Page 302 - Beholding Liberty!

ΙΙ.7.D
Education - Church
EDUCATION was a constitutional requirement on which the effort of the Greeks for national, political and social regeneration was built. The Greek Enlighteners stress continuously its contribu- tion to the moral teaching of citizens and to the consolidation of the values befitting a free and with just laws polity, while in the local and national constitutional texts of the Struggle reference is made to the obligation of every «enlightened Administration» to provide education for free.
Towards that direction, local schools are founded, often with do- nations of wealthy Greeks; calls are made to the young people to hurry up «to get taught for free»; advertisements are published for finding teachers of the monitorial methodology, whose payment quite often is secured by resources of monasteries; scholarships are offered by philhellenic organizations for young Greeks to study in the big European centres. The “common” schools or schools of “common literacy” provided the basic education (reading, writing, mathematics), whereas the schools of Greek subjects were ori- entated to ancient Greek language, with teachings in grammar, syntax and essay but not rarely also lessons of philosophical el- ements and science were also taught. As textbooks, the ecclesi- astical books were used, like the Psaltiri and Oktaihos, as well as various Pedagogies.
After 1827 the educational system of Ioannis Kapodistrias was systematic, who founded the Orphanage of Aegina, built by the money raised from Philhellenes and Greek of abroad. There, be- yond the basic education, various art workshops operated. Addi- tionally, he took care of the education of the new members in the regular troops by founding in July 1828 the Central War School, which afterwards was renamed in Military School Evelpidon.
Finally, the Church, depositary of faith, language and tradition throughout the Turkish rule and the Revolution, stands as a main pillar of education, since, from the anonymous clergymen to the teachers of the Race, its representatives struggle for the spiritual reinstatement of the Greeks.
302 BEHOLDING LIBERTY!
ΙΙ.7.D.1
Document of the Executive to the Legislative
on the topic of Theoklitos Farmakides’ appointment as General Ephor of Education
(Tripolis, 4 June 1823)
Archives of the Greek Regeneration, vol. 10, no 173 [pp. 111-112] Library of the Hellenic Parliament
THEOKLITOS FARMAKIDES, an acclaimed Greek En- lightener and fighter of the Greek Revolution, had been, among other things, editor of Logios Hermes. As a member of the Society of Friends, he arrived in mainland Greece in May 1821 and was admitted in the team of Dimitrios Ypsilantis, who assigned to him the edition of the first Greek newspaper in the up to then liberated territories, titled Ελληνική Σάλπιγξ/The Greek Trumpet. Its circulation was interrupted after the publication of just three is- sues (which are kept in the Special Collections of the Library of the Hellenic Parliament), because, as Farmakides confesses, «I did not give in to the despotic measure of pre-examination», namely preventive censorship.
Th. Farmakides was actively involved in the public affairs of the revolutionary period, as he was elected plenipotentiary in sev- eral National Assemblies and occupied important administrative posts: apart from ephor of «the education and moral upbringing of the children», he was member of the Areopagus of Eastern Greece, director of the National Printing House and chief editor of the «Γενική Εφημερίς της Ελλάδος/General Newspaper of Greece» (later on «Εφημερίς της Κυβερνήσεως/Government Gazette») and, after the assassination of Kapodistrias, ephor of the General and Preparatory School in Aegina. In the time of Regency, he was Maurer’s advisor on ecclesiastical issues, working for the auto- cephalous Greek Church, while in 1833 he was appointed Secre- tary to the Holy Synod of the Church of the Kingdom of Greece.