The Green Forest tribune., 1911-10-20
 ! l'f|1'1 1oXlpaE5h i:'!2Ee a5
 lE NATIONS
"To Knowledge" Cry Which Progress sive Party in Turkey PIacards High ways-GoVernments Seek to En- hance Own Prestige by Schools.
By WILLIAM T. ELLIS.

Beirut.-lf a visitor in this city has
 sufficient curiosity to inquire the
 meaning of the Arabic inscriptions
 which he sees emblazed upon the
 walls, he will be told that they are
 a motto of the Progressive Party
 ITO knowledge" and "Juryman. seek 1 knowledge! Ignorance is shame"
 That points straight to the underly- ing problem of awakened Turkey.
 However, farcical the present consti- l tutional government may now appear. | it must ultimately rest upon the edu-
 cation of the people. Not at the Sub
 lime Porte and in the inner offices of
 the administration. but in the schools
 of the Empire, the destiny of Turkey
 is to be worked out constitutional government is simply impossible with
 out popular education.
 The prevailing idea of education in | old Turkey was the memorizing of the 1 Koran in ft UT tones. The Koran is in Arabic and so even where memorized,
 utterly unintelligible to most of those
 who study 1t. These mosque schools
 were little else than hot-beds of bigo- | try and hatred of Christians. They eff | fected no change in the economic con-
 ditions, nor did they broaden the in tellectual horizon of their students.
 Traditions concerning the Prophet
 were of little help to the peasant in
 raising a living from the ill-treated
 soil of his land. One of the hopeful signs of the new day is that everybody
 seems to realize that education must have the right of way.
 Religious Schools the Rule. When the constitutional era was | proclaimed there was at once a great | fiocking of children to existing schools, | especially to those kept by foreigners. | There has been some reaction in this
 respect, as the Moslems and Greeks
 and Armenians have, by means of | threats and other pressure, compelled
 the parents to senL children to their
 own schools however inferior these
 may be. The latter have been forced
 to improve their standing erceptibly,
 even at the cost of taking Christian l teachers from the foreign schools.
 One office of the educational institu- tions maintained by foreigners in Fur
 key is to stimulate the native schools
 tt emulation.
 While the Young Turk leaders have | designed scheme of non-religious
 schools, yet practically the religious 1 schools are the prevailing ones. The people here have such varying relig- | ious beliefs, and religious ideas hold such supreme place in their thought. i that nobody is satisfied with non-re- ligious schools The result is that the l youth of Turkey is largely being edu- l cated in schools which put the church | above the state. The empire is di- vided into great national groupings
 which are also religious classifications Educationally, the result is chaos. | The government is trying to find itself
 in this matter and to adapt itself to the educational conditions of the new order
 Diplomacy and Education. | In the great game for the possession
 of New Turkey. the school is freely
 used by foreign governments France | has heartily supported and championed the Jesuit colleges md primary schools | for they teach the French language and French history and inculate the