238 HISTORY OF THE ASSYRIAN CHURCH
Schools of the Assyrian Church. — Education is one of the things that never fails to stimulate the Assyrian, and their schools have always been a feature of their Church life. As we have seen, no centre of education of any great importance existed among them at first; though the fact that special search was made for "teachers" in Adiabene during the persecution of Sapor is evidence that there were such schools during the fourth century.[1] These, however, could hardly have been very advanced affairs; and for all higher education, the college of Edessa served until its suppression in 489. Then the school of Nisibis was founded; and the next century, when the Church had relative peace, saw the rise of a large number of really important "education centres" in Persia. Babowai the patriarch started a school at Seleucia,[2] of which his successor Acacius was the first head. Aba refounded or remodelled it, and gave it a library; and in later days, when the patriarchate was transferred to Baghdad, the school followed it. Other schools of note existed at Dor Koni and Makhozi d'Ariun; while Amr speaks of colleges for Tartars at Merv, and for Arabs at Khirta and Prat d'Maishan.[3]
Every bishop probably maintained a school of greater or less importance (a thing that was necessary in a land where the Government colleges were pronouncedly Magian), and the Chorepiscopus of every diocese appears to have had education as his special charge.[4] Scribes and doctors were highly honoured. One school, that of Seleucia, seems to have had a half recognized right of interference in the election of the patriarch (much, perhaps, as the school of Westminster has in the coronation of the
