Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1921.djvu/1389

 INSTRUCTION — JUSTICE 1337

The number of mosques in the Turkish Empire is 2.120, of which 379 are iu Constantinople. The number of the clergy is 11,600. Connect* d with the inosques are 1,780 elementary schools, where education is supplied g The temporalities of the Church are controlled by the Ministry of Pious Foundations or Evkaf which has a separate Budget of its own. The department of the Sheikh-ul-Islam, however, and the whole semi -religious semi-legal organisation subordinate to him are not provided for in this Budget, but in that of the State. The revenue of the Evkaf is principally derived from charges on and reversionary interests in real property which has at one time or another been made the subject of consecration to r^: or benevolent purposes, and which is known as Vakuf. A verv large proportion of the urban property of the Empire is of this description, and though it can be for practical purposes owned, alienated, and within certain limits transmitted by inheritance as if it were the property of the holder, the ultimate ownership theoretically resides in God, and the pious founda- tion, to the use of which it was consecrated, retains in it a perpetual into represented by annual rents and rights of reversion in certain cases.

Instruction.

In Turkey, elementary education is nominally obligatory for all children of both sexes. According to the Provisional Law of October 6, 1913, all children from 7 to 16 are to receive primary instruction, which may, how- ever, he given iu State schools, schools maintained by community private schools, or, subject to certain tests, at home. The State schools are under the direct control of the Ministry of Public Instruction, which al<o provides for the inspection of schools maintained by the non-.V communities, kc. Besides these there survive a large number of Me or theological seminaries, connected with religious foundations. There are middle-class schools for boys from 11 to 16 years of age, and according to the Bill introduced in January, 1918, similar institutions for girls (

lijesti) are to he introduced. Already the five in Constantinople have 2,000 pupils. In Aleppo there are 7 Moslem, 250 Christian, and 30 Jewish schools, with respectively, 19,000, 8,000, and 2,000 pupils. The schools of various descriptions within the empire number about 36,230, and contain about 1,331,200 pupils, or one to twenty- four of population. Training schools for teachers also exist, but the general level of efficiency of the State schools is low. There are a large number of foreign schools, mostly conducted by French, English and American missionaries.

The university, which was nominally founded at Constantinople in 1900, is being reorganised by a Bill introduced in the Chamber in January, 1918. It now comprises 5 Faculties, viz.. Arts, Theology, Law, Medicine, and Science. The Faculty of Medicine is installed, together with the Militarv Medical School, in a modern building which occupies an imposing site on the Scutari shore of the Bosphorus. There are numerous special schools belong- ing to the State or to the recognized communities, e.g., an Imperial art school, a Great National School (Greek) of old foundation with 400 students, and a Greek theological seminary with 80 students.

Justice.

Turkey being essentially a Moslem State the laws of the Empire rest in principle on the basis of all Sunni Moslem law, i.e., the Koran, the Hadith or traditions of Muhammad, and the reported sayings and actions of his