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[kmonster]

You don't need a scholar, Yoga, I never had one.

You can use the identify skill for identifying items and if it's not high enough you can just equip the items to see the benefits.
You can also pay the merchants for identifying (or even save, identify, reload to save the money) but most of the time you can simply sell it, if a staff looks like a staff and sells for the same little money you can be sure it's just standard staff for example.

I prefer using a other NPCs like banker (more money), instructor (more XP bonus), merchant (better shop prices) or explorer (faster travelling).

Keep in mind that hirelings have to be paid for joining so it might not be worth it unless you want to keep them for a very long time. If you decide to take a scholar you're pretty much forced to ignore identify and keep him until the end of the game to make it wort it.