GREEK EDUCATION IN MONASTIR - PELAGONIA

The curriculum and the
quality of the teaching at the
Gymnasium were of the highest
level, and the school itself
was one of the seven oldest
and best-known Greek high
schools in the Ottoman Empire,
from Dyrracchium to
Trebizond. 48 The Gymnasium
was “recognised by the Greek
Government” 49 and by the
University of Athens, which
admitted its graduates without
requiring them to sit entrance
examinations. 50
What is more, and more
astonishing, is that European
universities, including that of
Paris, admitted graduates of
the Gymnasium of Monastir
without entrance examinations.
51 The school also attracted
young people from the
city and district of Florina 52
(e.g. from Krushevo, Mega-
GREEK EDUCATION IN MONASTIR - PELAGONIA 37
Fig. 10. Archimandrite Germanos Christidis,
who removed the Gymnasium Library to Florina
48. Georgios Modis, (The storyteller of
the Macedonian Struggle), Thessaloniki 1972 (EMS), 14.
49. Charisis Poulios, “
. (1453)
” (Brief account of the state of letters in Macedonia. From the Fall of Constantinople
(1453) to the beginning of the 19 th century), Macedonian Chronicle - 4
(1911), 205.
50. Pantelis G. Tsallis, Glorious Monastir, periodical Aristoteles 33-34 (1962), 65.
51. Naoum Babatakas archives (information from interviews with surviving students
and others on the education and the supremacy of the Greek population of Monastir and its
environs, see appendix) – Georgios Maïmoukas Archives.
52. Demetrios N. Pepis, “
” (The cultural movement in the Prefecture of Florina before the Liberation),
Aristoteles 59-60 (1966), 70.