he
history of other nations are never taught. When the pupils are at study
they reel back and forth and repeat words loud enough to be heard a
block away. They imagine this is an aid to memory. The teacher has
authority to punish the students very severely. Sometimes a parent will
take his child to a teacher and will deliver him into the gentle
keeping of the professor with the remark: "His bones are mine, but his
flesh is yours. Teach him, but punish him as you see fit." A post is
planted in the schoolroom to which a wild boy's feet are fastened,
soles upward, and the bottoms are whipped with heavy switches. This
punishment is only for the worst boys. For mild offences, the teacher
raps the student over the head with a long switch which is always kept
in a convenient place or carried in the teacher's hand. The religious
teaching consists of quotations from Koran and traditions about their
prophets. The boys are usually very bad about reviling each other and
about fighting. The teacher does not protect the weaker, but urges him
to return the revilings or the blows he has received. The students of
one mosque often attack the students of a neighboring mosque as they
regard them as enemies. The most prominent university of the Shiite
Mohammedans is in the shrine place of Karballa. All those who are to
become Mujtahids study at this place. In several of the large cities
they have schools of higher rank than the ordinary mosque school in
which a course of Persian literature is given. It is a pleasure to
state that the late Shah, after his visit to some of the universities
of Europe, founded a college in the capital city which is called the
Place of Science. The French, English and Russian languages are taught,
and the study of some modern sciences are being introduced. The college
is only for princes and the children of rich people. It is only one
flower in a vast wilderness. The problem of Mohammedanism is to keep
the common people ignorant, so the priest can continue to rule them.
Therefore the priesthood does not favor higher education. Some counts
or lords send their sons to Paris to be educated, but the ordinary
young men have no opportunities for education.

PART IV.

CHAPTER I.

BOBEISM.

The Mohammedan religion is to-day divided in about fifty different
sects. This division greatly weakens it. The Bobe sect was started by
Mirza Mohammed Ali of Shiraz, a city in which reside the most
intellectual a