received and controlled all the revenues from _vakfs_, and paid from the appropriate funds all who were duly certified as recipients of salaries and pensions. All the _Ulema_, in connection with their support from semi-public funds, possessed the noble privilege of immunity from taxation. Since the rendering of justice was in their hands, they had their own justice. In addition, their property was not subject to confiscation; and, since they were not _kullar_, it passed by inheritance to their relatives and never to the sultan. All these privileges gave the learned class in the Ottoman Empire the prestige of nobility, besides great financial advantage.[647] THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM Like the Ruling Institution, the Moslem Institution contained and embodied an educational system which was of its essential structure. Through it, from the time of Mohammed II, the great majority of the members of the institution, including all who expected promotion, were required to pass; accordingly, they bore as a body the name of the _Ulema_, or learned men.[648] The schools, supported by _vakfs_ and attached to mosques, were in three grades: the _mektebs_ or primary schools, known in the sixteenth century as _okumak-yerleri_ or reading-places; the ordinary _medressehs_ or colleges; and the higher _medressehs_ or law schools, of university grade. The _mektebs_ taught Arabic reading and writing and the Koran; the _medressehs_ gave a course of ten studies resembling the Seven Arts of the West;[649] the law schools taught the group of sciences connected with the Koran and the _Sheri_ and including both law and theology.[650]