To such requests the proper answer was, of course, an affectionate letter, commending the young man’s industry and studious habits and remitting the desired amount. Sometimes the student is cautioned to moderate his expenses--he might have got on longer with what he had, he should remember the needs of his sisters, he ought to be supporting his parents instead of trying to extort money from them, etc. One father--who quotes Horace!--excuses himself because of the failure of his vineyards. It often happened, too, that the father or uncle has heard bad reports of the student, who must then be prepared to deny indignantly all such aspersions as the unfounded fabrications of his enemies. Here is an example of paternal reproof taken from an interesting collection relating to Franche-Comté: “To his son G. residing at Orleans P. of Besançon sends greetings with paternal zeal. It is written, ‘He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster.’ I have recently discovered that you live dissolutely and slothfully, preferring license to restraint and play to work and strumming a guitar while the others are at their studies, whence it happens that you have read but one volume of law while your more industrious companions have read several. Wherefore I have decided to exhort you herewith to repent utterly of your dissolute and careless ways, that you may no longer be called a waster and your shame may be turned to good repute.” In the models of Ponce de Provence we find a teacher writing to a student’s father that while the young man is doing well in his studies, he is just a trifle wild and would be helped by judicious admonition. Naturally the master does not wish it known that the information came through him, so the father writes his son: “I have learned--not from your master, although he ought not to hide such things from me, but from a certain trustworthy source--that you do not study in your room or act in the schools as a good student should, but play and wander about, disobedient to your master and indulging in sport and in certain other dishonorable practices which I do not now care to explain by letter.” Then follow the customary exhortations to reform. Two boys at Orleans thus describe their arrival at this centre of learning: