To prevent the property of pupils and of persons under curators from being wasted or diminished by their curators or guardians the praetor provides for security being given by the latter against maladministration. This rule, however, is not without exceptions, for testamentary guardians are not obliged to give security, the testator having had full opportunities of personally testing their fidelity and carefulness, and guardians and curators appointed upon inquiry are similarly exempted, because they have been expressly chosen as the best men for the place. 1 If two or more are appointed by testament, or by a magistrate upon inquiry, any one of them may offer security for indemnifying the pupil or person to whom he is curator against loss, and be preferred to his colleague, in order that he may either obtain the sole administration, or else induce his colleague to offer larger security than himself, and so become sole administrator by preference. Thus he cannot directly call upon his colleague to give security; he ought to offer it himself, and so give his colleague the option of receiving security on the one hand, or of giving it on the other. If none of them offer security, and the testator left directions as to which was to administer the property, this person must undertake it: in default of this, the office is cast by the praetor's edict on the person whom the majority of guardians or curators shall choose. If they cannot agree, the praetor must interpose. The same rule, authorizing a majority to elect one to administer the property, is to be applied where several are appointed after inquiry by a magistrate. 2 It is to be noted that, besides the liability of guardians and curators to their pupils, or the persons for whom they act, for the management of their property, there is a subsidiary action against the magistrate accepting the security, which may be resorted to where all other remedies prove inadequate, and which lies against those magistrates who have either altogether omitted to take security from guardians or curators, or taken it to an insufficient amount. According to the doctrines stated by the jurists, as well as by imperial constitutions, this action may be brought against the magistrate's heirs as well as against him personally; 3 and these same constitutions ordain that guardians or curators who make default in giving security may be compelled to do so by legal distraint of their goods. 4 This action, however, will not lie against the prefect of the city, the praetor, or the governor of a province, or any other magistrate authorized to appoint guardians, but only against those to whose usual duties the taking of security belongs. TITLE XXV. OF GUARDIANS' AND CURATORS' GROUNDS OF EXEMPTION