To provide a loan collection of theological books for poor students we find, in 1271, a gift by will to the University of Paris (R. 119) of a private library, containing twenty-seven books. Even if the students possessed books, the master "read" [23] and commented from his "gloss" at great length on the texts being studied. Besides the mere text each teacher had a "gloss" or commentary for it--that is, a mass of explanatory notes, summaries, cross-references, opinions by others, and objections to the statements of the text. The "gloss" was a book in itself, often larger than the text, and these standard glosses, [24] or commentaries, were used in the university instruction for centuries. In Theology and Canon Law they were particularly extensive. All instruction, too, was in Latin. The professor read from the Latin text and gloss, repeating as necessary, and to this the student listened. Sometimes he read so slowly that the text could be copied, but in 1355 this method was prohibited at Paris (R. 121), and students who tried to force the masters to follow it "by shouting or whistling or raising a din, or by throwing stones," were to be suspended for a year. The first step in the instruction was a minute and subtle analysis of the text itself, in which each line was dissected, analyzed, and paraphrased, and the comments on the text by various authors were set forth. Next all passages capable of two interpretations were thrown into the form of a question; _pro_ and _contra_, after the manner of Abelard. The arguments on each side were advanced, and the lecturer's conclusion set forth and defended. The text was thus worked over day after day in minute detail. Having as yet but little to teach, the masters made the most of what they had. A good example of the mediaeval plan of university instruction is found in the announcement of Odofredus, a distinguished teacher of Law at Bologna, about the middle of the thirteenth century, which Rashdall thinks is equally applicable to methods in other subjects. Odofredus says: First, I shall give you summaries of each title before I proceed to the text; secondly, I shall give you as clear and explicit a statement as I can of the purport of each Law (included in the title); thirdly, I shall read the text with a view to correcting it; fourthly, I shall briefly repeat the contents of the Law; fifthly, I shall solve apparent contradictions, adding any general principles of Law (to be extracted from the passage), and any distinctions and subtle and useful problems arising out of the Law with their solutions, as far as the Divine Providence shall enable me. And if any Law shall seem deserving, by reason of its celebrity or difficulty, of a Repetition, I shall reserve it for an evening Repetition.