Schooling in the East
From Memoirs of an Arabian Princess: An Autobiography by Emily Ruete, 1888.
From: 1844 C.E. To: 1888 C.E.
Location: Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Memoirs of an Arabian Princess: An Autobiography by Emily Ruete, 1888.
On the whole the school (mdarse) is considered by Eastern people, and likewise by us, as of little moment and consequence. School in Europe is the centre of life in Church and State, alike to prince and to citizen; from its efficiency depends essentially the cultivation of mind and knowledge as well as most future prospects.
In the East the "mdarse" is altogether a matter of secondary consideration, and for a good many people it does not exist at all. Before discussing this point further I wish to say something about what we called "school" at our house.
Between the age of six or seven all children—boys and girls—had to enter the mdarse; the latter were only required to learn to read, the former both to write and read. At Bet il Mtoni and at Bet il Sahel there was only one lady teacher, respectively, specially imported by our father from Oman. I need not say that unforeseen holidays, brought about by our teacher's occasional sickness, did not meet with proper regret on our part.
We had no separate schoolroom; our lessons were said in an open gallery, to which pigeons and parrots, peacocks and ricebirds, found free ingress. We also had an uninterrupted view of the courtyard and its busy life there. All the furniture of the schoolroom consisted of a single large mat. Our school property was equally simple—all we required was a Kurân on a stand (marfa), a small inkstand containing homemade ink and the well-bleached shoulder-blade of a camel for a slate, on which the writing with ink is easy, without the irritation, jarring noise produced on the slate. Slaves have to see to the cleaning of these blades.
The first thing we learned was the very complicated Arab ABC, after which, for want of any other spelling-book, reading was taught from the Kuran, and the boys copied from it. Those who could read pretty fluently read in a chorus, and rather loudly too. But this was the extent of our schooling, for we never got any explanation of what we were reading about. Hence the fact that perhaps one only amongst a thousand really understands and is able to explain the sense and the precepts of the Mahometan holy book, though there may be eighty in every hundred who have learned at least half of it by heart. To meditate or to speculate upon its contents is considered irreligious and condemnatory; people are simply to believe what they are taught, and this maxim is rigorously carried out.
After a repast of fruit we assembled at seven o'clock in the morning on our mat, and there awaited the arrival of our teacher, whiling away the time with wrestling, boxing, jumping, and with perilous attempts at climbing the railings, &c. A watch was set at a corner of the gallery to inform us, by a cough, of the teacher's approach, upon which we would promptly seat ourselves, looking extremely demure, only to rebound, like so many indiarubber balls, respectfully to shake hands with the dreaded one and to wish her good morning. She always carried the much detested bamboo cane in one hand, and a large brass inkstand in the other. Until she had taken her seat we had to stand up before her in file, and were finally allowed to sit down ourselves cross-legged around her on the matting.
She now began to recite the first Sura of the Kurân, which may be called the Mahometan Lord's Prayer, echoed in chorus by us and concluded with Amin (not Amen). Then we repeated what we had learned the day before, and took a new piece in reading and writing. Lessons lasted till nine o'clock precisely, and were resumed after breakfast up to second prayers at noon.
Each of us was allowed to bring some slaves to school to join in our lessons; they sat at some distance behind us, while we grouped ourselves as we pleased. There were neither fixed places nor a division into forms. Reports which are looked forward to with such feverish anxiety in European schools were unknown to us. Our respective mothers and our fathers received only a verbal report if any of us made very good progress, and in the reverse case, or if very good or bad conduct called for comment. Our teacher had received special orders to punish us severely whenever she deemed it necessary, and we gave her often enough occasion to make use of her cane.
Besides reading and writing, we were taught a little arithmetic, that is, ciphering in writing up to 100, and up to 1000 mentally; everything beyond that was thought to be of evil. No pains were taken with either grammar or orthography; the very complicated "Ilnahu" can only be acquired by much reading in after years. Of such sciences as history, geography, mathematics, physics, and others I never heard—I only was made acquainted with these branches of science when I came to Europe. I am not sure, however, that I am so much better off now for the smattering I have acquired of these things at great pains, than the people on the other side. This only I know, that my increased knowledge has not saved me from being repeatedly deceived and swindled. Oh, ye happy ones at home who are spared the inevitable sorrows which lie beneath the dazzling gauze of civilization!
The style of our tuition did not admit of home tasks of course, which take up so many hours in this country.
The teacher, feared as she may be, is treated with great respect by everybody, and by her pupils especially is treated with veneration in after life.
One thing, however, schoolchildren in the East and in Europe have in common—the natural instinct of gaining the teacher's favour by means of little bribes. When my children used to ask me for a few pence to buy a nosegay or a flower-pot for Miss So-and-so, I was always reminded of my own school-days.
This trait belongs, I believe, to every race and nation. Before we ever dreamt of the existence of foreign countries or of their schools and school-children, my brothers and sisters and myself tried to ingratiate ourselves with our teacher by taking her all sorts of things, sweets in preference; every day she received a goodly portion of the French goodies our father gave us. I know not whether the other effect of this kind of present was a premeditated one, but certain it is that a repeated result was a violent toothache—and a holiday for us.
