In the course of time Talmudic yeshibahs sprang up in all the cities of Poland and Lithuania. The functions of rector, or rosh-yeshibah, were performed either by the local rabbi or by a man especially selected for this post on account of his learning. It seems that the combination of the two offices of rabbi and college president in one person was limited to those communities in which the duties of the spiritual guide of the community were not complex, and admitted of the simultaneous discharge of pedagogic functions. In the large centers, however, where the public responsibilities were regularly divided, the rosh-yeshibah was an independent dignitary, who was clothed with considerable authority. Similar to the contemporary rectors of Jesuit colleges, the rosh-yeshibah was absolute master within the school walls; he exercised unrestricted control over his pupils, subjecting them to a well-established discipline and dispensing justice among them.
The contemporary chronicler quoted above, Rabbi Nathan Hannover, of Zaslav, in Volhynia, portrays in vivid colors the Jewish school life of Poland and Lithuania in the first half of the seventeenth century.
In no country—quoth Rabbi Nathan78—was the study of the Torah so widespread among the Jews as in the Kingdom of Poland. Every Jewish community maintained a yeshibah, paying its president a large salary, so as to enable him to conduct the institution without worry and to devote himself entirely to the pursuit of learning. … Moreover, every Jewish community supported college students (bahurs), giving them a certain amount of money per week, so that they might study under the direction of the president. Every one of these bahurs was made to instruct at least two boys, for the purpose of deepening his own studies and gaining some experience in Talmudic discussions. The [poor] boys obtained their food either from the charity fund or from the public kitchen. A community of fifty Jewish families would support no less than thirty of these young men and boys, one family supplying board for one college student and his two pupils, the former sitting at the family table like one of the sons. … There was scarcely a house in the whole Kingdom of Poland where the Torah was not studied, and where either the head of the family or his son or his son-in-law, or the yeshibah student boarding with him, was not an expert in Jewish learning; frequently all of these could be found under one roof. For this reason every community contained a large number of scholars, a community of fifty families having as many as twenty learned men, who were styled morenu79 or haber.80 They were all excelled by the rosh-yeshibah, all the scholars submitting to his authority and studying under him at the yeshibah.
The program of study in Poland was as follows: The scholastic term during which the young men and the boys were obliged to study under the rosh-yeshibah lasted from the beginning of the month of Iyyar until the middle of Ab [approximately from April until July] in the summer and from the first of the month of Heshvan until the fifteenth of Shebat [October-June] in the winter. Outside of these terms the young men and the boys were free to choose their own place of study. From the beginning of the summer term until Shabuoth and from the beginning of the winter term until Hanukkah all the students of the yeshibah studied with great intensity the Gemara [the Babylonian Talmud] and the commentaries of Rashi81 and the Tosafists.82
The scholars and young students of the community as well as all interested in the study of the Law assembled daily at the yeshibah, where the president alone occupied a chair, while the scholars and college students stood around him. Before the appearance of the rosh-yeshibah they would discuss questions of Jewish law, and when he arrived every one laid his difficulties before him, and received an explanation. Thereupon silence was restored, and the rosh-yeshibah delivered his lecture, presenting the new results of his study. At the conclusion of the lecture he arranged a scientific argumentation (hilluk), proceeding in the following way: Various contradictions in the Talmud and the commentaries were pointed out, and solutions were proposed. These solutions were, in turn, shown to be contradictory, and other solutions were offered, this process being continued until the subject of discussion was completely elucidated. These exercises continued in summer at least until midday. From the middle of the two scholastic terms until their conclusion the rosh-yeshibah paid less attention to these argumentations, and read instead the religious codes, studying with the mature scholars the Turim83 with commentaries, and with the [younger] students the compendium of Alfasi84. … Several weeks before the close of the term the rosh-yeshibah would honor the members of his college, both the scholars and the students, by inviting them to conduct the scientific disputations on his behalf, though he himself would participate in the discussion in order to exercise the mental faculties of all those attending the yeshibah.
Attached to the president of the yeshibah was an inspector, who had the duty of visiting the elementary schools, or heders, daily, and seeing to it that all boys, whether poor or rich, applied themselves to study and did not loiter in the streets. On Thursdays the pupils had to present themselves before the trustee (gabbai) of the Talmud Torah, who examined them in what they had covered during the week. The boy who knew nothing or who did not answer adequately was by order of the trustee turned over to the inspector, who subjected him, in the presence of his fellow-pupils, to severe physical punishment and other painful degradations, that he might firmly resolve to improve in his studies during the following week. On Fridays the heder pupils presented themselves in a body before the rosh-yeshibah himself, to undergo a similar examination. This had a strong deterrent effect upon the boys, and they devoted themselves energetically to their studies. … The scholars, seeing this [the honors showered upon the rosh-yeshibah], coveted the same distinction, that of becoming a rosh-yeshibah in some community. They studied assiduously in consequence. Prompted originally by self-interest, they gradually came to devote themselves to the Torah from pure, unselfish motives.
By way of contrast to this panegyric upon Polish-Jewish school life, it is only fair that we should quote another contemporary, who severely criticizes the methods of instruction then in vogue at the yeshibahs.
The whole instruction at the yeshibah—writes the well-known preacher Solomon Ephraim of Lenchitza (d. 1619)85—reduces itself to mental equilibristics and empty argumentations called hilluk. It is dreadful to contemplate that some venerable rabbi, presiding over a yeshibah, in his anxiety to discover and communicate to others some new interpretation, should offer a perverted explanation of the Talmud, though he himself and every one else be fully aware that the true meaning is different. Can it be God's will that we sharpen our minds by fallacies and sophistries, spending our time in vain and teaching the listeners to do likewise? And all this for the mere ambition of passing for a great scholar! … I myself have more than once argued with the Talmudic celebrities of our time, showing the need for abolishing the method of pilpul and hilluk, without being able to convince them. This attitude can only be explained by the eagerness of these scholars for honors and rosh-yeshibah posts.