]Geraldine's assertion that curates were uneducated. They were not- they had the same education as any other clergy. It was also the same education as the men who appointed them. (see link below) Please don't consider my words as damning with faint praise. They were certainly not meant that way.

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I diddn't mean to imply that all curates were uneducated but I beleive that it is genreally accpted that many of them had jsut enough education to pass muster in taking orders and certainly when living on a tiney stipend and working hard they were not goign to have much leisure for further study. I admit that I don't know very mcuh about it. But wtih regad to your other point about other occupations, the army and navy were hazardous and I doubt if you woudl get much intellectual stimuation in them. Not everyone had an inclinatin for politics and for life in India.. (Besides which politics was a precarious way of making a living without patrons) there were not that many posts open to a gentelman at home. it really boiled do9wn to the law the military and the church