The Relationship between Traditional and Modern Schools in the Establishment of the New Educational System in Iran: 1897-1901

In the middle of the 19th century, along with the widespread political, economic, and social changes, new and different forms of organization and organization around education gradually emerged in different parts of Iran. However, the what, why, and how of education are generally taken for granted in the historiographies surrounding this issue; It is as if there is only one correct way to define them, and the historical course of the emergence of what we call schools today has also been an inevitable movement from wrong methods of education to “modern,” “new,” and “correct” methods of education. Based on this assumption, it is as if new school education is completely different from the old one (Maktab), and our current schools, with a slight change, are the continuation of the same new education and training method and the legacy of Rushdieh school, resulting from the process of “translation” of Western models in local conditions. Despite this, contextual reading of the documents of this period does not indicate such a dividing line between traditional schools and modern schools. According to this issue, this article aimed at finding the relationship between modern schools and traditional schools during the years 1897 to 1901 as the years of the beginning of educational reforms. This article claims that contrary to the seemingly obvious distinction between old schools and modern schools, early modern schools are similar to “traditional schools” in many ways, and the decline of traditional forms of education and the emergence of new forms did not happen all at once; Rather, it has been the result of decades of trial and error in various forms in educational spaces all over the country.