A History of Protestant missions in the near East

Persia 335
ers, and bent all its energies to the task of compelling the
ruler to submit. Violent disturbances occurred even in remote
provincial towns, sometimes assuming the character of
rebellions. Everywhere anjumans were formed, constitutional
corporations which assumed the management of provinces
or towns, expelling or murdering recalcitrant governors
and officials. Thus in the last two years a new era has begun
for Persia, though the land still stands in the midst of the
struggle. Political demonstrations and mass-meetings are the
order of the day. Political agitators openly address gatherings
of thousands in Teheran, Tabriz, and even in provincial
towns like Urumiah. The demand for political freedom resounds
throughout the country. Newspapers have sprung up
like mushrooms ;
there are dozens of them in towns like
Teheran and Tabriz, with such titles as The Cry of the People,
The Trumpet of Gabriel, Justice, Progress, Knowledge, The
True Dawn. In these newspapers radical demands are made
without reserve. Stronger methods are also in vogue, like
the refusal to pay taxes and rents. Bombs and dynamite are
not unknown. Persia is
determined, like her neighbour,
Kussia, to force a radical change in the government.
Another mark of the new era is an uncommon desire for
education. Old and young alike are beginning to see that
self-government is possible only for a people of some education.
Hitherto more than ninety-five per cent, of the Persians
have been unable to read. Now there is a loud demand for
elementary and higher schools all over the country. Not
schools like the old mosque schools, in which the pupils merely
learned the Koran by heart, but schools that offer a European
education. How such schools are quickly to be organized,
and where the teachers are to come from, are still unsolved
problems.
The change in Persia will be lasting and thorough. The
old Persia with its oriental despotism is doomed ;
who can
say what Persia will be like under the new regime
? Yet already
there is a marvellous transformation. Any one would
have been laughed to scorn who, three years ago, had ven-