Chapter XVIII: Arab Education

Generally speaking the Arab of Algeria is uneducated, and though he is lazy, this lack of education is not fundamentally his fault. In the first place, the instruction he obtains from his own people is singularly primitive. The Koran decrees that all children shall be taught their religion; at the time of its compilation this involved reading and writing of Arabic, but as in Algeria the original pure language has disappeared, and its place has been taken by this mixture of Berber and other tongues which have crept into it during the course of the various invasions, its object as a channel of education has disappeared.

The language of the Koran has, however, not changed in the least, with the result that to read the Holy Book an Arab must learn a completely new language, richer perhaps than any other in the world and full of grammatical rules which take time to fix in the mind.

It stands to reason, therefore, that the number of people who can talk this language are in the great minority, but the order of the Koran must be obeyed. What, therefore, is the result?

A little boy is sent to the local _taleb_ or Arab teacher at the age of seven, and he is supposed to remain there until he is fifteen or sixteen. Here he learns the Koran in the old tongue by heart, reciting in chorus with the other pupils the verses and chapters without the smallest idea what he is saying. Occasionally he finds a teacher who will take the trouble to explain the scripture and give a few comments on what he is learning, but usually the lad leaves his school with the Koran engraved on his mind like some incomprehensible poem. Naturally he forgets all this very quickly, and though his family teach him his prayers, which are extracted from the Book and are translated, this is all he knows of Arabic. The rest of the sense of his religion is picked up by hearsay, and it may seem astonishing to a stranger to note how much he does know about the laws of the Prophet. It is not, however, as astonishing as might be supposed if one realizes what I have said before, that the whole of his daily life is interwoven with religion, and that if he did not know all this it would be just as if a European remained all his life ignorant of the simplest laws of his country.

The girls are not taught anything by the _taleb_, as, though the Koran implies that all children should attend the school, the Arabs consider that if their daughters were thus educated they might get to know too much, and as an old _kadi_ once said to me, “A woman who could read and write would find it too easy to communicate with her lovers.”

At home a few have to say the various prayers, but usually their only instruction consists in weaving burnouses and carpets. They also are instructed in the art of cooking; their apprenticeship on these lines is very thorough, and they would beat any professional in a carpet-making competition. Their cooking is, of course, entirely Arab, and is often excellent, especially the pastry and the cakes. The rolling of the _kous-kous_ is their speciality, and though in European households only men act as cooks, they have to hand over the preparation of the _kous-kous_ to women.

It will be seen, therefore, that as far as the Arab teaching goes, little boys and girls of an Arab family are practically ignorant of anything except the Koran by heart and household duties. There is, however, a French law which orders all parents to send their male children to the local school. This law is enforced more or less according to its locality. Generally speaking, in the north the children are sent to school as the parents realize the benefit gained by a knowledge of the Roumis’ affairs; the Kabyles are an exception, and they do all they can to escape from this foreign imposition.

In the south, too, education is avoided by the nomads, for no natural dislike, but merely because the parents of the children consider that they are more useful at home helping them with their work than in learning to read and write. As, however, there is a law about school-attending, it would seem difficult to evade it, and whereas in the case of the nomads it is quite an easy matter, the people of the oases have to try to get round the schoolmaster. This seems incredible at first unless one knows the mentality of the French _fonctionnaire_ far away in the desert. Isolated from his kith and kin and living on small pay, he does not feel really bound to educate all the little wanderers who, he knows, will not profit by his labor.

Those who do attend school are taught to read and write, geography, French history, and a little arithmetic. They usually leave their studies at fourteen and remember nothing a few years after, except the reading and writing. Those who stay on can develop their studies until they reach a standard which permits them to go up for the local examination enabling them to get small scholarships in secondary schools or at Lycées. Those who do very well are educated free at the École Normale, and on leaving are posted as teachers in the French schools. For others there is the Medersa and all the legal situations mentioned in a previous chapter.

These pupils have to learn literary Arabic at the local school, and on this one subject they are, generally speaking, very thoroughly educated.

Quite apart from the official masters, there are the White Fathers and White Sisters. These good people have posts in all the far-flung posts of the French colonies, and their devotion to duty is an example to all. Founded by Cardinal Lavigerie about 1865, their work in North Africa is beyond all praise, and they have done more to pacify the country than any soldiers or politicians. They do not try to convert their pupils, but teach them some trade or occupation, at the same time instilling into their minds principles of good living and moral obligations. The White Fathers produce some wonderful leather work from their workshops, and the Sisters’ carpets are the best examples of Arab workmanship one can find. They also run a small school where they teach all elementary matters, including religion. The Arab children do not usually attend these classes but the Jews do. I have talked to Jewish parents on this apparent contradiction of their principles, but they have replied that the teaching of the Sisters is so much superior to that of the lay schools that they prefer their children to receive it, and the parents can always counteract at home any of the Christian doctrines.

The Lycées in Algiers, and for that matter in France, are open to all Arabs who like to pay to send their sons there. Some Arab chiefs make a point of doing so, but it is noticed that the boys do not really reap the benefits of this education but return to their homes without much more knowledge than their brothers who have studied in the local schools, and with all the vices of the Europeans with whom they have come in contact.

What does strike an Englishman is the enormous proportion of Arabs who talk fluent French. In India it is the officer and the official who have to learn Urdu to make themselves understood among the natives; in Algeria it is the native who must learn French. This is carried to such an extent that in some of the _communes mixtes_ of the north the little Arab boys are not learning their own language as a channel of conversation.

The south is different, as only a few nomads can say a word of French, but in time the language of the conqueror will impose itself into the farthest recesses of the Sahara. It is another example of the results obtained by an administration which at first sight seems a contradiction to all sense, and which yet produces wonderful results.