GREEK EDUCATION IN MONASTIR - PELAGONIA

GREEK EDUCATION IN MONASTIR - PELAGONIA 21
Bulgarian education, despite all the efforts of the Exarchate and the Pan-
Slavist movement, was limited to the larger towns (e.g. Thessaloniki, Serres
and Monastir) where a handful of boarding schools educated children from
all over Macedonia, whose expenses moreover were subsidised. It is thus
clear that “the number and excellence of the Greek schools in Macedonia is
the best and most eloquent argument for its supremely Greek nature, as is
admitted by all who visit this contested land in good faith and who study its
affairs with scientific care and attention. Whatever is noble in Macedonia,
whatever is splendid, whatever is flourishing, whatever is worthwhile, those
things are Greek”. 9
2. According to the “Statistics for Greek schools in the vilayets of
Thessaloniki and Bitolia in Macedonia in the school year 1894-1895”
(Thessaloniki 1896), there were in that final decade of the 19 th century 526
Greek schools with 728 teachers and 30,177 pupils in the vilayet of Thessaloniki
and 384 Greek schools with 517 teachers and 23,456 pupils in the
vilayet of Monastir. 10
Again, based on maps drawn up by the Instituto Geografico di
Agostini-Roma in 1906, the observations of the representatives of the Western
Powers overseeing the implementation of the Reforms and the table of
statistics on the schools of Macedonia (vilayets of Thessaloniki and
Monastir) that was published in that year in Paris, there were at that time
521 Greek schools with 32,534 pupils and 787 teachers, 319 Bulgarian
schools with 9544 pupils and 493 teachers, 10 Romanian schools with 383
pupils and 28 teachers and 21 Serbian schools with 532 pupils and 52 teachers
in the vilayet of Thessaloniki, and 477 Greek schools with 27,106 pupils
and 676 teachers, 242 Bulgarian schools with 8767 pupils and 380 teachers,
39 Romanian schools with 1619 pupils and 117 teachers and 32 Serbian
schools with 1142 pupils and 60 teachers in the vilayet of Monastir, for a
combined total of, respectively, schools, pupils and teachers: 988 Greek
(59,640 and 1463), 561 Bulgarian (18,311 and 879), 49 Romanian (2002
and 145) and 53 Serbian (1674 and 112). 11
9. Ioannis . Kalostypis, Macedonia, 61; Antonis M. Koltsidas, Ideological constitution,
301-302.
10. Nicolaidès Cléanthès, La Macédoine. La Question macédonienne dans l’antiquité,
au moyen âge et dans la politique actuelle, Berlin 1899, 138-139, with detailed statistics.
11. .. -. J.C. Mazarakis-Aenian, . The
Macedonian Question. La Question Macédonienne, Athens 1992, 9, 18 and back inside
cover, with maps of the vilayets of Thessaloniki and Monastir; Idem,