TURKISH CEMETERY
After this excursion I was not permitted to revisit the European quarter of the capital for a considerable time. I had to resume the course of my education.
In what way my cousins and I should be educated in Constantinople was a question which had to be considered by my uncle. There are two kinds of higher education in Turkey. One of them is to receive instruction in the old-fashioned colleges or madrasseh, of which I have made mention before, and of which I will in this chapter give some further description. The other form of education is that now carried on in the modern schools and colleges. Of these there are many in Constantinople. They are modelled on the system of the educational institutions of some of the European countries. In these places of learning, unlike the old-fashioned madrasseh, all kinds of what I may call utilitarian subjects, necessitated by modern requirements, are taught In addition to the great military academy and preparatory military colleges, naval college, civil and military medical institutions, and the Imperial lycée, some of which are fifty or sixty years old, there are civil servants', law, civil-engineering, and several minor colleges of recent foundation. Two years ago an official project was in the air for creating a regular University in Constantinople. But the present Sultan is not likely to favour in earnest such a scheme, which would necessarily result in the increased popularity of European culture. Formerly those colleges of modern creation turned out men of marked ability in all branches of literature and science which existed in the country. But, unhappily, Abd-ul-Hamid's inflexible determination to suppress at any cost what are called 'young-Turkish ideas,' or liberalism, has seriously interfered with and paralysed the progress of these seminaries of culture and education.
My desire was to join one of these colleges, after having been prepared by private tuition to pass the obligatory entrance examination. But since my elder brother had already entered one of the modern colleges, my uncle urged me to affiliate myself to one of the old-fashioned madrassehs. As we had yet some hope of recovering our confiscated property, and as the right of holding the estates depended on the heir's following our grandfather's semi-theological profession, my uncle insisted that I should continue my studies in one of these quasi-theological madrassehs. Although I was most reluctant, I had to fall in with his wishes, so I prepared to go and live with a tutor who had his room in the madrasseh which is attached to the mosque of little St Sophia,[3] a Byzantine building, which is as much visited by European tourists as the great St. Sophia. When one becomes a member of these old-fashioned institutions of learning, one must wear a professional turban and a long cloak, let the beard grow, if one is old enough to have one, and shave the hair off one's head. They procured for me a turban and cloak, and my uncle sent me with a manservant to a barber's shop to get my head shaved. The shaving of a thick head of hair is a most painful thing, and tears filled my eyes, partly from the pain caused by the razor on my unaccustomed head, and partly, I think, from the anticipation of the terrible monk-like existence I was about to pass in the madrasseh. Next day I went with my luggage to the school, but did not begin my studies until several months had passed away, as I caught cold by being shaved, and suffered in consequence from headache and ophthalmia. I shall never forget the miserable life I passed in that school. It will perhaps be of some interest if I give a description of a madrasseh, and the mode of life and study therein.
There are in Constantinople over a hundred of these theological colleges, or madrassehs. In the provinces each important town is provided with several. These seminaries of old Moslem culture are not peculiar to Turkey—they exist also in Egypt, Persia, and some other Oriental countries, and at one time they were the only places of instruction. They served not only as schools for religious teaching when they were originally founded in past days, but all branches of human knowledge known in the East were to be taught in them. In Constantinople some of them still retain their original names—'Madrasseh of Medicine,' 'Madrasseh of History,' and so on. The Moslem people were formerly divided into two distinct classes—the great illiterate mass, and the learned hierarchy known as Ulema. Although all instruction given in the madrasseh was formed on the basis of the faith of Islam, the Ulema were certainly not entirely theologians. They were certainly not priests, as Islam recognises no spiritual authority. Mohammed has stated distinctly that "there is no priesthood in Islam." With the lapse of time human knowledge advanced, and the high culture which existed among Moslems in mediæval times decayed; but still the Ulema continued to teach the Arabic language, with its literature and law, secular and spiritual. Ultimately countries like Turkey and Egypt felt the necessity of learning something from the progressive nations of Europe, and, in imitation of their educational institutions, began to establish schools and colleges for modern learning and science. In the Ottoman empire the Ulema, having nearly lost their occupations as professors and judges, now hold a peculiar position, which somewhat resembles a sort of priesthood. Of course, this class still retains its old professional titles, receives pensions, and lives on the revenues accruing from charitable endowments. Moreover, its members still have a greater influence over the ignorant masses than persons of modern education, but they are not now of much service to the State. The madrassehs are, notwithstanding, still full of students who wish to become members of that body, but the more intelligent of them, instead of attending the old course of lectures in the mosques, go to some modern college in order to qualify themselves for professions which will be of practical use to them. Many of them spend their time in the madrassehs idly, or simply live in them till they have passed an examination by which they are exempted from military service, and then return to their towns and villages. Again, some of these students who are really working, instead of attending one of the modern colleges, go to an institution founded for the training of the Kadis or semi-religious magistrates. These students are all called Softas. All the affairs of the madrassehs are under the control of the office of the Sheikh-ul-Islam, which, though it still forms a distinct ministry, and though the Sheikh-ul-Islam is still a member of the Cabinet of the Porte, has lost many of the important official functions it once had. The position of the Sheikh-ul-Islam, the head of the Ulema, at present resembles that of the ecclesiastical head of a Christian country, though, as I stated before, no ecclesiastics could be recognised as such in Islam. The number of the students in the madrassehs of Constantinople is estimated to be something between five and seven thousand.
