The pea underneath this particular mattress is a Saga idea I call "Oxford Magica," which is essentially an alternate Ars in which Hermetic magic is taught openly at a small number of universities around Europe, including Oxford. It is certainly inspired by the Potterverse, but because I am a medievalist by training and love the historical nature of Ars, I want to use as much of Ars Magica as I can.
The idea got kicked around for a while and then Apprentices came out, which specifically addresses the scholastic approach to learning magic, and the barriers to it. And, again, I am paraphrasing, but Apprentices concludes with the observation that, "Most magi think that, until you find a way to teach the Arts to a group of students at once, a Hermetic school is a waste of time."
So that is where I started. But the other most important issue, again according to Apprentices, is the fact that the Gift makes classrooms frightening, angry, suspicious places where the teacher is not trusted and the other students are all perceived as cheaters who are out to get you. Speaking purely from personal experience as a college English teacher, this is indeed the worst of all possible classrooms.
Some folks here have suggested we do away with teachers altogether, that we just come up with rules for multiple people reading the same book. Fair enough, and it is easy to imagine seasons in which a student hurriedly copies a summa for himself, then studies from it. But as a GM I want stories with a student-teacher relationship, scenes and sessions of play in which a teacher is up there in front of the classroom, or taking the students out into the Faerie woods to lecture, or whatever. And so the obvious solution to this is a Hermetic Teacher breakthrough. I don't actually need a PC to do it. I was just using it as a way to understand the Breakthrough rules, and I thought, if I could see how long it would take a PC to do it, that would help as I construct the timeline for Oxford Magica, which would probably be set in the late 13th or early 14th century anyway.
Solving the negative effects of the Gift for all the students is another issue, and as noted there are multiple solutions. If the class is small enough, the teacher can just extend his Parma over everyone, but this makes classes very small indeed. That works if you have one magus at a covenant who is teaching three or four apprentices at once. It's not practical for a class with 20 students, brought together from throughout the British Isles.
You could, in theory, teach the Parma at the beginning of instruction instead of the end, but this seems a real stretch considering the general paranoia regarding Parma in the Order. But it would solve the problem.
And, of course, you could do another Breakthrough. My suggestion is a modification to Aegis of the Hearth so that it blocks the social effects of the Gift. Aegis is itself a Breakthrough based on Parma, according to HoH:TL, so this seems entirely reasonable to me. But it is important and I would probably call it a Major Breakthrough. Your Saga May Vary.
A Saga which has these two breakthroughs and which allows time for the breakthroughs to spread would be very different than a traditional Ars game. Apprentices wouldn't be taught by their masters. Instead, a few universities in Europe act as magnets where students are sent to learn for two seasons of the year. Perhaps they return in Summer and Winter to perform lab service. The increased efficiency of scholastic training has many implications for the skill of magi, but also for the length of instruction; pupils might spend a few years in a cathedral or parish school learning Latin and Artes before going to the University for their training in the Arts.
Of course there are many other concerns and questions, and the high level of research is what has put me off this Saga. But I keep noodling around with it, and hope to run it one day.