There was no fixed term for attending school. What was considered necessary to know had to be learned in any case; but it depended entirely upon the capacity of each individual if this knowledge was acquired in one year, in two, or more.
Fancy work was not taught at school, it was from our mothers that we acquired the art of sewing, embroidery, and lace-making, at which most of them were very proficient, though we were not expected to attain any particular standard. Some of my sisters, for instance, who had acquired great skill in such work, could easily have made a living by it, had they ever needed ; others, again, never got beyond sewing on a button.
There exist some schools, but only for children of poor parents. Everyone who is at all able to afford it, keeps a private tutor or a governess. Sometimes the secretary of the master of the house undertook to give lessons to the girls—however, only as long as they were quite young.
This brief mention is all I have to say of our schools. It is but natural that I should sometimes be tempted to draw comparisons between them and European ones, between the over-cultured hero and the ignorance of the children there. I myself was born, bred, and educated there, and my judgment, which is based upon my experience both in Arabia and Europe, and which I feel to be quite free from any prejudice whatever, may perhaps be of interest.
In general I am of opinion that Europeans exact just that too much.from a school, as the Arabs demand too little. As yet no people has discovered the right middle course, nor will it ever be found; contrasts like these will exist as long as the world lasts.
There is hardly any science which the children are not taught here, and to such an extent that the childish understanding cannot possibly retain all. With the beginning of school life parents see hardly anything of their children. The latter are so much overtasked, even after their regular school-hours, that home life and influence are almost at an end. There is a continued race and chase all day from task to task, and how much of these studies will be of lasting value to them? How much of it is crammed, only to be forgotten again as quickly! To my idea, a few extra hours spent in their home would leave a healthier impression on their minds and memories by and by.
For five or more hours daily the poor children are cooped up in a schoolroom which is insufferably hot and stifling. In one school, with more than two hundred children, I remarked that there were only four tumblers. Can any one be surprised under such circumstances if a child sickens? However much care and pains may be taken for its welfare at home, they are rendered quite useless by the effect of the foul school air. You need only look at some of these children to make your heart ache! Was not our large, lofty gallery a much fitter place ? What is the use of all accomplishments if they are acquired by ruining health?
Of that feeling of respect which was inculcated into us in early-youth for our parents, teachers, and tutors, and old age in general, there is not much to be perceived here. The lessons in religion also seem to me to miss their aim; the children are overburdened with learning numberless dates of ecclesiastical history, while their hearts remain a barren soil.
The word of God and His holy commandments should be taught more, and less time be bestowed on subtle inquiries into indifferent matter. It will surely always remain a vain longing of the short-sighted human mind to fathom the innermost secrets of nature and creation. I once read a beautiful and impressive simile. Man's short life was there compared with that of a moth, which first saw the light of day within the walls of a large cathedral; the moth's short ppan of life expired long long before it could realize one hundredth part of all the beauty and mystery surrounding it—such is the life of man amid the wonders of the universe. Let wise men continue their investigations and their broodings; but let them cease cramming children's minds with dry unprofitable stuff that the brain cannot digest and the soul sickens with and dies.
I was shocked, in looking over some statistics on lunacy, to find that the majority of these deplorable cases were returned from former students of high schools and universities. A good many of these surely were the victims of overpressure. I could not help thinking of my native home, where lunatic asylums are not needed, where I never saw but two maniacs, and never heard of any others—and of these two, one was a negress, the other a native of Hindustan.
As I previously said, I have no desire to criticise European culture, nor am I able to do so; I only wished to speak of my own observations, which convinced me that there are many sad failures in the European educational system. But at all events, I shall be pardoned if I question the right which Europeans take upon themselves in deploring the fate of a people as yet "unenlightened," and their justification in forcibly imparting their civilization on the same. I am firmly convinced, Arab born and bred as I am, that all efforts on the part of Europeans to do away, at a sweep, with the incarnate ignorance of Mahometans, and to fly the flag of science and learning, with even the smallest amount of precipitation, will meet with barren effect.
Other nations, like the Japanese for instance, whose creed and precepts are less binding than the Mahometan, probably offer a more grateful soil—the more so as they are naturally more desirous of stepping into the footprints of Europeans.
People frequently deride the Turkish half-culture, and yet the Turks have striven much harder to become civilized than is at all good for them. They have only weakened themselves without achieving the desired end, because foreign culture is contrary and opposed to their fundamental views. Civilization cannot be obtruded by force, and it will only be just to concede to every nation the right of adhering without hindrance to their views and institutions, which have in the course of centuries been founded under the influence of ripened experience and practical worldly wisdom. Above all, the pious Arab would be deeply shocked if his civilization were to begin with lessons on natural science, of which, according to the European code of education, people are supposed to know something. What would be his bewilderment if any one were to talk to him of the laws of nature, who sees in all the universe, down to its most infinitesimal details, but one source of creation—the all-guiding and all-directing hand of God!
Ruete, Emily. Memoirs of an Arabian Princess: An Autobiography. D. Appleton & Company, 1888.
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