the master, and the explanations which he gave, and was afterwards found reproducing the same in a grave and sententious manner for the edification of his younger schoolfellows. Surprised and delighted at these marks of precocious genius, Tangmar spared no pains in the cultivation of so promising a scholar, and had him constantly by his side. “Whenever I went abroad on the business of the monastery,” he says, “I used to take him with me, and I was always more and more struck by his excellent qualities. We often studied the whole day as we rode along on horseback, only more briefly than we were used to do in school; at one time exercising ourselves in poetry, and amusing ourselves by making verses, at another, arguing on philosophic questions. He excelled no less in the mechanical than in the liberal arts. He wrote a beautiful hand, was a good painter, and an equally good sculptor and worker in metals, and had a peculiar aptitude for all things appertaining to household and domestic affairs.” Under the care of so devoted a master, the boy Bernward, as the old man always called him, grew up to be a wise and learned man. He had that singular ardour for acquiring knowledge which seems one of the gifts poured out over ages in which its pursuit is hedged about with difficulties that must necessarily discourage a more ordinary amount of zeal. Bernward always read during meal times, and when unable to read himself, he got some one to read to him. His reputation determined Theophania to choose him as tutor to her son, who made great progress under his care, and was then sent to finish his education in the school of the famous Gerbert. Bernward meanwhile was appointed Bishop of Hildesheim, and in the midst of his episcopal functions, continued to cultivate literature and the fine arts. He made time by employing