Nor were the children of the poor left to grow up in ignorance. Learning was free, to be had for the asking. More than this, stringent measures were taken that no child be without instruction. Talmud Torahs were founded even in the smallest kehillot (communities), and the students were supplied, not only with books, but also with the necessaries of life. Communal and individual benefactors furnished clothes, and every member (ba'al ha-bayit) had to provide food and lodging for an indigent pupil at least one day of each week. The "Freitisch" (free board) was an inseparable adjunct to every school. Poor young men were not regarded as "beggar students." They were looked upon as earning their living by study, even as teachers by instructing. To pray for the dead or the living in return for their support is a recent innovation, and mostly among other than Slavonic Jews. It is a custom adopted from medieval Christianity, and practiced in England by the poor student, who, in the words of Chaucer, Busily 'gan for the souls to pray On them that gave him wherewith to scolay. For a faithful and vivid description of the yeshibot we cannot do better than transcribe the account given in the pages of the little pamphlet _Yeven Mezulah_ in which Nathan Hannover, mentioned above, has left us a reliable history of the Cossack uprisings and the Kulturgeschichte of his own time. I need bring no proof for the statement that nowhere was the study of the Law so universal as in Russo-Poland. In every community there was a well-paid dean (rosh yeshibah), who, exempt from worry about a livelihood, devoted himself exclusively to teaching and studying by day and by night. In every kahal, many youths, maintained liberally, studied under the guidance of the dean. In turn, they instructed the less advanced, who were also supported by the community. A kahal of fifty [families] had to provide for at least thirty such. They boarded and lodged in the homes of their patrons, and frequently received pocket-money in addition. Thus there was hardly a house in which the Torah was not studied, either by the master of the house, a son, a son-in-law, or a student stranger. They always bore in mind the dictum of Rabba, "He who loves scholars will have scholarly sons; he who welcomes scholars will have scholarly sons-in-law; he who admires scholars will become learned himself." No wonder, then, that every community swarmed with scholars, that out of every fifty of its members at least twenty were far advanced, and had the morenu (i.e. bachelor) degree.