Menavino describes the course of study in the so-called _Yeni Oda_, or New Chamber, which contained from eighty to a hundred boys. “When a boy has remained five or six days in that school, they set him to learning the alphabet. There are four teachers in the school. One drills the boys in reading during their first year. Another teaches the Koran in the Arabic (_Moresco_) language, giving explanations of the different articles of their faith. After this a third teaches books in the Persian tongue, and some write a little, but they do not teach writing willingly. A fourth teaches Arabic books, both vulgar and literary.” It is interesting to notice that, from the first, rewards in the form of pay were given for labor. “These boys,” continues Menavino, “have a daily allowance of two aspers during the first year, three during the second year, four during the third year, and thus their allowance increases each year. They receive scarlet garments twice a year, and some robes of white cloth for the summer.”[219] Postel describes how they learned with great diligence Arabic and Turkish letters and the law.[220] Ricaut explains in more detail that the chief object of the course of study was to teach reading and writing for the purpose of giving inspection into the books of law and religion, especially the Koran. He says that Arabic was taught to enable the boys to inspect the writings of the judges and to have knowledge of religion, Persian to give them quaint words and handsome and gentle deportment, and adds that both tongues might be needed in governing Eastern regions. He gives a list of their text-books, and remarks that those who wished to become men of the pen studied with greater exactness. They were not, he says, taught logic, physics, metaphysics, mathematics, or geography, and their knowledge of ancient history was much mixed. “Yet as to the successes and progress of Affairs in their own Dominions,” he adds, “they keep most strict Registers and Records, which serve them as Presidents and Rules for the present Government of their Affairs.”[221] This shows that the pages were instructed in Turkish history and the various _Kanun-namehs_, or imperial laws. Most of the teachers were Anatolian Turks,[222] chosen no doubt, as imparting better pronunciation and more orthodox religious views.