ABSTRACT
Simultaneously, the colonial heritage of Tunisia enabled it to have some French investment in physical infrastructure, mainly in the sector of transport and communications (and to some extent in the subsector of European agriculture) - an investment which was meant primarily to serve French economic and military interests, but which could not fail somewhat to benefit the national economy as weIl. However, the social infrastructure - education and health services - was as grossly neglected in Tunisia as in Aigeria, Morocco and Libya. Yet Tunisia was fortunate in maintaining a few prestigious and influential centres of leaming which not only preserved Islamic shari'a (law) and Koranic interpretation but Arabic language and culture as weIl, and in two outstanding instances - those of the Sadiquiyya College founded in 1875, and the Khalduniyya College founded in 1896 - attempted so me form of reconciliation between tradition al Arabic leaming and modem French education. Furthermore, a relatively modem press made its appearance in the early 1880s. Finally, the relative neamess of Tunisia to Egypt, the centre of gravity of all the Arab countries in traditional and later modem education, and in journalism, enabled Tunisia to remain more Arabised and culturally less isolated and deprived than Morocco, Algeria and Libya.
