ABSTRACT
This chapter explores in detail some of the ways in which education in the late Ottoman Empire is described in post-Ottoman autobiographies. As regards the palpable outcomes of educational reforms, the spread of public and private education throughout the Ottoman domains had definitively visible effects. Private schools, many run by foreigners and often originating as missionary establishments, formed an important part of the Ottoman Empire's educational scene. Several authors had attended local "traditional" primary schools in which basic reading and writing skills were taught, based on the Quran and other religious works of literature. The chapter describes that some sense of contrast is also found in autobiographies, especially in relation to secondary schools. It analyses some accounts of education outside of schools. The chapter explains either home schooling by parents and private tutors or "informal education", forms of knowledge acquisition which happened outside schools and their curricula but which nonetheless contributed to personal intellectual development.
