] 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

By whom is this generally accepted? Speaking of generalities, a man usualy went ot Oxford or Cambridge at age 16 or 17- sometimes earlier. He spent three years studying for a degree- by which time he is twenty. Since he cannot be ordained until he is 23 at least,what does he do with the intervening three years? He spends them doing what the universities want him to do- studying, teaching and assisting. That gives him at least three years more education than the average university student. How much education is "just enough to pass muster"?

and certainly when living on a tiney stipend and working hard they were not goign to have much leisure for further study.

That I would agree with. I'd also like to point out that JA herself seems to have thought that the academic high flyers tended to gravitate towards city livings and administrative posts in the cathedral systems, so you can assume that the more run-of-the- mill clergy who didn't have luck on their side would end up in rural backwaters.

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.

I was answering Jack's question about what else a young man gcould do instead of go into the Church. The short answer is- quite a lot! Both the Army and the Navy trained their staff in such sciences as were deemed valuable in their trade. Naval training was on average about thirteen years (starting when a boy was thirteen or so). Are you saying that there wasn't much intellectual stimulation there?

Not everyone had an inclinatin for politics and for life in India..(snip)

Right, but isn't there a circular argument here? Jack is saying, in effect, that most of the clergy did NOT have an inclination for pastorship, but took it anyway as an easy option. You are saying that many parsons didn't have the inclination but were scared of going into the miltary,and didn't bother to get educated either! Can you look at Rev. Morland, Dr Shirley, Henry Tilney, Phillip Elton, Dr Grant and Edward Ferrars and say that they are minimally educated people? Or that they all went into the church despite the fact that they had no real inclination to be a parson? I cannot. I can look at Mr Collins and be horrified - he's awful as a man- and he would be still awful, whatever profession he had. The fact that he's a rector is horrifying. However, he's a literary character, and only one- I wouldn't use him alone to generalise about 6,000 eighteenth century real men.