Note (77), page 54.

Nobody receives the degree of a Vartabed without having previously undergone a strict examination: it is something like the doctor of philosophy of the German universities; but a Vartabed, that is to say a teacher, is rather more esteemed in Armenia than a doctor of philosophy in Germany. The Vartabed receives at his inauguration a staff, denoting the power to teach, reprove, and exhort in every place with all authority. (See the Biography of Gregory Wartabed, as the word is spelt there, in the Missionary Herald, vol. xxiv. 140.) It is very probable that this institution came in the fifth century of our era from the philosophic schools in Athens to Armenia; nearly all the classical writers of this age went to Athens for their improvement.