riginators of the Arts because
when he pretends to devote his energies to them he finds nothing
useful in them.[10]

John's own training was in marked contrast to all this. Instead of
remaining in the schools "scarcely longer than the time within which
young birds get their feathers," he spent, as above noted, twelve years
in study. Instead of devoting himself to logic and disputation alone, he
received an extensive training in the classics and in theology. His
first teacher at Paris was Abelard.

When I was a very young man, I went to study in France, the year
after the death of that lion in the cause of justice, Henry [the
First], king of England. There I sought out that famous teacher
and Peripatetic philosopher of Pallet [Abelard], who at that time
presided at Mont St. Genevieve, and was the subject of admiration
to all men. At his feet I received the first rudiments of the
dialectic art [logic], and shewed the utmost avidity to pick up
and store away in my mind all that fell from his lips. When,
however, much to my regret, Abelard left us, I attended Master
Alberic, a most obstinate Dialectician, and unflinching assailant
of the Nominal Sect. Two years I stayed at Mont St. Genevieve,
under the tuition of Alberic and Master Robert de Melun.

Then follows a characterization of these teachers. The statement that
one of them went to Bologna for the further study of logic indicates
that that place was eminent for its teaching of dialectics as well as
for the study of law.

One of these teachers was scrupulous even to minutiae, and
everywhere found some subject to raise a question; for the
smoothest surface presented inequalities to him, and there was no
rod so smooth that he could not find a knot in it, and shew how
it might be got rid of. The other of the two was prompt in reply,
and never for the sake of subterfuge avoided a question that was
proposed; but he would choose the contradictory side, or by
multiplicity of words would show that a simple answer could not
be given. In all questions, therefore, he was subtle and profuse,
whilst the other in his answer was perspicuous, brief, and to the
point If two such characters could ever have been united in the
same person, he would be the best hand at disputation that our
times have produced. Both of them possessed acute wit, and an