coming home again;
For our profit it shall serve,
Not for injury or pain.
Your will and the command of God
Have prompted us to bear the rod
On our own bodies thus to-day,
Not in angry, sullen mood,
But with a spirit glad and gay

The greater part of the male students were animated by a wild and
reckless spirit, the result of a fickle roving from town to town. The
pretext for this course was the necessity of hunting up skilful
teachers; but with many it was only love for a career of frolic and
idleness. The oldest and strongest scholars, young men of twenty and
upwards, each of whom had a different plea to urge, set the example. By
the promise of a living free of cost and instruction in the rudiments
they attracted to themselves younger boys, who, as soon as they had
crossed the boundaries of their father-land, were converted into
servants and compelled to beg or steal money and provisions for the
common treasury. Thomas Platter, a native of Valais, when a child, nine
years of age, followed such a wandering student and traveled with him
through Germany as far as the borders of Poland without ever learning
to read, until in his eighteenth year, he received for the first time
better instruction in Schlettstadt and afterwards in Zurich. He has
left us a picture of his student-life in an autobiography, extracts
from which are found in a number of works. It can easily be imagined
how several thousand scholars of this roving cast, who all subsisted on
alms, should frequently meet together in one town. The younger ones,
called _archers_, spent the night in the schoolhouses, and the older
(bacchanalians) in little chambers specially reserved for their
accommodation. In summer they all lay together in the church-yards with
the grass for a bed. Wo to the chickens, the geese and the fruit-trees,
where such a troop passed by! Here one man hissed his dogs on them,
while there another gave them a friendly welcome, and in return for as
much beer as they could drink, obtained information about foreign
countries and stories of their travels. The roughest class of teachers
often joined them in their revels and often others at the head of their
trusty followers sallied out to drive the truants into school, who,
when assailed, retreated to the roofs of the houses, sending down
showers of stones, till the citizens or the watchmen broke in among
them and quelled the riot.

It was Zwingli's good