It is worthy of note that in the earlier stages of instruction the pupil was encouraged to ask questions about the difficulties which he encountered and the tutor was expected to explain everything that was obscure to the learner. At a later stage the learner was questioned to test whether he had grasped the meaning of what he read, and to raise difficulties which he was required to explain.[279] In fact the instruction would seem to have been thorough and in many respects was at least equal in efficiency, if not in technique, to that imparted in many of our modern schools. We are told that it was the special merit of the tutor who obtained the degree known as _Sruth-do-aill_ that “he was able to modify his instruction to the complexion of the information in mercy to the people who were unable to follow the instruction of a teacher of higher degree. In other words he was able to make hard things easy to weak students who might get frightened in the presence of the formidable scholar.”[280] This would show that the question of “individual differences” was a live one in pedagogical circles in those days and that a genuine attempt was made to solve it. When we come in a later chapter to discuss the characteristics of the groups of figures represented on the sculptured crosses we shall see that the value of “visual instruction” was appreciated. THE SCRIPTORIUM: The function of the scriptorium was to supply text-books for the school, service books for the church and monastic community, and works of a more general and ambitious nature for the library. Our knowledge of the internal life of the scriptorium is unfortunately very limited and is deduced almost entirely from an examination of the MSS. produced therein. It would seem that the scriptorium was not unlike a modern school-room in some respects. In silence the younger members of the monastic community and other students sat there writing out and multiplying books, sometimes from dictation, sometimes by copying. An invigilator sat there also to preserve silence and to act as task master. On the margins of the MSS. we sometimes find short fragmentary notes devoid of literary value, but of deep human interest as showing that unregenerate human nature had its opportunities even in a monastic scriptorium as much as in a modern school-room. These notes[281] are supposed to be fragments of conversations carried on _sotto voce_ to evade the rule of silence and doubtlessly notes were scribbled surreptitiously to companions. Though all too few these vivid human touches add not a little to our knowledge of student life in those far off days.