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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. 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, 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.

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. 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