The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1898-05-20
AN EGYPTIAN ETON.
SCHOOLS IN WHICH THE RICH BOYS
OF CAIRO ARE EDUCATED.

They were training for the sports. In
the sunny playground was row of big,
| fat bOys-thOugh none of them came
within six inches of the slim, young,
befezzed English head master-hanging
on TO rope made fast round a tree. The
| trained instructor from AldershOt-he
! not so young or slim as be has been,
but with muscles all india rubber and
! steel-was teaching them the tug Of
war. His white tOOthed, black faced,
khaki clad Sudanese assistants were
helping him.
was in the Egyptian Eton 1t was
one Of three schools originally founded
for training teachers capable of giving
instruction in English or French. But
now it contains primary and secondary
| schools and a training college for the
| teachers, so that / was in a fair way to
see at its best a summary of the whole
system of public instruction in Egypt.
1t is On!v,i in its infancy as yet
First he went into the primary
| school. There were not many pupils be-
| cause the fees here are high-as much
as $50 and SO year for day boys
and nobody much comes TO the primary
part except those who have failed else
where and whose fathers think the high
fee a guarantee of high examining
The primary course III Egypt takes fo1I
years; III the first, only Arabic subjects
are taught; after that, English oN
French is introduced and gradually ex
Cd -, tl,o 10 -
13 houra out of the weekly 33. All ths
instruction in languages is given in tk4
language itself, but by natives Only
one-English or French-is taught, but
that is taught thoroughly.
In the lowest class there were Just
four bOys-absurd little owls with the
gravity Of old men, dressed in fez and
Overcoat. They were getting a drawing
lesson from an elderly Arab with a
shawl round his head. When went in,
they all stood up and saluted. In the
highest class they were having an Eng
lish lesson from a young native in a
large butterfly tie. Their English was
thick and sloppy so, if it came to that,
was the masters. Still you could under
stand it. In this class mustaches were
already budding, and it seemed strange
to hear young men reading infantile
stuff about the sparrow.
The great difficulty in schools like
this arises from the fact that Mussul-
man is never a boy. As soon as he
leaves the harem and is no longer a baby
he jumps at bound to being a man. A
boy will do we'll in his classes up to IA,
10, 16, and then suddenly the cafes and
hasheesh and lights o love claim him,
and from a bright eyed urchin he be-
comes a sallow, fiashy, sodden, stupid,
dissipated man about town. In one pri-
mary school two boys, Is and ii, have
just been married-nOt betrOthed, you
know, but really married, and living
with their wives. The native master
saw nothing extraordinary in a married
sixth standard boy. Under the former
system a boy took his primary certifi-
cate, which qualities for lower govern
ment posts, at IA or so, then spent six
years getting his secondary certificate,
and then perhaps went on to the train
ing college or the schools of medicine or
of law. Consequently he might easily
be the father of very fair sized family
years before he started to earn a piastre.
Lately, by shortening the secondary
course from five years TO three real
effort has been made to get boys out Of
hand and into the world before 20 or so.
When we got on to the top form Of the
secondary school, there was no appreci-
able difference in the sort Of bOy-all
befeZZed, all OveTcCated, most mustaCh-
ed, all grave, as if school were a matter
of life and death.
There Is no difficulty in point of dis
cipline with the Egyptian schColboy.
The French masters have some trouble
sometimes, was told, bat in the very,
very rare cases where an English master
finds his classes too much for him he
must go. 1t will not dc to bring up the
young in the idea that they may set at
naught the authority Of an Englishman.
And what, when all is said and done,
of the Egyptian sChOolbOy? Does he do
any good in return for the patient, in
teiligent, honest care his English mas
ters bestow on him? Well, he is learn
ing to play football, and that will be
good for him, only when boy says TO
his master, after playing the Egyptian
Sandhurst, 1.-The ground was too undu-
lating; it recalled to me Hannibal's
passage of the Alps, why, then, you
perceive that even football will not nec-
essarily turn a precocious man into a
boy again. He is astonishingly indus
trious. The difficulty is not to make
him work, but to prevent him from
overworking. Eight hours home work
after five and a half IN school is by no
means an nnknnHur rnrfnrr,nannn Soma