downward, and with every
decade is affecting wider strata of the native populations.

The spread of Western education in the East during the past few decades
has been truly astonishing, because it is the exact antithesis of the
Oriental educational system. The traditional "education" of the entire
Orient, from Morocco to China, was a mere memorizing of sacred texts
combined with exercises of religious devotion. The Mohammedan or Hindu
student spent long years reciting to his master (a "holy man")
interminable passages from books which, being written in classic Arabic
or Sanskrit, were unintelligible to him, so that he usually did not
understand a word of what he was saying. No more deadening system for
the intellect could possibly have been devised. Every part of the brain
except the memory atrophied, and the wonder is that any intellectual
initiative or original thinking ever appeared.

Even to-day the old system persists, and millions of young Orientals are
still wasting their time at this mind-petrifying nonsense. But alongside
the old there has arisen a new system, running the whole educational
gamut from kindergartens to universities, where Oriental youth is being
educated along Western lines. These new-type educational establishments
are of every kind. Besides schools and universities giving a liberal
education and fitting students for government service or the
professions, there are numerous technical schools turning out skilled
agriculturists or engineers, while good normal schools assure a supply
of teachers qualified to instruct coming student-generations. Both
public and private effort furthers Western education in the East. All
the European governments have favoured Western education in the lands
under their control, particularly the British in India and Egypt, while
various Christian missionary bodies have covered the East with a
network of schools and colleges. Also many Oriental governments like
Turkey and the native states of India have made sincere efforts to
spread Western education among their peoples.[248]

Of course, as in any new development, the results so far obtained are
far from ideal. The vicious traditions of the past handicap or partially
pervert the efforts of the present. Eastern students are prone to use
their memories rather than their intellects, and seek to cram their way
quickly through examinations to coveted posts rather than acquire
knowledge and thus really fit themselves for t