Curriculum and The General Principles of Enderun School
The Enderun system consisted of three preparatory schools located outside of the palace in addition to the one within the palace walls itself. According to Miller, there were 1,000-2,000 students in three Enderun Colleges, and about 300 students in the top school in the Palace. The curriculum was divided into five main divisions.
- 1. Islamic sciences; including Arabic, Turkish and Persian language education,
- 2. Positive sciences; mathematics, geography,
- 3. History, law, and administration: the customs of the Palace and government issues,
- 4. Vocational studies, including art and music education, and
- 5. Physical training, including weaponry
The successful graduates were assigned according to their abilities into two mainstream positions: governmental or science, and those who failed to advance were assigned to military. One of the most distinctive properties of the school was its merit system consisting of carefully graded rewards and corresponding punishments. Ipsirli described the main objective of the school as not only to educate but to help students discover their abilities. At the end of the Enderun school system, the graduates were able to speak, read and write at least 3 languages, able to understand the latest developments in science, have at least a craft or art, and excel in army command as well as in close combat skills. The school system never aimed to educate its students to become only a scientist, an artist or a soldier; but aimed at versatility which turned out to be the education of the perfect human who has good knowledge of everything so that they could become leaders of the Empire.
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