Where there were large numbers great care was taken that there should be no confusion or disorder. The whole school was commonly divided into sections, over each of which was placed a leader or master, whose orders should be obeyed: and over the whole college there was one head-master or principal, usually called a _Fer-leginn_, i.e., ‘Man of learning’: while the abbot presided over all--monastery and college. The Fer-leginn was always some distinguished man--of course a great scholar. He was generally a monk, but sometimes a layman; for those good monks selected the best man they could find, whether priest or layman. I suppose those who are accustomed to the grand universities and colleges of the present day, with their palatial buildings, would feel inclined to laugh at the simple, rough-and-ready methods and appliances of the old Irish colleges. There were no comfortable study rooms, well furnished with desks, seats, and rostrums: no spacious lecture halls. The greater part of the work, indeed, was carried on in the open air when the weather at all permitted. At study time the students went just where they pleased, and accommodated themselves as best they could. All round the college you would see every flowery bank, every scented hedgerow, every green glade and sunny hillock occupied with students, sitting or lying down, or pacing thoughtfully, each with his precious manuscript book open before him, all poring over the lesson assigned for next lecture, silent, attentive, and earnest.[3] Then the little handbell tinkled for some particular lecture, and the special students for this hurried to their places, and seated themselves as best they could--on chair, stool, form, stone, or bank, and opened their books. These same books, too, were a motley collection--some large, some small, some fresh from the scribe, some tattered and brown with age: but all most carefully covered and preserved; for they were very expensive. You now buy a good school copy of some classical author for, say, half-a-crown: at that time it would probably cost what was equivalent to £2 of our present money. Then the master went over the text, translating and explaining it, and whenever he thought it necessary questioned his pupils, to draw them out. After this he had to stand the cross-fire of the students’ questions, who asked him to explain all sorts of difficulties: for this was one of the college regulations. There were no grammars, no dictionaries, no simple introductory lesson books, such as we have now. The students had to go straight at the Latin or Greek text, and where they failed to make sense, the master stepped in with his help. And in this rugged and difficult fashion they mastered the language. Yet it was in rude institutions of this kind that were educated those men whose names became renowned all over Europe, and who--for the period when they lived--are now honoured as among the greatest scholars and missionaries that the world ever saw.