ABSTRACT
Ethnic and religious minority groups have, of course, contributed substantially to the beginnings of modernization in the Middle East. This is particularly true of Egypt, where these minority groups often served as a channel for cultural and economic penetration, and applies to education no less than to many other spheres. It should be remembered that, as far as modern education is con· cerned, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries were late starters -compared to the modest but vigorous advance in their economy.l
There is some truth in Cromer's assertion that many pashas in Egypt were suspicious both of innovations in education and of the European teachers who were behind them.2 Indeed, when one reads the highly interesting account of education in 1872, as personally witnessed and investigated by Dor,3 one gets the impression that at that time most schools were still closely follC)wing the patterns of instruction established in medieval times: a curriculum based on classical Arabic sources (e.g., in geography), with a smattering of the three R's, not always achieved by the graduates of these schools; textbooks were hardly available to the pupils; learning by rote was prevalent; education of girls was neglected.
