'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎256v] (515/862)

388 ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC LIFE
Education. In the summer of 1918 an independent Department of
Education was organized, having grown too large to remain a section
of Revenue. The new department devoted its attention in the first
instance to elementary education, and by the end of 1919 there were
seventy-five such schools in existence. Four of these schools were
non-Moslem: three Christian, and one Jewish. Apart from these
government schools there were a number of others, mostly Christian
—especially in the Mosul vilayet—in which instruction was given
in the communal language; the Islamic mulla schools, which
were also outside the government system, were educationally on a
lower level. Most of these schools, except those of the mullas,
received financial sup port from the Government and in return accepted
a certain amount of supervision by it. In Baghdad a training college
for teachers was established at which Sunnis, Shias, and Christians
all attended. Jewish young men were reluctant to do so. The prin
cipal difficulty was one of language. Instruction was given in Arabic
which was inadequate for students coming from Kurdish and Turko
man districts. As a consequence the Kurdish and Turkoman students
soon withdrew.
The education of girls was inevitably behind that of boys. There
were a few girls’ schools in Turkish times, but female education was
encouraged neither by the authorities nor by the great majority of the
population. Education of Christian and Jewish girls was more general.
The military authorities made a beginning by opening five schools
for girls.
Secondary education was even more difficult. There were second
ary courses in Baghdad and Mosul for boys who had completed the
primary course. They were not popular, and of the 34 boys who
attended at the end of 1919 (7 in Baghdad, 27 in Mosul), 18 of those
in Mosul were Christians. A private Sunni school, although nomin
ally secondary, worked on a syllabus that was very little more than
primary. The two higher schools of Turkish times—the Teachers’
Training College and the Law School (p. 406)—were continued,
and a commercial school was opened. A small technical school and
a survey school, which it was hoped would prove the germ of an
engineering college, were also opened under British auspices. A
standing difficulty lay in securing suitable teaching staff of any kind,
and recourse had often to be had to British direction.
A branch of the Department of Education dealt with archaeology.
On the occupation of Baghdad the Turkish law safeguarding anti
quities and ancient sites was at once reaffirmed and steps taken for