This work is not a history nor a political treatise, but merely a handbook for tourists and students of the country, and the name of Abd-el-Kader has only been used to clear up any misunderstanding which may arise when the name is raised: the one Abd-el-Kader, saint and reformer; the other warrior and defender of Islam. CHAPTER XVIII ARAB EDUCATION Generally speaking the Arab of Algeria is uneducated, and though he is lazy, this lack of education is not fundamentally his fault. In the first place, the instruction he obtains from his own people is singularly primitive. The Koran decrees that all children shall be taught their religion; at the time of its compilation this involved reading and writing of Arabic, but as in Algeria the original pure language has disappeared, and its place has been taken by this mixture of Berber and other tongues which have crept into it during the course of the various invasions, its object as a channel of education has disappeared. The language of the Koran has, however, not changed in the least, with the result that to read the Holy Book an Arab must learn a completely new language, richer perhaps than any other in the world and full of grammatical rules which take time to fix in the mind. It stands to reason, therefore, that the number of people who can talk this language are in the great minority, but the order of the Koran must be obeyed. What, therefore, is the result? A little boy is sent to the local _taleb_ or Arab teacher at the age of seven, and he is supposed to remain there until he is fifteen or sixteen. Here he learns the Koran in the old tongue by heart, reciting in chorus with the other pupils the verses and chapters without the smallest idea what he is saying. Occasionally he finds a teacher who will take the trouble to explain the scripture and give a few comments on what he is learning, but usually the lad leaves his school with the Koran engraved on his mind like some incomprehensible poem. Naturally he forgets all this very quickly, and though his family teach him his prayers, which are extracted from the Book and are translated, this is all he knows of Arabic. The rest of the sense of his religion is picked up by hearsay, and it may seem astonishing to a stranger to note how much he does know about the laws of the Prophet. It is not, however, as astonishing as might be supposed if one realizes what I have said before, that the whole of his daily life is interwoven with religion, and that if he did not know all this it would be just as if a European remained all his life ignorant of the simplest laws of his country.