The Diary of a Turk

by Çerkesseyhizade Halil Halit

While I was wasting my time with dumb companions, my eldest brother and cousins were quite able to read and write, things which to my mind were absolutely past comprehension and belief. Unable to compel me to attend any school, my mother at last applied to an old negro servant of my grandfather's, who was then living close to us with his white wife and tawny children. When a boy he had been bought by my grandfather from the slave-dealers, and as the emancipation of slaves is considered the most pious act a Mohammedan can perform, my grandfather freed him soon after buying him, gave him some property, and arranged a marriage for him. This old man did not approve of my undutiful conduct towards my mother. In accordance with a promise which he willingly made to her, one morning he came to our house and gravely asked me to go with him to school. I excused myself on the plea that the books and papers previously procured for me had been eaten by rats. He said he would buy new ones for me in the school, and I told him it was no use buying them, because I did not understand them. Then the big black man, showing his white teeth angrily, moved towards me, and caught me by the ear with his rough, hard hand, and practically dragged me as far as the school, amidst the malicious chuckling of my brother and cousins. During lesson-times my thoughts flew after my geese and pigeons. Many a time was I led to school most unwillingly in the same fashion, and it took several months for the master to persuade me, by much corporal chastisement, to take the slightest interest in my lessons.

After a year or so I had to go to a higher school, where there were hundreds of boys, several teachers, and a headmaster of ruthless disposition. In those days flogging was the principal punishment for all offences of schoolboys. I have never seen or heard of any master who carried out his duty of not sparing the rod more conscientiously, more unbendingly, and with more self-satisfaction than that headmaster. Personally, however, I came off more easily than most, as during the two years of my attendance in the school I was only beaten three times. The beating took the usual form of bastinado, and in my three experiences I received fifty strokes on the soles of my feet, twenty of them for my ill-behaviour, fifteen for my stupidity, and fifteen for my incapacity to learn arithmetic. I had on several occasions played mischievous schoolboy tricks, which would have brought upon me many a flogging had I not been careful enough to hoodwink the watchful eyes of the headmaster and his attendants. But on the occasion when I received my twenty strokes, I was detected while rather irreverently playing pranks during prayer-time. It was the custom for the headmaster to take all the boys every afternoon to a special hall for prayer, and to conduct the service personally. In our places of worship people prostrate themselves by laying their foreheads on the floor, while they repeat again and again the name of Allah; everyone should then disengage his thoughts from all earthly things and fix them "on heaven." The whole service does not last more than fifteen minutes, and one prostration only lasts about a minute. One day, when the whole congregation were prostrate, I quickly got up and collected the fezzes of the boys who were near me, piled them in a heap, and at once re-prostrated myself. When the service was over, it was observed that several boys were bareheaded. The master was informed of the crime that had been committed, for a Mussulman always prays with covered head, and a searching inquiry began. One of the boys, who was a friend of mine, while going before the master to be interrogated, could not refrain from laughing at the remembrance of the fun. The master at once ordered his attendants to pull the boy down to be beaten. Seeing that my friend was crying, I went to the master and swore that the boy was innocent "How do you know?" he asked me. "Because he was next to me during the service; I should have observed him," said I. Then several boys got up and told the master that the boy was not at my side during the service, thus contradicting me unanimously. Whereupon two attendants were ordered to pull me down and hold my legs tightly. The master then gave me twenty fierce blows on my feet, which made me lame for several days. This was the last flogging I had in the school.

