The empire, however, cannot be thoroughly reformed merely by enfranchising the peasants, by introducing European customs, by organizing new armies, building barracks, and establishing custom houses. These improvements are the sign of a vigorous national impulse and prosperity; they are the result, not the rudiments of civilization. The fact that the sultan wears French boots and supplies his seraglio with the latest Parisian modes signifies nothing.
In its palmy days, Turkey relied for success on its courage and love of military glory; now its welfare and very existence depend upon the peaceful arts of civilized life. The prosperity of the people measures the condition of the empire. But how can an ignorant people prosper? The time has come when a reform in the educational system of Turkey is emphatically demanded. There must be intelligence among the people, and educated men in the cabinet as well as brave men in the field. The innovating sultans of the last century have done much for the reconstruction of the broken political fabric of the empire; they have organized a new and powerful army and navy; they have facilitated commercial intercourse, but have done scarcely anything for the diffusion of knowledge among their subjects.
All the knowledge in the empire is concentrated in the ulemas and lawyers. The members of the Sublime Porte and other state officers, with but few exceptions, are unlettered men, who owe their elevation, to partiality or bribery. Under Mahmoud, beauty of person was the best recommendation to favor and promotion!
But Turkey has had her golden age of letters as well as her age of military glory. Her libraries and archives are filled with unread, musty manuscripts, comprising treatises on philosophy and metaphysics, histories, biographies, and poems, rich in the classic erudition of the Orient. In 1336, Sultan Orkan found leisure from war and conquest to establish, at Brusa, a literary institution, which became so famous for its learning, that Persians and Arabians did not disdain to avail themselves of its instruction. But with the death of its founder its glory passed away. It was no longer the fountain head of learning in the East.
The Turks, forgetful of the fact that antiquity is the youth of the world, still follow Aristotle as their guide in philosophy and metaphysics, and Ptolemy in geography! Missionaries have succeeded in introducing modern text books into some of the schools, but owing to the peculiar system of Turkish education, the result has not been so favorable as was anticipated.
To each mosque is attached a school, where the pupils devote several years in acquiring the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic; which completes their education. But few foreign instructors are employed to teach in the schools, because the government is unwilling to pay a suitable salary. While on state officers wealth is lavished with the prodigality of oriental munificence, instructors receive only a nominal recompense, often not exceeding six cents a day!
A few favored youths receive a European education, especially in French and Austrian colleges. The oriental academy, established at Vienna by Maria Theresa for the education of diplomatists to conduct intercourse with the Porte, has formed many illustrious Turkish scholars. It is a singular but not unpleasant commentary on the vicissitudes of fortune, that Turkey should send her sons to be educated at Vienna, which only two centuries ago a sultan besieged at the head of an army of two hundred thousand men, and before whose gates he was defeated by the combined Christian forces, who recovered eighty thousand Christian captives, among whom were fourteen thousand maidens, and fifty thousand children of both sexes!
The Christian subjects of the empire have made visible progress in their educational system, although it is yet in a very imperfect state. In the middle of the last century a body of Armenian monks formed a society for promoting the educational interests of their countrymen. These pious and benevolent men dwell alone on the little island of San Lazzaro, and publish works on literature, science, and religion, which are distributed among the Turkish Armenians.
Printing presses have lately been set up in the large cities, and books are rapidly multiplying. In Constantinople several newspapers are printed in French, Turkish, and Arabic; they are read in every coffee house and barber shop, the common lounging places of the Ottoman, where he smokes his pipe and discusses politics. Their columns are chiefly devoted to the discussion of state affairs, and notices of public functionaries. The sultan is the virtual editor, and consequently the papers are popular, as containing opinions on state policy ex cathedra. These presses were established with the reluctant sanction of the ulemas, and the vigorous opposition of the scribes, an influential body, protesting against the introduction of machinery, which was to supersede the use of their fingers.
The council of public instruction at Constantinople has established a medical and polytechnic school; in both, French, English, and German teachers are employed. To the medical college is attached a botanical garden and a natural history museum. The medical library consists chiefly of French works. The implements used to experiment in the physical sciences were made at Paris, London, and Vienna, and are of the most approved kind. The number of students in attendance, on an average, is seven hundred, comprising Turks, Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, all of whom not only pay no tuition, but receive pecuniary assistance from the government. As science cannot well be taught in Turkish, French is the language of the school.