The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863: Devoted To Literature And National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863: Devoted To Literature And National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
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.
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