THE GREEKS UNDER TURKISH BONDAGE. l6l Turk degraded and corrupted the Greek popula- tion, and the Osmanic government looked upon all Hellenes as enemies, and treated them ac- cordingly. Bikelas has shown in a special treatise how- large a part of the awakening of the Greeks was due to the increase of education. In the earlier periods of Ottoman dominion education was con- fined to a few clergy and a still more limited number of laymen. The mass of the popula- tion was plunged into ignorance. The village teacher was generally the parish priest, and the few pupils whom he could gather around him acquired little more than a mechanical power of reading the Psalms and the ecclesiastical office books. From the seventeenth century the Hel- lenes in the service of the Porte rendered aid to the Patriarchate in commencing an extended system of education, by founding schools, and protecting the teachers and their pupils. The true development, however, took place toward the end of the last century. Then it was that the lowly teachers of the preceding generations gave place to men of learning with love for the classical glory of their race. Thenceforth many a Hellenic town had a school, and pupils came from the country round about. In these
