ABSTRACT
Greek governments have long been concerned with the first; only in later years has there been much concern for the latter. Schoolbooks credit the Orthodox Church with preserving Greek religion and culture throughout the long period of Ottoman rule. The church provided the only schools-some legal, some illegal. The mission of the educational system from the beginning focused beyond the narrow boundaries of the Greek state to include the Greek nation. The educational structure and curricula visualized by the so-called modernizers were essentially laid down during the early years of King Otho’s reign and remained largely in place until 1929. Graduates of the gymnasium went to the University of Athens and then into public service or went directly into lower-level clerkships within the state bureaucracy. The purist language, katharevousa , was simply not accessible to most Greeks. The educational system, as with other aspects of Greek government and society, was in constant turmoil during the interwar period.
