'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎493] (552/714)

INSTITUTIONS AND REFORMS
493
Let me, however, describe Persian education such as it is. In
every town, city, and village in Persia there is some sort of school.
Primary ^ ie sma ^ villages it is often little more than a class
schools Iveld by a mullah in the parish mosque. Here the
children are taught the Persian equivalent to the three R's; i.e.,
they are taught the Persian alphabet, the rudiments of arithmetic,
and a parrot-knowledge of the Koran. By this phrase I mean
that they learn to read, I should rather say to pronounce,
the Arabic of the Scriptures, without the slightest inkling as to its
meaning. Though all arrive at the power of reading the Persian
alphabet, only a few attain to that of writing it. Hence the pride
with which anyone who can both read and write passably pre
fixes the title mirza to his name. Among this class primary
education is carried a step farther, inasmuch as it will embrace a
slight knowledge of the national poetry, and an acquaintance with
the art of rounded phrase and swelling trope, in which the
Persian imagination loves to expand its infantile wings. But,
as Dr. Wills says, in the majority of cases 'the repeating from
memory of a few prayers and passages from the Koran, with some
verses of poetry, is all that remains to a villager generally of his
education.' Elementary education is, however, very cheap in
Persia, the fees for attendance amounting only to from one to three
Jcrans {Id. to Is. 9ci) per month for each child.
There are no higher schools or grammar schools in Persia in
the English sense of the term. The only form of secondary educa-
Secondary ^ on 0 P en ^o the masses, and that only to a limited sec-
education tion of them, is provided in the madressehs, or religious
colleges, which are frequented by candidates for the three learned
professions of the Church, law, and medicine. Here the curri
culum is one of a peculiarly straitened character, for, as every
Oriental believes that all human knowledge is summed up in the
obsolete patchwork of Mohammedan science, but little outer light
is permitted to dawn upon the inquirer's mind. The study of the
text and commentaries of the Koran, deeper excursions into Persian
literature, an absorption of the sterile nonsense that passes for philo
sophy in the East, and a respectful attention to the discourses of
learned men—these are the duties and the results of madresseh
education. In every town of any size are one or more of these
establishments, many of them owning large incomes from endow
ments, and containing accommodation for tenfold the number of