Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/316

266 for them an unenviable notoriety among their fellow-Greeks.

Having a little leisure time at present, I have been making an effort to learn Turkish. My master is a Hoja or priest, whose special vocation it is to teach small Turkish boys reading and writing. His method of instruction is the dreariest imaginable. It consists simply in forcing the pupil to repeat after him, first, a collection of syllables and then of sentences, each word as it is uttered being pointed out to him in a printed text, in order that he may thus learn to associate a particular group of characters with a particular word. The unfortunate pupil is expected to learn all this en bloc, before he has been taught the letters of the alphabet, the simplest grammatical forms, or even the commonest colloquial words. It is evident that such a method can only succeed with a native who has already acquired, through the ear, the use of his vernacular. My Hoja, however, who is the impersonation of antiquated bigotry, and who is as obstinate as a Mytilene mule, insists on forcing Colnaghi and myself through this disgusting mechanical drudgery, and was very angry the other day when he discovered that we were abridging his circuitous route by taking a short and easy cut, and that in the intervals of his nauseous lessons we studied a very amusing collection of dialogues and tales, in which the Turkish text is printed in Roman as well as Arabic characters, and is accompanied by a French translation. The Hoja seemed shocked at the notion that any one should try to abridge the time required for learning