Public school system established by the Government

It has been mentioned already that these schools are quite separate from the public school system established by the Government. The primary school alone is common to both systems of education. Travellers and artists have made known before this the quality of the old primary school of Turkey. The teacher sat on a cushion at one end of the room and the children sat in front of him with their books, and shouted to him at the top of their lungs the words there written, which being in Arabic were entirely unintelligible to the poor little scholars. The main duty of the teacher was to see that each child shouted, and that the accent and enunciation were passable.

After six or seven years of this kind of exercise, varied by efforts at writing the Arabic letters and perhaps by some ineffectual wrestling with simple arithmetical processes, the child was deemed educated, except for those boys of peculiar promise who were taken into the mosque schools to go on toward the goal of becoming “ Wise men.” Under the improved modern system which has been a good result of intercourse with the West, the primary school has been somewhat changed. Children are really taught some things about reading, writing, and arithmetic. They still shout in chorus the passage from the Koran. But the chorus now has been swollen by the addition of the multiplication table. They still have much to do in the way of learning by heart things that they do not (and are not expected to) understand. Elocution is still regarded an essential part of primary instruction. But the primary school is no longer a thing to be laughed to scorn—at least in the city of Constantinople private bulgaria tours yachting.

With the primary school instruction, or at most with the additional knowledge derived from a course in the next higher grade of the public school system the student enters a mosque school. The course of study in these latter schools is rather loosely organized, but it includes The Koran, Elocution, Arabic Grammar, Syntax, Rhetoric, Logic, Metaphysics, and Mohammedan doctrine, embracing Theology, Casuistry, and Moral Philosophy, and the whole vast range of Jurisprudence. Some attention is given to the Persian language, and History, Geography and some Mathematics are given in the later part of the course, but at the first the whole attention of the student is concentrated on the Koran and its interpretation.

The theory of the method of study seems to be that reiteration will finally bring understanding, for students at Constantinople do not understand Arabic, in which the Koran is written. Many of the Softas commit the whole book to memory and can recite it forwards or backwards or beginning in the middle, and all without understanding the meaning of a verse. Many copy out the whole book in fine manuscript. While thus wrestling with the text, they attend lectures where learned professors give them the exegesis of the various passages. These gentlemen mingle critical and grammatical notes with the interpretation of the text, and thus by long repetition of sounds the students arrive at some knowledge of the structure and meaning of the language.

Accordingly the faculty of memory

The system of instruction depends upon memory for its effectiveness. Accordingly the faculty of memory is wonderfully developed. But the use of the reflective faculty is restrained. The young men are taught, as the lady did her footman. “ that they have no business to think.” It is only after ten or fifteen years of training that it is considered safe for a man to use his own powers. By that time the bias of his mind, and its habit of ignoring inconvenient matter is pretty well fixed and the man himself is safe as a teacher of the people. The exclusiveness of Islam and the narrowness of its leading men is fully explained by such an imprisonment in the dark as is implied by attendance at the schools of the Ulema.

During the educational course a constant process of weeding out takes place. Many a man fails to absorb wisdom and is provided with a berth as teacher of a primary school. Others, who have good elocution, but fail to master the higher problems of Arabic grammar and logic, drop out to fill vacancies as Imam or pastor of some parish. Others again, who while good writers cannot be good reasoners, are made clerks of the courts, and leave the unprofitable study. The man who goes on far enough to have a place among the heads of the people receives the degree of “ Rouous ” * and the title of Muderris or teacher. He is then entitled to hold his head above the mass and may receive appointment to teach the people in some mosque. The degree would be called in the West a license to preach. He will be sure after this point of having money to buy bis bread.