Originally the madrassehs were founded on a system much resembling that of the colleges of the English Universities. They were built by the munificence of the Sultans and of private persons, and most of them were situated near mosques, to which they were attached, and were supported from the same endowments as the mosques themselves, for the charitable founders of these endowments aimed particularly at increasing the congregations that attend public worship, and devised that the students should also use the mosques as their lecture-halls. Even nowadays most lectures are given in the mosques. Each madrasseh was self-governing, and the principals, or, so to say, the 'fellows,' used to look after its interests and decide its rules. All the students used to be regularly supplied with soup, bread, and, on certain days, with cooked rice, and a kind of sweet made of saffron, and also with olive oil for their lamps, from a sort of kitchen endowed for the purpose. Free 'commons' of this sort for students are supplied only occasionally and sparsely nowadays, as the revenues of the endowed estates and properties have long been put under the care and control of officialdom, and the income from charities is now abused and illegally appropriated by the corrupt and impious hands through which it passes. In consequence, members of the madrassehs now can often not even raise funds to save their buildings from complete ruin. These buildings are mostly square in shape, with a courtyard in the middle, and have one and sometimes two stories. They are unhealthy, and cannot be properly ventilated. The students take their baths behind the doors of their rooms, cook their meals in the fireplace, and, as a rule, two or three sleep in one room, on the floor. The damp, fœtid smell in most of the rooms is terrible. My hard fate made me live five years in such a place, and they were the years which ought to be the best of one's youth.
The life of the students of these madrassehs resembles that of monks in monasteries of the Eastern Church. They prepare their own modest food, clean their own rooms, make their own beds, and wash their own clothes. A new student not only does all this for himself, but he has also to do it for the fellow or tutor of the madrasseh in whose room he is placed. Most of the students are very poor. They go every year during the ramadan—the month of fasting—to different provincial towns and villages to preach, to teach, and to do some writing for the illiterate villagers and provincials, and, after securing what fees, alms, and provisions they can get, they return to their respective madrassehs to resume their work.
The Softas played a conspicuous part in some of the revolutions, for if once they were roused and egged on by politicians, they would assemble in the courtyards of the great mosques, bearing yataghans and heavy clubs under their long cloaks, and numberless common people would follow them. The viziers who deposed the late Sultan Aziz had to get the support of the Softas. Midhat Pasha had to secure their assistance when he was urging the present Sultan to sanction the scheme for the new constitution. A certain Suavi Effendi, one of the founders of the young-Turkish movement, who had himself been a Softa, twenty-five years ago made an armed attack on the Sultan's palace; with him fought and fell many of the Softas. The Sultan, whose marvellous power and success in crushing everything which might endanger his despotic personal rule is undeniable, has paralysed the collective influence of the Softas, so that they can no longer be the political tools of any power that may arise to oppose him.
During my residence in the madrasseh my uncle used to give me as pocket-money twenty piastres (about 3s. 5d.) a month, and to the tutor of the madrasseh, in whose room I was a novice-disciple, eighty piastres, to cover the expenses of my maintenance. This was quite enough for a man who has to live as abstemiously and simply as a monk. Moreover, provisions in Constantinople are very cheap, a fact which is not known to European visitors, who are invariably cheated by the Levantine and Greek hotel-keepers and tradesmen. Secretly, however, I received further support from my affectionate mother, through an Armenian merchant who came from Angora.