![[Picture: A schoolroom in Tunisia]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/ElMundoIlustrado-1897/pages/281-schoolroom/281-schoolroom-q75-750x554.jpg "[Picture: A schoolroom in Tunisia]")
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A schoolroom in Tunisia more
education, children, teaching, cross-legged, dark, stone, columns, reading, men, boys, costumes, spooky
Una Escuela en Túnez. — Dibujo original de E. Berninger.
A School in Tunisia. — Original drawing by E. Berninger.
There is nothing more curious than the schools, which are usually established in some corner of a mosque and are separated from the street by an open door, so that from outside one can see and hear what is going on inside.
The boys remain crouched or sitting on the ground with their legs crossed; the master in front of them or in the middle pronounces the words of the exercise and the children repeat them aloud, shouting in chorus; whoever does not do it well receives a significant warning from the master with the rod. At other times he draws Arabic characters on a large blackboard hanging on the wall, and pronounces them; the pupils imitate them as well as they can. It also happens as in our schools, that the boys are more eager to laugh, whisper or chat than to learn the lesson; Then the stick, which is conveniently very long, is not long in restoring attention and silence.
When the teacher gives the signal to leave, it is curious to see how the confused bunch of children moves and dissolves: they all get up, wrap themselves in their bathrobes and go home with a grave and musing step, just like the ancient Greeks.
All the teaching consists of reading, writing, understanding and learning the prayers of the Koran.
(p. 287)
Here we see perhaps a dozen boys sitting cross-legged, hooded, either reading from open books or in one case using a book-stand. The room seems dark, light entering through a high barred window set into the stone wall. The room appears to be in an ancient building, a mosque. The teacher, old and bearded, sits cross-legged at the front, with perhaps tea on a small octagonal table in front of him.
Original Spanish text follows:
Nada más curioso que las escuelas, que se suele establecer en algun rincon de una mezquita y están separadas de la calle por un portal abierto, do modo que desde fuera se ve y oye lo que pasa dentro.
Los chicos permanecen agachads ó sentados en el suelo con las piernas cruzadas; el maestro delante ó en medio de ellos pronuncia las palabras del ejercicio y los nifios las repiten en al alta voz, gritando en coro; el que no lo hace bien recibe del dómine una advertencia significativa con la vara. Otras veces traza ęste caractéres árabes en una gran pizarra colgada de la pared, y vá pronunciándolos; los discipulos imitanlos tan bien como pueden. Tambien sucede, como en nuestras escuelas, que los chicos tienen más ganas de rier, cuchichear ó charlar que de aprender la leccion; entónces no tarda el palo, que por convenienca es muy largo, en restanlecer la atencion y el silencio. Cuando el maestro do la señal de marcharse, es curioso ver cómo se meuve y disuelve el confuso ovillo de chicos: todos se levantan, se envuelven en sus albornoces y se marchen á sus casas con paso grave y musurado, lo mismo que los antiquos griegos.
Toda la enseñanza consiste en leer, escribir, entender y aprender las oraciones del Coran.
