e larger towns. In these
schools the instruction given before the British occupation was very
slight. All pupils were taught to recite portions of the Koran, and a
proportion of the scholars learnt to read and write Arabic and a
little simple arithmetic. Those pupils who succeeded in committing to
memory the whole of the Koran were regarded as _fiki_ (learned in
Mahommedan law), and as such escaped liability to military
conscription. The government has improved the education given in the
_kuttabs_, and numbers of them have been taken under the direct
control of the ministry of public instruction. In these latter schools
an excellent elementary secular education is given, in addition to the
instruction in the Koran, to which half the school hours are devoted.
The number of pupils in 1905 was over 12,000 boys and 2000 girls.
Grants-in-aid are given to other schools where a sufficiently good
standard of instruction is maintained. No grant is made to any
_kuttab_ where any language other than Arabic is taught. In all there
are over 10,000 kuttabs, attended by some 250,000 scholars. The number
of pupils in private schools under government inspection was in 1898,
the first year of the grant-in-aid system, 7536; in 1900, 12,315; in
1905, 145,691. The number of girls in attendance rose from 598 in 1898
to 997 in 1900 and 9611 in 1905. The Copts have about 1000 primary
schools, in which the teaching of Coptic is compulsory, a few
industrial schools, and one college for higher instruction.

Cairo holds a prominent place as a seat of Moslem learning, and its
university, the Azhar, is considered the first of the eastern world.
Its professors teach "grammatical inflexion and syntax, rhetoric,
versification, logic, theology, the exposition of the Koran, the
traditions of the Prophet, the complete science of jurisprudence, or
rather of religious, moral, civil and criminal law, which is chiefly
founded on the Koran and the traditions, together with arithmetic as
far as it is useful in matters of law. Lectures are also given on
algebra and on the calculations of the Mahommedan calendar, the times
of prayer, &c." (E. W. Lane, _Modern Egyptians_). The students come
from all parts of the Mahommedan world. They number about 8000, of
whom some 2000 are resident. The students pay no fees, and the
professors receive no salaries. The latter maintain themselves by
private te