Now, however, the highest classes send their sons to Paris and elsewhere to be educated. The effect of this training upon La Jeune Turquie I have already noticed. In some cases it must, nevertheless, be admitted that the Turk educated in Europe has really made good use of his time, and has raised himself, as near as his nature permits, to the level of the more civilized nations he has associated with.
Such is the general state of education in Turkey. Brought up, first by an ignorant mother, then by the little less ignorant Hodja of the Mekteb, or, in rarer cases, by the well-meaning but still incompetent masters of the Government schools, it is not surprising that the ordinary Turk is crafty, ignorant, and correspondingly fanatical. Yet dark as the present position is, it is better than it was a few years ago. The efforts of Ali and Fouad Pashas have certainly given education a forward impulse. The advance has been slow, but it has been forward, not backward. In this advance the Turks have shared far less than the subject races. Were things as they were two years ago, this could hardly be taken as a hopeful sign; but, looking at it from the opposite point of view, that the Bulgarians and Greeks have advanced more than the Turks, it must be admitted, in the new arrangement of the provinces now negotiating, that the fact carries a bright ray of hope.
CHAPTER XIX.
EDUCATION AMONG THE GREEKS AND BULGARIANS.
The Turkish Conquest and Greek Schools—Monasteries almost the sole Preservers of Letters—Movement of the last Half-Century—Athenian Teaching and Its Influence on Turkey—Education of the Greeks at Constantinople—Μνημόσυνα—Salonika Girls’ Schools—Boys’ Schools—A Greek School based upon Mr. Herbert Spencer—The Past and the Present of the Greeks—Bulgarian Ignorance—Birth of a Desire for Knowledge—A Report from a Bulgarian Young Lady—The First Bulgarian Book—Bulgarian Authors—Schools—Church Supervision—Loyalty to the Sultan—Bulgarian Language—Schoolmasters and their Reforming Influence—Bulgarian Intelligence—American Missionaries.
It was not to be expected that the immense progress made by Greece during the past half century in education would exercise no influence upon the Greeks in Turkey. The people of the kingdom of Greece, secure of their own freedom, released from that servile condition to which centuries of oppressive misrule had reduced them, and become citizens of a liberty-loving country, have for the past twenty years been using every effort to promote the cause of liberty by the spread of education among their brethren still in subjection to the Porte. When the Turks conquered the Greek provinces, they did their best to extinguish education among their Christian subjects: the Greek schools were suppressed, new ones prohibited, and the Greek children had to be taught during the night.[36] But the monasteries, nests of ignorance and vice as they were, were the principal refuges of letters. Scattered all over the empire, they enjoyed the privileges drawn from the special liberty and favor granted by the wise Sultan to the Greek clergy. This was done by the Sultan with the view of acquiring unlimited control over the Greek rayahs, by giving a just sufficient amount of power to a small but influential body of men, to induce them to support his designs. Mount Athos, one of these privileged asylums, became a famous resort of the retired clergy. A college of some merit was also established on this monastic spot for affording secular instruction to Greek youths. At Phanar, the secluded refuge of the Greek noblesse, in right of their privileges, education among the higher classes was promoted. For a long time this was the only place Constantinople could boast as supplying men of letters, some of whom, being conversant with foreign languages, were employed in European embassies as interpreters. Within the last fifty years the educational movement among the Greeks of Turkey has altered its course. Some schools established in the country afforded elementary instruction to the children, but, for the most part, they were now sent to Athens and Syra to complete their studies, where numerous schools and colleges afforded them the means of acquiring a perfect knowledge of their own language and a tolerably good general education. This migration, perseveringly continued for nearly thirty years, increased the number of these Athenian and Syraote establishments, and the pecuniary benefit they derived from it enabled them to perfect their organization. Politics and learning were two essential elements of education, which the modern Greeks uphold with a tenacity worthy of final success. The young Greek rayah, sent to Athens, returns to his home a scholar and a staunch Philhellene, burning with an all-absorbing desire to instil his ideas and feelings into the minds of his fellow rayahs. Such currents flow slowly but surely among a population that, debased as it may be by a foreign yoke, has a history and literature of its own to look back to. The first students returning from Greece were the pioneers of the immense progress that education has lately made among the Greeks in Turkey. None can realize and testify to this better than those who have watched its introduction and development in the interior. As I stated in another part of this work, even the élite of the Greek society of Broussa thirty years ago had lost the use of their mother-tongue, replacing it by broken Turkish. Since then, the introduction of schools has been the means of restoring the use of their own language to the great majority of the people, though one portion of the town is still ignorant of it, in consequence of the profitable occupation the silk factories afford to girls, who are sent there from a very early age, instead of going to school. The inhabitants of the surrounding villages, in all of which Greek schools have now been established, have learnt their national language—a proof that although the general attention of the Greeks has naturally first been directed to promoting education in Thessaly, Macedonia, and Epirus, the scattered colonies left on the Asiatic side have not been altogether forgotten or neglected; they have now good colleges in Smyrna, and schools in less important towns and villages.