It may perhaps be of interest if I give some description of our methods of corporal punishment in schools, which are still, even the primitive ones, employed by some masters in the provinces. In our old schools there were two kinds of flogging—one for the girls and the other for the boys. Girls used to be beaten on the palms of their hands. There used to be an instrument in each school which was called the flaka. This was a long thick stick, to which was fastened a loop. The girl's wrists were fastened to the stick by means of twisting the loop round it, and the stick was held up by a person at either end. Then the master (there were no schoolmistresses), standing in front, used to inflict the punishment with a thin hard rod. The number of the strokes usually varied between five and ten. Laziness, much talking, and mischievous behaviour were the principal offences which brought about this punishment As I remarked before, boys used to be beaten on their feet—sometimes on the soles of their boots, in graver cases without them, and even sometimes without their socks. The boys had to be pulled down, and two persons held up their feet, and the master used to strike the feet with a thick rod. The number of blows only exceeded twenty in the case of a very bad offence, and flogging on the bare feet was generally the result of the master finding something inside the culprit's boots or socks to mitigate the force of the blows. It often happened that the boys, foreseeing their fate, used to place between their feet and socks such things as cotton handkerchiefs, and pieces of sheepskin. I remember I did not cry when I was beaten for the first time, as I thought it was very cowardly to cry in the presence of so many boys. But a boy who was sitting next to me said, "You silly! why did you not cry?" He then told me that each time he knew he was likely to be punished he placed some soft stuff inside his socks at once, and while he was being beaten cried out for mercy as loudly as possible. He said he made the master reduce the number of strokes by this plan.

In the old preparatory mixed schools there used to be another method of keeping children in order, which, I must admit, was decidedly barbarous. Those elementary schools for children consisted only of a large hall with two galleries in it. The smaller gallery was occupied by the master, and there he summoned the children in groups of two or three at a time to come and say their lessons. There was no division into classes. The larger gallery was used for the girls, the boys occupying the middle of the hall. Although the little scholars used to have low benches before them, they had to sit on the floor, each boy or girl having his or her own mattress or sheepskin, which the parents had to provide, to sit upon. Now the master used to have hanging on the wall by his side a long stick whose length was always in proportion to the size of the hall-that is to say, it reached from one end of the room to the other. Whenever the master observed any of his pupils not behaving well and not doing their work, he often did not take the trouble to call the delinquent up before him, but simply took down the long heavy rod, held it up by its thick end, and, with the thin end, struck at any part of his victim he could reach—head, shoulders, or back. Sometimes, if this did not do, he would poke them in the ribs instead. This punishment was very common in all the elementary schools in my time, and was not peculiar to our province, but practised throughout the country. I cannot remember whether I suffered under the long pole in my childhood, but I imagine I did not, as the masters of these schools used to spare the children of well-to-do people for fear of annoying their parents, and thus forfeiting the chance of getting a better fee.

The bastinado is regarded in England as a practice of peculiar barbarity, but in Turkey the belief in its good effects still largely prevails. "The rod is a gift from heaven" is a common saying in our language. This means that flogging inspires a desire in refractory people to do right I do not propose to enter into any argument on the merits or demerits of this subject. I consider personally that a beating which is well-deserved and reasonably inflicted often effects a marvellous improvement in a lawless character, awakes the sluggish conscience of ruffians, and tames unmanageable boys. It is doubtful, however, if it is very effective in inducing children at school to learn their lessons.

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About the beginning of a summer season it was considered that I had been at the school in my native town long enough. I was then fourteen years old. My mother was looking forward to the arrival of the time when she could send me to Constantinople to complete my term of study. I left the school when summer had begun, and we went to our country-house to spend the summer.

Angora, our native place, has a well-deserved reputation throughout Asia Minor for its varied and extensive fruit-gardens. Almost all the families residing there have their own gardens a few miles outside the town, and most of them have their summer residence in the midst of their gardens. Three streams, flowing from different directions, join just below the town, and the valleys of these streams are covered with either fruit-trees or vineyards. Towards the beginning of May people begin to transport their provisions, furniture, and other household necessities in ox-waggons from the town-houses to the garden-cottages. They reside in the country five or six months, according to when the final harvesting of the autumn fruits takes place. The women and children stay in the country, and most of the men go to the town for their business every day before the heat of the sun becomes too great, and come back in the cool of the evening about sunset. In the middle of the day no one but hardy villagers can travel, for the heat of our climate is as excessive in summer as the cold is severe in winter. The journeys are made on horses, mules, and donkeys.