It is true he might have had recourse to a more gradual system of education, like that proposed by a bishop of Metz—at the first offence the offender was to be warned: at the second, admonished: at the third, publicly reprimanded: at the fourth, he was to be put on bread and water: at the fifth, to be separated from the rest of the community and locked up or beaten, if his age permitted: and lastly, if those corrections were ineffective, God should be asked to cure him, and he should be taken before the bishop.
Let us be just: if there were some incorrigible children, certain masters treated them with a brutality which invited reprisals. On that, we have undeniable testimony. Guilbert de Nogent, speaking of the master who had trained him, pays homage to his virtue but confesses that he overwhelmed him almost daily with cuffs and blows, to force him to learn what he himself could not teach. 'One day when I had been thrashed I went and sat at my mother's knees, cruelly hurt and most certainly more than I deserved. My mother having asked me, as was her custom, if I had been beaten again, I, not wishing to denounce my