The Greek village of Demerdesh, between Broussa and the seaport Moudania, merits special praise for the wonderful progress, both mental and material, it has made. It is refreshing to see the intelligent features of the inhabitants of this village, and their independent and patriotic disposition. One thinks involuntarily of some of the ancient Greek colonies that from small beginnings rose to great power and created for themselves a noble history.
At Constantinople the Greeks possess several rapidly improving educational establishments for both sexes. The Syllogus, too, a literary association for the promotion of learning, has been lately instituted in all the large towns of Turkey. Some years ago I was travelling with the head mistress of the girls’ school at Epibatæ, in the district of Silivri, near Constantinople—an institution which owes its origin and maintenance to the generosity and philanthropy of Doctor Sarente Archegenes, a native of the place, who, having acquired just reputation and wealth in the capital, did not forget his native village, but furnished the means for building and maintaining a school for girls in 1796. This mistress was a clever and well-educated lady from Athens, and she described to me her pleasure at the quickness displayed by these peasant girls in their studies. The only drawback, she remarked, to this work of progress is the absence of a similar establishment for the boys, who, all charcoal-burners by trade, ignorant and uncouth, are rejected as husbands by the more privileged sex. I believe since then the evil has been removed by the establishment of a boys’ school. How much more beneficial to humanity was the establishment of these institutions than that of the one founded by Mehemet Ali Pasha of Egypt at Cavalla, his native place. Desiring to benefit his country with some of the wealth acquired in Egypt, he requested the people of Cavalla to choose between a school and a charitable establishment or Imaret: the former was meant to impart light and civilization among them, the latter to furnish an abode for fanatical Softas, and daily rations of pilaf and bread for three hundred individuals. The Cavalla Turks did not hesitate between the mental and material food; and shortly after a substantial edifice was erected, its perpetual income helping to maintain a number of indolent persons within its walls, and feed the refuse of the population that lazily lounged about outside, waiting for the ready food that rendered labor unnecessary.
The wealthy Greek families at Constantinople are now giving special attention to the education of their children; the girls appear, more especially, to have profited by it, for the Greek ladies, as a class, are clever, well-informed, and good linguists, well bred and extremely pleasant in the intimacy of their social circles. Most of them are musicians, as the phrase is, some even attaining to excellence. A French lady told me she had heard a French ambassador state as his opinion that the best and most enlightened society in the capital was the Greek; but it was so exclusive that an easy admission into it was a privilege not to be enjoyed even by an ambassador. I may state that my personal experience allows me to coincide with this view. The men, absorbed in business, and perhaps still bearing the cachet of some of those faults that prejudice is ever ready to seize upon and exaggerate, are less refined and agreeable in society than the women. Gifted men, however, and men of a high standard of moral integrity and good faith, are not rare among them; and the munificence of such men as Messrs Zarifi, Christaki, Zographo, Baron Sina, and many others, in encouraging the advancement of education, and helping in the relief of the poor in time of want and distress, has entitled them to the gratitude of their nation.
Some time ago I was invited to attend the μνημόσυνα, an anniversary at the girls’ school at Salonika, in remembrance of its chief benefactress Kyria Castrio. A large cake, iced and decorated with various devices, was placed on a table facing the portrait of this lady, which, garlanded with flowers, appeared to look on smilingly and contentedly, encircled by a ring of young girls. The room was densely crowded with guests and the relatives of the children. Presently a great bustle was heard, and the crowd opened to give passage to the dignified, intellectual-looking Bishop, accompanied by his clergy, who quietly walked up to the cake, and read mass over it for the benefit of the soul of the departed lady. This ceremony concluded, he amiably shook hands with some of the company nearest to him, and took his seat at the rostrum used for lectures. It was now the turn of the young girls to express their gratitude to the memory of her to whose kind thought and generosity they owed in great part the education they were receiving. This was conveyed in a hymn composed for the occasion, and rendered with much feeling and expression, under the able direction of a young German master, who, for the love of the art in general, and the Greek nation in particular, had kindly undertaken to give free lessons in vocal music to the girls. Some of the elder girls looked very pretty, and all seemed bright and intelligent. The little ones, mustering in a company of two hundred, were next marched up in a double row, clasping each other round the waist. It was a pretty sight to see these little mites assembled round the chair of the paternal Bishop, keeping time with their feet to the tune, and singing their little hymn. This interesting ceremony was concluded by a long lecture, from one of the masters of the establishment, delivered in Greek. The profound attention with which all listened to it was a proof that it was understood and appreciated. These Mnemosyné are held annually in many towns, and even in secluded villages, in memory of charitable persons who have founded or largely endowed their schools.
While on the subject of the Salonika girls’ school, I may as well go on with it, and describe its organization, the course of studies followed in it, and the immense benefit it has proved to the community. Tedious as such a description is, it may be useful in giving an idea of the many other similar institutions scattered throughout the country. The building, formerly I believe a Turkish Konak, is in itself rather dilapidated: it consists of two spacious halls, into which open a number of class-rooms.