high mountain ranges, lack of navigable rivers, and the shallow coast and few harbors of the Black Sea, has developed a nation of self-sufficient small landholders, who for the most part gain their living by tilling the fields and watching their flocks, much after the fashion of their remote ancestors.

CHAPTER II

THE DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATION IN BULGARIA

There are certain peculiar combinations of events in the history of the Bulgarian people that have had a profound effect upon the development and present status of their educational system.

Sometime in the seventh century there pushed into the Balkan Peninsula from their home on the Volga, the Bulgars, who through their virility and sturdy qualities displaced and made subject the various Slav peoples who themselves had previously driven out the Greek and Roman civilizations. By the ninth century so powerful had this new people become that they attacked Constantinople, set up an independent empire, and from 893 to 1018, we find the First Bulgarian Empire. This was the Golden Age of Bulgaria. According to Gibbon it was at this time that "Bulgaria assumed a rank among the civilized powers of the earth." The arts were cultivated, the church was nationalized, and a distinctly Slavic literature was developed. At the time when the rest of the world slumbered, Bulgaria made its great contribution. But the glory was short lived, and the empire fell before the Byzantine power in 1018. Again in 1186 Bulgaria established her independence, the Second Empire was established, only to succumb to the Turks in 1398. Following that, for nearly five centuries until 1878, Bulgaria was a subject nation.

The fact that "the glory of the Bulgarians was confined to a narrow scope both of time and place" is important. Glory it was, one of the first and most important cultural periods of the Slav peoples. Forgotten by most, the memory of it proscribed by the Turkish conquerors, it nevertheless formed the basis of the rejuvenation of Bulgaria in the eighteenth century, a rejuvenation that was largely educational.

In 1762 a Bulgarian monk, Paissi by name, from the Chilender Monastery, wrote a small book called A History of the

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Bulgarian People, Tsars and Saints. Printing had not yet reached the country, so it was written and copied by hand. Eagerly was it received; many copies were made; and as it passed from person to person, the people of Bulgaria were reminded that their past had been glorious and that the future might hold much in store for them, if they would but prepare.

Father Paissi first delineated Bulgaria's bygone days in vivid pictures. He it was who told his countrymen that the Bulgarians were the first to become Christians, that the first Christian church was Bulgarian, that the first Christian school was opened by Bulgarians, that the first Slavic books were Bulgarian, that the first Slavic writers, educators, prelates and saints were also Bulgarian and that among all the Slavic races the Bulgarians were the first to have their own Patriarch and independent church.1

This was the spark that set off the flame that later grew into the conflagration that won Bulgarian independence.

Other books followed from the pens of other authors, committees met to establish schools, philanthropists gave of their wealth and academies were started here and there. At first they were founded outside of the country in colonies of Bulgarian emigrants; and later, after conflict with political and ecclesiastical authorities, within the confines of the land itself.

In the meantime a number of schools had been opened by the Greek church, which was not at that time Bulgarian in spirit. The fight was to open new Bulgarian schools and to instil the Bulgarian spirit into the existing Greek schools. The battle was long and arduous. New pedagogical methods were introduced. Bell and Lancaster had their effect, teachers were trained and brought in, schools were opened, with the result that, by the middle of the nineteenth century, a real system of schools came into being in Bulgaria.

Possibly the most striking account of the results of these activities appears in the rather over-enthusiastic statement of the American correspondent J. A. MacGahan which appeared in the London Daily News in 1878. He said:

In England and Europe in general, people have had a very wrong opinion of the Bulgarians. I had always learned, and to be frank, 1 myself until recently believed that they were savages no superior in

1D. Mishew. The Bulgarians in the Past, pp. 285-286. Lausanne, 1919.

point of civilization to the American Indians. You can conceive my amazement, however, when I discovered that almost every Bulgarian village had its school, and those that had escaped destruction were in a very flourishing state. They are being maintained by a voluntary tax, without any government encouragement, but, on the contrary, in spite of innumerable obstacles created by the very state authorities. Tuition in the schools is free, education is equally available both to rich and poor. It would be difficult to find a single Bulgarian child who cannot read and write. In general the percentage of literacy in Bulgaria is not smaller than that existing in England and France.

It is apparent that there was a widespread system of village schools, and that a few gymnasiums had been well established; but statistics seem to discount Mr. MacGahan's observations as to the number of schools and the literacy of the people.

The important point to note in the development of education in Bulgaria is that, until very recent times, it was a local matter, not a government one; that the people not only felt a responsibility for, but a proprietary interest in, their schools; and that this feeling is reflected in the organization and administration of their schools to-day.

The Bulgarian school, then, owes its existence and development to personal initiative revealed either by individual Bulgarians, or by private Bulgarian communities. The State not only did not show any interest in the education of its Christian subjects, but on the contrary tried to hinder it. Down to its liberation, Bulgaria's institutions of learning came into existence, were maintained and were developed in the same way as national education grew in England and America. As in these two countries where for a long time there existed no ministry of education, the public education in Bulgaria under Turkish rule neither had nor could be allowed to have such a department. As was the case in both England and America, so in Bulgaria, all Bulgarian schools were founded and supported by generous individuals, wealthy benefactors, parish communities and various cultural organizations. The material aid consisted of funds created either by donations or by bequests of real estate, viz., houses, lots, fields, etc. Thanks to this personal initiative, so extensively developed and so honestly employed, the Bulgarian school was enabled to survive all obstacles placed in its way by Greeks and Turks, and to become an important and powerful institution.1

1D. Mishew, op. cit., pp. 365-366.

As the prospects for liberation from Turkish rule became increasingly bright, conferences and meetings were held from time to time in various places to determine the plans and characteristics of the proposed national system of schools. The trend of the thought of the time may be learned from the resolutions of the congress at Shumen in 1874. They concluded that the Bulgarian school system should have the following characteristics: (1) a school in each village which all children should attend, (2) punishment for parents for failing to send their children to school, (3) a school year of nine months, (4) compulsory attendance to begin at the age of six, (5) trained teachers, (6) teachers to be engaged in the occupation exclusively, (7) parents not to be allowed to interfere with the work of the school, (8) a local school committee to be elected by the people to care for the school and to visit it frequently, and (9) a four-year elementary school and a four-year middle school.

This program was followed in most respects. There were many conferences and a number of modifications. But when a Minister of Education was finally appointed, after the new government had been established, he was not compelled to create a school system out of nothing. One was already in operation and much thought had been given to the subject.

As at first developed, there was a primary school of four years, a middle school of two, and a secondary school of four and later five years. The local school committee was created, and a considerable amount of authority was vested in it. In each department, a departmental school committee was also provided for, having certain general powers over all the schools of the department, and elected at large. The Ministry of Education provided the centralizing tendency; the local school committees kept the interests of the local communities as well as their responsibilities before the people. There was a nice balance between central and local control.

From time to time various changes were made, the last significant pre-war reform coming in 1909-1910. The Ministry had been strengthened, school inspectors were appointed, the primary school course remained at four years, which became the compulsory attendance period for all Bulgarian children, the secondary school course was fixed at five, and between the two came the progymnasium, three years in length.