Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/46

 to house them all in the meunasah, a building which, as we know, serves as a chapel for the village and as a dormitory for all males whose wives do not live in the gampōng. The intercourse with the young men of the gampōng resulting from lodging under the same roof with them, is also regarded as detrimental to their studies. As a rule, then, the people of the gampōng, on the application of the teacher, erect simple buildings known as rangkangs, after the fashion of the students' pondoks or huts in Java.

A rangkang is built in the form of a dwelling-house, but with less care; in place of three floors of different elevations it has only one floor on the same level throughout, and is divided on either side of the central passage into small chambers, each of which serves as a dwelling-place for from one to three muribs.

Occasionally some devout person converts a disused dwelling-house into waqf (Ach. wakeuëh) for the benefit of the students. The house is then transferred to the enclosure of the teacher and fitted up as far as possible in the manner of a rangkang.

In Java every pondok or hut of a pěsantrèn has its lurah (Sund. kokolot) who maintains order and enforces rules of cleanliness, and enlightens the less experienced of his fellow-disciples in their studies. Similarly in Acheh the teungku rangkang is at once assistant master and prefect for the students who lodge in the rangkang. He explains all that is not made sufficiently clear for them by the teaching of the gurèë. The students are often occupied for years in mastering the subsidiary branches of learning, especially grammar, and here the teungku rangkang is able to help them in attaining the necessary practical knowledge, by guiding their footsteps in the study of Malay pikah and usuy books such as the Masaïlah, Bidayah and Çirāt al-mustaqīm.

This establishment of heads of pondoks or rangkangs and the excellent custom among native students of continually learning from one another alone save the system from inefficiency, for the teachers take no pains to improve the method of instruction, and many of them are miserably poor pedagogues in every form of learning.

The ulamas are wont to impart instruction to the students in one of the two following ways. Either the latter go one by one to the teacher with a copy of the work they are studying, whereupon he recites a